Another absurdity of Manhattan

Gratuity: something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service; especially tip.

This is how Webster dictionary defines the word gratuity. And this is the most common sense meaning of a tip or a gratuity. It has to be volunary. Now I agree that there are gratuity etiquette. You normally give 15% or more as a tip in restaurant or any such service that you receive. But New York city has a way with twisting definitions and meanings.

I went to The Olive Garden restaurant at Times Square in midtown Manhattan a couple of days ago with a friend who was visiting US for the first time. Olive Garden is famous for its overly courteous (read nosy and interfering) waiters and high end (read unnecessarily expensive) dining experience. But what got me the most this time was the bill we got at the end. The restaurant had already added 15% mandatory 'gratuity' to the total. And if this was not enough to piss of customers, there was an additional blank field for 'Extra gratuity' !! My friend was taken aback by these crazy customs of the NY city. And there was just one thing I could say to him. 'Welcome to The City, my friend'.

Contradictions

New York City. A city of many dreams. Some blooming, some shattered. A city loved by rich and poor alike. A city where life is in the fast lane. A city full of contradictions.

I am back in the city. With mixed feelings once again. Just like last year. Initially brimming with enthusiasm and then gradually disillusioned and then emotionless about it. Indifferent as if the people on the subway train or NJ Transit bus or on the crosswalks don't even exist. I guess this is what makes the city different from any other 'American' experience. Good or bad. Does it even matter?

Contradictions. Talk about them in New York City! A hawker selling $5 purse just outside the Macy's that sells the 'more reputable' and perhaps more reliable version of it in $50. A homeless man and an Investment Banker sitting next to each other in a Subway train. Tourists who have nothing else to do but kill time and executives for whom every lost second means lost deals and eventually lost money, walking the streets side by side. And the best of all. Saint Peter's Cathedral hiding under the massive and monstrous 'temple of capitalism and materialism' - The Citigroup building on Lexington Ave and 53rd street. People worship wealth. The mammoth structure of Citigroup building trying to prove its superiority.

For a second, I want to contradict what I implied about selfishness of people. One evening, I was showing my parents around in NY city and we decided to hop onto a bus instead of walking. I was unaware of the fact that you can't pay the driver for the ticket on MTA buses with cash and you need to have a metro card. The driver allowed us in but asked me to give him change worth $6 (3 tickets). $6 means 24 quarter coins. How am I supposed to carry 24 coins in my wallet? But that was the only way. 'You can ask the other passengers, if anybody is willing to help you', says the driver. And I felt like I was one of those people who are looking to get some pity money from passengers showing some fake reasons of lost wallets! But I didn't have to embarrass myself doing that. An african-american lady with a rough accent gave her Metrocard to the driver and said 'Swipe this for him'. I was a little taken aback by this generosity. The driver swiped and the card had exactly $6! I fumbled to give her $6 cash from my wallet. She said 'No' sharply and I still insisted. She shot back, 'Just say thanks and keep it as a gift'. The humanity is not dead yet in this city.

Contradiction. Not only is the city full of it but so are my emotions towards the city. I love it sometimes. I hate it at others. And yet some other times, I am indifferent. I love the feeling of being in the heart of world's financial activities. I love to stand on the terrace of the Bloomberg building and look around and see the towering buildings. It gives me satisfaction. A sense of achieving something. I love to work for the company that is owned by the New York City's most important man - the mayor Michael Bloomberg. And knowing that the work we do, and the products we make move millions of dollars in the market everyday (though individually, I form a very tiny part of that!) makes me feel good about my job. At other times, standing in a Subway train amid magnitudes of human bodies, or standing on the platform, wrapped in humid and polluted air of the stations, commuting for a couple of hours in a day makes me wonder if it is really worth it. There are times when I am surrounded by such feelings of doubt and frustration. But I think, with time, these feelings will be hardened into those of indifference. After all the routine soothes pain over time. Though only sometimes.

I have many stories to tell. But time is not my friend these days. I will come back to normalcy hopefully in near future. Hopefully foreseeable one.

Down memory lane: Remembering the visit to Kolkata

I have not written many travelogues. But out of nowhere came the desire to write a few lines about my experience in Kolkata. Some places are like magnets. They compel you to make visits again and again. Kolkata visit has had similar effects on me. I have fallen in love with that place in just one visit. Quite frankly I don't know the reason. It's certainly not the most beautiful place I have visited. Neither do I have any relations there. Yet the strong emotional attachment that I feel towards it and my desire to visit it again is indeed intriguing.

The exact dates that I visited Kolkata fail my memory. I think it was about 5-6 years ago. I remember taking the books along for studies. I still regret spending hours inside my hotel room preparing for the exams and missing the beauty of that foreign land. My sister was to deliver her classical-vocal performance at a contest (which she eventually won) there at Ramkrishna Mission, Kolkata and that was what prompted the visit.

Kolkata is a place full of extremes. It has an aura of its own. It does not have modernity of Mumbai but has its own rich cultural heritage. People are busy just like any other metro city but they have time to appreciate beauty of art and music. I am amazed by the number of artists and musicians come out of this region. It certainly runs in their blood. Despite being a metro city, it does not have the arrogance like Delhi (No offense intended towards Delhites). You can feel the sweetness in nature of people you meet.



My visit coincided with Doorga Pooja, known as just 'Pooja'. It is the biggest festival in Bengal and Kolkata was adorned like a bride for the occasion. All the streets were decorated with lighting and sweet Bengali music and the fragrance of sweets filled the air. The atmosphere was electrifying around us.



I found the city lazy. I am not sure if it was a norm or just an exception but I saw many shops and offices, even private closing strictly at 5 in the evening. The areas I visited had a large population of blue collar workers and thus the road-side eating joints were crowded for the evening tea and supper. You could buy a meal in Rs. 4 (10 cents). At the other end of the city, in areas like Esplanade and Park street, you could see the young upper-middle class people eating in McDonald and shopping in one of the most swanky shopping malls.



The roads are eternally jammed and they look like a sea full of yellow-top taxis. As long as your sight can reach , you can see nothing on the roads but taxis. The traffic jams are so bad in some areas that I remember getting out of taxi in the middle of the road and start walking.



This was the first time I experienced Metro rail (The second time being in NY last summer). I was really impressed by the efficiency with which the metro runs. Also, the underground stations are quite clean and modernized. There are large, fascinating murals on the walls of these stations like those of Tagore at the station named 'Rabindra Sadan'. It is an amazing view while riding when the train emerges from underground to the street level near the Dum-dum airport station. Looks like a gladiator entering the arena!



There are a lot of Victorian style buildings with red bricks. They stand as the reminder of colonialism and Raj. Along the similar lines, I must add that 'Babu' culture (Attitude of bureaucrats as if they are 'the higher living beings') is still prevalent here. You see loads of chauffeur driven Ambessadors on roads. With the 'Sahib' sitting in the back seat.



Other most vivid memories include our visit to Bellur Math. This is an ashram built by Swami Vivekanand, on the banks of the sacred Ganga. The peaceful environment has amazingly refreshing effects on mind. You feel ethereal sacredness floating around you. Eternal bliss. A momentary feeling of Nirvana.

The last memories of Kolkata I have is seeing waves of peasants and workers heading to the railway station. The driver told us that all these people live in nearby rural areas like Howra and they take trains to arrive in Kolkata to work. They start their day at 5 in the morning and when we saw them returning, it was already 8.30 at night.

I know there was no significantly unique experience in this visit. It looked just like another one week trip to an unknown place. But yet it has had lasting impression on my mind. I have fallen in love with that place. After that visit, I have read numerous Bengali authors. Whenever I see a book set in Bengal, I instantly buy it. This includes books by Tagore, Sankar, Amitav Ghosh and so on.

Mysterious, spellbinding, simple and lovely. I would summarize my impression of Kolkata with these four words.

[Image sources:

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http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/15/Kolkata_wideweb__470x304,0.jpg
]

My First Rental Car in US

After two attempts at driving test, a few weeks ago, I finally managed to get the Driver's License here in Arizona. Special thanks to Qadirbhai for his relentless efforts, his time, his guidance and his car. And also Akshay and Samba for taking me for practice!

Unlucky that I am, I flunked the test in first attempt because I was 'under-speeding'. I was going at the speed of 25mph where the limit was 35mph. And the officer who was taking my test, failed me. Aah, felt bad. Then next week again, Akshay and I went to the DMV but it was a holiday. Third week of waiting and again came Saturday. Qadirbhai was back in the instructor's seat and we went for the second attempt. And this time I made it! Perfection eluded me even then and I lost 8 points for using wrong lane. But because it was more than 80% overall, they passed me.

Equipped with the 'License to Drive', I rented a car from Enterprise here for the first time over this weekend. I had asked for a standard sized sedan and what they gave me was this!



On second thought, this was not bad! They upgraded my request from standard to SUV as they didn't have any standard sized cars. And as I had not driven a SUV before, I was a bit hesitant. But looking back, it was fun driving this Jeep for 3 days.

My iPhone was a great help in finding my way to places. The Google Maps and inbuilt GPS like function are fantastic. I realized true value of iPhone now! A funny incident happened when I got stuck at the gas station. I had no clue how to operate the pump so I asked someone who was filling up his bike. He explained to me the operation and then I managed to use it. (Ok, I know it sounds dumb but I tried to handle the pump myself and couldn't do it. So i had to ask !)

A Thanks-Giving'y experience

Algorithms exam was over and it was time to party. And additionally, there was the Thanks giving season! We had decided to take full advantage of the freedom we had recently earned from studies and do some serious shopping for India.

Thus the Thursday never ended for us, instead it merged with Friday without even a single nap. Late night movie - 'To kill a mocking bird' and then early morning on Friday, at 4.30 we left for Tucson Mall. And what we saw everywhere was not to our surprise. Best-Buy, Wall-mart, Office Depot all these big stores had long queues in front of them to get the Door-Buster discounts and gifts. It was impossible to stand in those queues and thus we decided to start the shopping spree from Sears. Everywhere we went, we saw floods of people. American Consumer has waited hard all year long for this day. And the slowing down economy seems to have little or no impact on their willingness to spend. They want to spend and spend hard.

Except for a few good deals, the other discounts were not too attractive. But it was fun to see so many people, enthusiastically shopping at all places as early as 5 in the morning.

As per CNN, the cash Registers all over the country are expected to have amassed $20Bn in this Thanks giving shopping. Indeed a huge amount of money flow. That's the magic of festive season. Just like Diwali in India.

Atlantic City - A City of Pleasure

I am a very quiet and peace loving person. Which, in common language, is translated as 'I am quite a boring person' because I do not go to pubs or clubs etc and I find pleasure in the pages of my favorite books. This time when my friends here decided to go to Atlantic City which is a miniature version of Las Vegas in terms of Casinos and night life, I was highly skeptical of joining them.

Niki, a friend of mine always says you should try new things and experience different worlds, other than your own. This time I thought, 'Not a bad idea!'. And thus I made up my mind to go to Atlantic City which I call A city of Pleasure.

It is about 100 miles from the place where I live in New Jersey. We started the drive at about 6 in the evening and were there by 8. We visited a few places in which prominent ones were Trump Taj Mahal, Balley's Casino and Kasbah Night Club.

Kasbah - The place where even the inanimate would spring to life and dance

This was my first experience in any kind of discotheque/nigh-club/dance-floor. My decision to go to this place in Atlantic City was partly out of curiosity and partly out of the fact that I had nothing else to do at night and nowhere to stay. So I decided to join the band-wagon and went to the place with my friends.

The moment I stepped into the place, I felt an acoustic attack on my ears by the loudest possible music playing on the dance floor. The whole place was dimly lit or not lit at all with dizzying lights flashing over my head. For those who are familiar with dance floors, this might be a usual setup for you but it was a first such real world experience for me as till now I had only seen such places in movies and on television. Initially the place was quite empty and not many people ventured to the center stage where the show was about to begin! There were 3-4 dance girls showing some amazing dance steps from their specially built stage.

As the hour hand of the clock neared 12-12.30, people started stepping into the dance floor with their dance partners or in groups and set the floor rocking by their steps and movements of their bodies. We were a group of boys and unfortunate enough not to have any dance partners. So after initial few minutes, I grew tired of dancing alone and took a seat at some distance from the floor and started observing people (Ofcourse from a journalistic point of view!!)

The place was oozing euphoria, like any dance club would do. People would get drunk, move away from reality for a few hours and dance till their feet ache. Here there is no sadness. If world was to comprise of such people, you would think that we have achieved eradication of sadness and problems from the society. Everyone is in a sheer bliss. The alcohol has taken over the mind. If not, it is the music which does that job with equal efficiency.

I wonder what energizes people and enables them to keep dancing for hours together. Is it the magic of alcohol? Or it is the magic of the atmosphere as a whole. Whether it is the head-banging beats of Linkin Park or wine like smooth hip-hop of Akon, the music sets the mood for dancing. Smiles all around. Laughs here and there. Corners filled with private meetings. Center stage filled with euphoric youth. Alcohol flowing everywhere. Is this heaven? Where people, at least temporarily, forget their problems and difficulties of life and shake their bodies to the beats of music.

I see people of every age, class and region of the world. Young ones who have just got a permission to enter this place as they have turned 21. More mature players who frequent clubs weekly or even more. Middle aged people who are still young at heart. People who come from the class of financially creamy. Salaried people who work for hours during the weekdays and earn a lot to spend during the weekends. People like me who are there for no good reason. Asians, Americans, Chinese and others.


Every person has a story behind him. An Indian couple where the lady is extremely uncomfortable with this whole concept and is there just because the cosmopolitan husband asked her to come there. A Mexican couple where the lady is very enthusiastic and dancing with amazing grace but the husband has absolutely no interest in the activity. A group of young girls who have drunk to the limits and are posing for photographs in not-so-decent poses. There are heavily built security personnel who are dressed in absolute black with ear phones and wireless instruments with them. Their job, to keep the trouble makers out. I witnessed one such ugly incident of one person going out of control and 6-7 such security personnel grabbed the man and threw him out of the club. The main attraction was a 4.5 feet tall chinese/nepalese fellow of age at least more than 50 who danced like a pro and was immediately adored by the girls!

People somehow love to move away from reality and lose self control. Getting high is fashionable and fun. One fellow was not even able to stand on his feet when he entered the place. I am sure he will be the one taking least effort to dance. His brain cells are going haywire anyway! He will just dance to the tunes of stars in front of his eyes.

Along with pleasure, there is beauty every where here. Where ever you turn your head, you will see personification of beauty. Beautiful girls in black dresses. Handsome young men in party coats. Even if you have not been blessed by the nature with a beautiful face, the cosmetics will do the job. America has everything to offer to everyone. Weight control pills for the horizontally challenged, body building capsules for the weak, tonnes of make up chemicals for not-so-beautiful people and so on. You have to name it and America will give it to you.

Finally at about 3 o'clock at night, we came out of the Kasbah. Moving from sheer ecstasy to the real world. My friends who danced to the most of their capacity stuttered with their legs shaky, head jittery and ears playing the tunes of violin. Though my body did not have to go through what theirs had to while dancing, my ears were definitely ringing. They had grown comfortable in that loud noise burst. They were demanding for more. Like a drug addict would demand for his stuff.

Late night errands for finding a room to stay

When we came out of the club finally, it was almost 3.30 at night. It was a big mistake not to pay attention to the need of booking a room earlier. Therefore the victims of our own foolishness, there we were, wandering on strange and unsafe streets of Atlantic City at the darkest hours!

All the places had 'No Vacancy' boards put up outside. The car was also parked at a far distance and thus we kept on walking. The streets and alleys were full of loafer type guys and girls. Many of them high on something much more powerful than alcohol. Men gathered around nude dance clubs. People stoned and lying on footpath. A girl comes to us and offers a room and tries to make 'an indecent proposal' too. We swiftly move ahead and luckily spotted a motel which looked pretty decent. The guy at the reception was an Indian. Initially quite stubborn, he finally gave in and agreed to give us a two-bed room. Finally the hunt ended and we slumped on beds and without realizing, drifted to sleep in a moment.

Bally's Casino - Try your luck, but I will make sure you never win

The wise have said. An average man never walks out of a casino with more money than he entered. Chances of coming out with same amount of money are as slim. We entered this Bally's casino. What we see defies imagination. Extravagantly ornate halls. Multitudes of Slot machines. Hundreds of tables of Poker, Blackjack, Roulette and Wheel of Fortune and so on. We see happy faces and sad faces. Some tables have roars of the victorious. Some have low moans of the loser.

Gambling is an art. It's not about how well you play. It's about when you stop playing. Because in the long run, almost everyone ends up losing. One friend who was with us had a very nice explanation. It's very simple. The more you risk the more your chances of winning big. The casinos have unlimited supply of money. We do not. They are willing to risk what we can not even imagine. Therefore if you continue to play at some table, even if you are riding high on your luck initially, you will end up losing at some point of time. And that blow will be a lot heavier than what you have earned.

I didn't want to try anything heavy. I have full confidence on my luck. It does not click when expected. Thus I tried something simple and with low bets. I put my money on Wheel of Fortune. It follows the 'Bell curve'. My money grows, reaches highest point and I start loosing. The bell curve is not satisfied at touching the horizontal axes. It dips even further. I lose all my money. Plain and simple rule. You win, win, win and lose everything. I am glad I restricted myself to a very small amount and considered it not as a gamble but more like a game fee. (I know it is euphemism! But it doesn't pain much to say you paid entry fee for some game as it does to say you lost in gambling.) I also tried my hand with a few dollars at a game called Keno. We Indians call it Housey. The numbers which claimed to be my friends, all my lucky numbers turned hostile and I lost money there too. My loss of 17 dollars in total looked minuscule in comparison to other guys who lost in three figure numbers.

The run to hunt down luck ended in a while and we finally exited the casino before further damage to our pockets.

I can't help become a little philosophical at the end. Why don't people ever think that a 25 dollar minimum bet at Roulette can buy a day's meal for a hungry family. A 100 dollar bet on a Poker table can save someone's life in an emergency room. There are people who have more than they can spend. There are people on the other extreme of the economical spectrum who can hardly save for their second meal of the day. But honestly I also didn't have this conscientious thought while I put my money on a wheel of fortune. Can I blame other people? Aren't we all the same?

P.S.
I have not taken any of these photographs. And they are just here to visually enhance my post!

[Image sources:
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