Despite unfailingly repetitive experiences of being stranded in a new city or foreign country I continue to remain recklessly optimistic and blindly reliant on others to take care of details. Others, as in travel agencies, online bookings, friends or co-travellers who assure me that these days its no big deal to venture abroad alone, that everything is very methodical out there. Ha! As if, where India ends, Utopia begins! Anyway, here I was, bags packed to take a flight from Frisco to NYC two years ago, but still hasnt been able to choose the right hotel there when I remembered Vikas Dutta, the US line producer for most of Dharmas and YRFs extravaganzas. One call and he zeroed in on a dream hotel. An impressively retro ambience on 57th Avenue, walking distance from Central Park to the right, Times Square on 42nd to my right, the theatre district behind the hotel and a subway stop that practically leaned on the hotel wall. Needless to say I got my dream holiday flitting about, as care free as a lark with more money and freedom than I knew what to do with. And on the day before I was to leave for my dutifully touristy coach tour of Philly, Niagra and DC, I finally meet this sweet, helpful man who made it all happen for a lil ole lady. He turns up with a friend, an Indian ad filmmaker settled in NYC, Rao (who turned out to be a friend of a friend Amir Jaffar) We wine and dine in an Italian sidewalk cafe, smoke a lot, talk a lot, in the 8 pm golden sunshine of NewYork in June. Two guys whom Id never met before, who were probably born the year I made my first reckless trip to Europe ( also without a hotel reservation during a choc a bloc Berlinale) and who were so sweet and unselfish that one of them didnt mind spending the most important day of the year with a stranger. It was Vikas Duttas birthday. I have no doubt that I can never repay his kindness but Im going to give a damn good try when he arrives in Bombay on May 1.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 10:51:13 +0000
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