Scoring a hat trick

While this has been a moderately busy week, the last several weeks have raised the bar for that description to a whole new level.

It started with a bang of sorts, when childhood friend and Air-India Captain Neil Lamba came to visit us. Neil flies the Air India 777 on the Mumbai-New York non-stop leg, and was in town on a 4-day lay-over. He was staying at the Hilton on 6th Avenue, and came home on Monday evening. IIMA class-mate and Bay-Area friend Manish Subramanian was also in town, and had been salivating on reading some of my previous posts that mentioned Kathi Rolls.

First Zipcar experience

We therefore decided to pick up K-Rolls from the Priya-and-Tanmai recommended joint - the Kathi Roll Company. My Zipcar membership card had arrived in the mail, so we decided to check it out by renting a Zipcar for the Kathi-Roll pickup run. As Neil arrived, we were all dressed up and ready to go out - so we promptly turned him around and went down to the basement parking garage. Zipcar had a few parking lots just inside the garage, and we immediately found our car, a Scion xB - a boxy car that was designed by Toyota to appeal to the "next generation". I held my Zipcard to the windscreen, and the doors unlocked. The Keys were on the dashboard, and we were on our way in a few minutes.

The route was quite straight-forward - across on 34th street, then right on Madison, left on 39th street, to the place. We passed the store without noticing it, and by the time I realized this, we were on a part of the street where the width was down to a little more than one lane, because of construction equipment on both sides of the street. I put on my hazard lights and tucked the car into whatever space I could find, and dispatched Sandhya to pick up the Kathi Rolls (we had ordered beforehand). She was back pretty quickly, but by that time, we had been honked at by several cabbies and sundry others trying to squeeze by in the little space we had left them.

From there, I made two right turns to get back onto Park Avenue, and as we were driving South, began to relax. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw the impressive South facade of the Grand Central Terminal. I guess I can put a check-mark against "Driving down Park Avenue" in my list of things to do in New York City. Overall, I don't think I did too badly. I must've been honked at so many times that I lost count (it sure felt like every honk was directed at me), but at least we didn't get scratched or pulled over by a cop.

Sonia and JV also joined us for dinner, and we had a nice evening. The Kathi Rolls were excellent - and even two hours after picking them up, they were soft and delicious. Thanks again, Priya and Tanmai...

Busy work week

I've been settling into a good routine at work, and this week had a meeting at 383 Madison Avenue (the old Bear Stearns building). I was running a bit late and took a cab; the cabbie took me just past the UN building on the way to the meeting. I've been there before (inside too) but the area is still impressive, and makes one pause and take a deep breath. The tall, black Trump Tower next door is also quite distinctive.

After my meeting, I walked in that area a few blocks, and happened upon the really impressive St. Patrick's Cathedral. St. Patrick's is on 5th Avenue, surrounded by all the fashionable stores that 5th Avenue is famous for (Saks is a block down). It was at once out-of-place and at the same time somewhat reassuring - an ornate neo-Gothic structure in the middle of all that steel and glass. A reminder of man's higher calling and instincts in the middle of the relentless pursuit of mammon. A symbol of solidity in the midst of all that is ephemeral. I must come back and spend more time inside - one doesn't only have to go into cathedrals in Pisa or Paris, right?

Play-dates and dinner

A few weeks ago, we met up with a couple who were a year junior to me at business school. He was in my dorm, and we were therefore quite close. They live in the Upper East Side, and have two children, a boy who is exactly Dhruv's age, and a daughter who's a few years older. Their son and Dhruv hit it off really well when they first met, so Sandhya fixed up for them to meet regularly for play dates. She took Dhruv over during the week, and returned really late, because it was apparently impossible to get him away. They came home for dinner on Friday, and we had a lovely evening with the three kids entertaining us with their antics. This couple has their kids hooked on board games, and brought a few along. We spent a few hours after dinner playing Charades and Taboo with the kids - a wonderful way to build their vocabulary and creativity without making it seem like work.

Princeton outing

Sandhya's been reconnecting with school friends through FaceBook, and one of those friends organized (on short notice) a get-together at their place, which is near Princeton. Sandhya keeps complaining that we're always meeting my school friends, so this was her opportunity to 'show me'.

We caught the bus across town, and then took an NJ transit train from the New York Penn Station below Madison Square Garden. They seem to have upgraded the interiors since the last time I was there, and also replaced the coaches with newer ones, and the experience was really pleasant.

An hour or so after boarding the train in New York, we pulled into the little platform of a station at Princeton. We didn't have time to potter around, but that didn't stop the mind from wandering. I wondered - is this the same station where Leo Szilard alighted when he came to meet Einstein and convince him that a nuclear weapon was a possibility? Where did John Nash see the pigeons and make his discoveries? We must come back with more time on our hands and explore this great university town at leisure.

Sandhya's friend picked us up and drove us to her house in Monmouth Junction. Another friend was driving up from Philadelphia and came a few minutes later. While the three of them chattered away about their school and the intervening 20 years, the husbands sized each other up. It turned out that one of them and I had several friends in common, and the afternoon went pleasantly by.

Their house was really nice - large, with a huge yard, three-car garage, comfortable basement and a wonderful common park-like area in the back, where I can imagine all the neighborhood kids playing in the summer. As perfect a slice of suburbia as it gets. The sort of place we lived in back in Fremont (kind of - our place was much smaller). Did I feel a twinge of regret that we weren't in a place like that? After all, we could have chosen to live in New Jersey instead... honestly, I didn't feel even the slightest twinge of regret. These friends wistfully spoke of wanting to visit the city but never finding the time, and I'm happy we're not doing the same thing - I know we're capable of it, because that's exactly what happened in Fremont. We visited the SF MOMA once in the ten years that we lived in the Bay Area.

We spent the evening with a cousin who lives nearby, and her husband dropped us off at the Edison station at 9:30 at night. We were back in the city around 10:30 PM, and 34th street was bright and cheerful. There were hundreds of well-dressed couples bustling about (it was Valentine's evening) and there was an energy in the air that was refreshing.

Central Park Zoo

We woke late on Sunday to another perfectly clear, but cold, day. Since it's been forecast to snow during the week, we decided to make the most of it, packed a light lunch, and set out for Central Park. The Pakistani lady we had met in the elevator (her name was Mrs. Mirza) told us that it was open during the winter, and so we headed over - taking the bus and subway and then walking seven blocks to the zoo.

We became members of the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) - which gives us a year's unlimited access to 5 sites in the area, including Central Park Zoo, the famous Bronx Zoo, and an aquarium that's supposed to be good (but not as good as Monterey, apparently). So that's my hat trick: three weekends, visits to and memberships for three major attractions here - the Museum of Natural History, Met and the Zoo.

The zoo was really lovely - small and compact enough (I bet you didn't know Central Park had a zoo) that we kept a half-eye on Dhruv most of the time. The first attraction was a pair of Sea Lions that were not more than 5 feet away from us at times. We also saw them being fed, and Dhruv was understandably fascinated by it all.

We then went over to see the Harbor Seals, and as he was watching them, Sandhya asked him to turn around... and he turned to face a really impressive Polar Bear! He went berserk at that point, as did the 15-odd 5-year-olds who suddenly showed up. There are several places to watch the bear, and the kids kept running from place to place as he moved. He was on dry land all the time, and all the kids were encouraging him to jump into the water. Sandhya and I had seen a Polar Bear swim in Singapore Zoo many years ago, and the sight is extremely impressive. After a few minutes of walking around, he finally decided to take the plunge - and Dhruv and I ran downstairs (from where we could view him underwater). We spent the next 15 minutes watching him paddling up and down, and occasionally go down to the bottom for something.

He then disappeared behind a corner, and we thought that that was the last we had seen of him. We were turning to go away, when we heard a huge gasp of excitement from the crowd that was in the area where the bear had disappeared. We ran there, to find that the bear had wedged himself between the glass and a rock, and was towering 10 feet above the crowd, his head and shoulders out of the water, gazing curiously at everyone. You can see from this picture that he caused quite a big commotion. Dhruv had gone ahead, squeezing his way through the adults in the crowd to get to the front. He made his way back, eyes wide open in excitement: "Appa, I touched his paws!! Really!!" This truly was the high point of his day, and he spoke about it all evening, including on the phone to his friends in California.

From CentralParkZoo

While the Polar Bear took the cake, the Penguins were equally impressive. The enclosure had glass and water, so we could see them standing on land, and then swimming in the water. It was really amazing to watch them dart at high speed in that small enclosure, then leap out of the water, and dive back in again.

I've always been conflicted about "patronizing" a zoo through my ticket dollars. Are we encouraging captivity - which is cruel and inhumane however well its done, or is the education our kids get from encountering live animals worth it? I can't say this visit helped me move the question along in any way. The almost plaintive look in the polar bear's eyes, or the similarity between the Penguin enclosure and the enclosure in "Happy Feet" make me pause. Dhruv's excitement at seeing these animals up close... the fact that he's developing a real empathetic understanding of them as living beings... the struggle to reconcile these goes on.

Tomorrow's a holiday for President's day, and we're thinking of going back to the Museum of Natural History. But first things first, we're planning to have a nice Brunch at Petite Abielle (sorry JV, we'll do it again when you're here)... more about that next week...