Tourist

New York is filled with tourists at the moment. It is a long weekend, after all. I’m staying in, as I have for most long weekends this year. I haven’t yet adapted to this city’s habit of leaving the place to outsiders during holidays. Besides, this is the weekend before I leave for India for a short holiday. A wedding in the family, you see. Fortunately, not my own, so I look forward to the food.

I’ve spent the last two days walking about town, popping in and out of trains, accumulating a growing pile of gifts in the process. As I’m stopped now and then and asked for directions, I realize with a start that I’ve lived here for over a year now, and can actually give directions.

When I give the matter further thought, there are plenty of other signs of my having made inroads into becoming a New Yorker. I now know instinctively in which direction a train’s doors will open, an event that used to fill me with anxiety and complete surprise before. Not only have I gotten over my initial frustration at having to shop at multiple places for all the things one needs – other Americans have malls to go to for their odds and ends; New York has a mall, but as far as I know, no native New Yorker actually shops there – I’ve actually come to like it. The knowledge of where to go for what was one I’d feared I’d never master. But now, I have my own little system, not necessarily the same as that of other New Yorkers, but it’s the fact that I have a system at all that counts. Where one buys Jasmine Tea is very different from where one buys Indian Chai, and one does not buy pants from store A and no one ever buys shirts from the store where you get the pants, and there’s an entirely different set of stores for coats and shoes (broken down by the type of coat or pair of shoes one’s in the market for), and there is a right side for every elevator ride depending on what one plans to do while riding said elevator. A grown man in full Superman costume, red cowboy boots and a white cowboy hat passed me on the road today. A sight that would’ve stopped me dead in my tracks a year ago doesn’t even make me pause now. I kept walking, with just a passing thought, wondering where a man would go to get red cowboy boots in the city. And of course, one avoids areas around Herald Sq. and Times Sq. at all costs during holiday weekends. They’re filled with tourists, you see.

All my life, I’ve moved to a new city roughly every three years, and adapting to a new life is something I should be used to by now. But I doubt that I’ll take to it. I was warned off about New York by plenty of friends, even the ones who liked me, and the city. It gets too cold, too windy, too dull and depressing when it rains, they said. You’ve to keep walking, and fast. No matter what romantic notions you have in your head about this city, you will eventually settle down to a boring routine – work, sleep, TV, laundry, and groceries. I’ve found all of this to be true.

But, and c’mon, you knew there was going to be a ‘but’, I’ve taken to it all with a rather cheerful enthusiasm, I think. I’m not sure when exactly a strange place starts feeling like home. When the local politics isn’t gibberish any more? When you learn to curse the “sick passenger in Grand Central” who’s holding up all trains in your direction rather than feel sorry for this poor sod? When you learn to be proud of your pairs of pretty but essentially un-wearable shoes, and slightly sheepish about those other infinitely more comfortable pairs of shoes (“they’re my walking shoes, you see”)? Not really.

I think the precise moment when a city feels like home is when you experience a minor panic attack at the prospect of leaving it for more than a couple of days. I leave next Saturday, and it’s already starting to impact my life in those tiny, but significantly annoying ways. I’ve film festival tickets to buy, and they go on sale Sunday – as always, everything happens exactly the day after you leave home on a long visit to anywhere. The Walter Reade Theater which’s been closed for renovations for the last few days is going to open this week, and will no doubt have fabulous movies when am gone (I refuse to check and have my heart broken), fall television season will have started, including a whole bunch of new shows that I will probably not understand a word of because I’d have missed vital pilots… Heck, for all I know, subway rides will have become more expensive and the effin’ leaves on trees will have changed color.

Yes, all of this sounds pathetic, even I realize that. And I know this because a few years ago, I felt exactly the same way about Madras. The city would get miraculously cooler, rare Oscar winning movies would be released in theaters that normally featured the latest Ramarajan oeuvre, friends who did absolutely nothing all year would decide to do fun things together – a thousand reinforcements of how crazy you were to ever dream of leaving the city, especially at that time!

And there’s the fear that someday, I’ll have to leave this city for good. Goodness knows I’ve a history for leaving places. The day I moved to New York, all “good Tamil boys” apparently up and left for California, at least according to my family. There’s been an overt and covert campaign at making me friendlier towards males in the West Coast. I’ve nothing against good Tamil boys, but do admit to a newly minted New Yorker’s instinctive lack of enthusiasm for a place where you need a car to survive. People from all sorts of cultures, when they decide to find a mate, usually start with people from the same geographic vicinity as themselves. Indian females, on the other hand, must be prepared to move to the ends of the world for a “good match”. Of course, all of these irrational fears might come to nothing – I might get fired, and then will have to move, just to put food on the table. Or the INS might decide to kick me out. I worry about all of that too, being an equal opportunity disaster neurotic.

But for now, I suppose I’m going to have to make the best of things. After all, there are some things to look forward to. Given my longer stay this time, I can do the idiot tourist act in Madras. I can insist on visiting the line of samadhis at the beach, and complain about noisy crowds at the theater, and ask for the rest of my coffee (have you seen the portion sizes in Madras? Are they kidding us?). And on my return I can boast of having eaten the best, most authentic South Indian food there is, and further solidify my already unchallenged Tamil authority (unchallenged of course, because the group is composed of one Eastern European, one Anglo-Sri Lankan, one Chinese American, one Argentinean and one Bengali).

Oh well, I’ll be back soon enough, back to this city filled with people who carry idealized images of mythical homelands, places in which they actually feel like tourists during their periodic pilgrimage. On September 22, I’ll be home, provided, of course, the gods of JFK are in the mood to be kind to a home-sick New Yorker.

Written By DoZ in My Life on September 3rd, 2007

Comments (10 comments)

[...] the Webmaster Tourist » This Summary is from an article posted at +: etcetera :+ on Monday, September 03, 2007 This [...]

University Update - West 8 - Tourist / September 3rd, 2007, 1:59 am / #

Brilliantly written. (A few choice puns on written and return flash before my mind’s eye. I resist)

Ravages / September 3rd, 2007, 5:22 am / #

Nicely written! I really like the part of metro doors ;) I too took some time to get used to it ….

Shubham / September 4th, 2007, 10:38 am / #

I live close enough to NYC - perhaps forty minutes (at most) by train. I don’t consider myself a New Yorker (rather, a Jersyian) but I’ve always been comforted by the thought that it’s only a train ride away. It’s a trip I can make on a whim and still enjoy myself. I wouldn’t like living in NYC but I wouldn’t like being too far away from it either. It’s a comforting companion. :)

Enjoy your upcoming trip!

-Came via Desipundit

Vi / September 4th, 2007, 9:57 pm / #

Its the only city in the world people love so much before they even get there, truly the capital of the world.

Sri / September 4th, 2007, 11:17 pm / #

i agree with sri and i am one of those people, so reading this made me want to feel the way you’re feeling in a few years time. also until i got to the part about the tamil boys i thought you were a boy. its always interesting how we decide the gender of the author and then are surprised to find out we’re wrong.

Pri / September 6th, 2007, 1:34 am / #

Have a fun trip. NYC will be the same when you return - dirty and fun to be in, we guarantee. (We = the tourists from nearby states.)

Deepa / September 12th, 2007, 10:48 pm / #

Hi. Looks like we live in the same city and have very similar interests, and thoughts. :-)

Wanderstruck / September 13th, 2007, 10:15 pm / #

I am enthralled.

I / September 15th, 2007, 10:25 am / #

Vijay - whose comment was the first non-spam comment we deleted on this blog - you crossed a line there. I’m sure you know why…

Karthik / September 15th, 2007, 10:32 am / #

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