New York-ed

November 9, 2006 1:45 pm
La Guardia Airport, New York

“Sir, I hate to interrupt but the direct exposure of your screen to sunlight might not be ideal for the laptop.”

As I took out my iPod earplugs and made myself comfortable on the seat adjacent to a fellow co passenger, I was conscience of the fact that it was an unusually warm November afternoon in New York. The co passenger appreciated my concern and after a small talk on the recent recall of batteries by Dell, he collected his stuff and left for his boarding lounge.

Coming back to New York and its heat, it is a humongous city. It would be perfectly safe to assume that I have never seen anything bigger and dense in all of the past 23 years. I spent the last 50 hours or so in this city of financial firms, arts, fashion, technology and everything imaginable under the sun. Coming for an interview, it can be an overwhelming experience for a small town person like me. All this when I was born and brought up in New Delhi and currently stay in the second largest city in Pennsylvania.

Looking outside the sun lit glass window in terminal C1 right now, I can see jets scramble for parking space and a huge busy airport thereafter. Life in New York can be amazingly similar to Mumbai or Delhi except for the skyscrapers carefully planted within Manhattan. As I look back at the past two days, I just want to get back to Pittsburgh at the earliest. To people I know. To my office in INI. To the Sunday church. To the grueling classes. To wearing the CMU sweatshirt all the time. To LIFE.

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November 7, 2006 12:55 pm
La Guardia Airport, New York

“Hey. Are you from CMU?”

These were my first words on the tarmac to the girl coming out of the plane behind me. My gut somehow told me that I had seen her in CMU sometime. Standing 10 feet away from the cockpit of the plane, I could see her expression change on hearing this question.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Nothing in particular! I believe I’ve seen you in CMU. I ‘m Ujjwal from the INI”.

“Indrani. ISPM”.

Relief was posted all over her face. As the initial skepticism melted away, Citlalli, Indrani and I boarded a cab to Crown Plaza at Time Square.

I had never been to New York before. All of what I had seen was through the media and movies. My enthusiasm on reading familiar signboards of which one listens to since childhood- Brooklyn, Manhattan, Time Square, and Grand Central- was akin to a child on his first picnic. As we approached the river, I saw the Manhattan skyline for real.

“This place is so much like Delhi. I don’t believe this. This is not that impressive at all”.

Indrani looked at me in utter disbelief. She is born and brought up in New Jersey and hence found my comparison hilarious. I did not compare the sky liners to Delhi but the area right across East Side. And even the lower buildings in Manhattan. Apparently, there are many old industries in New York. And I felt as though I was passing through Chirag Dilli and Nehru Place. Blame me for being a Delhi-ite to the core.

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November 7, 2006 2:30 pm
Crown Plaza, New York

Crown Plaza was five star, as expected. It was located 30 seconds by walk from Times Square. As I looked out of my window on the 25^th floor, I had a feeling of content run across my heart. Not intending to sound haughty, I realized that I was the first in my family to look down on the great New York City. The roads were choked, the cabs moving at snail’s pace. Most people walked fast. Time Square had many big billboards constantly displaying ads of biggest of the great companies to dot capitalist America.

I opened my laptop and started working on my telecom submission due later that evening. Yeah, can you take that? In New York for the first time and I had no choice but to work. I was working constantly since the previous night- all night, in the flight and at the airport. It was time to finish it.

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November 7, 2006 5:30 pm
Times Square, New York

“If you stand at Times square for a minute, you would be able to see faces from all nationalities. Feel it and keep your ears open. You would hear majority of the languages spoken across the world”.

My friend from INI smiled at me. She had been to New York and Times Square with Eric before and probably I was sounding a little more-than-usual-excited as we walked on the side way. Most people overtook us in their haste to reach somewhere on time. I strolled as the world passed me. It felt like drinking water from the hose of a fire tanker. Stopping at the middle of Broadway Street, I wondered why it should not be renamed Timeless Square. It just felt great. Boards proclaiming Nasdaq, Yahoo, Ernst and Young, Hard Rock Café and Samsung stood out. I missed my family and promised myself to get them to that place someday soon.

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November 7, 2006 7:30 pm
Croton Reservoir Tavern, New York

“This is the man you should be talking to!”

As Jeffery, a very senior manager introduced me to members of the Advanced Security Centre during the pre night social, he had raised the bar for me before the team. I was tired to socialize and smile too much. Not sleeping the last night and working relentlessly on the submission had not helped matters either. But this was the place where the best consultants in the world had converged. It was both an interesting and humbling experience to meet such experienced people. Later in the evening, I met Varun and Rajat- two high school friends. Everything was perfect. Well, almost! Great school and education-a wonderful job and amazing city-friends from school and by God’s grace everything was fine back home. A thought which I have been nurturing recently flashed my mind again – it was high time I started looking for someone special in life soon to complete the last edge of the self coined “pentagon of happiness”.

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November 8, 2006 2:30 pm
Ernst and Young Global Headquarters, 5 Times Square, New York

“Tell me about one person in your life whom you have met recently and one who impressed you. What measures, if any, did you take to know this person better? Were these measures effective? What qualities of the person were you most attracted towards?”

After the team challenge in the morning, lunch and one round of interview, the second question thrown to me in the second round of interviews completely bamboozled me. As I urged my already tired brain to look for a suitable person and started forming a sketchy genesis of my answer, I hit a roadblock. The only person who had really impressed me in the recent past for whom I made an effort to know more about was Nicole. Considering it was a professional interview I was sitting in, it did not make sense to talk about personal life. The interviewer must have been expecting something from school or the professional world. Hmm..search search search! 1 result found. Nicole. I clicked on the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ icon mentally and still I could not move beyond Nicole. The interviewer’s eyes were fixed on me while I tried to look at the whiteboard behind him and think of something suitable.

I smiled. The other side of the table was cold. The gesture was not reciprocated. I was loosing the grip on the interview. At that moment, I decided I should speak of whoever I could think of.

“Sir, you probably would not be expecting such an answer but I cannot think of anyone else right now matching the question you asked. There is this girl I met some time back...”

“Let’s not discuss anything sexual”.

Cutting me short before I could go on, the interviewer’s remark came without him batting an eyelid. I had been attacked and if I did not defend myself and win this battle, my chances of winning the war seemed dim. And I found it a little strange for him to assume the sexual inclination of my answer.

“Sir, this is completely asexual and has nothing to do with a girl meets boy thing”.

I went on to give him an answer which would have made most people ashamed of presuming something sexual at the mention of a girl. I was not too comfortable discussing that question anyways and we moved onto the next one quickly. I had managed to hold fort!

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November 8, 2006 4:30 pm
Ernst and Young Global Headquarters, 5 Times Square, New York

“There is good news and bad news. The bad news is only for the people of Pittsburgh. Your flights are either cancelled or are running really late”.

All of the CMU people except for one had to stay back for the night. I was happy that the weather had earned me another night at Times Square. It was raining cats and dogs but New York was as busy as ever. It reminded me of the term coined by the Indian media: “The Mumbai Spirit”. People were running at their usual pace albeit holding an umbrella or wearing a rain jacket.

We had dinner at a Pakistani restaurant called Kashmir and headed straight back to the Park Central booked by E and Y. Switching on the TV and making myself comfortable on the spongy bed, the big news was the resignation of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Frustrated by the slow speed of the wireless internet, I decided to finally call it a day. As the big lights outside the window blinked relentlessly, I snuggled up in the bed sheet bracing myself for another tough month ahead in school.

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November 9, 2006 3:30 pm
La Guardia Airport, New York

As my flight takes off from the runway while I complete this sentence, I can see deep blue water on my left and Manhattan on my right. It’s a clear day with bright sunlight. I wonder where the WTC once stood.

A strange mixture of feelings is trespassing my jungle of thought- how much in life is enough? Having seen New York, I wonder where would I be drawing the line? Although it is way too early in my career, I want to constantly remind myself of my resolve to return to India. The question is: when, where and how? We shall find out…