Wow. This is insane. Krishna Gone Missing. It’s an article by Michael Idov, published in New York Magazine on September 13, 2009, about Krishna Gurung, a Nepalese woman who took a wrong turn while walking home and ended up wandering the streets of Queens, New York for 53 hours. You have to read it.

An excerpt:

She was confused now. The avenue looked familiar, but only in the sense that it looked like every other avenue. The city was like a mountain range, cartoon-simple from a distance, indecipherably complex up close. After a bit of wandering, Krishna passed a Hindu temple, Satya Narayan Mandir on Woodside Avenue, where Anu had once taken her. Krishna was Buddhist, despite her name, but spoke Hindi well. There were people inside the temple who could have helped her, yet the sight of it only strengthened Krishna’s feeling that she was close to home and didn’t need help. She looked around, saw a distant bridge that resembled the elevated 7-train tracks, and set off for it.

What Krishna thought was the train trestle was actually the BQE overpass. She crossed under it and walked alongside Queens Boulevard. She marveled at the garish colors of Pop Diner and was briefly startled by a lifelike, if green, deer statue in front of the nearby Queens Borough Elks Lodge. But all these new sights didn’t quite add up, and Krishna didn’t know what to do. She had left the house wearing American jogging clothes—later to be described on a missing flyer as a burgundy top, black velvet track pants, and white sneakers with blue and yellow stripes. She was also wearing a $1,000 gold chain around her neck, $4,000 worth of gold bracelets on her right arm, and a pair of bulky gold earrings (Nepalese women tend to wear their wealth). What she didn’t bother to bring was the preprogrammed cell phone or address card Anu had given her. Or cash, a credit card, or any I.D. It was past 8 a.m. now, and Krishna was gradually coming to terms with an undeniable set of facts. She was thousands of miles from home, unable to communicate with anyone, alone, without money, and hopelessly, utterly lost.

Make sure you read the whole thing: Krishna Gurung’s 53 Hours Lost on the Streets of Queens — New York Magazine

Related posts:
A fourth Apple Store in New York
Great headline from the New York Post
Similar to what a vitamin shop makes…
Apparently they’ve made a better type of Play-Doh
From my brother: The Real Michael Clayton