Monday, November 26, 2007

New York Post I

The Delta 17 touched down at JFK as promised at 7 AM eastern time. I lipped a quick 'Thank you Lord"and looked out of the aircraft at the gloomy scene outside. The sun was clouded out and a light rain was falling but the weather didn't stop me from rejoicing . The thrill of being on land after a 15 hours and forty five minutes flight, 7000 miles covered safely and arriving on time were all things one has to be grateful for.

It took us almost 30 minutes to Taxi and get to the gate and another hour for immigration and customs! The wait was unusual but I checked myself from complaining. In all of my many visits to New York I have been out of the airport in 15 to 20 minutes. Don't know what happened today, may be it was too early or may be it is the Monday morning blues (the Monday after thanksgiving)that slowed down the proceedings ... Seeing my Samsonite waiting for me was another occasion to rejoice for on many visits to the US, my luggage played shy and stayed put in some transit airport and only showed up a day later. The sight of the Limousine driver with my name on a hold up card, was another reason to cheer. He was to pick me at 7AM, I did not expect him to wait an hour and thirty minutes for me.

Soon we were in the bumper to bumper traffic trying to get out of New York, headed to Hilton Garden Inn in the the small town of Danbury . Half way into the journey the traffic cleared and we were able to accelerate on the empty road. The drive was beautiful ... The well laid out roads, the green landscaped borders,the tall trees with their glorious multi coloured leaves and the occasional attractive subdivisions that we passed by with beautiful homes,were all a feast to my eyes. I love nature and always cherish ocassions such as this when I can enjoy it. Later as I checked into Hilton for a week of Business meetings, a thought stuck me, even though I had travelled around the world with very little sleep and acute jet lag, I had a great morning and was excited about what we can achieve this week with my US colleagues. I wondered if it would have been same if I had given in to the natural urge to see every thing from a negative context and ask the question 'Why Me?', complain and wallow in self pity.

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