New York State of Mind

To, this last weekend...

2009-01-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

Skyline seems to disappear
When your lonely in New York
Sidewalks don’t lead anywhere
When your lonely in New York

Rush hour traffic not a soul around
The echo of your heart beat makes the only sound
Broadway is a dead end street
When your lonely in New York

Rockefeller Center doesn’t rock
When your lonely in New York
Central Park just a parking lot
When your lonely in New York

The lady with the torch is your one and only friend
In the city that never sleeps your nightmare never ends
You'd trade Manhattan for a string of beads
When your lonely in New York

Rockefeller Center doesn’t rock
When your lonely in New York
Ooh, Central Park just a parking lot
When your lonely in New York

The lady with the torch is your one and only friend
In the city that never sleeps your nightmare never ends
You'd trade Manhattan for a string of beads
When your lonely in New York

I said you'd trade Manhattan for a string of beads
When your lonely in New York

Santa day!

2009-01-14T05:49:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and it was still here. Established: it wasn't a sweet lull of dreams...
I got back to my apartment last night on toes; all set to crash and hit the hay. The light in the pathway was switched on...I made a mental note to be more cautious with switching off the lights before I leave in the morning.
The still recovering from jet-lag zombie in me despite of all the stress and hard-to-dodge-numbness somehow was full on with making whimsical attempts at the ‘buried deep down for some time now’ wishings ..
'How terrific it would be if someone was here before me...to light up the pathway for me...to even leave a trifling surprise (or a significantly large one I don’t mind) planted inside...’
And whoa!
Right on my center table, I see this...a beautiful edible arrangement!
Wow! I did not know my cynicism to the ever prevalent ritual of exchanging bouquets would outreach my presence. Instead of those blood red roses with a superficially coated sensuous feel and an extremely loud message, I had strawberries and grapes and flowers cut out of various fruits in all possible configurations. This appeared from nowhere and it was what I wished!
Whimsy me wished it had wished for something more...
Did I mention that on a team dinner last night, the restaurant people sang me a birthday song and lit up a candle on my tiramisu cheesecake? Oh yes, out of seven of us, they chose me.

P.S. It was not my birthday yesterday, it’s not for nothing I call it the Santa day! :)

Back but with a bang!?

2009-01-12T02:23:00.000-08:00

This time around and now on, I am going to write up as it comes to me, without pretense, without modifications or mutations and most importantly, without holding back.
So, in almost 15 days, I am back...to the US...to this superlative state of New York.
Pandora is back as well...
And it doesn't stop to play situational songs for me...

On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America

However, there's something eerie about this stay...I am not feeling good inside. I cried my eyes out before leaving home this time and that was a huge first in four and a half years of staying away from home...
I was staggered...for the tears gave away the absence of jazz in the many tunes reverberating in my heart...the mellowing down of all the excitement the mere mention of NY fluttered.
The rationale could be many or none...the weather here isn't going to be a sturdy companion through my (tentative) three month stay...

Talking of companions...the highlight of my last stay here would be three people...yeah, it's a first again and a stamp of my resolution of not holding back...I am mentioning people on my page!
So, yes, talking of companions, I have for long now, comprehended that I can be by myself for at max three days...I can pamper myself with all the skincare wares on day-1, catch up on my reading/ movies on day-2, laze around, sleep, blog hop etcetera...but by day-4, I crave for company, I seriously do…I can't put off my need of human connection for long, oh yes! the wannabe loner in me (has to be contradicting, me a Geminii) acknowledges it as a ‘need’! Huge again!
The aforementioned highlighted company is all dispersed...and bhai is moving to Chicago on Saturday...
The idea of being stranded in a freezing land isn't really very inviting.
When I was leaving home, it appeared like I was being sucked in a whirlwind into some distant land. I was suddenly petrified...that there will be an ocean put in between me and mine...that I am leaving for nothing and am not staying for everything.
It was strange and unheralded but true to the word true!

Home, don't it seem so far away
Oh, we're travelling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm

To mark my fears in bold, I had the most courteous of welcomes one would expect after traveling for 23 straight hours! The sonofa&*() corp. service people didn't leave me a key when I had informed them of my arrival fairly in advance...at 2 am, I had no apartment, a tired me with a beaten spirit, my luggage and nowhere to go...not even a damn couch to lay on...t'was snowing outside and there weren't any cabs! Finally a cab came, overcharged me and I checked in at the Marriott at 5 am!
Pissed pissed and totally pissed!
The signs aren't amiable but I hope my apprehensive self is defeated and the stay as well as work here goes down on happy memory pages!

Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

I hope.

I wish for magic, I do

2008-12-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

Pasty white clouds above us, wrapping us,
Shielding us from the unseen, unpredictable
Whitish snow underneath us, alongside us, all over us
Mingling itself with the quietude we share

Snowflakes, which make me shiver,
Which make me tremble, which make me cold
Snowflakes, but for us,
A promise of warmth they hold

Softening between us…becoming sublime
Dissolving in itself the passion of the time
Melting with the fire that so much glows our spirits
Salvaging its manifestation again
Transforming into the purest symbol of our union

White is serene. White is tranquil,
White is chaste, White is divine
Competently it articulates, aptly it defines
The fervor, the ardor, the communion
Between your soul and mine

No colors but that of your eyes
No linen but that of your skin
No music but that of your gasps
No blanket but that of your warmth

No walls around, No roof over,
No precincts, No boundaries
Not a worldly object to remind
The tribulations of being human
And not so mystically divine

The scorching coldness I feel around
The sweaty aridness carried by the clouds
Admirably they associate with the blissful pain
That traverses from your being to mine

Fingers entwined, limbs intermingled,
Lips locked, souls connected
The perfect us, the absolute aura,
A complete convergence
Of space, essence and time.

Why walk when you can fly...

2008-12-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

In this world there's a whole lot of trouble, baby
In this world there's a whole lot of pain
In this world there's a whole lot of trouble
But a whole lot of ground to gain
Why take when you could be giving, why watch as the world goes by
It's a hard enough life to be living, why walk when you can fly

In this world there's a whole lot of sorrow
In this world there's a whole lot of shame
In this world there's a whole lot of sorrow
And a whole lotta ground to gain
When you spend your whole life wishing, wanting and wondering why
It's a long enough life to be living, why walk when you can fly

In this world there's a whole lot of cold
In this world there's a whole lot of blame
In this world you've a soul for a compass
And a heart for a pair of wings
There's a star on the far horizon, rising bright in an azure sky
For the rest of the time that you're given, why walk when you can fly

~ Mary Chapin

Of love songs and melodies...

2008-12-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

Cynic and distant when it comes to the idea of conventional ‘love’ shared between conventional ‘lovers’ I don’t know when and how I got hooked on to Marc Anthony’s ‘you sang to me ‘and my playlists have never been the same. Gone are the rapidly changing top-25, in fact gone is the all-day running application of i-tunes ... I am suddenly all hooked on to Pandora. All my radio stations are parallel to the likes of Marc Anthony, Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban, Jim Croce, Brad Paisley…and what has taken me by surprise is that I can no more uphold my cynicism and mock what they have woven in their melodies. I am rather moved. Yes, moved. Moved at the thought that someone could mean so much, and that it can all be meant to sound genuine, that I am using the word genuine…

“I've read somewhere statistics show

The man's always the first to go

And that makes sense 'cause I know she won't be ready

So when it finally comes my time

And I get to the other side

I'll find myself a bench, if they've got any

I hope she takes her time, 'cause I don't mind

Waitin' on a woman.”

And this is just an example…

No one has ever written anything for me…I am not even going onto the realms of dedicating a self-composed song…

I can go on to say as much that who needs anyone when you have Pandora…an awesome music station site which takes care of all my likes and dislikes…remembers them, nudges me to see if I am loving what its playing…and even probes me to see if I’m still listening…

Who needs anyone when all these wonderful lovely men in their deep husky voices can sing right into my ear, all day, anywhere, everywhere…

“Girl, I live off how you make me feel
So I question all this being real
'Cause I'm not afraid to love
For the first time I'm not afraid of love
Oh, this day seems made for you and me
And you showed me what life needs to be
Yeah, you sang to me, oh you sang to me”

I have a feeling and its sinking...

I can live in denial but I can’t stay there. Not for long, not forever…

A Lovely New York Morning

2008-11-20T05:15:00.000-08:00

Self and The City

2008-11-08T13:33:00.001-08:00

The 15 hour flight didn’t do, first four days of living in White Plains didn’t do, looking around pretty fair faces didn’t do…none of it helped me make believe that it has happened. That I am here.

Four days in Ney York, working at an office in White Plains, falling in love with the myriad tree colors, bloody red to suave greens to yellows and blends of oranges…fall colors…losing my senses to nature and ceaselessly saluting it…

So much beauty around…I can’t stop smiling…I can’t not feel in love…I can’t help reiterating it…

The place I always wanted to come to, to work, to live, to stay, to roam around, to run away, to start afresh, and to begin something, to lose myself and find my real self…

The parallel world I have always dreamt of and the parallel life I never ceased to live, yes, I made my love known once, I have found it now.

New York City!

Friday morning, running in an overcoat wearing stilettos and taking a subway and getting down at the grand central station…with a huge United States flag hanging from the ceiling and people all around moving, going to work, the first time it struck me…I am living in New York.

The metro thereafter to State Street, an office space on 28^th floor in Manhattan with a window view encompassing the Jersey skyline, Staten Island, ferry’s oscillating to-and-fro and the lady of liberty standing tall amidst it all…that’s when it totally struck me…I am working in New York!

And ever since the realization, more of those and some revelations...

Pieces of my mind and heart, in an all together different state, would be served here!