Ahem, I meant metro sexual! After a gap of few years I returned to NYC, it's one of that cities that immediately gives me a feeling of being at home, I get that when I am in Mumbai too! I know you are thinking it's the love of the stench or rats or people or all of it, but the other cities that gave me that feeling were London to some extent and Tokyo, Tokyo even had a banner saying welcome back, and Tokyo is very clean. May be it's got something to do with lots of people being packed into an old mass transit system or may be just the energy of people desperately trying to ignore each other. Cities like Delhi do not have that, there you get the constant feeling that no one is ignoring you, many are judging you and the most are trying to think of ways of screwing you.
Anyway moving back to one of the greatest cities that believe in letting you live your life. NYC is always cutting edge as far as US is concerned and when you see its buildings, people, infrastructure you can very easily attach superlatives like tallest, smelliest, most crowded, most fashionable, richest, costliest, weirdest, etc,. I came in on a cold snow-covered Sunday into JFK and took a taxi to Jersey City, the ride to Manhattan took 25 minutes (about 20 miles) and last 5 miles of city and tunnel took 45 more minutes. The taxi driver an elderly American broke every written and unwritten rule to get me to my hotel, maybe that's another link to the 'home' cities …mad cabbies!
I love walking through the streets of the city and watching the sheer wealth and power hidden in those buildings, walking through the Times Square which they have now completely made a tourist attraction with chairs, elevated platforms and HD displays. The other place that I love walking through is under the constellations of the grand central station, its New York cheese cake serving concourse and of course the fifth avenue it gives you the pulse of the fashion, changing times and unchanging times all at once. The unchanging ones are the Rockefeller Center ice rink, Saks on fifth, the string of designer shops, Crowne Plaza Hotel at the base of Central park and the changing ones like the arrival of upstart jewelers, Best-buy and the ownership of Crowne Plaza hotel. My favorite buildings on the fifth are the St. Patrick's cathedral, the crown building (home of playboy) and now the glass cube of the apple store.
The thing that struck me this time was the overall impression left by the New Yorkers, not the tourist or new migrants is that they have started to look more feminine. The briefcases have become hand bags, the umbrella styles, the high strung twangy girly speech that you see on so many TV shows.... It's reality. The clothes are too fashionable ... body contoured shirts, jackets trousers 'slim look' as they are known. The other thing is everyone’s carrying a brown paper bag at all times... not sure it’s for snack or panic attacks though and well women, fortunately are looking even more feminine, I wish the Indian ladies would take some hints on that :)
I saw a similar trend in Tokyo too, it's like the big city men are frustrated with fashion being a feminine word and are getting back with their own versions of it. With the guys wearing layers of colorful clothing, sporting hats, chains on their belts, clutch type wallets and the works. In US the music and pop culture is not helping either the rock music, metal and grunge are gone , all we hear now are Katy Perry with Snoop Dogg doing a feat in California girls and Akon singing in his not so masculine voice, the only male amongst them seems to be the ironically named Lady Gaga! Hollywood too has been left in the arms of ageing Denzil Washington to stop trains, while rest of it is stuck on asexual aliens, rom-coms, and all other comedy is relegated to booze infused men caught in some sort of overtly gay situations.
With the much prophesied end of the world next year we will seemingly be left with women, some more so than the others. How will New York survive?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Lady luck Shines!
I know the title will cause a stir but let me get the story out first then decide where it stands. I have always believed that life has a sense of humor and it just needs a bit of observation and interpretation to see it. Or maybe it's just that one needs a sense of humor to see life in a different light. I personally go with the first as I strongly believe a meta-intelligence is in operation, not necessarily cognizant or caring for the individual but in operation nevertheless. Well you are reading my blog so you might as well go with this conspiracy theory for now!
Coming back to the story, it begins with my monthly astrological outlook for Jan/Feb; the forecast claimed that it would be a string of 'hot' dates literally for the single, especially with love and social parts of my chart being lit up by like Diwali! Oooh! It even ventured to say that after a very difficult couple of years things were on easy street with all guns firing in the right way (of course), I had goose-bumps just thinking about it!
Finally the lady luck shines! May be the stars will make me look cooler probably like a rock start to the ladies (may have watched too many axe ads); so as prophesized the year starts with a bang, I tag along with a buddy for a new year’s party, it's a kind of party that one has heard off from a friend who knows a friend who got invited! So armed with my powerful star power I walk in almost with a swagger and a strut... new player in town! And as one would have it it was an amazing party with girls, music and booze right out of a Bollywood set. The ladies were dancing to the bollywood numbers and the guys watching in a stupor, good start is what I thought … maybe my swagger will score next time.
The forecast continued with more blistering dates being highlighted and dates where I would be pampered and so on. Lovely I thought and kept the swagger on and the sequence continued, got cute hairdresser to cut my hair, a mind blowing masseuse, dropped several grand in shopping for trousers, shirts, shoes, couple of more good parties happened. Had friends visiting from distant lands and even undertook trips to not so distant lands.
The forecasts continued into February and I found myself hosting relatives, but those were the good kind the ones that thought that since I was single and living alone I deserve to be fed on good home cooked meals (which they cooked) and fattened up, yum! I even hosted couple of 'nice' (understatement used to avoid embarrassing them) lady friends who also decided I need to be fed! Yeah I know' tell me about it.
With Feb moving into March it got me thinking and it finally sunk in that I was being played on by the stars, social meant friends & relatives not wild parties, pampered so long as I pay for it, hot meant I will get to ‘see’ action in the literal sense of the word. To cut the pain short the lady luck came at a price and these days I can't blame my stars for sending a bill along with their services! More importantly the words lady luck meant just that, my mistake of associating more meanings to them!
Coming back to the story, it begins with my monthly astrological outlook for Jan/Feb; the forecast claimed that it would be a string of 'hot' dates literally for the single, especially with love and social parts of my chart being lit up by like Diwali! Oooh! It even ventured to say that after a very difficult couple of years things were on easy street with all guns firing in the right way (of course), I had goose-bumps just thinking about it!
Finally the lady luck shines! May be the stars will make me look cooler probably like a rock start to the ladies (may have watched too many axe ads); so as prophesized the year starts with a bang, I tag along with a buddy for a new year’s party, it's a kind of party that one has heard off from a friend who knows a friend who got invited! So armed with my powerful star power I walk in almost with a swagger and a strut... new player in town! And as one would have it it was an amazing party with girls, music and booze right out of a Bollywood set. The ladies were dancing to the bollywood numbers and the guys watching in a stupor, good start is what I thought … maybe my swagger will score next time.
The forecast continued with more blistering dates being highlighted and dates where I would be pampered and so on. Lovely I thought and kept the swagger on and the sequence continued, got cute hairdresser to cut my hair, a mind blowing masseuse, dropped several grand in shopping for trousers, shirts, shoes, couple of more good parties happened. Had friends visiting from distant lands and even undertook trips to not so distant lands.
The forecasts continued into February and I found myself hosting relatives, but those were the good kind the ones that thought that since I was single and living alone I deserve to be fed on good home cooked meals (which they cooked) and fattened up, yum! I even hosted couple of 'nice' (understatement used to avoid embarrassing them) lady friends who also decided I need to be fed! Yeah I know' tell me about it.
With Feb moving into March it got me thinking and it finally sunk in that I was being played on by the stars, social meant friends & relatives not wild parties, pampered so long as I pay for it, hot meant I will get to ‘see’ action in the literal sense of the word. To cut the pain short the lady luck came at a price and these days I can't blame my stars for sending a bill along with their services! More importantly the words lady luck meant just that, my mistake of associating more meanings to them!
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