Dallas, TX - Day 2

Day 2 (Sunday, 10th April 05'):
The morning saw us leave home at 11 am, after some brief planning of the day ahead. Me, being the morning-coffee person of the two, Sachin drove me to a Starbucks in Highland Park, supposedly one of the most elite neighbourhoods of the city. Having been through most affluent parts of LA, had already provided me with an insight into grand homes. Driving through Highland Park, added a new dimension to that insight.
Impression 7: Texas’s insane spatial expanse makes it’s people want to expand horizontally, even when building homes. Sachin was right when he said, that you wont find any homes go higher than two storey’s here. On the contrary, I actually saw homes that sprawled lengths of blocks, horizontally, leaving me to wonder if they had moving walkways within to traverse the vast distances.
After having driven through Highland Park and getting lost in there for about two hours, we finally got back on track and drove towards Cosmic Café for lunch. This was Sachin’s recommendation (an excellent one at that); “It’s a very hippie kind of a place, will suit your personality just fine” he said to me. I was just about to be flattered when he added, “I said ‘hippie’ not ‘hip’!” Yah, whatever!
Cosmic Café turned out to be one of the best Indian-fusion restaurants I’ve ever been to. To be honest, I was surprised I hadn’t been to a similar one in NYC. NYC’S loss was Dallas’s gain. With more space and low rates, Texas scored. To be able to have a Cosmic Café, that lives upto its name, provides for Yoga and Meditation centres on the upper level, a scattered but detailed ambience created with various mundane Indian objects and a pretty good menu, for comparable and ridiculous low prices, added this restaurant to my "Exotic taste on the trip" list. (Clearly, a list that comprises of eateries, where I eat, on my travels and remember for the rest of my life. The last name on the list was the café in North Beach, SF). I kept arguing with Sachin that this café was surely owned by some like-minded Indian and he insisted it belonged to an American. Eitherways; I would have loved to meet the owner and have a conversation about his excellent venture. A must-go place for every visitor to Dallas! The meal was tasty, the portions were just right, the chai was as close to India as it could get, and the mood thus, was upbeat. We left with broad smiles and bulging tummies, to drive off to South Dallas, to explore the downtown.
My excellent navigational skills, (modestly speaking) helped, and we ended up seeing most of downtown, just driving through it. Sachin realized he had never explored the historic West End district before, always having turned back before entering it. So the quaint appearance of the streets there, pleasantly surprised him. A classic case of what I call the ‘Catalyst Tourist’ (one who shows us sides of our city, we’ve never seen before). Coincidentally it turned out, by the end of the trip, that most of the things we did that weekend, were a first for the both of us. I guess that’s what made it so enjoyable.
The next stop was to be in North Dallas, at the Dallas Arboretum, by the Whiterock Lake. Sachin had been there biking before, but the day wasn’t at its sunniest best, so that option was ruled out. It goes without saying that today was the last day for the Dallas Spring Flower Show, at the arboretum. (We concluded this was an excellent weekend to be in Dallas). Previously, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the flower show, citing the excuse that I could always see the Macy’s flower show in Manhattan. Luckily, Sachin insisted and we spent the next three hours, moving from flower to flower in the arboretum. That; we had to keep reminding ourselves to read the flower names/history etc. instead of just posing for pictures with them, is another story. We must have appeared like two ‘wannabe’ models, who kept taking pictures of each other, against the floral backdrops. My camera batteries died, hoping I’d get the hint and stop this shameless desperation to be photographed. But; to no avail. Sachin’s camera came to the rescue and the desperation carried on. Fellow-visitors were requested often to shoot us together, until finally we both realized that our insanity may have driven them away. The rest of the time was spent walking around and taking pictures of the two 15 ft tall manicured peacock-shaped hedges, with tails that were landscaped with various flowers in colourful patterns.
The arboretum had a beautiful view of the lake as well, so we decided to drive by it. But its huge size, scenic surroundings and the sight of people fishing and biking past, made us want to park and enjoy the view for a bit. After a few more pictures by the lakeside, we drove off towards Sachin’s workplace, the Texas Instruments Headquarters, on my insistence. Sachin had described his ‘huge’ gym at work to me, which was enough reason to check out the facility.
Having seen how huge spaces can get here, I should have known what to expect at TI as well. But, seeing the cubicles line up one after the other endlessly, gave me the vague feeling of being somewhere between a warehouse and a sweat-shop. Obviously, it wasn’t either; the space was too well planned to be a warehouse and the people were paid too well for it to be called a sweat-shop. Even the ladies room was impressive-with jacuzzi’s, sauna’s, hot-tubs and one hair-dryer per sink. The facility was humungous and to get to the gym alone, we had to drive a few blocks. And of course, the gym was equipped with everything from a snack machine to open fields for ball games. I left the TI facility awe-struck.
Impression 8: While driving back towards Sachin’s place, we passed apartment complexes, that seemed to mock me with ‘One-bedroom apartments for $200”. Texas’s inexpensiveness was getting tough to digest, somehow.
The plan for the rest of the evening was to go back to the Indian hub of Dallas, for ‘chaat’ and ‘vadaa-paav’ and hit the funnily named ‘Amar..Akbar…Anthony’ theatres for the 6:30 show of the movie ‘Bewafaa’. (Sachin, being one of the few ‘filmy’ guys I know, this was a pre-planned event, as it appealed to both our ‘Bollywood-loving’ souls). Neel, Sachin’s ex-classmate from OSU/ present co-worker was to join us for the movie.
We reached the Taj Imports store, and Sachin warned me that I would now see hordes of ‘Aunties and Uncles’ inside the store. I had been to Indian stores before, in various parts of the country, but had obviously never seen one as spacious as this one. NRI’s differ just as the cities they live in, a point I have made in a previous travelogue. Dallas NRI’s, like most NJ one’s, as I was told, were among the first set of Indians that migrated and settled in the US. Most of them belonged to the Gujarati community, (‘gujjus’ as we colloquially call them) and established motel businesses or shops here.
(In keeping with the NRI topic, I must mention a hilarious piece of trivia, Sachin and Neel told me about-Apparently the funniest part of watching a Hindi movie in Dallas is when the movie features Paresh Rawal in it. He being the gujju community’s only claim to fame in Bollywood, that creates an uproar in the audience and people clap in his scenes. I am quite sure that, must provide for an entertaining show, by itself.)
After splurging over spicy ‘vadaa-paav’s’, Sachin and I drove to the tri-theatre complex to meet Neel, who had called promptly to inform us, that the movie had already started at 6 pm. We still decided to go ahead with our plans and saw ‘Lucky’ instead of ‘Bewafaa’ as recommended by the ticket-window guy. (A huge waste of money, in return for hardly any entertainment). We got out of the show discussing how ‘Bewafaa’ would have been a better choice (atleast it had some credible/hot actors and a storyline, which although common would involve some drama in it)
After a fun-time mocking and criticizing the film, we drove back home. Since I had an early morning flight out to LGA the next morning, we decided to call it an early night after a short walk around the artificial pond. The walk turned out to be short, but generated a discussion that went on for almost four hours into the night, accompanied with Sachin, midnight-snacking on ‘Maggi’ again.
Impression 9: Dallas, in true Texan style, provided the much-needed anti-thesis -‘ more space’ and ‘less pace’ from my regular NY lifestyle. Sachin’s interesting company, gracious hosting, our refreshing conversations, smiling strangers, peek-a-booing kids, and whirlwind touring of the twin cities of Dallas and FortWorth, just reinstated what my ‘skillet-potato’ chef at the fest flaunted on his huge torso-“Everything is big in Texas”…..most of all, hearts!