New York, New York

First, a confession - I am a confirmed Indophile. Despite having had many opportunities to work and live abroad in the short span that has been my working life, I always chose to stay back in India. And insularity had nothing to do with it - I have travelled quite a bit - all over Europe, South East Asia, Australia and Africa.

Now that that is out of the way, I come to the main point - I think New York is truly the greatest city in the world. Apart from day trips once or twice each year, I have experienced NY for exactly a week. And what a week! The wife and I lived in style at the Ritz, practically overlooking Ms. Liberty and in shouting distance from the Bull of Wall Street. We had many drink-sozzled nights with our IIM buddies in the Village(?? - I was too drunk to be geographically astute) and we partook of some wholesome junk at various restaurants across the city. The sheer infectiousness, the rhythm, the joie-de-vivre of the city totally took us in.

I think the eureka moment came when we were on our way back to our hotel, and the taxi driver started speaking in Pakistani urdu on his cell-phone, describing some nocturnal activities that he had been upto / would like to be upto (a conversation which would have made my ears turn red, had they not been already numb with generous helpings of alcohol) to his buddy, and the wife and I exchanged suppressed giggles, that I got it. New York is a melting pot, a city that gives you the freedom of anonymity in exchange for your enriching its already super-rich cultural milieu. When someone attacks New York, they attack all the nations of the world. They attack humanity.

New York rocks!