BIG APPLE BITES

There is sheen of glamour over some cities of the world- take NY for example. There might be nothing worth watching there, but we would love to watch that nothing at least for ourselves, right? So inspite of Pankaj’s aversion towards such metro-cities on the whole, we went there so that I could form my own opinions.

Breakfast was chocolate-frosted doughnut with coffee at Dunkin Doughnuts, where you can officially dunk your doughnuts in your coffee and still not be called a village bumpkin J I liked the place because it was small, and affordable and unpolished. By the time we reached the railway station in New Haven, several early risers had usurped the parking lots on level one and two, even on a Sunday morning. Can you guess what the parking cost us? $ 6!!! One of the many idiosyncrasies of the American economy is that we probably spent the same amount at Dunkin Doughnuts for a decent breakfast, as we spent on this stupid parking!

I was excited about traveling in a train. Trains are a great way to get introduced to the economy, sociology and psychology of any culture. I must say I was disappointed with “Metro North”, after the lovely Deutsche Bahn. This was just a better version of Mumbai locals, because it had automatic doors and cushioned seats.

Along the railway tracks, there are small factories, sheds, junkyards, bungalows and showrooms. Along the railway tracks there are evidences of an art-form at once so popular and so “lowly”, besides being a hallmark of the western culture- Graffiti. Before one can take in the meaning of an intricate pattern of letters which look almost like 3D designs or Geometrical illusions, the train moves on. I have always wanted to click photos of these designs as they pass and then try to decipher them at length, in quiet solitude. “Some other time” I said to myself, as usual, and started looking inside again.

If you get into a train from London, to say, Glasgow, the six hour long journey will pass like a compulsory board meeting where no one has anything to say. Stiff upper lips they have- the Brits. But the Americans are a gregarious race- inspite of their relative reserve as compared to us Indians. There was chattering going on everywhere. I felt at home- I thought I could even play Antakshari with these guys, if we had a common pool of songs J! There was a Chinese man with his two kids sitting next to us. He was talking to his kids seated near the entrance ACROSS all the passengers, who were busy yapping amongst themselves- and no body even noticed him. Imagine the same situation in Europe- you would like to evaporate into thin air, if you talked in a pitch just above a whisper with your husband, and it made ALL your RESPECTABLE co-passengers raise their brows rather imperceptibly, but which will still be a clear sign of collective disapproval- or worse, mockery.

But Pankaj and I kept talking all the time in this train, eating, reading, sleeping the way we liked. That made this train thing look all the more “homely” to me, and now I am ready myself to mock at the filthy railway tracks, dingy outskirts I looked upon as we approached New York. The train already stank, now the stink of the burrow that we passed through added to it- gave me a very bad first impression of the city. When you expect a super posh underground track, and all that you see is a littered, absolutely dark tunnel under the bridge as you enter the city- you know it is a metropolis. Huge, awesome, badly kept, repulsive and attractive at the same time.

New York IS huge- and straight. The Grand Central Railway Station erupted suddenly out of the aforementioned chaos, as if the secret way to the king’s palace ran through a sewage canal!! The dome of the ceiling was covered with pictures of constellations- gold on a turquoise green. A huge flag of the country descended from it, right in the middle of the Grand Central hall, which was both grand, and central. There must be at least a hundred tracks for trains here- (tracks are called platforms, in India) and I am not kidding, because I have seen an exit showing “Towards track 100-117”!!! Several enthusiasts apart from us, were clicking away, and the New York public must be used to that too- for a change, there was no board prohibiting photography, which otherwise, is sure to be put up in places where you crave to take photos J

People were rushing past, mobiles stuck to their ears, a typical indication of the homogenizing urbanization of all big cities of the world. There were food stalls, hundreds of restrooms- which I now sincerely believe are essential here due to the climactic conditions. I wanted to use one too, as fast as possible, and believe it or not, there was a queue outside! It made me laugh. There was a queue here, inspite of the hundreds of restrooms in every single block of every building.

We came outside after a snack of Samosa and Patties, and after both of us had clicked snaps to our hearts’ content. Now I could see the towering buildings characteristic of our mental image of New York, and though it was not a work-day, there was a considerable hustle bustle on the streets of Madison Avenue. Smartly dressed students of all possible colors- black, yellow, white or grey or brown…were marching up and down the pavements- the existence of pavements is a noticeable thing in New York, because this is the only city in USA which “walks”. All others are not meant for pedestrians, and I have hardly seen pavements or footpaths in Branford or other small towns I have been to.

New York is also special because of its public transport. I had to swipe the ticket 4 times to get the technique of sliding through the bars before the effect of the swipe came to an end- and this way I wasted 3 Metro tickets!! So life is very much similar to Mumbai- as long as you don’t learn the ways of the world here, you can’t survive. Finally, Pankaj’s friend, a New Yorker, told me the secret method of getting through those barriers. The underground subway station, to my amazement, was much worse than the Calcutta metro station! The difference of course is that here, thousands of people travel by underground every day, whereas in Calcutta, the metro is just another sight-seeing spot for tourists. On the subway, there was a pair of Grandpa and Grandma, taking their grandchildren out on that Sunday. Other than that, there was an official crowd and a decrepit crowd. Aimless people, living off the unemployment allowances are a huge number in the society here. Metros, on the whole, were a smelly dingy affair and though I could not sense it right away, once I came back to Branford, the difference between clean and polluted air struck me hard.

Once we came out, there was a long long long walk from 42^nd Street to 86^th Street till the Baluchi Indian Restaurant. This city is so very straight that people must be craving for curving roads, I though to myself- because the whole of NY is a grid- Streets and Avenues crossing themselves endlessly. Anyone who can read cannot get lost here…but it gives the city a monotony so dull that every corner looks similar except that there might be a MacDonald’s at this corner and a Wendy’s at the other. Parking spaces are as rare as in Pune J, so Pankaj’s friend was telling us how they circled(or squared) the same area for almost an hour on Saturday night before they could find a place to park. If they planned the whole city in grids and all, why couldn’t they plan the parking spaces in abundance too??

Well, Indian restaurants in USA are a topic in itself. The moment you look at the interior of a restaurant, you can tell the standard of customers it attracts- Darbar, in Branford, is decorated with all possible trinkets from India, Jhupdi, in New Jersey, proudly uses stainless steel plates and small katoris, and their décor would remind us of a real hut- mud plastered walls and all…meant for a slightly better class of Gujju bhais in NJ. Baluchi in New York was a class apart, I mean, folks there knew how to use seemingly antique pieces from India to ethnicize the place. It was not crowded with colours, patterns and plants, like the previous two. Instead, they served food in copper-bottom kadhais, at once “Indian” and elegant too. Even the spoons and forks had copper handles, there were antiques (seemingly from Ajanta-Ellora straight away!) on the walls and chairs and tables were carved wood. Food was really good, in contrast to Darbar, where there might be one set type of masaala used for every dish being prepared J

Taking a stroll on the same vertical and horizontal streets, we came to Central Park, which was in news recently for an artistic endeavor called “Gates”…which basically meant huge orange gates put up all over the park, which looked great in contrast to the whites of snow and grays of winter. I don’t understand much of what is called “Modern Art”, though I am a literature student…so the gates meant nothing but a publicity stunt to me. Nevertheless, it made the place a lot more cheerful, because many people came down to New York just to watch them. There are thousands of photos available offline, (in addition to Pankaj’s version- http://dristikon.blogspot.com ) which make much ado about nothing according to me.

By this time, we were freezing from the cold winds, though there was no snow. God knows what made us plan a trip to NY in such horrible weather! The sun never shone on us that day, and I was cold inspite of 5 layers of clothing and all that walking which should have made me feel hot! Poor Pallavi (Setu’s wife) had nothing but a light jacket on, because the met. Dept. had predicted a hot day!! We had to get into a coffee shop to save ourselves. There we found a nice American lady, who was sitting next to us, and later volunteered to click snaps for the four of us, maybe she was impressed by our exuberance in the face of such adverse climactic conditions! We were talking exitedly all the time- both being newly married couples we had a lot to talk about J (and the coffee shop was cozy) We left the warmth of the coffee shop heavy heartedly, but by now the severe winds had stopped blowing (or we were warm enough to brave them), so we walked further till we parted at the metro, and started our journey back. (We had decided to keep the statue of liberty and other traditional tourists spots for the next time.)

It was still twilight, yet the nightlife had started buzzing already. I wish I could wait a little longer to watch the beauty of that huge city by night - towering billboards, flashing ads, colorful neon signs all made it come alive! It was a merry city by night, with an appalling beauty of its own, characterized not by nature, but by human civilization and its achievements (its discontents would be the subject of another long mail, when we visit the fallen “two towers”).

But for now, My Mad Memoirs of Manhattan should be enough for enthusiastic readers!

A CAPITAL JOURNEY

Washington DC is the capital of USA. The Senate is housed at the Capitol building, but apart from these numerous government buildings and offices, (which no one is really interested in), Washington is famous for its museums. Now every other city has a museum or two- I remember even our own humble Nagpur had one called “Ajab Bangla” in my childhood. God knows if it still exists, or, if it isn’t taken to be a “Bhoot Bangla” these days. But I would say DC is a city of museums, and the best part is that most of these museums are free!
Pankaj had a conference to attend (which he chose because it was in DC: is a fact self-evident!) So I got all excited about my first summer vacation in this country. We had been to New Port for a day before, and to New York, but never as tourists. This time, however, I did everything that tourists do: this mail will explain what I mean by the “touristy” things…
Now here, train tickets cost just as much or sometimes even more than flight fares! So we decided to take a flight, of course. I really don’t understand this western logic- who will want to spend lots of time on the train plus pay extra money for it? Anyway. Sometimes the more “advanced” countries are seen to be advancing in the reverse direction! Like first they give us vegetables so very coated with pesticides and insecticides that they can’t rot for a month, and then they sell what is called “organic” market products, (grown as naturally as they can be) for a double cost! So we had to take a flight from Hartford to Dulles Airport, leaving at 7.30 am. This meant that we woke up at 4 am and started from the house at 5, so that we could drive to Hartford which is almost 50 miles away from Branford. This was the worst part of the trip, the rest of it turned out to be pretty relaxing. We boarded a little plane, with only three rows (but it was full! So many people chose to get up early like us, I suppose!)
We reached Dulles at 8.30, but our terminal was far away from the main terminal, so we took two buses to reach the car rental office. We got a pleasant surprise when our car turned out to be a Ford Escape, a SUV (Sports utility vehicle), as huge as our Indian Tata Sumo!!! It was brand new and fully equipped, 6 CD drive for music, remote control to open doors, power windows! Now we had to drive for another hour before we got to the Downtown DC area, where the Westin Grand Hotel was located. (Here I made some use of my map-reading skills I have acquired in Germany, and guided Pankaj through the maze of one-ways in the Downtown area) It is a different matter, of course, that Pankaj hardly ever took my advice, which is why we reached there in time 
The hotel was not very grand, but as good as Centre Point, maybe. (The lady at the reception counter told us with a huge smile that she was giving us a room with a view- which turned out to be a construction site!!) But the bathroom was capital…a huge bath tub, little shower area and a separate toilet (considering that combined bath and toilets is a western concept)! I immediately jumped into the bath tub (it made Pankaj think I was going to spend all the rest of my days there!) That was bliss!! The hotel did provide internet service into the room, for just 10.95 $ a day…so we decided against it.
That day Pankaj had time to come with me, so we started out. It was cloudy throughout our stay, but thank god it did not rain. Otherwise I would have seriously had to enjoy only the bathtub there! That day we took the metro to the Smithsonian Museum and the Washington Memorial. The Smithsonian museum of American History is the most famous, most crowded and worst kept museum of all! It was a dark and gloomy place with a quite a lot of kids running about in all directions and nothing much to offer except old railway models and Thomas Edison’s notes on his invention of the light bulb. I thought the bulbs they used in this place must be from the Edison times, considering the amount of light they emitted.
The site of Washington Memorial, a pillar of 555 feet height, was closed for construction, but the pillar is visible even from outside, so we did take some photos. It is said that there is a Lincoln Memorial right opposite the Washington memorial, with a huge artificial lake (The Reflecting Pool) in between both. But we did not get to see any of these, thanks to the construction. I was disappointed. The Lincoln memorial has a great statue of Abraham Lincoln in a contemplative mood, reflected across the pool…anyway. That day it took us a long time to figure out the directions in the first place and the nearest metro stations in the second. So my legs were aching badly by the time we got home. Lunch was pizza and dinner was sandwich (there aren’t any better options in DC for people like us- vegetarians) The eating places near museums and the main area are either terribly expensive or do not offer a wide choice, so we had to come to the downtown to eat everyday.
We entered into a museum of Women in the Arts, which was of some interest to me, but came out looking at the entry fee- $ 11/- I thought of going there alone later (because Pankaj had no business there as it is) but had no time. However, we went to the museum shop and bought some trinkets- a ruler with names of famous women authors, picture postcards etc…This is the touristy thing I was talking about- being more interested in photos than in museums themselves, spending half an hour in the museum/gallery and 3 hours in it’s basement-shop- eating more than ever and walking about aimlessly!!!
But we did get into the Library of Congress the next day, when the conference was only for half a day and Pankaj was free after 12pm. We liked this place the most. Made especially for the use of senators, it is free for anyone with a photo identification (though one can only read books inside and not issue them out) The library was originally only one building, but now has expanded into three, because 10,000 books are added to it everyday! Every thesis written in the United States is available here, so is Pankaj’s thesis!
The great hall, meant to be the entrance of the library is of marble, with painted glass ceiling and statues of angels all over, representing all the professions, which means that the library is not just for the esoteric, but for the common people too. We arrived just in time for a free guided tour- that was lucky. The elderly lady (a volunteer, I suppose) explained what the several paintings meant and the history of the library etc. Constructed in 1800, destroyed by during war and rebuilt to the original design again… now the frescos look grand and fresh, as if there were a conflict in time- the design is ancient but the building is new. Inside the great hall, there is a great dome, the central office of the library and the reading room. We were not allowed inside, but could look on through a glass on the first floor. This dome was impressive with gold borders and statues of learned men around it.
This library has the Gutenberg Bible, the first flawless “printed” book in the world apart from many other books of historical importance. There are only three flawless copies, because printing was not an easy task then.
The next two days were more productive in that sense because I was alone all day and Pankaj was attending the conference. I used to order a heavy breakfast and set out to explore the city. It was my first taste of freedom after I came here- I was in love with the metro which made me independent, and with the crowds which made me feel safe! There were hundreds of families with kids around. That day I went to the Arthur Sackler Gallery, which was hosting an exhibition on the Asian Games, apart from its usual collection of Asian arts. Japanese screens and Indian idols cast in Bronze (not Abhijeet Sawant, mind you!) were all fantastic. (Most of the Indian antiques end up in foreign museums- what a shame! The Kohinoor is still not back!!) I was just in time for the free tour here too- so I thought I would see what the comments about Indian sculpture were! Initially, a mother left her twins to take the tour (maybe it was a school assignment) and there was me with the tour guide, but the company picked up numbers as we went along. The tour guide was an elderly lady with quite a sound knowledge of Indian philosophy, it seemed to me.
There was a very interesting phenomenon in this gallery- an artist called “Freer” created a whole “peacock room” for his patron…so he decked up the whole Danish leather upholstery in brilliant blue green and gold, with two huge peacocks on one wall and the rest of the place covered in different types of peacock feather designs. Freer himself was a great admirer of Eastern (Japanese) art, so his work combines the western and eastern themes. Finally however, the patron was furious because he did not like the idea that much- so one of the two peacocks on the wall symbolizes the patron, with an angry look and the other peacock, Freer himself! Later, the patron realized that this room became a hit with the spectators, and repented. Now the room in the museum is literally picked up from the house of that lord and fitted into a given space. So that was the story of the peacock.
Then I came into the Asian games section- with beautiful models of chess, pacheesi (what we call “saripaat” in Marathi) and Chinese checkers. I did not know that chess originated in India, though I knew that Emperor Akbar used to play chess with real figures in his courtyard! So here were the sets in ivory and marble, studded with rubies and emeralds in some places, really grand! Then a “snakes and ladders” board was written in Sanskrit- with the hundred boxes symbolizing gau yoni, brahmacharya, grihasthashram, shudra janma, kshatriya and Brahman-janma and so on, whereas the snakes were for paapkarma and ladders for punyakarma! So if you performed a Yadnya, you would get a ladder straight to a lower heaven!
So that was mostly the end of my day. Our dinner at “Aatish” a Pakistani restaurant turned out to be a disaster, we spent a lot of money finding out the place and eating there. Anyway. The next day I was introduced to the wife of another person attending the conference, like Pankaj, so we set out together this time! The National Archives was “overflowing” with tourists, so we barely managed to get inside! (This was just like India, except that we were taken inside the building to watch a movie by the time the museum was cleared, rather than having to stand outside in the sun!) I must however, mention with pride that India has such a fully developed system of handling crowds, which this country lacks totally. Go to any temple, any public place- there are benches to sit through long waiting lines which are covered for shade too! Here in the USA, nobody expects crowds, sort of, so they are all exasperated to see a hundred people (only) at such tourist attractions.
Now the National Archives houses the famous “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson, which is a very old, mostly faded document, about as impressive as the royal seal of Shivaji where no one can decipher the letters! But it was a great thing to see, so I was inspired to buy a printed copy of it, for just $ 2 at the gift shop! The art gallery was a great discovery- and I thought I should have spent more time there, rather than looking at a history as alien to me as that in a text book! The National Art Gallery is the greatest collection of paintings I have ever seen in my life- though I must mention that Zwinger, in Dresden was more interesting though smaller. This gallery was divided into around 70-75 little sections, housing British, Italian, French, Spanish, German paintings starting with 12th and 13th Centuries…I love looking at paintings though I don’t understand a thing about it, so there I was in the company of Fra Angelico and such great sounding names for two hours and could have spent the entire evening there. But the exhibition was open only till 5 pm and I had to visit the shop too …
It is a very strange thing that such great paintings by Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet or Picasso should be made into greetings, posters, handkerchiefs, cups, pens, letter pads or table mats…but such is the capitalist culture- it copies and markets everything it can, (much to the satisfaction of the lowly class like us, who can afford a $3 poster of a lovely painting, though we can never even dream of owning a real one, even of some obscure artist!) It was like belittling art for the sake of making it “Accessible”, which is an ethical issue of which the less said the better.
Pankaj called in the meanwhile to say that we must be leaving as soon as possible before the weekend traffic catches us, so I returned to the hotel. But getting out of DC was another ordeal- the uniqueness of the capital lies not in its museums but in its beltways (which means that even if you start off on a highway no. 95 North, you suddenly come across a flashboard saying you are on 495 South- which made Pankaj panic!) Actually, a beltway is a highway that runs in a circle and comes back to the main interstate highway at some point or the other! (But we found this out only when we reached Rohit’s place in a suburb of Baltimore, so it was no use on the road) Well, USA is a heaven of sorts for us Indians, but if your car were to break down on a highway, there would be no one to help you out. You will have to wait at leastfor an hour till assistance comes, that too, if you are in a position to make a call. Otherwise, you will die on the road but won’t find a single shack of “Car/luna/scooty Repare Garaje” nearby. Everything is as impersonal as it can be- even the roads are not called by human names like “Senapati Bapat Road”, but by utterly cold numbers and letters- I 95 or 267... “Pineview Drive”, when we came back from the trip, was quite a welcoming sign considering this. I was almost homesick after the ten day trip combining New Jersey, Washington and Baltimore- but of the other places, some other time!