Week 1: 21ST July 2008 – 25th July 2008
There weren’t any Monday Morning blues but there was an air of excitement apart from the fact that we had to fix up our timings of using the bathroom so as to maximize sleep time while the other roommate dressed up. Also the nagging fact that Indians are stereotyped into being inconsiderate about time and don’t have an idea about punctuality which we had to prove wrong. Another rat race began as a huge group headed off from the lobby together to reach 1 Liberty Plaza. Once again, we found so many other new joinees with the company’s trademark logo spotted on their bags that we didn’t have to worry about directions. Our guide this time was Sharanya from the New York office and she suddenly stopped at the entrance and removed her shoes making us wonder what happened. Welcome to the world of women whims and fancies, as it is a daily routine for most of them to change into sexier and less comfortable footwear in office. By afternoon, we were given our classrooms and schedules for the coming weeks and I would be in 180 ML on the 31st floor! The first thing our instructor points out is “The most unique thing about this class is that you can see the Statue of Liberty from your seats.” Our instructor is also a certified pilot who owns a plane and flies down for his classes! The repertoire of instructors we had, were brilliant and eccentric. End of training session, rushed to give the packet of Indian sweets I had brought for my New York counterparts but little did I realize how calorie conscious a country this is as polite small bits were taken by the team and I thought I could actually serve the entire floor and still have a piece or two left. Then we headed out to Battery Park for the welcome party organized by the company. Free for alcohol seemed to be the flavour of the season as people downed red wine, white wine and numerous other varieties while the guy gave up on the group of Bangalore NAPAs who got the table next to the kitchen door and ended up finishing all the vegetarian platters as and when they arrived. Khaboos , hammouz were the centrestage in the snacks menu followed by varieties of cheese. Then we went wild with the Bangalore NAPAs photo shoot with Statue of Liberty in the background. A unique thing in the park were these set of music making tiles on the floor which we tried to set into action, which if seen from far seemed like a bunch of formally clad youngsters jumping around mad probably post some loss in the financial markets. Done with our shenanigans, we finally headed back catching the subway at Bowling Green having had dinner on the snacks that had been provided. Major movie plans we made to watch over the night and after 2 changes, stuck to "Jaane tu ya Jaane na" and ended up sleeping through half of it.
Next day morning, routine had fit in and we made it just in the nick of time and we also got introduced to the concept of prime time traffic on the subway. The routine also included me grabbing the Financial Times and reading it on our way to office- the NY way of saving time.
You come in ten minutes earlier or later and its empty, but prime time, thank god for closed doors else people would have been hanging like those on our Mumbai local trains. Rajesh Dasari got a blast for not getting there on time when his instructor rudely told him that you can get Rolex watches for $1 at some roadside shop and would probably be a good investment.
Come evening and some of us decided to go to Brooklyn Bridge and see NY skyline sparkling in the night. To our utter surprise, in small groups of 10-12 people, the entire... I mean the entire Bangalore group was there on Brooklyn Bridge. “The more the merrier” indeed as song and dance routine started from movie songs to TV ads- if its got a chord or two, it’s a song. Meanwhile Jagnoor aka Juggy G and Kalyan decided to try out racing with Ambre including slow walking ;) Hilarious watching them do the paces. A streak of red lights moved in an anti parallel direction to a streak of yellow lights on the Manhattan Bridge forming a nice pattern. The stars hibernate in New York City as they are outshone by the millions of lights that dot the city skyline. It finally got pretty cold and the entire group decided to head back to hotel and get enough sleep to keep us awake in class, which in the near future we realised is a lost cause.
Today evening, Arun and Sowmya being the devout Tamilians they are, pulled us along to Hotel Saravanaa so it was round two for Shravani and me. Patil also joined in on the plan and the five of us headed to the place. It is an odd sight to see people downing Dosa with beer but then, New York is a city of oddities. The Rain Gods decided to make their debut performance on this particular day and we got stuck near some apartment and had one of the ladies staying there let us in while the rain gods partied. We quickened our steps as it slowed down to a drizzle bypassing speeding cars and the splashes they caused as we reached the hotel drenched and enjoyed the wonders of a hot bath in the middle of the night having been soaked to the bone.
Thursday and plans were being made to watch Dark Knight someplace. We finally zeroed in on a theatre close to the hotel – Kips Bay. After class, decided to check out the Fulton market. It looks like one of those markets you watch on TV with no vehicular movement, wide pavements, roadside cafes and general cheer around apart from the fact it overlooked the water. Coming back to the late night show of Dark Knight, probably it was a combination of us being tired or the ultra hype about the movie, apart from brilliant performance by Heath Ledger, we all found the movie to be just another cat and mouse game. I know lot of people disagree with me on this, probably Ill need to watch the movie again being wide awake but then we were more into experiencing the theatre and popcorn culture of the Americas. Late night show meant a lot of couples hovering around us minding their own business. If you have been to an INOX in India, you haven’t missed much but an IMAX experience is a completely different level of its own. While we walked back at two in the morning, a couple of police cars were parked beside a diner. Hoping to see some action, it just turned out to be late supper/ midnight snack time for the coppers. Though a few fire engines did breeze by to the rescue of some poor soul.
Close to office, the whole street had been decked up with Indian flags, tricolor balloons, recent hindi songs blaring especially a lot of Singh is King and Indian food lined down the streets. It was an Indian fair where music CDs, desi khana, desi clothes and a lot more was being sold. Made a lot of my fellow friends homesick and amused many more of us with the innocent questions that our non Indian friends had. Richa Gupta and Namrata Singh struck lucky when a random lady walked by and offered them two tickets to the Bacchan’s Unforgettable Tour at Long Island since she didn’t want to go for it! Meanwhile the few of us who heard about the fair late struck lucky because by the time we went in, they were closing up and selling all the food at 20% the original price. A few of us decided to head out to Penn Station to buy tickets for Washington DC over the weekend to be stopped by Nishant who seemed against us going there. “Yaar! Washington bekaar hai. Photos me dekh lena. America aur kuch bhi hai dekhne ko” We never did get an objective answer to what “aur kuch” (what else) meant but it seemed an interesting reason nonetheless. “Lol! Come all the way to America and see it online with photos. Indeed”
Now I introduce the concept of DUMB BLONDE! On reaching Penn Station which also houses Madison Square Garden or vice versa, we looked around for the office of the Chinese operator who’d get us to Washington in just $35 round trip. Since I was the planner for this trip, had done painstaking research on it covering all angles including the availability of public toilets in the middle of the night especially since our group consisted of some 9 girls and 2 guys. We found a video store run by an Indian who told us the small counter in the front was the bus ticket counter. A really hot blonde sat there and being a boy, decided I should strike conversation. Unfortunately the attractive factor disappeared the moment she started talking and I realised dumb blonde is a true phenomenon. (This is to ascertain that not all blondes are dumb and the author does not suggest anything against this in any means or manner ) We asked her about her branch in Chinatown that had a bus which left later than the 8:45 PM bus that left from Penn Station. She had no idea and directed me to a Chinese guy who looked like those druglords you see in Hollywood movies with those arm length tattoos and ponytail included. He told me that the Chinatown one was another franchise so I’d have to go there and book tickets but would get them on the spot so needn’t hurry for it. Having settled the matter, I parted ways with Annie, Sowmya and Shravani who headed back while I went on to meet Divya Ashok (who was interning with Lehman Brothers then) and her friend (oops. dont remember name ) at some chaat place. The place had fully desi decor, those plastic chairs, jugs and glasses and the Indian owner trying an American accent and getting his grammar all mixed up. We grabbed a plate of bhel, and then decided to show me around while we caught up on good old times. CONWAY, right opposite Macy’s is the place to be if you want to buy chocolates for cheap in Manhattan and also other items too. Something similar to Big Bazaar in India or Lulu stores in the Gulf, though CONWAY has no branch. It was real nice meeting up but then I was too tired to follow up on their offer to head over to their place or go to Pachas with the gang so ended up coming to the hotel and bumped into Kalyan and gang and we all decided to play MAFIA.
Amit Ambre and Nupur were the only ones who knew about this game and while they tried to teach the disinterested few and also debate the finer points of their versions. But once we started, there was no stop. For some reason, Kalyan and me would be bumped off in the first round and if we were not, it was most probably because we were mafia. Blame it on Yasha’s intuition “I know yaar, seriously. Its Shah or Kalyan, intuition hai.” Or plain old hard luck. Nupur came to my rescue once when she played God coaxing the Mafia to spare me once, and hence I survived till the end in one of those rare moments. But what started off as a kiddie name no one would be interested in turned out to be an all night venture and next thing we know it was 6 in the morning! Kalyan, Nupur, Aparna, Yasha, Kurella, Ambre, Senthil, Ajay George and I can’t remember who else was there but we were loads of us. We are now ambassadors of the game and if we spot about 8 plus jobless people, this game is the only thing that comes to our mind. We did have minor interruptions as "slightly tipsy but having had a blast" Ankur, Vaibhav, Nikhil turned up after a night at Pachas which in their words was “American Pie is a true story” They seemed amused at how we seemed more high on the game than they were on alcohol. Early Saturday Morning and I had decided no point sleeping as i had to pick up Kate and the other London NAPAs on our way to the Central Park outing for NAPAs.
