Back in a city I truly am in love with
One of the many cliches, oft repeated to the point of annoyance, is “absence makes a heart grow fonder”. Now that I am back, after a six month separation, while unfortunately there’s no heart waiting for me to grow fonder of, I have realized that New York is a city I love, and its attraction has only grown as I traversed the globe.
I’ve had no trouble re-adjusting to life in the big city. In fact, I think I would be in trouble if I were to live anywhere else. I would probably shoot myself in a fit of depression if I had returned from this long break to suburbia (no offense to any of my readers who hail from this construct of the modern urban planner).
There really is something about New York. I got in early morning on Monday, and feeling a little low, I decided to head out for a run. As I jogged outside, amidst the old buildings, basking in the mid-morning sun, watching people walking about, eating at cafes. seeing the various eclectic stores that would survive only in a city like New York, my spirits started rising. Its really one of those few places where you can see people, shops, and restaurants from across the world in the course of a 3 mile run.
Sorority sisters from connecticut and their ohmigods and totallys
yelled over fancy pink cellphones with flashing lights, tall burly
jamaicans and their dreadlocks, an old asian couple walking slowly hand-in-hand right past a muslim man with his traditional skullcap speaking arabic on his cell phone right beside a couple of eastern european movers having an argument over something. Gay couples walking comfortably, with neither them nor the rest of the pedestrians feeling that anything’s different. A sign for an upcoming “dog gym” that caters especially to “smaller breeds” jostles for attention with one announcing the latest Will Farrell offering. Both are pasted on the temporary wall of some shop undergoing renovation. And of course, I’ll have to admit, being summer, the sight of lovely women running and walking in the latest fashions will uplift the spirits of even the most depressed 
Last month, around the time of the terror alert in Heathrow, when terrorism showed its head again, putting the world in a fit of paranoia laced with fear, I was in Chennai, India. My mother, sitting next to me and watching the story unravel in the media frenzy that followed the events, asked me, after one particularly zealous reporter tried to paint a picture of impending doom for anyone remotely associated with New York or the United States of America, why through all this travel I hadn’t found an alternate job in London, or Australia or even better, Mumbai or Chennai. Her fear was understandable, as was that of most of the world, whose source of information are ratings-hungry television channels. While one reason why I didn’t find anything was that I hadn’t really looked (my resume has not been updated since 2003), the second, and more important reason was that I hadn’t yet found a reason to leave New York. I am sure I could enjoy a life just as much in London, or Melbourne or Mumbai, and at the very least get something larger than the shoebox I call my apartment, as well as probably find something with a better quality of life, it would not be the same as New York.
I like New York because it has, in one small island, all the things that I look for when I travel around the world. I was heading to work the other morning, on the Number 4 train, and I realized what it was about the city that appealed to me. In that one subway car, there were a couple of monkeys in suits (including me), a girl in gothic chic, a couple of school children in uniform, a man with crooked teeth and torn clothes, a lady choosing to read out loud passages from the bible, amongst an assortment of people from various walks of life, and various races. The difference though, was that no one gave the other person a second glance- there was no feeling of being scrutinized because of what you wear, or where you come from or how you look- you can be anybody you want to be. Your personal life, in this city of 8 million people, is only yours. I am yet to see that anywhere else in the world.
