Halal Meet Cute – Part 3

Continued from Part 2

Act III: Fifty-Six Strides (and One Leap)

The banquet hall Kanwal stood in was reminiscent of every desi wedding and fundraiser she had ever attended. Crisp white linen at right angles, expectant silver chafing dishes along a buffet table, winking LED crystal chandeliers. She could have been in Mississauga instead of Surrey. 

“Looking good, my Biryani Queen,” said a voice behind her.

“Thank you, and please,” Kanwal grinned as Aicha hugged her from behind. “Never call me that again.”

“Regretted it as soon as I did.” Aicha slid into the seat next to her, a vision of silk in mulberry and gold, matching the room’s decorations. Her gaze flickered over the cardstock programs on each place setting and the floating candle centrepieces. Kanwal knew the expression well; it was the same she wore when she took stock of her stall before opening hours. 

“I’m so glad you came.” Aicha straightened out a pile of donation pledge forms in the middle of the table. 

“Me too. But I can’t stay for long. I haven’t even started packing.” The summer had passed by in the blink of an eye. Her flight back to Toronto was only a week away, right after her last weekend at the Market.  

“Your to-do list can wait.” The jeweled pins in Aicha’s hijab caught the light as she spoke. “I still can’t believe you’re leaving. It seems like just yesterday you showed up as the scrawny kid in my office.” 

“I’m still embarrassed about that,” Kanwal groaned, shaking her head. 

“I was really happy that you came back when you started Amma’s. I had often wondered what happened to you, and when I saw that you’d settled in at school, started a business, and now wanted to donate biryani, I knew you were going to do great things.”  

“I wish you had told me that at the time.”  

“Would you have believed me?”

“Probably not.”

“Still lacking that imagination I see,” Aicha laughed. “You know Kanwal, home-cooked food is a love language of its own. And your biryani gave comfort to a lot of people at their lowest lows. I’ve never been able to convince you of that, but maybe this will help.” She reached into the leather tote bag next to her chair. “If I had a dollar for every person who dropped by my office and asked who made the biryani well, let’s just say we wouldn’t need this fundraiser. I respected your request to keep your contribution anonymous, but I did tell them, if they were so inclined, that they could leave you a note.”

She pulled out a large hardcover jalebi orange notebook, with worn pages and paper inserts stuffed inside. 

“So many people are better off because of your actions, Kanwal. Never doubt that.” She placed it on the table. Her expression flipped as something behind Kanwal caught her attention. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s not where they’re supposed to put the podium. On the stage, not next to the stage, people – this isn’t a wedding. Doesn’t anyone read their emails?” She stood abruptly. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye, okay? And don’t tell the other volunteers about this, I can’t be making fanzines for everyone.” 

Before Kanwal could respond, she strode away, a whirl of sandalwood and silk fading among guests.

Kanwal began to leaf through the thick notebook. Handwritten notes crammed every page. There were messages thanking her for the biryani and the memories they conjured: a loved one’s cooking; a safer place; even a prized kitchen. There were well wishes for a blessed old age and happy children and grandchildren. Many notes presumed a middle-aged married woman was cooking, not a twenty-two year old student. 

“All this fuss over a plate of biryani?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her eyes then caught on words written cursive handwriting: 

May the most beautiful parts of your life be in the things you don’t plan.

Kanwal sucked in a breath. Like the rotation of a kaleidoscope, she saw the last four years through a different lens. Meeting Amanda when they sat next to each other in a four-hundred person auditorium. Failed coursework and midterms. Stress-induced cooking her mom’s biryani recipe. Turning up in tears at Aicha’s office. Amanda giving Kanwal’s biryani to her neighbours, Lucinda and Henry. Setting up Amma’s Biryani to pass the summer. Seeing the boy who ran the falafel stand across the market hall. Being offered a fellowship by Devin. 

The best parts of the last four years had been unplanned. 

Mazen had been right; she had been too guilty to want something different for herself. But if she had been looking for proof that her plans could change, or for permission to expand what was possible to her, they were in the words she held between her palms. 

Kanwal knew what she had to do. 

***

On the last day of the summer, Kanwal looked out across Granville Island’s market and contemplated what she would miss the most. The orchestra of vendor calls, haggling tourists, and seagull squawks. The way floating cherry red houses with slate grey rooftops bobbed along the waterfront. Or maybe how a passerby’s eyes lit up when they saw a Halal food option between a florist and a coffee roaster. 

“There’s my fellow researcher,” Devin called, approaching her stall. If Kanwal didn’t know better, she would never have guessed the stocky middle aged man with permanently smudged spectacles and a uniform of cargo shorts and a crumpled graphic tee, was also a tenured researcher. “I’m still riding high from your phone call last week.” 

“I’m sorry you had to jump through hoops to get the paperwork lined up in time,” Kanwal said. Only two things irked the unflappable academic: missing his daily bike ride along the Stanley Park Seawall, and dealing with the University’s administration office. 

“Don’t worry about it. You were figuring out your path. That’s what college is all about.” He smiled. “What changed your mind anyways?”

“I remembered why I got into ophthalmology in the first place.”

“Your grandma?” 

Kanwal nodded. She had told him the story when they first met at a student potluck. She brought biryani and he served his family’s favourite bánh mì. They traded stories about their favourite foods growing up and family traditions. Kanwal told him about her Nani, the family matriarch and food critic who, after losing her sight, developed an even more attuned sense of taste. Kanwal’s father would joke that his wife achieved Top Chef status during that time. Her mother would complain that she gained a few more grey hairs as a result. Devin had listened in rapt attention as Kanwal recounted the glaucoma treatment, the lack of resources at the time, and how it propelled her to want to study in the field. 

“Someone reminded me recently how our actions make an impact. Even if we don’t always see it.”

“That’s the best reason to want to do anything,” Devin clapped her on the back.

Kanwal reached for the sole paper bag left at her stall, filled with bowls of biryani and falafel she had packed before they closed. “This is for you and the family. No no, don’t do that,” she waved him away as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “Friends and supervisors get extra privileges.”

“The girls will be thrilled. They’re sick of me cooking with their Mom out of town.” Devin stuffed the boxes into his backpack, already overflowing with papers to grade. “I’m going to go look at artwork I can’t afford and don’t understand. Have fun visiting your family and I’ll see you in a few weeks.”  

As she watched Devin’s retreating form, Mazen appeared next to her. He took the remaining stack of steel trays from the counter, adding it to the pile of the items to be loaded in his truck.

“One last walk around before we head out of here?” he asked. Wearing a periwinkle dress, Kanwal wasn’t the only one who had dressed up for their last day. Mazen had traded in his roster of t-shirts and jeans for a light blue linen shirt and khakis. Kanwal nodded, a sudden flutter of nerves made her throat run dry. 

“You going to miss it?” He asked as they left their empty stall. 

“Maybe for a few weeks.” Kanwal smiled up at him from the corner of her eye. “But we’ll be back next summer.”

A caramelized late afternoon glow cast over the market. Crowds were dwindling and many stalls had packed up while others offered heavily discounted food items. They kept getting stopped by other vendors wanting to have a final chat before they parted ways, or high-fiving them for a successful run. 

They made their way around a group of tourists crowding the half-priced honey donuts and ended up in front of the spot where Amma’s Biryani had first set up shop. They regarded the mochi stand. The three kids behind the counter couldn’t be more than twenty years old. They were giddy despite the dark shadows under their eyes, reminding Kanwal of the exhaustion and buzzing energy she felt after she survived her first summer. 

“Should we?” Kanwal nodded towards them.  

They ordered a box of mochi with two bubble teas and found themselves a booth in the foodcourt. Only a few families and visitors continued to mill about. 

“You can see our stall from here,” Kanwal remarked. It was rare to have a clear line of sight across the market hall. “I never realized how close my old stall was to yours.”

“Fifty six strides.”

“What?”

“Fifty six strides,” Mazen repeated. “Seventy three during the lunch hour rush.”

“That is oddly specific.” Kanwal raised an eyebrow. 

“I made the walk over a lot,” Mazen looked away and began to gulp down his matcha. 

“Ah yes. Your four boxes of biryani. You were a very loyal customer.” Kanwal chuckled before her eyes lit up. “We should start a loyalty program next summer. How have we never thought about this?” 

She popped a red bean mochi in her mouth, her mind racing with how the pricing could work. 

“I have to ask,” Mazen set his bubble tea down and rested his elbows on the table. “Do you really think I kept coming to your stall because you make amazing biryani?”

Kanwal paused. “Don’t I?”

“Of course you do. But did you think I was buying biryani only because I wanted to eat four boxes of it?”

“Well no, I figured you were sharing it. I mean, look at you.” She began gesturing at his torso before she caught his bemused expression and her eyes widened. She buried her face in her hands. “I was doing so well all summer,” she muttered to herself.

  Mazen coaxed her hands away from her face. “Kanwal, the reason I know the number of strides from my stall to yours is because I would count them to calm my nerves. I would leave my stall with this great idea of coming to talk to you.” 

“That’s why you kept coming over? Because you wanted to talk to me?” Kanwal snuck a glance at him. His hair was an unruly mess from running his hands through it.

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I’d turn up and my mind would blank and instead I’d order four boxes of biryani. What can I say, I’ve never been very good with plans.”

Kanwal sat back and stared at him. While she could feel his knee bouncing under the table, he did not look away. 

May the most beautiful parts of your life be in the things you don’t plan.

The words replayed in Kanwal’s mind. The beauty wasn’t in the absence of a plan; it was in spite of it. It was in having the courage to revel in a bejewelled sky at sunset while accepting that it will change. It was in having faith that a hand held out never comes back empty. It was in believing oneself deserving of a life filled with colour, and of those who make it especially vibrant. 

Kanwal was now ready for that kind of world awaiting her. She was now ready for that kind of meet cute.