One night at Times Square

On 9th of November- The Diwali day. We were in USA when our client decided to let us go home early and enjoy as it was our festival time, all of a sudden few of us made a plan to go to New York city and all agreed, so there was no point in staying at Hilton in Malvern, where we were staying during the OJT. We just took the train to Philadelphia city from where we took a bus to New York City. On the way we noticed, it was raining. It was almost 2 hours drive from Philadelphia city to New York city. We at last reached New York City-The city that never sleeps.

We were 9 friends but 6 of them already had booked a room, as it was raining they decided to stay in the hotel for a while. Me, Rishi & Rohan went all unplanned there, so we decided to look for a room to stay for a while, we hired a taxi along with all others to reach to the hotel which they booked to see that we also find some room there. But unfortunately ,there was no room available. In City like New York one of the most famous and expensive cities in the world it’s a normal thing. One should go there with proper planning, one should at least book a room earlier or stay calm without a room.

We said good-bye to all our friends and Rishi, Rohan and me left that place. It was still drizzling but we kept on moving and we thought as it was raining its also not bad to eat something and spend some time in a restaurant for a while, so, we entered a pizza shop. Rishi and me are vegetarian so we asked the man at the counter, to make some good vegetable pizza with the nice toppings of vegetable, that man was also Indian, as eating vegetarian is not quite popular, he had a smile on his face and said don’t worry, he asked.....in which part of India do u people stay, Rishi replied Gurgaon where he stays rohan and I said we are from Delhi, further he asked....... where in Delhi, I replied close to Pitampura, he said....that is where I stay in India.

We also asked him, is it possible to get a cheap room to stay for a while, he said why not let me look something for you. You guys don’t worry relax; also there is Washroom upstairs go and get fresh if you like. Now we were chilling out there and clicking some pictures and sharing few words. We had our pizza. Pizza was as such, as we never had before anywhere, so delicious it was, we really liked that man’s pizzas. After relaxing a bit we decided to leave, he assured us that if you guys don’t find anything and get tired please come here, we are open and relax here, don’t worry about anything. Hearing such words from someone is good enough in the place in which we are unaware of anything. We thanked that person for the great help and then we all left. Now we were roaming on the streets of the Newyork city and trying to still find out some place to keep our bags and relax a bit but, what we found that there was no place or rooms available there. We got into a small shop, that man was also as Indian we bought some caps, as there was too cold and we were also bearing the rain. He suggested going to a dorm in the same street and checking out there. We went out there but the lady there just shaked her head saying noooooooooo.

Rishi told us now lets not waste our time and lets move to Times Square. We all agreed and took a taxi to go to Times Square. Getting off to Times Square I thing we were gazing that street for a while ,we felt we have arrived to the wonderland. Plasma screens all over, on the walls of huge buildings. Buildings are that huge that we had to straighten our heads good enough to see on the top of it. People are around that street as still it was a day and also the lights were quite good there, so how could anyone feel that it was a night. Street is occupied by lots of malls, shops, restaurants, and huge building. We were enjoying and it was not actually bad to be there on a diwali day as atmosphere was quite comparable with crackers and lightening in India on the diwali day.

We were really enjoying and taking out our cameras again and again as there were lot of things to be covered and clicked, we didn’t like to spare a single place without clicking our picture with that. We were helping each other out in clicking pictures along with the huge building and tried our best to be the best photographer. One special thing in our photography is that who so ever clicked the picture always said that the picture is best; now how best it is we always come to know later on. …he he …... Anyways all happens in this strange world . Time-to-Time when it became unbearable we entered a Mall and just got warm inside and spent some of our time in window-shopping. I realized the importance of window-shopping quite a bit.

After roaming a lot we entered a café and sat there drinking coffee with some snacks, Meanwhile a person entered there in Café, he was alone. I think he was enjoying his weekend. He sat beside three of us. He introduced himself so did we. Now the talks began as Americans love to talk and then don’t really like to stop. He really appreciated Indians for their talent and potential. He pointed out that its good to see the talented pool of Middle class people in India and see India really growing. We really thought him to be a nice person and the talks went on.

All of a sudden our talks took a different shape, the optimistic words ended and were taken place by some pessimistic ones. He kept a good knowledge about the Indian economy. He pointed out that why India was really interested in conducting nuclear test when most of its people were dying with poverty. The county like India is not even able to feed its population well. We really had no answer of all these but talks continued. He also pointed out that because of the development of the outsourcing to India, we people are loosing our jobs. We still had nothing much to say but now it was unbearable for all of us to hear all that, though it was a bitter truth. Some how Rishi ended the talks that deciding about the outsourcing industry is still in the hands of people of states because our role comes much later. It is decided by the Government of USA and not by us. We somehow tried to get rid out of it and left that place.

Anyways our ways didn’t end there, we still kept on moving until we saw the rising sun, finally we found a place called Grand station, it was actually a biggest station over there, but for us its was a place to stay for a while, we got fresh there and thought it’s really a good place to relax if you don’t find any hotel in Nework city.
“We all will always remember that the City that never sleeps kept us Awaken the whole night”