The Big Apple

I wrote this back in December 2011 for my college magazine. Just stumbled upon it, so I thought I might as well put it on here. :)

A normal person would be ecstatic and spellbound on visiting New York. I was terrified. My first day in New York City was a complete and utter disaster. Tired after a long flight, I went straight to my hotel and fell asleep. On waking up, I took the subway (New York’s version of the Delhi Metro.. or the other way round) which left me in tears. Much dirtier than the Indian railway tracks and smellier than public urinals, I tried hard but failed to see why the subway was even operational. Also, I’d read and heard so much about robberies in NYC and automatically, everyone and everything around me became shady. It didn’t matter to me if someone wore a suit or a ball gown, I considered them thugs who’d take out a knife and stab me. The terrible subway ride from Queensboro Plaza to Wall Street ended and I stepped on Wall Street. It was nothing but magic. I perceived the thugs as unicorns now and I kept on gazing at the skyscrapers. I was like a village boy who was lost in a big city, just that I was drooling looking at the skyscrapers too. The next day, I went to Times Square (the subway ride was much better this time by the way). Times Square left me breathless. I couldn’t believe my eyes. If Wall Street was magic, Times Square was an inter galactic explosion. The screens, the colors, the people, the fact that I was standing in the spectacle that Times Square is- all of it just blew my mind away.

I had to be pulled out of Times Square, because we had tickets to Madame Tussauds. Every statue made us go “Oh shit, that’s so real!”. The 4 year old that I am, I took some pictures in poses that are exptremely unsuitable for Facebook, but I have absoloutely no regrets. The next few days, I did the clichéd things every tourist must do- See the Statue Of Liberty, who was nothing but a rusty old lady, went to the Hershey’s Store, the M&M store, used those delicious candy dispatchers, ate food that haunts me till date, because it was so good. I went ice skating at the Rockafeller Center, but it was not the same rink as the one in Serendipity, so that was a major bummer. Come on, I wanted to feel like John Cusack.. what’s so wrong with that?

I was in the city with my sister, who, like me, breathes cinema. Our love and devotion for movies was so intense that words could never do justice to it. Bad movies, garbage movies, brilliant movies- as long as it was a movie, we’d see it. New Delhi or New York, if there was a movie theatre near us, we’re the kind who make sure that no movie goes unseen. Just casually strolling in Soho, drinking the world’s best hot chocolate and eating the most scrumptious waffles from Waffles and Dingees , we reached Union Square without even realizing. And guess what awaited us? An AMC (An American movie theatre). So, we didn’t know what we were going to watch, but we knew that a movie was long overdue. So we went ahead and watched Young Adult. This happened two more times, and incidentally, we ended up watching New Year’s Eve and We Bought A Zoo, too.

Being a theatre enthusiast, I saw 2 Broadway shows, which were nothing short of the definition of razzle and dazzle. Chicago and Memphis. Both brilliant and visually stunning. Being students, we were obviously on a budget and our cost constraints led us into purchasing some very very uncomfortable seats for Memphis. When asked to choose between the 2 shows that we saw, we without a thought vote for Chicago. Maybe our decisions were affected by the seats we got. Maybeeeee not.

There’s so much said and written about the city, there are photographs that everyone has seen, but to truly know what the city is, you have to visit it in person. Sure, photos themselves are marvellous, but they are completely deprived of the city’s thickness. The city is a big, gigantic melting pot of cultures, religions, people and traditions. I was on the look out for fellow desis (don’t judge me) and I spotted one every 30 seconds. The one week I was in New York for, I ate Mediteranian, Indian, Italian, Chinese, Greek and stumbled upon things that I never knew existed. I interacted with people from Korea, Japan, Puerto Rico, Scotland and I’ve-Never-Heard-Of-That-Country-Land. The entire experience was just surreal and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a sucker for the city that never sleeps.

PS. I wore my oversized “I <3 NY” tee when I wrote this, which rests in all its glory and tells tales of its surreal background.

PPS. I did not go to Central park because it wa either much too cold or it was raining during my stay there, so I’d rather not go to a world famous park than die of hypothermia.