My love affair with New York begins...

The Perfect Moment…
It was a beautiful day in the summer of 2005, when a flight from Chicago to New York changed everything. The flight from Chicago was the most difficult and the most exciting journey for me… There I was in the flight waiting impatiently for that moment to arrive, the moment where I will be one with everything that’s New York…There were butterflies in my stomach; my heart was pounding faster and faster as the distance was getting closer and closer. And suddenly, my eyes grew wider and caught sight of the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my entire life and I didn’t want to move my eyes away. I was going to be in New York City for a day and I wanted to take everything that I saw back with me. I was staying at a hotel in Times Square and things couldn’t have been more perfect. Ah, Times Square, I had heard and read so much about it. But now I was going to see it with my eyes and experience what so many people in this world had experienced and they can never get over that feeling. Some years back I used to listen to this Radio station from New York called Z100 from my cubicle in India, working. And the radio station used to be my escape to paradise. I used to wonder how it used to be to live in New York and the Radio jockeys and the music from the radio station just gave a teeny-weeny gist of how New York is...and then my work didn't feel that monotonous any more. Coming back to coming to New York and Times Square Hmm, it was like a fairytale. I came, I saw and I was conquered. And who hasn't been? Times Square...ahh.....I can still remember the first time I stood there in awe.....My two eyes were not enough to capture everything, to take in everything that I was seeing, they just weren't. I needed a billion pair of eyes just to absorb everything that was happening in front of my eyes. The people, the buzz, the music, the huge billboards, the street painters, the smell of hot dogs, the hot steaming pretzels. I just stood there, staring, admiring and completely unaware of the world. There was nothing that was going to come in between me and my moment. It was just Times Square and me, there was no place for anyone else. I stood there and took in everything that came my way. There it was, and there I was who went all pink blushing. I was 16 again, and New York had made me fall in love again. I was only one among the millions of people that visit New York and instantly fall in love. I was there in Time Square all night, never went back to the hotel and just stood there, taking everything in slowly. It felt like sipping my favorite drink, apple martini. Absorbing the taste, the smell, the flavor and the color. I was not happy with just spending a night in New York; it was never going to be enough, at least not for me. I was in love so deep that I never wanted to let go, but I had to, I was forced to because of time. But my heart was set and within a month I was back and this time for good.