Today we met up with our friends Jit and Srabanti in Atwater Village, the neighborhood we had lived in for over a year while we rebuilt our Silver Lake home after our fire. We became very fond of the increasingly hipster neighborhood and still enjoy going there to eat, shop and drink coffee (well, my husband David does that one!). Just a week ago our friends Jit and Srabanti moved into their new home in Atwater Village from West LA, a cultural shift that may be as big as the one from Calcutta to LA that both of them made at important moments in their lives. Jit moved to the US to study and has been working here in computer software marketing for many years now. Srabanti and he met online years ago and she moved here 8 years ago to start a life with him in Los Angeles. I actually married them in our back yard and they began a life together on the other side of town. I haven’t seen Srabanti much over the last few years as she has been very busy working and building her life here, but since then, she really seems to have thrived professionally working as a human resource manager. I remember when she first came here, we took her out clothes shopping because she wanted to blend in with people in LA. Now she dresses in cute clothes, drives a Mini Cooper all over the city, so has transformed into a proper Angelina.

Today, I took a risk and decided to give Srabanti my large silver hoop earrings. I loved them but didn’t wear them as I tend to wear more gold jewelry than silver, and can never be bothered to take off my gold hoop earrings. At dinner, I noticed she wasn’t wearing earrings so I asked her if she by any chance liked big earrings. Luckily, she replied that she loves them, so I whipped out the earrings and helped her put them on. They look perfect on her, especially set against her loosely tied-up black hair, simple but romantic in a gipsy-like way. There can’t be many other Bengalis living in Atwater Village. With her easy sense of style and ability to settle in quickly to life in a new place, I am sure Srabanti will add her own unique Bengali Bohemian style to this groovy neighborhood.