It is not unnatural to be skeptical about a phenomenon that is universally appreciated. The whole idea of "the road less travelled" and the romanticism of iconoclastic ideology almost forces us to dismiss anything and everything that is "loved by all".
Something similar happened to me wrt HP. The first book in the series that I read was the 'Chamber of Secrets' (and till date, it remains my favourite one), about the time the world had gone ga-ga over the fourth- in fact, I remember reading the review of the fourth one (by a 13 year old kid in an erudite publication like the Biblio) and remarking to myself- what absolute drivel! Dragons/witches/wizards/broom-sticks- grow up,world!
The rest, as they say, is history- I got hooked and the wait for the last in the series is eagerly on...
Which leads me back to the reason of this post; I have concluded that I am not really a man of travel. That is to say,my wanderlust is nothing to write home about. Although, within the year of getting a passport done, I would have visited 3 countries- one for 3 months, another for 2, and the other for 5 days, which packed more fun/chaos than the other two, put-together, can.
So from Delhi to Mumbai to Lahore to New York, I have been to some of the greatest/biggest cities of the world- and frankly, have been unimpressed. When do you start loving a city; or admiring its 'spirit';or being awed by just 'being there'?
Particularly, now that I am whiling my time in the Big Apple, I had expected something extraordinary out of it. Not that I have made any efforts at all to discover this city and be impressed by it- but I could contend, that I had thought it sufficient to sit back and enjoy- let the ambience envelop me, in the normalcy of my existence, and make it something special.
The city of Spiderman; of a skyline which is so familiar, although you have never been here, where you conjure up the vision of the towers that no longer exist and think of what might have been; of Woody Allen- I strongly contend that I expected much.
We have discussed often, here, that is this the capital of the world. The only argument against this being that it lacks history- which sparks off a long debate about the nature of history etc. Apart from that, NY is the cosmos; from Vietnamese cuisine to Jewish plays, it has everything, and bigger, and more.
Which brings me back to the point that I was right in expecting much.
And it was not until tomorrow, when I went near Times Square, for a second time and found- Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, the Dow Jones Index, Hershey's and giant posters for "Jenna loves Janine", Wrestlemania and EA SPORTS NFL- staring down at me, that I felt truly blown away.
It is everything on TV/books coming true and its not fake- its real and as big as you thought it was.
My life has not been an utter waste.
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