Back to New York from Calcutta
It was Jan2nd Our flight touched the land of JFK, NewYork at dawn-,5:30 .After the security check
and luggage-collection we took Uber at 6:A.M .....Outside was still dark .....
Each and every dawn and evening are always special and auspicious to me; So,on the way to my
apartment the calm and quite morning with the touch of the soft mild glow of the sun revealing the
sleeping city carefully just like a doting mother to her beloved baby, offered a visual buffet to me !
This revealing of day from the dark appeals to me as the very First Dawn of the Planet Earth with
her magnificent beauty of Nature as well as man-made sky scraper, high-rise half dark buildings
with blinking windows, opening her dreamy eyes to drink her own beauty and flushing red in
romance like a new bride, as the rising sun, her first love openly embracing and kissing her ....
,
The cab was running parallel by the river Hudson; People of the city are still in slumber; Even the
river Hudson was lying still under the quilt of fog .
I reached my apartment with the feeling of a wandering bird coming back with empty stomach in its
own nest. "
"Empty " stomach --- because I don't get any psychological nutrition of my expectation while
staying in India for last couple of years. I made plan to do something before going but most of them
remained unfulfilled. I wished to visit some close aged relatives staying scattered in the metro
city I was born and accomplished higher studies but I could not go alone..The city with new costume
is difficult for me to go here and there: Old roads with new names and new fly-overs hiding the
known roads banished me in confusion To my delight ,I saw some buses ,protecting their identity
still run with old numbers to old destination. Whether shabby-looking shops or buses with old
names, became animate to me: very much vibrant ; they glanced at me , "hmm You !you look
somewhat familiar, are you-"?
I remember- T-2 International Airport in Mumbai is really huge and a baroque piece of art and
grandiose. The executive lounge is more luxurious than the Persian Palace ..........Let the caption
"India is rising" float or swing and let me basking on that picture. It is true,the economic condition of
people as a whole has suddenly improved. We have to seek now poor people to donate our old
clothes or left over food. Even up to 2007 this airport looked like a den :dirty, smelly and reigned by
mosquitoes.I could not sit in the lounge: I left as soon as my son with newly wedded wife entered the
for check -in- luggage section..
..Our flight was at 12:45 AM from T-2 terminus. So after couple of
hours watching on the map root of our flight I fell asleep almost twelve hours.
We reached at 5;30 in JFK airport of New York ;I felt not only sad but shame for the unadorned
basic look of the New York airport which is globally supposed to be the best. JFK airport,
the most glorified global place looked so ordinary compared to yesterday's T-2 airport of
Mumbai! As if, I landed from the bright heaven to the muddy earth . All around the crowd of
passengers were mostly Asians and miscellaneous . Had this dream -land of the world really
turned into a common place open for anyone to enter in?
I remembered the story of "Happy Prince " [[of Oscar Wilde]] who was bereft of all royal grandeur
with the help of a little swallow who took shelter under the feet of prince's' statue, gave away all his
jewels from his body, one by one, even the gem from his eyes, to remove tear and poverty of all the needy people of his city.
What was the ultimate result?
When the city aldermen saw the bare and ugly iron statue of the Prince ,they ordered the statue
to be thrown away from the lofty pedestal to replace by another new piece of art which would
glorify the city.
Is it desirable that the fate of New York city -cum-United States of America to become like
that of the fabled story of the HAPPY PRINCE ? I remembered couple of years ago President Trump
once lamented about the NY JFK airport that it seemed, as if, he landed in some third world country
compared to Beirut or Beijing airport. Trump as president might be novice ,and aberrant in speech
or behavior; but as an American, no doubt, he loves the country deeply . Otherwise , he
would not have felt that type of pinch. Only unflinching love can stir up similar
feeling from the heart;though this type of love is considered as narrow and selfish from idealistic
point of view.
Did any president of US ever had such feeling or comment before? ....Might be
with Lincoln or Hamilton, or.......................
Sipra Roy ********************************
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