I CAN tell you New York is real pretty in autumn. Radio City Hall where Nicole Kidman played to full house, and Jerry Hall undressed because that’s what she’s got, baby, Time Square, where the biggest New Year’s Eve bashes are held, the Statue of Liberty, the skyline…you seen it all so many times even if you’ve never set your foot in New York.

 

Films, montages, ads, photo ops and Hollywood have taken you there and back so many times but have never spoken of how Manhattan looks in fall.

 

The wind blows the collars up against our ears as we walk past the Empire State building with the line of open air double-decker bus operators haggling over a couple of dollars with the seemingly Asian looking group.

 

Any American will never know how hard it is for most visitors to give a tip of one measly dollar because to them it could be 40, maybe 70 bucks back home! Autumn leaves swirl on the platforms although it is an underground subway, always dark. No matter how much sunshine is warming the streets, the subway is always freezing.

 

The trees at the central park are a flaming orange, a blazing red or lime yellow, the cyclists and joggers trample the fallen leaves like colorful confetti! The sculpture of the first pilgrims as their hands reach out to the shore of the new world’s harbor looks poignant against the shedding trees!

 

Everything is low key, and hurried: 9/11 has gone by and the huge hole in the ground just refuses to stop festering, emotionally and politically. Even those who want to move on cannot, the loss reparations have yet to be granted- mothers, sons, wives, girlfriends, lovers, children…

 

On the corner of 6^th Avenue and 34^{th Street}, Macys fills up with shoppers looking for pre-Christmas discounts and others who want to warm themselves or take coffee break indoors! Suddenly the alarm goes off at one of the exits. The goods are laid out in such profusion that some poor soul must have thought of walking out with some goodie & the secret pin in the article must have set the alarm off at the doors. Every one is gently frisked but that one doesn’t get caught. Maybe the stolen article was surreptitiously replaced!

 

Tea and coffee are served at every nook and cranny from Styrofoam glasses together with hotdogs and salami sandwiches oozing with mustard and mayonnaise. We take the train to Queens’ every night after spending the day in Manhattan, where our apartment is not yet ready. My son is three years old and this is his first taste of the bitter cold and drizzle that can get the best down in NY.

 

I walk by the wharf looking over to the bridge that leads to Bronx as the taxi driver mumbles about getting in, away from the blistering cold winds.

 

He keeps falling asleep every time he gets to sit anywhere and carrying him so bundled up against the cold is a task.

 

The array of make-up, clothes and food is amazing but what catches my eye are the numerous art galleries stashed in the middle of nowhere! They are a dime a dozen and some of them have our temple idols, Madhubani and Tanjore paintings and so much Indian art and jewelry on display. One plate of Idli Sambaar in an air-conditioned restaurant could cost a good 25 dollars apiece but I am so homesick that I pay the princely sum for some drivel.

 

I take a stroll with my son on my hip to the Brooklyn Bridge. Children glide by on roller-skates; young mothers carry younger children on their hips or push their prams against the winds.

 

It is a time to think, to take stock as the season is removing her ornaments and clothing for the coming of Christmas and snow and the wintry cold! No one looks at you in your eye, same as in Bombay, no one stops to help you pick your groceries if you’ve dropped them, same as in Bombay, but the country is alien and you don’t really mind. You are just looking for your roots in the orange season across the world!