72 hours in Manhattan

 

72 hours in Manhattan

View from my hotel window

The shrieking phone startled me out of my sleep and I gingerly felt my way to the table in the darkness to silence it. The clutter reminded me of the rustle I had heard during the night. Still somewhat disoriented by jetlag, Mani had ordered a pizza sometime during midnight and finished it. By the time I had found the annoying device (which I generally like during my waking hours) beneath the debris of the package, it had stopped the ruckus.

It was the car service centre in Lucknow. They were not lucky to have Ms CP Bajaj as their geography teacher (She was the first crush of most of the boys in my school and would have left Sushmita Sen in Main Hoon Na way behind in beauty and poise) who had told us the formula of night vs day to make it easy to understand that there was nearly a 12-hour difference in East and West of the globe.

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I recently read that somewhere in Germany an Indian lady was asked to show her Covid -19 vaccination certificate. When she produced it, the woman at the counter looked carefully, peered at it for a while and then refused to accept it. The reason she said was, “Your photo on the certificate does not match your face.”

“But that is not my photo. That is our Prime Minister’s photo,” said the Indian.

“Your PM’s photo on your certificate? Never heard of it,” was the German lady’s reaction.

That story did not come to my mind even when we entered the hotel restaurant for breakfast on our first morning. The New York administration demands showing of Covid-19 vaccination certificate before you enter a public place-  restaurants, offices and museums.

Asked to show the said certificate, Mani produced the photos on his phone. The steward took one glance at it and burst out laughing. “Oh, you are one of those people,” he said.

“One of those people?” we asked in one voice to make sure it was not an insult.

“You are the only people who have the President’s photo on the vac card.” he explained.

“You know that,” surprised I asked as I corrected President to PM.

“Oh, I’ve seen it before,” he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and a flick of his ponytail.

I was kind of pleased that we were different from the rest of the world and that he would not ask us again.

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As you walk down a street, it is a khichdi (mix) of languages that filter into your ears. To me the US feels like a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. It is no wonder then that it is not unusual to find an American breakfast, Italian and Mexican dishes for lunch and a choice of Asian food for dinner in a restaurant besides the regular steak, burger and veggies.

A rickshaw on a New York street.

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I am a ‘teatotallar’(not a teetotaller by a mile, though) and cannot handle coffee. As a tea-drinker, I prefer it steaming hot and slightly sweet, with or without milk. I am not an expert in operating coffee machines and like the trouble with showers in most hotels, I have to learn how to work a coffee machine to make tea (if the kettle is not available, which is usually the case). So how did I know that you have to press the blinking blue ‘brew’ button and then it starts to heat and brew?But that should also tell about my commitment to have a cup of tea as I spent nearly an hour trying to push all buttons on the machine and finally had to call for help. The guy came and within a few seconds the machine behaved and I saw the golden brown liquid falling into the cup. But these machines never give you scalding hot drink. It is merely warm by Indian standards. Many people I have talked to, have had the same observation about cappuccino too.

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Fortunately, the shower there was simple. A couple of hotel rooms I have stayed in (even in India), had huge panels on one wall to operate the shower. There were several knobs and one knob would spray water only in one direction. Only by maneuvering all of them would jets of water spray from all angles. I guess one has to move in circles to get the whole body washed. Slowly over time, however, salt deposits in those tiny holes block them, making the whole system non-functional and then a tiny trickle of water drops on the floor and there is no way to get out and call the plumber to rectify that.

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Returning from the Museum of Modern Art (about that visit maybe next time)we decided to walk a few blocks to savour the atmosphere. I enjoyed walking among the crowds hurrying back home after work. The walk was going on fine till at one point, things seemed to be standing still. Everyone was looking at a building across the road.  Now I have no issues following the herd sometimes, but Mani finds it difficult. I looked up at the building and a circle of blinking lights seemed to be growing. I asked him if we could stop for a while. The set of his chin (I am way shorter than him) was an indication to otherwise, but people had their mobiles focused on the building. I stopped and for the next few minutes, it was like a drama of lights unfolding. I stood motionless, unblinkingly staring at the lights as they grew to larger shapes and culminated into a scene on the façade. It must have taken only a few minutes but I was unaware of the traffic on the road, the people, of my surroundings. In fact, there was silence through the block as people peered through their phones to take videos.

I might never shop at Saks Fifth Avenue – a luxury departmental store, but the display of light show was truly amazing and a novel experience for me. As we started to moved after the show, I heard a voice, “Never gets old,” an older man was saying to his wife as they walked away.

Saks Fifth Avenue

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Any country I go to outside India, I get the feeling that there are more cars and buildings than people. The tall buildings seem to close down on the dark roads. But why do people call them skyscrapers? You can still see the sky as it changes colour.

So I put my knitting aside, placed a bookmark in Ek Gadhe ki Atamkatha (Autobiography of a Donkey) to soak it all in.

It was a mere three days in the Big Apple for me so maybe when I have more time, I would follow Hansel Aubert’s suggestion and cycle on the pier the next time!

Wishing a very Merry Christmas to all of you

                                                                                                - Anupama S Mani