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.