~ tagline of the movie "Sleepless in Seattle"
The human heart lives on hope. And that is probably what took me to the top of the Empire State Building in New York, secretly hoping to meet that "someone". She could have been Meg Ryan or Deborah Kerr, waiting for Tom Hanks or Cary Grant or maybe myself to come & meet her!
And thats when you realise - movies are nothing but illusion, they sell dreams. There was no Meg or Deborah - but the experience atop the Empire State building is one of the cherished treasures of life.
The setting was picture perfect - dusk had set in; the colors of twilight had painted the sky in different hues of orange, red & blue - and these merged beautifully with the tall Manhattan skyline that stood dwarfed from the 86th storey of the Empire State. The cold wind blowing in your face, and everyone rushing around you to click snaps with their beloveds made you look around for that "someone" special. Only to smile, and look into the sky and catch that glimmer of hope in the form of the fire burning in the torch of the hand of the Statue of Liberty.
Last weekend was my first visit to the city referred to as the Big Apple - made memorable undoubtedly by visits to the typical places of tourist pilgrimage - the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building and Times Square. The city is to the US, what Mumbai is to India probably. It urges you to dream, dream BIG - it has its glamour & glitz, its own style & substance; its people rushing around on streets & metros; working hard to achieve their dreams; a city like no other city; a city that never sleeps.
Luckily for me, February is that time of the year, which despite being cold, is a good time to go skiing - something that I had never done before. A trip to a ski resort at Belleayre, 120 miles north of NYC, was therefore a mandatory item on the things-to-do list of an NY trip. Fortunately or unfortunately, skiing made way for snowboarding - which turned out to be real fun. Strapping both legs onto a snowboard, we bent our knees, and pushed hard on our toes or heels, coming down on the "bunny slopes" (easy slopes meant for kids or beginners) - falling hard onto the snow everytime when the speed became uncontrollable. No bones broken and tons of laughter & fun for us , coupled with some mesmerising 360-degree turns and other breathtaking stunts by our snowboarding tutor literally provided the icing on the cake of this snowboarding sojourn.
An NY trip cannot be complete without a visit to the Indian street at Journal Square in Jersey City - the whole street is lined up with Indian restaurants and shops for groceries, clothes, mithai, and even a paan-shop! The food is deliciously lip smacking, the language is Gujju by default and the rule of the thumb states that you can cross the street without even bothering to look at any of the cars plying on it, just like you can do in any of the crowded market streets back home. The Indianness is not limited only to this street, but you will find scores of Indians wherever you move around in NY - I met & spoke with a jolly good Sardarji on 34th street below the Empire State - whom I didnt even know! Or the Gujju boy who runs a Dunkin Donuts counter at Newark airport where I used Hindi to order a muffin & hot chocolate...
As our plane rose over Newark airport, I looked out of the window, and located the Statue of Liberty that appeared as tiny green speck with a small orange flame in its torch; the magnificent Empire State building standing out of the rest of the crowd with its red & blue colors display; remembered the tiny snow flakes @ Belleayre that disappeared on my palms as soon as they landed there... and wondered would I ever find that "someone"...
Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories... And we've already missed the spring!
~ Cary Grant in "An Affair To Remember"
