Chase Manhattan!

If one has to recall a city with umteen number of people walking on the side ways holding their briefcases, alongside enthralling skyscrapers, unmindful of the countless yellow cabs gliding on the road it should necessarily be a place called New york. In reality it is Manhattan which is popularly known to the the world as the city of New york.It is a seat for many world organisations. The city with magnificent skyscrapers and electrifying activity. The city of crime and culture. The city of glamour and vanity. The city of art and history. The headquarters for many world class business houses. The city of celebrities and street dwellers. It can be as resonant and radiant as heaven and could as dirty as a swamp. The city in five parts but to many of us it is Manhattan, the New york which matters the most.

A traveller can easily pass whole day by just roaming around Fifth Avenue or Broadway yet doing nothing. It's popular Time square with it's New Year falling ball can be more bewitching than Las Vegas strip as he is delighted by watching traffic rolling all around, peacefully sipping his cup of coffee sitting in the island quite in the middle of it. However we try to recreate that kind of atmosphere I am sure any tourist who is made to sit in the midst of Mumbai traffic will eventually die with choking. But you can afford to do that in this city of New york.

It is the city as old as Hyderabad and as populous as Mumbai. The visitors often come across equal number of regular commuters rushing in different directions. It's streets offer wide variety of Mediterranean and Asian foods. Many of it's skyscrapers designed in their unique style and height make our necks break. Even the mid day Sun doesn't dare to penetrate into the allies as the structures are so tall casting shadow all the time.You get a feeling that you are visiting one of the most industrialised and technologically advanced places on the planet. The stroll on the Park Avenue delivers a touch of majesty and richness which is hard to forget. This is a city which can pull you like a magnet and there is always something more you get to see.

It has many things worth a visit but not many tourists are tempted to experience them. Its numerous art galleries and museums have so much to offer but I guess a visitor who plans a short visit is more attracted to it's streets than what is inside the museum. A glace either from a Rockefeller Centre or Empire state building gives a birds eye view of the city swarming with high rise buildings on the banks of Hudson river and misty Brooklyn Bridge one of the oldest and longest suspension bridges in the world. A huge lung space provided by the central park is a lesson for many of the upcoming cities with no elbow room, yet too small to relieve pollution completely.

Millions who crossed Ellis Island as immigrants with large hope and tears were never disappointed. They found a heaven which could materialize their dreams.The fate of many who muttered their names was rewritten with new spellings. Photos and accounts show that they were treated better than people in refugee camps of our country. The people with no money, no backgrounds, no past have built their own nation brick by brick with their sweat and blood, where as the countries with history and culture dating back thousands of years, found their own ways of gradual decadence and immorality. The statue of liberty, basically a savage goddess in it's creator's imagination , stood like a personified democracy carrying a mantle showing the splendid passages of equality, liberty, and good living for all. It is like a gate way to America and stood like a rock wall of strength and courage. I swear there is no city like New York in this country.

For a resident Manhattan could turn to be a nightmare, with soaring apartment rentals, meagre space, cluttered traffic, and constant need to run to catch a train or bus. Yet there are innumerable opportunities open to him to make a living. May Indians who work in Manhattan always had New Jersey as an abode through Lincoln or Holland tunnels with number of Indian food joints, shoppings and movie theatres, Indian music and unclean roads.

Around the world great cities have their own identities. They grew sucking the vitality of everything around and virtually making surrounding provinces debilitate. Our cities have no soul of their own and are only part of a large constituencies, the only exception being Mumbai, the only city comparable to New york in terms of it's exuberance and population. Yet it is less cleaner and organised than New york. It is more than usual that we never plan our cities nor even regulate them. They grow on their own by virtue of their living opportunities. For many of our people they are the places of cinemas , hotels and short term gains or employment. Given a choice not many love to live in these concrete jungles. Thanks to our loyalty to agrarian living. Greener pastures can be created in our backyards with conscious effort by the governments and planet can be saved from excessive conglomerations and depletion.