Whirlwind US trip and remembrance of things past

For the last 10 days or so we have been travelling in the US and this is the first half of our six-week trip. Strangely, or rather because of the excitement of seeing new places, I hardly suffered from any jet lag and soon adjusted to the time difference. Adjusting to the weather was pure pleasure because both New York and Dallas (where we are currently) are balmy and experiencing late-spring early summer weather. The parks are overflowing with magnificent flowers and azaleas, peonies, agapanthus and roses seem to just tumble out of the beds. In Dallas, it is the sight of the creamy magnolias that sends me back to my childhood home and the heady evening fragrance of the magnolias as they unfurled heavy white flowers to perfume the nights.

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Forgive me if I sound a little hysterical but when we left Delhi, every bloom in my small garden had been burnt to a cinder by the loo and except for the dainty blossoms of the yellow laburnum trees, there was not a spot of colour that the relentless heat had not leached away.

New York is among my most favourite cities: I think it is because it quickens the pulse of every traveller with its heady life. We spent a few days catching up with friends, who took us to great restaurants and then were advised by them to walk the parks as the wildflowers were going to fade soon. Near our friends’ apartment, at the very edge of Manhattan, is a magical urban forest called Tryon Park. One of the Rockefellers (I forget which one) bought up 15 miles of land and gifted it to the city to turn into a park so that this area would always remain verdant. Then, to add further gilding to his generous endowment, he created a museum called Cloisters that houses some excellent medieval European art. The building itself is a recreation of a medieval cloister, complete with secret gardens that have beds of healing plants. As for the tapestries that hang inside, words fail me. What a wonderful way to leave a legacy!

New York’s Central Park is a well-known urban green space but this time, I was shown a new wonder by an old student, Kalpana Raina, whose father was my PhD guide and mentor in Chandigarh. Highline is a remarkable community effort that has turned this part of New York from a dark and sinister area into one of its most happening enclaves. Situated in the Chelsea area, it is built above the city’s busy roads on the tracks of an abandoned train line that led to the Penn Station. The imaginative merging of railway tracks, winding paths and the foliage that has the look of an untamed wilderness has created new spaces that are now used in multiple ways. Performances are a regular feature and all of them are open to all. There are coffee stalls and knick-knacks, photographers and a host of distractions to look at. The residents themselves collected the funds and started the project that attracted other volunteers and is a work in progress. Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan could learn a few lessons in how to inspire local populations to take the initiative to de-clog the filth that is now a hallmark of our cities. 

Dallas is a city that is a far cry from New York’s cosmopolitanism. And yet it has its own charm. I was determined to do two things here: eat a steak and see the spot where Kennedy was assassinated. The steak was all it was promised to be, tender, juicy and perfectly done but since I had forgotten how large American portions are, I had the leftovers as a sandwich the next day. The Kennedy Memorial is housed in the building where Lee Harvey Oswald hid. The sixth floor of this building is a moving tribute created from photographs, videos, newspaper cuttings and interviews — and worth a visit. Kennedy’s assassination was branded as an unforgettable memory on all our brains that fateful day in November 1963. I distinctly remember where I was and how we devoured every scrap of news that reported it. Jackie Kennedy, in her pink outfit, clambering over the back of the presidential limousine where Kennedy lay slumped. The funeral and the incredible grace and courage of the entire Kennedy clan — all these are still clear in my mind. What needed a reminder was the time: this was the year that Harper Lee published her famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a moving and iconic story of race relations; the Bay of Pigs episode; the famous march by Martin Luther King and so many stories from the time that was later memorialised as the Camelot years. Kennedy himself and his oratory, the adulation he received and above all, his lovely wife, the one and only Jackie Kennedy.

As political dynasties go, they were surely the brand leaders. Someone must one day explain to me why all such dynasties — the Nehru-Gandhis, the Bhuttos, the Bandaranaikes, to mention just a few — have such violent ends. In the case of our dynasty, though, the end seems to be headed towards a whimper rather than a bang. And thank God for that.