A Series of Unfortunate Events - Day 2

Next morning started bright (!) and clear!! Mr. Storm was nowhere to be seen. Why could weather not have been there yesterday!! I made a valiant effort of not raising my arms skyward in curses to the rain clouds, and tried to get my spirits up as best I could. I once again went to visit my cousin from Queens who was today moving into his apartment. When we moved into our apartment for the first time as students in Raleigh, we had searched all the apartment complexes, chosen a condo, signed a lease and moved into a freshly painted and clean soft carpeted house. But that is not the way NY works. It turned out that the earlier friend’s dingy apartment was not an exception but the common case, for when I reached my cousin’s place, I found out that he had actually rented an attic in some Korean guy’s two story house. Needless to say, it had all the qualities of that friend’s place I mentioned earlier and few more which I shall tell you later, for added effect. We left his place to go roam in the city today. I decided to see Central Park which I had missed out on my last visit here.

I have a friend living close to NY whom I knew very well in my college. We were close friends then, and I had heard he had bagged a very high paying job in Wall Street. I’d called him up the previous day and fixed up a time to meet him today. I hadn’t seen him in over 6 years and so I asked him to have lunch together to catch up on old times, to which he agreed. Then I had suggested that after roaming around NY and eating out late, we could see his apartment and I could sleep there overnight and move out early next morning, since New Jersey was on the way home for me. But as I said earlier, destiny had a three-act epic in place for me. This meeting was to be my 2 hour class for “How friends change 101”. I had again banked my lunch upon a plan with a friend and so decency demanded that I wait to have lunch with him. I had roamed halfway through the gigantic Central Park, when the monster of hunger who had almost taken a toll of me last night, reared its head up again inside me. Last night, it had made my body shake and hands shiver due to lack of nutrition, today, I hoped that it would not be the case.

So my friend arrived a full 3 hours late to meet me at Times Square. Hunger makes me cranky and giant hunger makes me pure foul tempered. But I was strongly trying to be neither of those at that point. Finally he showed up and there was the customary handshake, smile and hug. But instead of the burst of conversation and words, that follows when two old friends meet; there was an uncanny silence after the initial talk. I decided to push for lunch. But his response shocked me. He said, “Oh, I had my lunch already.” With the shock still not registering, I said, “Dude, didn’t we decide to have lunch together? I stayed hungry all this while waiting for you.” And he replied back with “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to wait!”

This was a big let down for me. I could feel all the frustration and bottled up bad temper from the earlier day rising within me again. But controlling it all, I asked him to accompany me and my cousin to some restaurant for lunch. During the lunch too, I noticed that his responses were limited, none of that “old times chatter” was to be seen. Then we roamed around New York, seeing all the tourist attractions like the Empire State Building, Trinity Church etc. As the evening drew to a close, my roommate called me asking me if I could stay in New Jersey for the night so that we can leave from there itself the next day morning. With a deep sense of foreboding, I asked my friend how big his apartment was. He said with pride that it was a big 3 bedroom apartment and he and his roommates each had their own room. My hopes rising, I asked him if I could find some space to put up for the night because I had nowhere else to go. And his response was “Arre dude, there’s a problem. My roommate’s brother is going to come, and his live-in girlfriend also might come, so its going to be a little problem to put you up for the night. Could you find some space elsewhere.” Scarcely believing my ears, I continued my begging. “No man, the house I stayed last night was some friend’s aunt’s place and I’ve no other friends here. A hotel would be pretty expensive in NY. See, the thing is, we will anyway be going home late after dinner, so when we reach your apartment, all your roommates will be sleeping and in the morning, I’ll be leaving by 6, before they even get up. I wouldn’t even want to sleep in your room, just a corner in the hall would suffice. In the morning too, I wont be wasting any time having a bath since I reach DC by 11 o’clock. Just one night I’ll need some space.” And right there before my eyes, I saw one of the worst shades a friend can show another. He said “You need space na, then why don’t you sleep at your cousin’s place?” I said, “Arre, he’s just moved in today, and he has no place for a guest, it’s a small place.” He said, “How much space will you need, couldn’t you stay there?”

I lost it. It was over for me. Never before in my life so far had anybody, humiliated me so much. All day, he had kept telling me, “I work at Wall Street, I live in a posh locality in Jersey, my balcony overlooks the Hudson river giving me a view of Manhattan….” And when the time came to give me shelter for one night, his house had no space for me. Never before had I begged like this in front of anybody for shelter. Even in America, apparent stranger - some roommate’s friend’s friend, had provided me shelter happily for a night. But this friend, my own college friend had alienated me. His 3 bedroom apartment had no place for me for a night. Whatever be his reasons, he should not have humiliated me like that. That instant, I called my roommate telling him that I would not be able to stay in Jersey, but was going back to Queens to my cousin’s place.

Finally, as I entered my cousin’s apartment to sleep for the night, as a final cruel pinch in the stomach from destiny, I realized that the apartment had no ventilation system, AC or fan and all air circulation was dependent on a small 2 feet square netted window through which a small breeze would come once in a while. As I curled up on a hard floor in the humble home of my poor cousin, I realized that I would remember this journey for altogether different reasons – reasons I had never imagined I would see.

Valuable lessons were learnt that day. People change. Circumstances change. Events don’t go your way. All plans that you propose may get disposed. People we call our own, become unknown, and in poverty one finds simple benevolence.