Life in Virginia

Just like I kept telling everyone who would listen for the past five years that I was living in New York City, I tell people now that I live in Washington, D.C. But for the last five years, I was actually living in New Jersey and similarly now, the state that I am actually living in is Virginia.

The similarity pretty much ends there. Life in Falls Church, Virginia and Newark, New Jersey are as different as Washington D.C. and New York City. New York, as I mentioned earlier, is crowded, chaotic and full of towering glass skyscrapers. Washington, on the other hand is empty most of the time, with old European style large squat stone buildings. In New York the subway is complex and ugly, the D.C. Metro is simple and beautiful to look at. In New York the museums, zoo and botanical garden are huge and  they cost a lot to see. In D.C. the same things are compact and free, while housing almost similar-sized collections. In New York you would find it difficult to walk ten blocks away from the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree during the last week of the year. In D.C. you can park your car a block away from the National Christmas Tree on Christmas eve. Of course, the New York tree, as all things in New York are, is over twice as tall as the D.C. one. However, this post is not about comparing these two cities; we can do that another day. This post is about life in Falls Church and how it differs from life in Newark.

The National Christmas Tree. Now compare it to this.

The biggest difference between Newark and pretty much any other place is, to put it simply, that the other place is not Newark. What it means is you can venture out alone at night without the certainty of getting robbed, you can keep your car anywhere with valuable stuff in it without the certainty of it being broken into, and you can drive in the relaxed mode without the certainty of being honked at.

Although I lived in a relatively empty part of Newark, the New York metropolitan area is mostly crowded. Also, the buildings are mostly old, and the roads (except the major ones) are narrow with one or two lanes in most places. Virginia is relatively empty, with a lot of new construction and many roads having three to five lanes. At least that's what I see in the places that I go to most of the time. The most pleasant surprise was the ease of driving to Washington from Falls Church as opposed to driving to New York from Newark. Although I did not drive either of these routes myself, I have been in the car, and the drive to New York from Newark is a nightmare of traffic jams and tolls while the drive to Washington is just a half hour pleasant drive. Without any toll.

It would be unfair to say Newark was all bad, of course. The thing that I miss most here is the absence of the light rail system right up to my house or university, and the lack of any shops to speak of within easy walking distance. For the last five years, I had avoided driving completely because I hardly ever needed it. Here I would not survive a week without a car. I have to drive to work every morning, drive to get my groceries, to get my phone fixed, to go to the mall, to the DMV, to see a movie, to Walmart or IKEA, and to go to pretty much anybody's house. People living in the US for some time won't find this unusual at all, but for me, this is a somewhat new experience.

Which brings me to the issue of driving.

Some readers of this blog may be unaware of the fact that I bought a car earlier this year, though it is unlikely considering that each of the four readers were informed of this bit of news by other channels of communication. Actually around this time last year, I started learning to drive which resulted in me finally getting a driving license in March. I immediately started looking for a car so that I would not forget how to drive. I wanted a car good enough to drive my parents around when they arrived in May, yet cheap enough that I would not mind reselling at a throw away price if I had to relocate to the other side of the country in a hurry. What I found was an old Toyota Camry whose age in hours was slightly more than its price in cents and significantly more than the number of miles it had run. I have been driving it around ever since, and hopefully getting better at driving with time. I drove it to Virginia from New Jersey last month, and I use it to go to work everyday. The reason I brought this up is because this is the most significant change in my life after coming to Virginia. Not only do I have to drive whenever I am going out, but also I am often the most aggressive driver on the road which is completely opposite of what used to happen in New Jersey. That does not mean I drive carelessly. I am just saying that when the light goes from red to green, usually I am the first person to move forward even after waiting for a second or two. In New Jersey you wait a second extra and you'll get honked at.

Finally, the apartment that I moved into has wall-to-wall carpeting. Again, this is no big deal for most people living in the US, but I have been living on hardwood flooring since 2008 and so I am now terrified of spilling liquids on the carpet. This means I have to devote quite some time to housecleaning every weekend which was very easy earlier. On the plus side, carpeting also means I can sleep on the living room floor occasionally when I am watching a movie on the living room desktop late in the night. I also have a balcony which is too cold these days but I assume it will be pleasant sitting there during the summer.

I am waiting for the summer because I want to go exploring all over Washington like I did with New York, and these days it is too cold for that. Besides, I have never had to clean snow and ice off the car in the previous winters. I had to do it twice this year, and I can already say I don't like the experience.

The Thing About New York

A few days ago, my cousin asked me whether there is one scene, a single image, that describes USA to me. He asked the question because one of his friends had said that the scene that comes to his mind when he thinks of America is a row of car lights on the highway, red on one side and white on the other. Something like this:

Disclaimer: I was not driving the truck from which this photo was taken. 

I wasn't so sure of the answer at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I converged on the single image that describes America to me. Not cars on the highway, not trees covered with orange leaves or snow covered houses. Not even Niagara or the Grand Canyon. It is the sight that took my breath away five years ago.

The Manhattan skyline.

Again, this photo was not taken while driving on Route 1

And as I was entering US Route 1 while driving to Virginia last Sunday, and the skyline loomed up in front of my windshield, I suddenly realized that I would not be seeing this sight regularly anymore. It is a sight which people from across the world come to see, a sight which I have become so used to during the last five years that I don't even notice it all the time. From now on when I see that sight, it will be as a visitor, not as a person who can call New York his own city.

Clearly, research leaves me with a lot of free time

But was New York ever my city? Strictly speaking, the answer is "No." I was a resident of Newark, New Jersey. New York City does not feature anywhere in the list of cities where I have ever lived. In fact, Newark is as much my city as Kolkata is. But in the last five years, with the law & order situation in Newark far from satisfactory, I have spent a lot more time walking around New York City than I have spent in Newark. Be it the Broadway, or Wall Street, or Brooklyn Bridge, or Central Park, I have really come to know a lot of Manhattan like the back of my hand. This familiarity, of course, came at a price. In my mind, New York City (or simply "the city" as we call it) became something like the sun or the moon or the tree in my backyard. Something that exists there, but something that I don't usually think about. Need to develop some film? Just drop into B&H. Some fresh fish at budget rates? Chinatown has the answer. Need crayons for my sister? Go spend a few hours in Pearl Paint. And then there was always the Borders or B&N stores to spend a lazy day at, if the weather was bad. One could also go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Americal Museum of Natural History. I even came to know the locations of specific exhibits in these museums by heart. Lunch? No problem! I know the best carts and a store where you can get an amazing Chinese lunch for $5. And if the weather is good, there is the Central Park. Take your camera, or take a book, or an mp3 player, and for a few hours you can forget that you are in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. I did all these activities all the time, and yet, I felt surprised when some friend from outside expressed envy at my geographic location, or the fact that I left college early to go buy some fish in New York. I felt puzzled when someone wanted to visit New York twice just to "see it," because living next to New York almost made me forget that it is one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

People at the Grand Central Terminal. Some people are busy and some are not.

I have no idea what was going on here

So what is the city like? I have been asked to write a blog on NYC several times, and I never did it, though I wrote blog posts about DC, Boston, Chicago and Las Vegas. At first sight, New York is not pleasant at all. A concrete jungle with sun-deprived alleyways perpetually in the shadow of skyscrapers, overcrowded, expensive and dirty (as my American-born nephew put it, "It smells like India"). People have no time for each other, they are always running. Cars jump stop signs, people jaywalk blatantly. In short, utterly chaotic. But then, as you get to know the back alleys of Brooklyn and the Bronx, the Egyptian Temple at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the people, the food carts, the parks, the quaint little coffee shops, the ceiling of the Grand Central Terminal, you see the real New York City. The city where seemingly busy people will still stop and pose for a photo, the city where in the middle of a thousand glaring neon signs you suddenly see a small banner saying "টাইমস স্কোয়্যারে স্বাগতম", the city where on certain days, traffic comes to a standstill due to photographers shooting the sunset. A city where you take a photo of a bird's nest, only to have a group of elderly birdwatchers swoop down upon you with all kinds of information about that bird species.

Seen in Central Park

Nothing can match the energy and grandeur of Kolkata during Durga Puja, but New York puts up a brave attempt during the Christmas week. The crowd around the huge Christmas trees at Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center is something that you rarely come across in this country. And on New Year's Eve, thousands brave sub-zero temperatures and bone-chilling winds to see the ball drop at Times Square. I haven't been part of the last mentioned madness, but when I see the rest of it, something somewhere, reminds me of Kolkata, where crowds gather for the smallest of reasons.

Wall Street on a winter day

Sometime, in these five years, unknowingly, New York City became my city. Kuntala calls New York a nest of lunatics. I feel at home among its multitudes of lunatics, because I know there is a fair bit of craziness inside me. I bristle when someone criticizes the city or its people. I have served as a NYC tourist guide for scores of friends, relatives and ultimately my parents, and showed them New York with the same pride that one associates with one's hometown. I would take them to the best viewpoints, at the best times, and then, when they were drinking in the visual treat in front of them, I would derive the ultimate joy from their awestruck expressions.

Sunset behind Liberty

Which brings us to the biggest reason why I loved New York City so much. Even after these five years, even after so much familiarity, New York City still surprises me on every visit. Each time I visit the city, I come across something --- a public art installation, a little shop that I had not seen before, a person dressed like a wizard, a gentleman walking a goat on a leash, a sign written in Bengali, a frozen fountain --- that surprises me. During my initial visits, the phenomenon was understandable, but it never stopped when the places became old and known to me, and I started stepping beyond the usual tourist traps. In fact, on my very first visit to the city I saw the aforementioned Bengali sign and on my very last visit I saw some amazing things inside the public library that I didn't know were there. New York has been throwing these surprises at me for the last five years, and I hope it won't stop.

Because although I have bid farewell to New York and moved to Virginia, which is in the suburb of Washington DC, I plan to keep visiting NYC whenever I get a chance. I really love surprises.

A Confused Birthday

You know you are growing old when you miss your own birthday by four days before you can write a post on growing old to mark the occasion. And as everyone knows, old age brings forgetfulness, confusion and each passing day makes the world a weirder place to live.

The weekend had gone well. Two days of festivities, with attending Durga Puja in the mornings and wonderful dinners followed by cultural programme in the evenings. I spent the nights at my cousin's house in Edison, since driving all the way to Newark from Plainfield seemed too much of a hassle. Then on Monday morning, I packed my things in my car and finally headed home. About an hour later, as I was nearing my house, I had this sudden urge to touch my phone.

A certain explanation is needed at this point about this urge. People who travel in crowded buses and trains in Kolkata know very well that unless they verify the existence of their valuables in their pockets every few minutes, the valuables are likely to vanish under their noses. This concern gives rise to the strange habit of feeling one's pockets every few minutes. Although some researchers suggest that this very habit helps in pointing out the locations of valuables on the victim's body to the pickpockets, I have always found it helpful. Even five years after I stopped commuting in Kolkata public transport, I still get these sudden urges to touch my wallet or my phone, and like all urges, they often come at a time when satisfying that urge is inconvenient.

On this day, this urge hit me as I was negotiating mid-day traffic on Route 21, and whatever feeling I could do without taking my eyes off the road told me that the phone was not with me. Since I had used the phone that morning, I had clearly left it behind in Edison. I focused on driving, fighting an urge to make a u-turn and head for Edison again. A quick calculation showed the cheapest way to get the phone back was to ask my cousin to bring it to office the next day where I could collect it from him. My heart screamed I could never live without my phone for a day, but my brain was able to convince me that it was just twenty-four hours, and I would still have the Internet on my laptop to communicate with the world.

So the first thing that I did on reaching home was mailing my sister-in-law to ask about the phone. She found it (in a walk-in-closet, if you must know) and switched it off as per my request. The next thing was explaining to the outside world this sudden loss of my phone, because although I would miss it for just twenty-four hours, they were not any twenty-four hours. It was Bijoya Dashami, the day when Bengalis all over the world call and visit each other to convey their regards and greetings. My parents would be expecting my call. And then, when the clock ticked past midnight, a bunch of friends would try to call me to say happy birthday. To complicate matters even more, half my friends were in India, so I would not have to wait till midnight to expect calls. So I sent a mail to my parents and sister explaining the situation and saying I would not be calling that night. I also put up a post on Facebook apologizing to everyone who tried to call me that day.

That night, I set up an appointment with my cousin about where I would meet him. I planned to meet the train he would be on, in Newark, and ride the same train into New York City. If I did not find him in the train, I would attempt to meet him at New York Penn Station. "Where should we meet each other? Do you have some landmark in mind?" he asked. I suggested in front of the Amtrak waiting room but he said it was too big. Then he suggested Dunkin Donuts, but I was opposed to that idea since there were several Dunkin Donuts stores in the station. Finally he decided on a store called Houlihan's. I agreed, because although I had not heard the name before, it would be easy to find since the name was unusual.

I was to remember this logic the next day when I was running around in New York Penn Station. For one full hour, I explored all three floors of the huge complex, discovered things that I didn't know were there for the last five years, and managed to make more than one policeman suspicious. I asked policemen, shopkeepers and janitors, but no one had heard of Houlihan's.

When the last gentleman I asked started asking around on my behalf whether anybody had heard of "Holy Sense," I decided it was time to change plans. So I gave up searching for Houlihan's and started looking for ways to call my cousin. Now, as the reader might recall, I had no phone, which was the reason for all this trouble. So naturally I had to look for public telephones. And finding a public telephone that works is another task that is really harder than it looks. After trying and rejecting four different telephones, the fifth one let me call my cousin for a dollar, though the writing on it clearly asked for half. When my cousin answered the call, the reason for all the confusion became clear.

"Actually, I made a mistake," he said sheepishly. "Houlihan's has closed down and has been replaced by T.G.I. Friday's. I didn't know that. So I waited for some time in front of that store and then came to the office."

The rest was easy. I went to his office and collected my cell phone, which allowed me to get in touch with the world once more. The battery, of course, didn't last the rest of the day, and since I was roaming around Central Park and Times Square until that evening, there was no scope for charging. That led to more confusions and communication problems towards the afternoon and evening, but this post is already too long and too late and too confusing to include that.

The Tom Cat's Song

I have been busy with a variety of things, so here's a stop-gap blog post with a translation of a Bengali poem by Sukumar Ray.

The Tom Cat's Song

~Sukumar Ray

Queer quiet night, deserted streets

Trees draped in black velvet sheets.

Under the banyan's tangled web dark

Fireflies light their flint-steel spark

The bushes all around are silent too

Let's sing, brother Tom, me and you.

Into your ear, my song let me yell,

Which songs are liked, allow me to tell-

At midnight, staining the eastern sky red,

A night-blind moon raises half-broken head.

Reminding me, near that pot there lay

A half-eaten cake since yesterday.

I run there at once, from afar I see,

One-eared Kitty on a lip-smacking spree.

With cake her chubby cheeks are stuffed,

My heartful of hope went up in a puff.

"Why live anymore?" my mind asks me

A conjurer's tricks, wherever I see.

Everything is ugly, empty to the root

The wife's face is but chimney soot.

Let's fill this heartbreaking grief in our throat

And sing Brother Tom, a heart-rending note.

(Translation by Sugata Banerji)

Close Encounters of the Newark Kind - 3

A sane person would probably expect that after the first two encounters with the nocturnal creatures of Newark,  I would be more careful when walking the streets at night. That sane person would be surprised to know that I had failed to learn a lesson and if anything, had become more careless. That's why the incident of 23rd January 2010 shook me up all the more.

That morning, I had gone to New York City to get my father's old film SLR camera repaired. Or maybe I had gone to collect that camera after being repaired - I do not remember exactly now. All I remember is, when I returned from New York that evening, I had two cameras with me. The film SLR in a small backpack and my one-year old DSLR in its black bag slung on my side. I, however, did not return home immediately. I deposited the two cameras at my friend Amrita's house, and accompanied Amrita and her husband Sumit to the housewarming party of a common friend. We returned from there around 10:00 p.m. There was snow on the road and a fifteen-minute walk to my house lay in front of me. I had the option of leaving the cameras at Amrita's house and walking home empty-handed, or carrying the valuable things with me. Can you guess which option I chose?

You are partly right. I left the backpack containing the age old film SLR behind and carried the new $1400 DSLR with me.

I was about two blocks away from my house; alert, watchful, and walking briskly with my small black camera bag slung over my right shoulder and hanging on the left side of my waist, when I saw the hooded figure approaching from the other side of the road.

He was a fair-skinned young boy - in his early twenties at most - wearing a hooded jacket and walking on the sidewalk across from me while talking on his cell phone, seemingly oblivious of his surroundings. My feelings went from alarm ("Is he a mugger?") to concern ("Is he alert enough to avoid getting mugged?") in the few seconds after I spotted him. Both emotions, as I would realize within moments, were completely unnecessary. When a car came along the road and stopped between him and me, he was the first to leap like a springbok and run like a gazelle the way he came. I was the one caught like a deer in the headlights, wondering what to do, because four men had come out of the car, and two of them were now headed towards me.

I was fifteen feet from them. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. "My camera!" I thought, "How do I save my camera?" That was apparently the only thing worth thinking about. My life came later.

Then everything happened very fast. I only know I had turned away from them and tried to run. Then either I stumbled, or I was pushed, or maybe I deliberately thought of lying down on my stomach, I cannot tell which. But an instant later, I was lying face down on the snow on an adjoining lawn screaming for help, and two men were on my side, holding me down and asking for my phone, which I pretended not to hear. Then one of them took out my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and I knew I was saved. They left in their car in a hurry, leaving me lying on the snow, my camera bag trapped under my body.

The story could have ended there, but it doesn't.

I called up 911, who called the police, and they said they would send someone to my house shortly. I walked to the house. When the officer came, she asked me what was stolen. Some $13, a few train tickets, my school ID, and an ATM card, I said. On hearing that I had lost an ATM card, she asked me to prove that I had an ATM card. I did that. Then she asked if I would be able to identify the men or the vehicle. I replied in the negative to both. She wasn't pleased.

"Let me be frank here Sir. It's not that your case is not important to us. However, you weren't shot, you weren't stabbed, or your head wasn't bashed in. So this isn't a high priority case. On top of that, you say you can't identify them. What can we do?"

I suggested she could at least take down a formal report.

"It's your right to lodge a formal report, and we will take it. But you'll have to come to the police station to do that," she said. I asked if she would take me there and drop me back home. She said yes, and I climbed into the back of her car, which had a hard plastic seat and metal bars on the windows. On reaching the police station, she asked me to wait in the front room and went in. A few minutes later, she came out with another officer. "Yes, what happened to you?" the new officer demanded.

I said my wallet was stolen by four people, and I had been thrown down in the snow, pointing to my mud-stained jeans.

"That's all?" she asked. I had to acknowledge, somewhat ashamedly, that the damage was limited to my wallet and the stained jeans.

"OK, let me be very frank here: you will never see your wallet again. However, it's your right to lodge a complaint. Do you want to do that?"

I said yes.

"Fine. At the moment there's nobody here who can take down a complaint. They will be here in another four hours or so. You can lodge the complaint then."

I wondered whether it was worth my time waiting until three in the morning lodging a complaint which was not going to yield any result anyway. The first officer read my thoughts and said, "Once you are done with the complaint, I can take you home. But I'll be away at that time and it may take an hour or two for me to be back, after which I can drop you. So you'll have to wait for me."

I looked at my watch. It was past eleven. I made up my mind. "So if I don't lodge a complaint, will you drop me home right now?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "In case you don't want to wait, I can drop you home immediately. You must understand that it is your right to lodge a complaint and we are not denying you that right. But if you choose not to..."

I chose not to. She dropped me home. I went up to my room and turned in for the night.

And I thanked my stars that the Newark thugs had considered me low priority enough to just leave with my wallet. If they had lingered longer, they would have discovered my camera and then the police would have had to take me seriously, for surely I would have been shot, stabbed, or my head would have been bashed in trying to protect it.

Of Megaphones and Memorable Trips

Earlier this month, I took my parents to see the Niagara Falls and they were overwhelmed by the experience. This was, of course, the desired effect, but at the same time it also posed the challenge of showing them something more overwhelming afterwards, something so massive that it would dwarf the Niagara Falls in comparison. There must be many such places in the United States, but I had been to only one of them. That is how we came to decide on a trip to the Grand Canyon.

A trip to the Grand Canyon is easier said than done. We started off by travelling to Philadelphia one afternoon with the intention of catching our flight to Las Vegas from there. The plane arrived on time, but then, the boarding process was stopped due to some technical safety problem. Our flight would not leave without fixing it.

Everyone was worried. Were the engines malfunctioning? Had the wings developed cracks? Was the cabin losing pressure? No, the crew explained. It was the megaphone that had stopped working, and we could not fly until that was fixed. Minutes turned to hours as we were informed that the airline had given up trying to fix the thing and was now trying to buy a new megaphone from another airline. Then we were informed that there were a lot of government paperwork involved in such a transaction and so there would be further delays. Finally, more than three hours after the scheduled time, our plane started on its westward journey. With the megaphone. So much for a thing that I never even knew existed on aeroplanes.

This was my fourth trip to Las Vegas in the last four years, and I will not write again about my second most familiar city in the US since I have written about it before. We did see some beautiful hotels all day the next day, but the fun part of our week-long trip started on the day after that. That was the day when I rented a car from the airport and drove 273 miles east and 5000 feet up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We reached nicely in time to check into the Yavapai Lodge inside the national park, have an early dinner and also go and see a sunset.

 

In the course of the next two days, we saw one more sunset and two sunrises. I have described the Grand Canyon earlier too, and I will only reiterate what I said before: the sunrises and sunsets of the Grand Canyon are best enjoyed at a quiet spot. Also, the rim is highly convoluted, and therefore no two points offer the exact same view.

The evenings in the Grand Canyon National Park are quiet and dark, and a flashlight was essential for our walk back to the hotel. We encountered deer, but didn't see any elks like I did last time. There were a few more differences from the last time. This time the days were longer and hotter, and I slept in a hotel room instead of a tent. This time, I did not hike down into the canyon, but I did visit many more viewpoints on the rim. The nights were star-filled like the last time, although there were a few clouds on the second night that somewhat obscured the view. With erratic phone signal and 4G barely available at times, these two days we felt truly away from the rest of the world.

 

Of course, the biggest difference for me was the presence of my parents with me. I have wished for this day since I first visited the place in 2009, and finally it happened.

On the third day, we checked out of our lodge in the morning and after a four-and-half hour long drive through the desert, we were back in the middle of civilization again. This time we checked into another hotel and spent the next three days exploring Las Vegas. Three days later, we flew back to Philadelphia and then took four different trains back to my apartment in Newark.

This time, thankfully, the megaphone worked without a hitch.

Niagara

View of the Hudson and beyond from the train

One of the first tourist destinations that I visited after coming to the US was Niagara Falls. It was the Labor Day weekend, and the place was as crowded as possible. Still, the experience was overwhelming enough to rob me of words, and I did not write much about it here, although I did promise to be back with a post about Niagara, which I never did. That was five years ago.

Last week, I visited this natural wonder for the second time, this time with my parents. In some ways, this visit felt even more special than the first, so here comes the promised post, although with more pictures than words.

Cave of the Winds

I had decided to rent a car and drive to Niagara but my parents felt the seven-hour drive would be too tiring for me, especially since I have started driving only recently. So we reserved three seats on the Amtrak train called Maple Leaf and climbed aboard from New York City. Within mere fifteen minutes of leaving New York Penn Station, the train started offering unimaginably beautiful views over the Hudson on the left side. The train was running at the level of the water, practically along the edge, and the land beyond was hilly, covered in forests interspersed with Windows XP wallpaper style rolling meadows.

Moss-covered rocks under the falls

The train seats were very comfortable, with more leg room than I have ever seen in any form of transport. It passed through Albany, Utica, Rome, Amsterdam and Buffalo with gradually decreasing enthusiasm before dropping us at Niagara Falls and heading for Canada. Niagara Falls, NY is a tiny station in the middle of nowhere, with no platforms and the road coming right next to the train. We took a taxi to our hotel, which was next to the falls. After checking in and depositing our baggage in our room, we went to see the Cave of the Winds.

Baby gulls

The Cave of the Winds is approached via an elevator through the cliff wall that takes the tourists 17 stories below the ground to a wooden platform right underneath the Bridal Veil Falls on the American side. The experience of standing almost directly below the massive Niagara is quite humbling. The Bridal Veil Falls, which is just the smallest part of Niagara, is massive enough to have broken gigantic boulders off the face of the cliff. These boulders now lie in a heap at the bottom of the American and Bridal Veil Falls and the water leaps down on them, and then onto the tourists standing on the platform. The rocks all around are covered with thick velvety green moss. A rainbow permanently adorns the moss-covered rocks and the raging white water due to the spray from the falls. Also, the place seems to be a sort of nursery for baby gulls of all sizes.

Niagara at night

The bad thing about human beings is that they try to change Nature for the better, usually making it worse in the process. In case of Niagara, they decided that the falls were too beautiful to be allowed to disappear at night. To fix this problem, they light up the falls with lights of various colours at nightfall. While this undoubtedly robs the falls of the all-engulfing natural darkness which seemed so soothing to me at the Grand Canyon, it also has the effect of making the Niagara look absolutely mesmerizing. Add to it the glittering modern skyscrapers on the Canadian side, and the Niagara suddenly seems out of this world.

The Horseshoe falls, from the Maid of the Mist

After light-watching, dinner and sleep, next morning it was time for the Maid of the Mist boat ride between the horns of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. We were on the upper deck of the boat. The ride started as a simple boat ride on a warm day passing by the American and Bridal Veil Falls, but as it approached the Horseshoe Falls, the spray increased to the intensity of heavy downpour. The Maid of the Mist lived up to its name, drenching the passengers in spite of their blue disposable raincoats. The water seemed to fall in impenetrable sheets all around us as the boat was engulfed in the white mist. Even my weatherproof camera, which I had been getting wet without worry, refused to focus since the glass was all wet and the vision was blurry. I realized I could see much better if I removed my glasses, and that's what I did in the end. After what seemed like an eternity under the falls, the boat turned back and headed towards the jetty again.

Full view of Niagara, with the boat on the right

After that we didn't have much left to do. We took the elevator to a high observation deck for a full view of Niagara, and then came back to our hotel. the taxi ride to the station was short and uneventful. We arrived at the station half an hour before time to see the train standing. Our taxi driver drove the taxi right around the train and dropped us at our compartment door. Noticing our hesitation, he told us that only one train passed through the station each day, and this train had to be ours even if it had arrived earlier than its scheduled time. We climbed aboard and curiously, sat down in the very same seats that we had occupied during the previous day's journey.  We reached home close to midninght.

Tourists near the Horseshoe Falls, with Canada in the background

Close Encounters of the Newark Kind - 2

The first thing people say when I start this second story is, "What? It happened to you a second time?" Then I have to pause my narration and explain that it happened not two but three times. I almost feel like "The Chosen One."

Anyway, this was my birthday, so I remember the date this time as well. October 15, 2009. I was walking home from the station after an evening class around 9:30. The weather was unusually cold for that time of the year, the mercury hovering just around freezing. Coupled with light rain and strong winds, it had driven everyone out of the streets. I was walking home by a road I assumed to be safer than the one where the previous incident had occurred. I had my backpack with my laptop, my small digital camera and a few gifts that my friends had given me. I had an umbrella, but since the cold was numbing my fingers, I was walking with my hands in my pockets and the umbrella resting in the crook of my neck. But I had to be ever alert because the wind was threatening to blow the umbrella away and my hands were ready to spring into action in case such a thing happened. In other words, I was concentrating on my umbrella and not on my surroundings - a mistake that could prove very dangerous here in Newark.

Suddenly, I felt my umbrella move. There was something in that movement that was different from the swaying in the wind, and since I was already alert and nervous about my umbrella flying away, I reflexively pulled my hands out of my pockets, grabbed the umbrella handle, and in one continuous movement, turned round on the spot and came face-to-face with a man.

Actually face-to-face is an exaggeration; face-to-chest would be closer to the truth. He was a huge black man, at least six feet tall and proportionately wide. He had crept up behind me and was trying to grab me from the back, but my backpack and umbrella were in the way. The sudden movement in my umbrella which had caused me to turn was the result of this attempt. "Don' say nothin'," he growled in a low voice as I confronted him.

This is the point in my narrative where, however much I may try, I cannot maintain the serious tone and break into a smile, if not a chuckle. My listeners usually follow suit as well, for what happened next was, when you look at it from the future, somewhat comical.

Now if someone had walked up to me with a gun or a knife and demanded my belongings, I would probably oblige, because that is the best course of action when you think about it. However, I did not get time to think about it, and the first thing that I did without thinking when I saw the man on top of me saying "Don' say nothin'" was to hit him repeatedly with the open umbrella and cry out for help.

The man was either drunk, or tired, or probably both. He was utterly taken aback at this onslaught and stood frozen. My umbrella, on the other hand, turned inside out, broke at the tip of the handle, and fell down on the sidewalk. By that time, I had moved away some ten-fifteen feet away from the man, and was still shouting. He stood rooted to the spot for a moment, then swore at me and turned away. As I saw him hurrying away into the darkness, I half expected him to return but he never did.

After a few seconds, I went back to the spot, picked up my umbrella and the broken plastic hooked handle piece, and walked home. I was badly shaken, but unharmed. The umbrella was completely unharmed too and is still being used after just a handle replacement.

This time, Mahendra Dutta & Sons of Kolkata had saved the day.

Hooded

Today was the commencement ceremony of our university. Here are the customary and mandatory photos in the silly garb. Thanks to my parents and my labmate Atreyee for carefully capturing each and every moment of the ceremony on their respective cameras.

 

Close Encounters of the Newark Kind - 1

I still remember the date. It was the 20th of January, 2009. It was the day president Obama took his oath of office. It was also the day my university opened after my first winter vacation in the US.

I was returning from school with my friend Amrita. At around 7:30 in the evening I and Amrita got off the subway and started walking. She went to her house near the subway station and I started walking towards mine which was a fifteen-minute walk away. There was thick snow everywhere. As I was about to turn into a main road from a lane, I saw a group of three men walking towards me.

I have seen men walking towards me before, and I have seen men walking towards me after, but on that evening, a voice inside me said something was wrong and I changed my direction on seeing them. Seeing that, they also changed their direction and followed me. I came to the main road and crossed it. They also did. They were stalking me and closing in on me. There was nobody that I could ask for help on that deserted parkway, especially since there were no houses around. Next to the road there was only the darkness of Branch Brook Park. Obviously, there was no time to phone for help.

One of them threw a snowball at me that missed me. I knew I could not start a fight or I would be dead. I could not run and outrun them. Not in the best of conditions, and definitely not wearing snow boots on six inches of snow. Besides, I had a heavy backpack. Normally, the recommended course of action in such a scenario is to hand over one's wallet. However, in my case, they would probably not stop with my wallet, and my backpack had my new laptop within, besides my small old point-and-shoot digital camera. What could I do? I thought like crazy as they drew closer, and then a crazy idea came to me.

I did the only thing left to do. I stopped and turned back, and let them catch up with me. When they were close enough, I said "Hi."

In retrospect, I now realise that "Hi" saved me that night. They were completely taken aback. They probably wanted to rob me but either they were overconfident, or it was their first time and they were nervous. Whatever be the case, they did not have the nerve to attack me straightaway after I had started talking to them, so they started talking to me. The first question was, "Are you Chinese?" I replied in the negative. "Do you know kung fu?" Again, I shook my head. It may sound funny now, but only I know what was going through my mind. Yet by some miracle, divine or otherwise, I didn't lose my head. I started talking to them. They were playing with me, almost like a cat plays with a mouse. Three teenagers - one black, one Hispanic and the third also probably black, but with a scarf around his face so I couldn't tell his race for sure. The temperature was -4 with -9 on the windchill, so I was pretty heavily covered up myself.

They playfully asked if I had a dollar. I said no, as I was a poor student. They hit me with balls of snow several times and pushed me into the snow once. I fell down, but strangely, my mind was ice cool. Thinking about it later, I was myself surprised by this, since I am usually a hot-headed person. But that evening, as I rose up and dusted off the snow, I spoke to them as if I was hurt by their behaviour. I talked all nonsense: "Today the school has reopened and I'm tired and I don't want to play and blah blah blah." All the while I kept walking towards my house. By this time, there were houses beside the road but there was no light in any of them. They, meanwhile, were behaving in such a rowdy manner that even if I tried to stop a passing car, it would seem to the driver as if there were four drunk men trying to stop cars by the roadside. Once they left me and went to the other side of the road, and then came back again. One of them had a knife that he was playfully juggling in his hand. He did not threaten me with it. The others told him to put it away, since it would not be needed.

They gradually started hitting me more and more with the snow. Now being hit with the snow does not hurt at all, so I was not concerned about that. But walking alone on a road with three teenagers surrounding you and becoming more and more aggressive, while you know you have your laptop, watch, cell phone and camera apart from some money with you, is unnerving to say the least. They also pushed me a couple of times but I steadied myself and kept walking and prattling.

Then they said "Hey, your bag is pretty, why don't you give us your bag?" It was a strange sort of demand,  asked more as a child would ask her mom for a toy she sees at a store. I pretended not to hear, kept an eye on the houses beside me and kept walking. Then they pushed me and I fell in the snow for a second time. This happened in front of a house whose porch light was lit and I could see light inside. I stood up and walked straight up the drive. The boys were stunned. "What??? You live here?" they asked. I nodded and went up to the front door and pressed the bell. The boys were hanging around the hedge just out of sight.

To my horror, nobody opened the door.

I rang the bell twice and then dialled 911. Someone picked up the call, asked my whereabouts and a dozen other questions, and then transferred the call to police. The police again asked me the same questions and said they'd send someone right away. I kept standing there in the freezing cold for 10-15 minutes. Nobody came. Then I decided I was going home since I did not want to freeze to death. The boys were nowhere to be seen. About fifty yards away, I saw a police car parked by the road. I said, "Did you guys come for me?" They said, "No, we were just passing. We never received any alerts!" So I told them everything. They took down the description of the fugitives and went to look for them while I walked home (I was already halfway there). Nothing happened after that, and even the police did not call back to check if I was OK.

Policemen are the same everywhere I guess!

The Schoolmaster

Here's my translation of this poem by Rabindranath Tagore on his 152nd birth anniversary. Meanwhile, I wonder what the poor kitten who comes to our house in Hooghly everyday for after-lunch leftovers is doing in the absence of my parents in the house.

The Schoolmaster

~Rabindranath Tagore

Let’s say I’m schoolmaster Kanai,
        The kitten is my pupil today,
I don’t use the cane on him, mother,
        It’s just a twig that I use to play.
He’s always late for class,
        Never interested in the lesson,
Raises his right paw and yawns
        When I say, “Here, listen”
He neglects his studies all day,
        Spends all his time in play.
I say, “M N O P Q”
        He only says, “Mew, mew.”

I explain the books to him,
        As much, mother, as I’m able,
“You should never steal food,
        Be good, like Gopal of the fable”
All I say goes in vain,
        He listens to nothing at all,
Let him come across a fish,
        None of this he’ll recall.
And sparrows – if he spies one,
        He’ll leave the class and run.
I keep saying, “M N O P Q”
        He mischievously says, “Mew.”

Repeatedly to him I say,
        “At school time you must learn.
Play to your heart's content,

        Once school is over and done.”

He’ll act as if he’s a good boy,
        Glance at my face looking bland,
Every word that I said,
        He’ll pretend to understand.
Whenever he gets a chance,
        He’ll vanish from sight at once.
I say, “M N O P Q”
        He only says, “Mew, mew.”

(Translation by Sugata Banerji)

On Being a Doctor

... of Philosophy.

It seems only yesterday that I landed in the United States to do my Ph.D. in Computer Science, and now, nearly five years later, I suddenly realize that I'm done. Soon I'll be walking at the commencement ceremony in a cap and gown, something I haven't done earlier. And most importantly, my parents arrived here last week to see me do that. I have waited for this day for five years.

And what years they have been!

There are a lot of things that I want to write about - good, bad and ugly - things that I had not written about before. But more of that later. As of now, I am too busy to blog. I have to spend time with my parents.

What I'm up to these days...

Source

I always stayed up late, but being in grad school has made me take it to a whole new level.

The Goose Family

The article below was the second of two articles written for a blogging contest organized by Pentax Forums where people were asked to write about the story behind the "making" of a favourite photo. This was my submission.

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I love shooting nature, and being a student, I use a lot of second-hand manual focus lenses since the in-body shake reduction of the Pentax K-7 gives me the option of using old lenses with good results. Last year, when I was visiting a friend in Wayne, Pennsylvania, I happened to capture this photo which is one of my favorite shots till date.

In this article, I will narrate the story behind this photograph.

On that April afternoon, I was trying to shoot a close up of some white flowers in the sun and I had the SMC Pentax-M 40-80mm F2.8-4 from my Father’s Pentax MX days on my K-7 as I was using its macro mode. Suddenly, I heard some quacking, and turning my head, saw a family of geese with two adults and seven babies crossing a lawn. It was an opportunity not to be missed. My first instinct was to get the geese in focus, zoom in, and click away. The geese, however, were in the shade by this time and since I was still in full manual mode with a manual lens on, and all set up for sunlight shooting, the next shot came out underexposed.

By the time I had my camera adjusted to the shade, they had stepped out into the sunlight again, which caused my subsequent shot to look like this.

Finally, after following them around while they crossed a road (see photo below) and settled down on a grassy patch next to a pond, I could finally change to my Vivitar 100-300mm f/5.6-6.5 manual telephoto zoom. All this while, one of the adults kept threatening me with loud calls if I went too close.

Then, when they were relaxing in the grass, I walked around them to a point where the setting sun would be directly in front of me and behind the geese. From there, some lovely backlit shots resulted out of which this was my favorite.

I always shoot in DNG RAW and use Adobe Photoshop CS3 for some minimal post-processing. On this image, I did very slight cropping, and some minor adjustments in white balance, brightness and contrast. And the result, it’s there for you to see!

The Pentax MX

Over the past few months, I have been too busy to post regularly on this blog. Yet, I have written elsewhere from time to time, mainly to participate in contests, or for school newsletters. Since I am still too busy to blog, and I have all those articles ready, I thought I would share them with my readers here.

The article below was one of two articles written for a blogging contest organized by Pentax Forums where people were asked to write about the one piece of photographic equipment that has had the greatest influence their photography. This is what I submitted.

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Nearly thirty-two years ago, my father bought a camera. It was a Pentax MX 35mm SLR with a Pentax 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. He had been taking pictures for quite some time, and even had his own makeshift darkroom, but he did not own an SLR yet. The Pentax MX was worth two months of his salary at the time, but he still decided to go for it, for I was about to be born. Today, I am going to write about that camera. If you are wondering how that ancient piece of equipment affected my photography, read on.

Me

The Pentax MX was the new Pentax SLR at the time, after the company’s immensely successful K1000 and Spotmatic models. It was a fully mechanical manual SLR, but it had an electronic light meter that indicated the exposure using green and amber LEDs inside the viewfinder. The shutter speed was shown by a small dial at the side of the viewfinder as well, and the aperture value was projected above the image inside the viewfinder via a tiny window in front of the pentaprism that was directly behind the aperture ring on the lens barrel. Add a split-screen focusing system and a 100% field of view, and you have a viewfinder that is nearly as sophisticated and helpful as modern DSLRs. Also, the leather-covered aluminum MX, coupled with the small 50 mm lens, was probably the smallest 35mm SLR in the market.

The MX

As I grew up, my childhood was captured in thousands of black and white and color negatives by the Pentax MX. First, there was just the 50mm lens. Then, after my sister was born, my father bought a second-hand Pentax M 40-80mm lens. By that time, photography and the Pentax MX was synonymous in my mind. “My dad has the best camera,” I would think, “and those pre-focused wide-angle point and shoots that other people have! Do you even call them cameras?” My whole love of photography developed by looking longingly at that camera (handling it was off-limits to me) and waiting eagerly for the lovely photos that arrived after each film roll was finished and developed. When I got my first job in 2005, my first big investment was, quite naturally, a digital camera. It was a small point and shoot with a lot of manual control, because although I could not afford a DSLR yet, I felt that taking a photo meant a lot of twiddling of knobs before the actual clicking. Photography, which started as another new hobby, became my greatest passion over the next two years.

I took the MX to the Grand Canyon in 2009

So it should not be hard to imagine my delight when I was finally handed the old MX by my father sometime later. After that, although the bulk of my photos were still being taken with my digital point and shoot, the MX always accompanied me on special occasions and tours. When I came to the US to do my Ph.D., I brought the camera with me. Shooting on film is neither cheap nor easy, but I continued to shoot on the MX alongside digital. This has actually made me less reliant on digital post-processing and concentrate more on getting the composition and exposure right in-camera. A year later, when I was looking for a DSLR, I bought the Pentax K-7 since I was in love with Pentax by that time, and besides, I wanted to use my father’s manual lenses. The in-body shake reduction of the K-7 meant that I could use an old lens and get photos as good as a new one.

This minute-long exposure of Grand Central Terminal was shot on B&W film.

I still use the MX after so many years. It was the camera that first aroused my interest in photography. It was the camera that I practiced on when I was learning to use an SLR. It was the camera that helped me choose my current DSLR – the Pentax K-7 – and if that alone is not the biggest influence on my photography, I don’t know what is. And oh yes, I almost forgot. That 50mm lens is still my most-used lens.

On top of Rockefeller Center

Me, on top of Rockefeller Center