Les Amis

It has been more than 3 months in America and personally a lot has changed for me. The biggest change has been my circle of friends. My closest friends in life are people who think more or less in the same way that I do and have kind of a similar approach towards life.

Now, for a change, I am around with people who have a completely different take on things in life around me. 5 of us staying together in the same apartment with a lifestyle completely different from one another, sharing very different opinions and having a very different persona.

Initially, I was a bit skeptical about how things are going to work and are we really going to have a good time together? Now, when I look back at these 3 months, I think we've gelled together quite well. Each of us has a very different nature and has brought something unique into the group. There is liveliness all the time. The variety is so vivid that there are people who stay awake in the night till 6 and then there are the ones who wake up in the morning at 6.

I feel it's good to have people with different approaches about the same thing around. It's like if you are in troubled times in life, you need friends who will keep assuring 'There will be a brighter day' and give you some hope where there seems none around. On the other hand, you also would like friends who would shout at you and say 'What the hell are you doing with you life? Stop cribbing and start working. Why do you need lady luck to help you?'

Both approaches above are effective in their own way and we need both of them!

Back to the original topic, would it have been better to have similar thinking friends? The answer is, 'I don't know'. At times, it is good that people cannot read my face.It is good that I can keep some of my happiness and pain to myself. It would have been freakish if friends around me all the time would figure me out completely. But, sometimes you feel that your friends should figure out what you want to say without you actually saying things. There is always a trade-off.

This is just the beginning. At the end of 2 years, it might be a completely different blogpost. Time will tell.

The Big Apple

A week ago, when I went to New York, the first thing that I noticed after two months of staying in DC is the change in ‘Pace’. This change was refreshing! ‘Pace’ was the thing that was missing from my life for a while now and ‘Pace’ is the thing that is certainly missing from Washington DC. DC gives you a feel of living in a Mid-Sized town and the part where I live gives a feel of life in a village; a village with 24 hours electricity.

New York is in many ways like Mumbai city. The traffic problem, the parking place crunch, the beggars in the train, streets crowded with people; more interestingly it has the potholes, filthy streets, the street food, the bargain shopping streets et all. The metro is city’s lifeline and the only way to reach any place in time.
If Mumbai is the place where people from all over India come together and settle down, New York is the place where people from all over the world come and settle down. You will find restaurants serving almost all cuisines of the world. An Ethiopian joint which I went to served good food. Like Mumbai, different areas have a different feel to It.

You can distinguish Manhattan from Bronx in the same way that you can distinguish South Mumbai from Thane. In Mumbai, once you cross the Vashi Bridge, you realize the change instantly. You realize it’s not Mumbai anymore. Same thing happens when you cross George Washington Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel to go to New Jersey. Now, New Jersey is another big modern village.

Like Mumbai, this city has no room for expansion. No matter how far away from the city you live, you have to take the morning local to town. The peak time traffic in New York is as bad as in Mumbai, if not worse. Except the peak times are a bit different. Morning 7 to 9 is the peak time here, whereas in Mumbai, it’s usually 8.30 to 10.30. The metro works 24*7, no respite.

At 4 in the morning, there are people on the street. The Starbucks is open, the city feels safe. The New York city metro is quite unattractive than the metros in other cities. The metro stations look like jails with all the barricades and stuff. Like Mumbai has a National Park, New York has Central Park. The difference is that Central Park is bang in the middle of the city and 100 times well maintained. It’s amazing that such a wonderful thing survived this concrete jungle.

People walking on the streets, such a rare sight in US; yet is such a common sight in New York. The parking taxes are towing fees are so high that people prefer to park their cars in the last stop of New Jersey and come across the Hudson river using public transport. From here, all of Manhattan is walking distance away.
The PENN Station resembles a lot to CST where both long distance and short distance trains meet. Just outside is the Times Square which was showing some match on the huge screen. Like Mumbai, this city looks brilliant at Night from the Aircraft. The Manhattan skyline is simply brilliant from the Jersey City side.
I am going to visit this city more often! Gives me the feel of Aamchi Mumbai!

Unfortunately, I don't have the photos of New York to upload. I'll do that after I have enough money to save and buy a camera!

The Madness...

On the way to New York, I was sitting besides a psychiatrist. I always thought that they are the kind of people who must hate their job. After seeing so many crazy people everyday and dealing with them, who wouldn't? But, like most other Americans, he enjoyed his job.

I had a nice discussion with him during the journey and got to know lot of interesting things. He said that most people become mad as they cannot achieve what they want in their lives. Or rather, they would not accept who they are or what they have become. It can happen to anybody who finds it difficult to digest failure (or rather be jealous of the success of others).

After this, I was curious and asked him how people who seem to lead a perfectly normal life turn wierd all of a sudden. He said the process of getting mad is similar to the thing that happens when people get drunk. When people get high, the part of the brain that regulates what you speak mellows down and you begin speaking what you really wanna speak, without filtering it.

Similar thing happens when you become mad. The difference is that when you are drunk, you get back to normalcy within a few hours, it's not the same when you turn mad. It's very difficult to come back to the state of normalcy for them. The worst part is no medicine can bring your brain back to normal, you yourself have to work your way out of it. Medicines can only temporarily put you to sleep or mellow you down, but not change anything. It is like taking painkiller, the pain is still there, just that you don't feel it. There is no standard way to bring things to normal, different things work out for different people.

He talked about some weird people that he treated. He had a patient who used to be normal all day and turn mad after 10 in the night. Some people turn mad when the come across a particular person or see a particular color or object. These are the type of people who are the most difficult to treat. Their brains are wired to think in a particular way. They have to be taught to unlearn that, which is very difficult. People are a lot more reluctant to change rather than they seem to be.

He says, the best part about his job is that a lot of people come back happily to him and thank him for bringing them to normalcy. According to him, a lot of doctors in other fields do not get credit for the job they do. People visit them in times of sickness and when they get well, there is no acknowledgement.

His happiness lies in the fact that he has brought lives of numerous people back to normalcy!