(see Part 1 here)

She had always tried to convince me that, owing to her ethnicity, her fate was to become a middle-aged cat lady. Absurd, I had always told her. This was not the suburbs, where she had grown up. It was New York City, where certainly someone, if not many, would succumb to her charms and be attracted to, not repelled by, her Indian ancestry. She doubted me. But Monday, April 16, would be the night that, much to her delight, she would be proven wrong. Twice.

Chapter 1. Three of us sat in Washington Square Park, enjoying the warm weather, as we are often inclined to do. A black man with dreadlocks nearby began leering at my Indian friend. In spite of the large and obvious age gap between my friend and myself, he began to ask questions that implied that we were an item. Clever guy, attempting to ingratiate himself and look respectable with a thinly veiled line of questions directed mostly to me, the “boyfriend.” As I assured him that we were not an item, he spoke to her directly with a comment about how she had really nice skin tone. She was shocked and awed. I still had to convince her that in spite of his obvious come-on, it did not seem to be strictly sexual but appeared to be a genuine compliment to her skin color.

Chapter 2. Three of us agreed to go to the Olive Tree Cafe for dinner. My Indian friend and I needed no menu – we knew exactly what we would be getting, and it included their Passion Punch. As we neared the end of our meals, a waiter arrived with a free punch. It sounded like he said it was from the bartender, but his exact words were unclear. We shared and enjoyed the free drink, all the while speculating as to who the buyer of the drink actually was. We noticed a lone man at the bar, constantly staring in my friend’s direction. Could this person have spotted my Indian friend sitting alone on one side of our table and bought her a drink? This was the stuff of movies and romantic fantasy to me – I had never actually done such a thing or been with someone who received a drink from a secret admirer.

Finally, to end the mystery and achieve closure, I called the waiter over and asked him to repeat what he had told us regarding the complementary drink. It was in fact the customer at the bar who had gifted my friend. She was stunned and intrigued, trying to assess if this man was attractive enough to be a candidate. I encouraged her to go over to the bar and at least thank him. Under the circumstances, it was not forward at all, just a polite gesture as well as an opportunity to meet him.
But she was shy, and my suggestion was meeting resistance. No matter, however, as said man began to approach our table, a decidedly oh-my-god event for my friend, who began to panic. He appeared to be of Indian descent, as I had suspected, which was likely why my friend caught his eye and fancy so quickly. He introduced himself as Sam and directed much of his initial conversation towards me – we discerned a cultural etiquette that perhaps saw me as chaperone or gate keeper. I learned that Sam was Punjabi and from Long Island. Now, with formalities out of the way, offers for free drinks and food were made and escalated. He insisted on buying us more drinks and even taking us to another restaurant for dinner. He appeared somewhat inebriated and, as often the case, where there is alcohol, obstinacy is company. His efforts turned from flattery to a mild annoyance. It took a very strong hand on my part to persuade him that we were indeed FULL and were leaving. I left first while they wrapped things up and exchanged email addresses.

Many lessons had been learned. She would in fact not become a cat lady. And being Indian was no hindrance at all in New York City. In fact, brown was apparently the Couleur du Jour, a blessing, not a curse, even for Skin Tone 🙂