Skip to main content

Springtime for Hitler

As I rode on my bicycle after a snail paced day at office, I couldn't help miss the look on the faces of my neighbours in cars. What were they thinking? ... wow! cool bike .. Or .. bike? what a looser.

As hard it was to figure that out, harder was the tag on my apartment door. It said "Flowers for you delivered at the reception". Now I wouldn't mind a secret admirer, but what would she admire about? ... how well I manage without any furniture? or the minimum 3 wides I bowl every over? or the shape of my chapattis? I rushed to Missy (the receptionist) to collect the flowers ... with a smile she said ... "Oh! I didn't even see the name ... soooorrrryyyy". It was for Mr.Young, previous resident of #209.

"I never thought I'll buy a Calvin Klein", I said. "Yeah and I never thought I'll fly", said BG (Deepak BG actually, my college buddy and host in NY), as we sat down to empty the 1 giga bytes of memories in the camera onto the laptop ... silly poses with harmless celebrity wax models at Madame Tussaud's, atop Empire State and Rockfeller Centre buildings, at Times Square, Statue of Liberty and Broadway ... all the chores of a new visitor to NY, digitized and safe.

Soon I was getting bored of tall buildings and viewing them from roof-tops of taller buildings. A relaxing Vanilla Cafe at Starbucks felt much better. But the best was yet to come ...

The fantabulous Broadway show ... The Producers.

Ok "fantabulous" means "Of the highest quality" :-). I felt like I should enroll into Rangashankara as soon as I'm back home :-), not that I have the talent for it, but I was inspired by the immaculate articulation of music and visual artistry. I had never imagined that a stage could metamorphose into so many things so quick ... where was the space for all of it? and where were the actors hiding?

Next time you are in NY or London ... beg borrow steal ... watch a Broadway show. And yeah the girls are hot! ;-)

NY made me feel right at home, cuz there were soo many Indian/Indian-like faces wherever I went. Times Square reminded me of Brigade Road (only the buildings were taller) ... and also how I always used to unexpectedly find someone I recognized everytime I went there. I wished I could find someone on the streets of NY like that.

And my wish came true!

Satti (now doing MS in NY) pops up from nowhere as we were waiting for the July 4th fireworks show to begin. Now if only I knew wishes came true, my wish would have been lot more specific ;-)

Final bill, about $600 including my pencil sketch portrait by a chinese woman in Times Square.

To one of the best trips I've had till now ... Cheers New York! :-)

Untill next time ... ciao
Raghu

PS:
The subject line is a song from The Producers ... other contenders for the subject line were "That's our Hitler", "Now Ulla dance" and "Where did we go right?" .. hehe :-)

Checkout some videos here :-)


Written on Jul 10, 2006 10:00 PM


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Miss D

"You'll look sooo stupid if you tell this to someone" I chuckled to myself trying to sleep at Terminal 2E of Paris airport. With more than four hours to wait for my flight to Atlanta, all I could think of, was Ms D or rather "Miss" D. So, who was Miss D? As any bachelor in his mid 20s, returning back from an India vacation, foreseeing the daily grind of work that awaits him, wondering why his hair is mysteriously thinning and witnessing the loss of his friends to their wives or work, would feel, I … had this sudden urge to find "the one" for myself. Rather than planning it, I had always wished it would be a random coincidence. Like, finding someone on the plane next to me! With that silly wish, I boarded the Bangalore-Paris flight at 2AM. As I walked to my seat 21B, the silly wish kept me distracted from the sadness of leaving family and friends behind, in the hope that it may come true. No less than a miracle ... it did come true! There she was, on 21...
18 comments
Read more

30 seconds to mars

Aaaithalla ... anthu america ge bande ... a thing of dream proportions, but not really a dream. From not boarding a flight in 24 years to 4 flights in 24 hours (ok i'm 25, but it sounds better) .. the excitement hid the strain called "jet lag" for the next 48 hrs. With my fears of over weight bagages now behind me, i was all ready to look down from the sky ... i liked it in the night. The only ones i made friends on this journey were my neighbours in seat from paris to atlanta, an old Romanian couple. Mostly sign language and helping tear open salted peanut packets for them. The Alps were a sight to watch ... it was hard to distinguish the snow capped mountain tips from the clouds ... "naa clouds can't be soo sharp, must be alps". I pity the pilots of trans-atlantic flights, for 10 hours all they get to see are clouds ... atleast we get to sleep. "America is clean" - my first impression. People here are very courteous ... they say hi and wis...
Post a Comment
Read more

Letter to my daughter

Hello dear, Its been a long time since the last email! I can assure you, you are doing fantastic!  As I write this email, its Saturday morning 9 am and you have woken up and gone back to bed and woken up again 😊 . Since you started school at Delhi Public School (DPS), all of us have suddenly been jolted into a strict regime in the morning. I and Viju amma wake up at 6:30am. Then Viju amma gets the arguably tougher task of waking you up gently with all possible incentives and conversations that may evoke your response in your half sleep state and get you to brush and take bath and put on the school uniform. While at that time, I am down in the kitchen setting up your lunch box and breakfast with help from Savitri amma. It all works like clock work! You come down dressed by 7:20am, 10 mins before your school bus’s scheduled arrival. While Viju amma feeds you breakfast, which is usually dosa and honey, I get your red socks and black shoes and sit under the dinning table and sq...
Post a Comment
Read more