Sunday, May 31, 2009

Moving

(Opening Caveat: This post is not related to Meera's woe. I am working on the concluding part right now. I will post that soon.)

I hate moving. I can completely relate to people stuck in dead-end apartments simply because they aren't able to summon up the energy and the drive to move into another place.

Here I was in the Nolita area of downtown Manhattan helping my cousin move from an apartment which was close to an amazing billiards bar, three fantastic coffee places and oodles of enticing pubs, not to mention three subway stations which pretty much gave access to all parts of Manhattan. He was moving to a place in Chinatown which has only Chinese restaurants all around, no subway stations at a stone's throw, and let's just say that the old place had refined his taste so much that the mud served in the name of coffee in the nearby restaurants was no longer passable.

So why was he moving? Was it to save on rent? Not really. He was gonna pay the same amount. The reason was that his old room was the size of a matchbox, and the new one was the size of a bigger matchbox. He could now have that printer he was so eager to have!

So, ten bags in all. One of them weighed around 50Kg. It had to be carried down six flights of stairs. (Believe it or not, this ultra-modern, capital of the world had some really old buildings with no elevators!) The last time I swore this much was when Zaheer Khan had got bitch-slapped by Matthew Hayden in the final of the 2003 World Cup. We had begun the day by discussing how both of us have turned into fat pigs, and need to hit the gym hard. We both swore to start an exercise schedule as the waitress was clearing out the plates which had the remnants of our tiramisu. Hypocrisy is fun!

Finally all the luggage was brought down to the waiting area, and I was guarding the bags while my cousin was getting a cab, a task which in NYC is only slightly easier than a BCom graduate performing a craniotomy.

I was getting dirty looks from the beautiful girls who had to jump over the bags to get to the stairs. Now, I am no good-looker, so while I would never expect a second look from these fine ladies, the last thing I needed was to be in their bad books. What if these hot women periodically met during their Amazingly Hot Women club meetings and blacklisted me as a potential date to the category called "Not even if he was made of money." Why would someone with no apparent cerebral deformities move from a place with such amazing talent to Chinatown, which, don't get me wrong, simply lacked the diversity of quality that was in ridiculous abundance here defying all notions of probability.

The cabbie kept asking annoying questions about where the new address was. You may consider me an ass for thinking this, but a cabbie needs only two skills, driving and direction. So, if you cannot find an address that is less than a mile away from the starting address, you are not exactly worthy of the tip that you so self-righteously demand while you are watching us unload our uber-heavy bags.

"Hey Maggie, can you please come down and open the door, we are here with the bags." My cousin was already on the phone to his new roomie. She came out of her fire-escape (which doubles as a balcony) and threw the keys down. Neither cuz nor I went for the catch. Why try, drop and then cut a sorry figure as the other berates you for your poor fielding skills?

This apartment was on the third floor (thankfully!) and we got the luggage up there quick thanks to our freshly built biceps from bringing the luggage down at the other place.


We opened the beer we had hauled all the way here, and drank it even though it was warm.


10 comments:

Perception said...

China Town? Why?? And yeah I wouldn't tip the cabbie, btw china town hmph!

chocoliciousgal said...

Dude its still some where in Manhattan na...Chinatown ?? :D...btw moving is a pain..ask me...me and my roomie have been doing just that since the past 3-4 days :O..can u imagine..and the no. of boxes at last count==innumerable :D

avalok ishwar said...

Chinatown is great man .. at least that is true in SFO, I have not experienced NYC chinatown as much.. BTW, i hope your cuz's roomie doesn't end up reading this blog... not very charitable comment!

Liberal said...

@Perception
Chinatown is not too bad...the good stuff is at the most a subway ride away...so I guess my cousin is gonna enjoy this.

@Chocoliciousgal
Yup, Chinatown is a part of downtown Manhattan, so yeah it is better than many places...hope your moving is done by now and you are settling into the new place.

@Avalok ishwar
Chinatown is great for some things. Just the effect of living in SOHO or Nolita is absent here, and that can be gotten over. Yeah I see what you mean about the not-charitable comment, maybe I should bowdlerize it a little bit!

maxdavinci said...

I'm guessing he moved coz he now has a female roomie!

Anjana R said...

I second Perception.
Even though a good Chinese-American friend of mine is from that part of town.

Vivek said...

Written with a lot of Wit!
ME like!
:D

Liberal said...

@maxdavinci
Female roomies are overrated yaar..they can be as filthy living as guys (so I have heard ;)

@Anjana
Chinatown has its good stuff, e.g. they are impossible to compete with in terms of price. Last wknd I made a last minute plan to go to DC, and it was the chinatown bus which bailed me out!

@Vivek
thanks man..keep visiting!

sid said...

movin can be a pain...but so much if the beer to follow is cold and the comapny u got is warm!!!

Liberal said...

@sid
Well said man...the company was ok...but we did get some cold beer later though...so it was not a total loss