As the plane became afloat and we hovered over the NY skyline, the buildings I could name increased gradually. From the Empire State and the Chrysler Building to the One World Trade Center starkly standing out guided me to find the hotel opposite of which I stayed on my last NYC trip. To then others, the new Rafael Vinoly’s 432 Park Avenue: tallest residential tower and was reminded of its swinging, its architect was talking about. To, the Bjarke Ingel’s Via 57 West and its tapering curvature and the distinct tip as the plane looped to reveal the magnificent Central Park and the water bodies it hosts, relative to which I assumed the location of Guggenheim and the MET. I then recalled my studio professor’s ‘natural habitat’ I was passing by aerially and how she knows its every nook and corner by the back of her hand as she’d swift through the streets and subways casually.
We flew by and I passed into a pleasant slumber reminiscing the view and woke up to a Jain Vegetarian meal I had preferred. It was cool to hear from my neighbor about his daughter’s research. “Rats are born without eyesight and they gain it after 6(?) days. So, she’s going to research and study their eye by cutting through the cornea. Thus, conduct DNA sequencing. Perhaps they are able to replicate the same in humans for blind people.” He was a ‘gold medalist from Andhra University’ working with the SBI. He had lived in NY for five years in his early years for work with the same bank. Because of being brought up in Bombay and Delhi didn’t feel out of place in NY.
He got off at Mumbai while I was to continue the trip to Delhi. The two-hour layover extended and the flight delayed by an hour and forty minutes. This prompted me to grab a Starbucks Frap. Poor decision that is making me unnecessarily shake after the 14-hour flight as I write, wait to board, and see the Bombay slums in the far-flung and some similar, repetitive, tall apartment complexes and other scattered low-rise structures. Some people continue to stare, scroll through their phones, others frequently smile while looking at them. There is an old gentleman with parted grey hair sitting with curious eyes and his wife, I assume, lying on the bench listlessly next to him. Another middle-aged one is engrossed in the newspaper he’s holding. The one sitting right opposite to me pendulums between wakefulness and sleep while another one talks on the phone in the vernacular as the instrumental music hums. Larger-than-life, flower-shaped lamps opened in varying degrees hang like some guilty albatross from the airport's neck.