New York

If I had to grade this city against Harry Potter’s Ordinary Wizarding Levels (OWLS) standard, I’d give it an Exceeds Expectations.

Where I’d expected to be utterly homesick, dismal and regretful of my decision to be here, I find myself perfectly content if not blissfully enchanted. I’d expected myself to miss the old doom city of Kathmandu and get disenchanted with the mechanized, modern, fast-paced lives of New Yorkers. I had expected myself to get wistful over the thought of many middle-class Indians sitting lazily around India Gate on bedsheets spread on the cool green grass with tiffin carriers full of aloo parathas and achar. Those thoughts hardly come, for they are neatly tucked away and shielded by the flimsy dreams that are the reflections of images I see before my eyes.

This is New York, not Sydney, not London, not Paris, not Delhi, but New York. This is where everything is. At Jackson Heights, you have a mini Sarojini Naidu Bazaar with tandoori places and Bollywood music streaming out of shop windows. Dummies clad in the latest massakkali kurtas smile straight at you and golden jewelry everywhere just screams out “wedding season”. The Metropolitan Opera cannot compare to the Sydney or even any other European opera. You actually have people singing Bach on the trains. There’s Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Brazil Street, Chicano food vendors all over Manhattan and even a small place in Queens with a Nepali flag out front that reads “Himalayan Yak Palace”. This is where home is a very obscure, flexible, non-stationery idea that can be defined according to personal preference. This is home, heaven to millions of immigrants who dream of making it big. There’s no limit to where you can reach here, all you need to know is what you want.

Now that I’m here I’m assured I’ll live here someday, soon. On the subway, I see college kids like myself mulling over Nietzsche. There’s not much of a difference between me and them, we’re both just college kids. I can definitely see myself finishing class at the New School and heading off to my part time job somewhere in Manhattan, catching a little sleep on the way. I’m definitely enchanted. This is where dreams begin.

In cozy little apartments, Nepalis rear a nice breed of Nepali kids who don’t mind showing a guest around Rockefeller. They cook dal bhat to last them a week and head off to work as true Americans. The Protestant work ethic hardly dies where once Protestantism flourished. This is where the early settlers settled and work is divine might here. Immigrants learn that the moment they set foot in NY. Even food lovers like me understand once we’re here that you just need a bite to survive. The rich staring out of the windows of apartments around Central Park probably have all the time for food but even they too seem restless like they have a list of “things to do” tucked neatly in the pockets. It is probably the lack of time for small things like cooking that make cooking seem so important here. That one moment you get to cook, you cook all you want and store it in the fridge for future use. In Kathmandu, you’d get sick and tired of cooking each day, the same monotonous routine.

Small things make me smile here. Like the way people say “hi” so easily on the streets. I'm not used to that sort of thing. It just hits you hard. In Kathmandu you’d pass the same person each day and never bother to smile. Even when people are rude here it makes me smile. You smile when you have to act ignorant. Like when someone nice is showing you around and you don’t want the person to know that you know so much about the place already because you read it back in literature class where your tight ass English teacher made you print out the map of New York to get a “feel” of the play you were studying. 

But something worries you deep within. Your conscience is pretty well aware that most of what you see are just dream images. Poke through them and they burst. You think of all the strength you have to muster for wading through the images, to make them real and you think of all the trouble and you’re worried. You’re worried that other people will make it there before you or that you’ll lose what is essentially you. You’re scared you’ll lose the images of temples and courtyards and stay fascinated with tall towers even when they lose their enchantment. You’re worried you’ll grow too old before you actually make it. 

But for the moment you’re wide eyed. Enchanted. You’re in New York.

This story originally appeared on phenomenallyme.wordpress.com.