Aarathi Selvan
A three year Manhattan Resident
NY, NY 10027
March 11th, 2009
The "Greatest City in the world"
The City of New York
NY, NY
Dear New York City,
I have never once doubted that a city has a character of its own. You my dear, certainly have one and as i sit today wondering about my future, my musings are interrupted by my thoughts about you. You certainly know how to captivate your audience and turn us into wonder struck addicts. Your tall skyscrapers, your lady liberty, your Chrysler towers, your times square and of course the Empire State all of it makes heads turn and hearts skip a beat. When I sit in one of your theaters and watch yet another protagonist walk down the same avenue I did last night, I smile a wide mouthed smile and wonder what it is about you that enthralls so many to come see you at least once before they decide they love you or cant stand you another second. But that's not why I write. I am not an expert on locations, cross streets and such. My love for you is, for the most part, a result of the learning and experience you've inspired. So, what is your character? What do you inspire? Why you?
Truth be said, Ive seen too many people here, walking on the streets holding their tears unable to find ways around their lives. I've found myself in conversations with mothers on the bus, telling me stories about discrimination and their hard bought immigrant lives in the city. I've seen people walk by scraping shoulders against an other's not realizing they weren't ghosts in this vacuum that is your lap. I've been a part of masses of people succumbing into the quagmire that is beyond their bodies and into a world of mind chatter, to do lists, and profound materialism. With cursory catch-ups and floating hellos you can seem like a cold cold city to live in, especially in winters. The word on the street is that every other person who calls you home is an immigrant from another town, city, state, country or continent. You are a microcosm of the world, but a time-encapsulated one actually, for I hear how longings of the immigrant hearts calls out to worlds that have already passed.
You overwhelm the new, overwork those who have been here long. Your subways overcrowd with people and rodents alike! you hold life's irony atop your head and walk the tight rope of angst for us all. But all this is what makes you real, does is not?
I am wrung wide awake from my slumber each night, by the blaring ambulance speeding across your streets, making the knots in my stomach and the lock in my jaw the focus for the rest of my night. The early morning noises in your street add to the anxiety that is already my life. Quite consistently through this noise, you remind me to watch my body and these knots. Do I thank you or blame you? Did you cause this or are you helping me ease this tension? Both and neither, i'll bet. But that's what makes you real. You strip off our cocoons and make us look within, or at least attempt to. You suck us into this vortex of energy, impatience, restlessness, speed-walking and breathlessness. You pound our heads again and again to look within the depths of our hearts and within the paradise of central park, to find some balance. You bring spring and summers to slow us down and lay out chairs on patios and decks of restaurants that abound your ground. The plethora that is you, wont cease to exist and yet, you demand that we be sane in order to persist? Have you completely lost it? or have I?
New York, New York! will I miss you when I leave? A phase of life now completes and as I move I will surely reminisce. The noise, the paradise, the restless inadequacy and the filthy prosperity. Living alone,carving out a selfhood while at the same time making sure I don't fall off this trapeze, swinging between worlds-inward and outward. Yes, I will miss this, like I miss most things that pass. But there is a time for everything and now is my time to move on. As you've successfully taught, I desire to slow down and be the eye of the tornado than stay caught in your whirlpool and mine.
You are quiet? Yes, I get the message. You will carelessly move on without professing your love for me. You will take two more for one little me who leaves to learn more. That's what cities do, do they not? But now as another city beckons me to bring my fingerprint to its identity, I know you'll do the same for those who yearn to experience the tornado that is you. And of course as I leave I take a part of you that has become me forever and ever.
Thank you for your fabulousness.
Yours truly,
Aarathi Selvan
A three year Manhattan Resident
NY, NY 10027
March 11th, 2009
The "Greatest City in the world"
The City of New York
NY, NY
Dear New York City,
I have never once doubted that a city has a character of its own. You my dear, certainly have one and as i sit today wondering about my future, my musings are interrupted by my thoughts about you. You certainly know how to captivate your audience and turn us into wonder struck addicts. Your tall skyscrapers, your lady liberty, your Chrysler towers, your times square and of course the Empire State all of it makes heads turn and hearts skip a beat. When I sit in one of your theaters and watch yet another protagonist walk down the same avenue I did last night, I smile a wide mouthed smile and wonder what it is about you that enthralls so many to come see you at least once before they decide they love you or cant stand you another second. But that's not why I write. I am not an expert on locations, cross streets and such. My love for you is, for the most part, a result of the learning and experience you've inspired. So, what is your character? What do you inspire? Why you?
Truth be said, Ive seen too many people here, walking on the streets holding their tears unable to find ways around their lives. I've found myself in conversations with mothers on the bus, telling me stories about discrimination and their hard bought immigrant lives in the city. I've seen people walk by scraping shoulders against an other's not realizing they weren't ghosts in this vacuum that is your lap. I've been a part of masses of people succumbing into the quagmire that is beyond their bodies and into a world of mind chatter, to do lists, and profound materialism. With cursory catch-ups and floating hellos you can seem like a cold cold city to live in, especially in winters. The word on the street is that every other person who calls you home is an immigrant from another town, city, state, country or continent. You are a microcosm of the world, but a time-encapsulated one actually, for I hear how longings of the immigrant hearts calls out to worlds that have already passed.
You overwhelm the new, overwork those who have been here long. Your subways overcrowd with people and rodents alike! you hold life's irony atop your head and walk the tight rope of angst for us all. But all this is what makes you real, does is not?
I am wrung wide awake from my slumber each night, by the blaring ambulance speeding across your streets, making the knots in my stomach and the lock in my jaw the focus for the rest of my night. The early morning noises in your street add to the anxiety that is already my life. Quite consistently through this noise, you remind me to watch my body and these knots. Do I thank you or blame you? Did you cause this or are you helping me ease this tension? Both and neither, i'll bet. But that's what makes you real. You strip off our cocoons and make us look within, or at least attempt to. You suck us into this vortex of energy, impatience, restlessness, speed-walking and breathlessness. You pound our heads again and again to look within the depths of our hearts and within the paradise of central park, to find some balance. You bring spring and summers to slow us down and lay out chairs on patios and decks of restaurants that abound your ground. The plethora that is you, wont cease to exist and yet, you demand that we be sane in order to persist? Have you completely lost it? or have I?
New York, New York! will I miss you when I leave? A phase of life now completes and as I move I will surely reminisce. The noise, the paradise, the restless inadequacy and the filthy prosperity. Living alone,carving out a selfhood while at the same time making sure I don't fall off this trapeze, swinging between worlds-inward and outward. Yes, I will miss this, like I miss most things that pass. But there is a time for everything and now is my time to move on. As you've successfully taught, I desire to slow down and be the eye of the tornado than stay caught in your whirlpool and mine.
You are quiet? Yes, I get the message. You will carelessly move on without professing your love for me. You will take two more for one little me who leaves to learn more. That's what cities do, do they not? But now as another city beckons me to bring my fingerprint to its identity, I know you'll do the same for those who yearn to experience the tornado that is you. And of course as I leave I take a part of you that has become me forever and ever.
Thank you for your fabulousness.
Yours truly,
Aarathi Selvan
The truth about a city seems to pretty much be the truth about you! Guess we often create and recreate worlds so that we can learn a little more about ourselves.
ReplyDeletewow yaar!!! These three years have seen your transcendence from dependence to independence and on to interdependence babe :) and it takes a few lifetimes for most people to travel the same journey! No wonder newyork looks so gr8 to you. Its actually your journey that you are seeing as you look back at the city and thats y it seems so cute yaar.
ReplyDeleteYou can also call it as the transformation from being simplistic to becoming complex and going on ahead to finally becoming simple :) while most others would remain stuck at the complex stage of life throughout.
Its real cute man! I love u. Ummah
yay!!! Makes me happy that you like my blogs Appi and that you comment! And amma too! she called me to say she read it (hehe)
ReplyDeleteIts a neat thing dependence to independence to interdependence. yay to the rocky road!
If million pictures were taken of the city one couldn't have captured the image you joined with those words...
ReplyDeleteThere is a SONG BY BAZ LUHMAN (a film director) in which he says...
"Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft"
Welcome back to our own equivalent of NORTHERN CALIFORNIA where things are done Nizam style.
What will a PREGNANT mother say to the elder when the child asks "You will take two more for one little me who leaves"
:D I enjoyed reading it soo very much.
Absolutely loved reading it babe... Wow you have some capacity to put complex internal ruminating into clear perspectives to be understood by the world outside YOU!!
ReplyDeleteBravo!