Day 1 (Saturday, 9th April 05'):
Dallas was an unexpected trip. It all started with Raj having a free-ticket on American Airlines, to any of their destinations in the US and Europe. Now had this been known before, that I would end up using the ticket, it would have been put to its best use, by flying somewhere in Europe. But let's just say that Raj got busy with interviews and I got lucky with the ticket. After trying all my preferred destinations on all my preferred dates, I ended up with Dallas, TX. Figured I have to travel to Texas at some point of time, may as well do it for free. (They say there’s not much to see or do there. I know that will hurt a lot of sentiments, but thats how I felt:)
My host for the weekend was to be Sachin. Sachin is my second-degree friend; he was roommates with my best friend and thus I got to know him. Before this trip, I have met Sachin just twice, once in San Diego from where we vacationed in Las Vegas together and once in Mumbai, when we spent a day together. Both the times, my best friend was with us and the three of us hit it off very well. Let's just say, that I had assumed that all the good friendships in life had already been formed. Any new friends now, are usually friends of existing friends. Sachin is one of them.
My weekend-er started off with splendid aerial views of Manhattan, one of the other reasons why I choose to fly out of LGA versus JFK. To be able to see the city you love, from up above, and discern its various smaller elements, just like in a map, is a high like none other. The perfect adieu to the perfect city.
I landed at 10:00 am in DFW Airport. Sachin was running a bit late, to pick me up so I strolled along at the airport, only to find a lot of people staring at me. Wondering if something's wrong with me, I hurried to the women's room. It must have been at that time that I noticed I was probably the only girl wearing a skirt at the airport.
Impression 1: Texan women dress like their male counterparts. (I guess you don't look "girly" in Texas).
I was supposed to find out about parking facilities at the train station at the airport, for Sachin, from the Information desk. The guy there was Indian, and sadly could’nt understand me very well. Must’ve been the generation gap or the possible lack of southern slang in my tongue. I left with a “thanks” and a train schedule in my hand. Found Sachin in a while and we set off with coffee and bagel in hand, towards his car. Of course, I had to exclaim my pre-planned “Oooh…So this is Texas!” one-liner once I was out.
We drove off towards the DFW train station, to catch the train to Fort Worth, for the Main Street Arts Festival. As does usually happen with my trips, today was the last day for the fest, so I had made it there just in time. We parked Sachin’s car at the station parking lot and tried to figure out how to buy our tickets from the vending machine. ("I am the public transportation queen, so I should know" was my argument). After some button-pressing we finally got our tickets and waited along with a lot of families, all dressed in ‘we-are-going-on-a-summer-holiday’ fashion, for our train. Luckily we had’nt missed the 10:23 as it was late and boarded it to get to our destination.
Impression 2: Either kids in Texas are friendlier than kids in NYC or I am funnier to country kids than city ones.
The rather slow train journey was spent playing peek-a-boo with the cute little Texan in the front seat and chatting with Sachin.
On reaching FortWorth, Sachin and I got out our cameras for some touristy photo-shoots. We followed the crowd and reached towards the Main Street where the fest was sprawled all over 5 blocks. I was excited to be at my first real street festival in this country, (NYC street fests dont really count as street fests, for various reasons) having thought of it as being like the ones on Food TV. Only as Sachin clarified to me several times, this was not a food but an art fest. We moved from one stage to another, hearing various bands playing their music and admiring the art-works on display. As always, none of the art was affordable. That sparked off a discussion on Art as an active or passive profession and Sachin mentioned how he wanted to pick up photography as an alternative profession than his current one-that of a Design Engineer.
Moving through the art-stalls we reached the family section where a Canadian tight-rope walker played an entertainer to perfection. Kids loved him and adults cheered along. The next stop was at a one-man stall where every correct answer yielded a buck as a reward. Needless to say, we knew most of the answers but did’nt manage a single buck and soon realized that waiting any more, would entail a lecture on Christianity, so we fled.
Like most street festivals, the food was expensive. We bought ourselves two coupon strips (10 coupons each) worth $10 and realized that most meals would cost the entire strip. I opted for a ‘Skillet Potatoes’ having been tempted for the taste of Texas, seeing two burly men cooking them in a huge skillet. Aptly, the men wore T-shirts which read “Everything is big in Texas”. Good Value for a good meal. Sachin on the other hand, opted for a sausage-in-a-bun (which left him hungry) and a glass of lemonade (which left him with a bad taste in his mouth). Talk of poor judgement!
A candy floss, Starbucks’ iced coffee and scented tea shots, later we found ourselves done with the place and ready to leave. The holiday mood had been captured in both our cameras and without much success I had managed to photograph some beautiful kids with their painted faces.
Impression 3: People prefer baby wagons for their kids in this side of the country. Must have something to do with the fact that life here is not so fast and space is endless.
The next stop was to be at a Rodeo-show. A must-do on this trip, as it was an exclusive Texas thing. The historic Wild West show from the 1800’s was to be playing in the nearby Stockyards Coliseum. Unfortunately, on calling them for directions, we were told that the show had been cancelled and there, emerged my excuse to come back to Texas. We got back on the train to DFW Airport train -station where Sachin had parked the car and drove off into my first freeway ride into the land of highways.
Impression 4: Texas highways are painted, unlike highways in any other cities in the US that I have seen so far. Each structural column has one star on it, to symbolize perhaps the “One star” state that TX is. It is called such, as the state flag has only one star on it.
Impression 5: I thought California was freeway-land, but now I am convinced that TX takes the cake when it comes to freeways and their wild criss-crossing on the horizons.
En route to Sachin’s place, we decided to stop over at the Hindu Temple in Dallas. I instantly compared it to the temple I visit regularly in Flushing, Queens and found it to be more spacious, painted and elaborate in some ways. The only thing missing was the delightful canteen that I feast in every weekend, in the temple back home. We left, after darshan to go over to Sachin’s place – a spacious (I need not say this word anymore, as TX is about space…too much of it, in fact) one-bedroom apartment, with a sprawling pond in front of it, circumvented by a jogging track and lush green landscape). A pool and Jacuzzi of course were tucked away in the corner, somewhere, as goes the norm with most apartment complexes BUT those in NYC.
Impression 6: Texas defines Space; the extravagance of it, the profundity of it and the profanity of it. As an Architect, that was my biggest turn-on. The inexpensiveness of the state, lack of state tax and dirt cheap rents ($600 for Sachin’s home, that is equal to a mansion for a single middle-class New Yorker) actually made me stop and re-evaluate my life, if only for a moment.
Once I snapped out of my space-dream, I noticed Sachin’s tastefully done apartment. I must admit, it was one of the best and cleanest bachelor apartments, that I had seen, the other one being my friend Kunal’s in SF. Sachin played the host to perfection-treating me to some hot tea (desi-style) with masala, ginger and all that jazz. He then, got out his guitar and crooned to some cool numbers, singing along as he strummed. The morning fest in the Texas sun and lack of sleep took its toll on me and I slept for an hour.
In the evening, we drove to the Indian hub of Dallas, to dine in an Indian Chinese restaurant (at my request). En route we picked up Abbas, Sachin’s friend/ co worker. Sadly the food was’nt all that good (as my tummy would find out the next morning) and turned out that the restaurant believed in quantity (too much of it) over quality. With our stomachs' full and hearts' empty, we left the restaurant.
Post dinner conversation flowed after we got back to Sachin’s place, over some old Smirnoff, until Sachin amazed me with the “I am still hungry, Do you want some Maggi?” one-liner. He had already made me feel guilty earlier, at seeing my appetite equal his over dinner, now it was my turn to gape. Eventually, we called it a night on some good 80’s music and old vodka with O.J.
Tomorrow was going to be Dallas-darshan.
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