Why I Loved New York - 2

Nah! Not because The Village just happens to be the most interesting place I've ever walked through. Not because Dylan wrote "Blowin' in the Wind" sitting in the Fat Black Pussycat. Not because Jimi Hendrix jammed at Cafe Wha? Not because a serpentine queue appears from nowhere in front of the IFC at 9 pm on a regular Thursday to catch a docu on Kurt Cobain. Not because someone decides to sell a "brand new" bicycle at Washington Square Park at 8 in the evening. Not because the lights are still on at the Whitehorse Tavern, where Dylan (the other one) had dropped in for his last drink.

But because outside Cafe Wha?, The Fat Black Pussycat, Blue Note Jazz, the Whitehorse Tavern and the other innumerable bars and restaurants dotting Manhattan, there's always a large group of people standing and puffing at their cigarettes like there's no tomorrow.**

Cut to Madison, WI. I was the only one hurrying to finish my fag outside Mickey's, while the rest of the population sat inside sipping their drinks.

**In 2003 New York City amended its anti-smoking law to include all restaurants and bars, including those in private clubs, making it one of the toughest in the United States.

But though there were different names for God in all the different languages in the world and God understood what all the people who prayed said in their different languages still God remained always the same God and God's real name was God.

From A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man by James Joyce

I wanted to pray. To God. And I can’t remember the last time I did. Just pray.

A and S were waiting for me at One Step Up but I asked the cabbie to take the right from Flury’s and stop right in front of school. My school. Even in the dark I could see the familiar maroon steeple. I think it’s St John’s. Could very well be St Thomas’. Just that it’s always been the "school church”.

The black iron gate sulked gloomily.
“Saare chhai bajey bandh ho jaata hai, madam.” Damn!

So I walked up Middleton Row, back to Park Street. Feeling stupid. And very irritated. Where does one go if one needs to pray at nine in the evening? What if one doesn’t want to stand in the middle of the Maidan and pray? What if one doesn’t wish to close one’s eyes in the kitchen and think of God?

I guess one just drops in at Oly or Someplace Else.

I mean, it worked.