He turned his head around in suspended surprise. Sure, he had seen it in the pictures and heard so much about it. But this was beyond all vicarious hearing and seeing. This was it. The real seeing, with one's own eyes.
***
The city is overwhelming. A thick conglomeration of concrete, metal, glass, plastic and... and escalators!
Armed with maps of roads, buses and tube lines. His head in a dizzy. He takes ride after ride in the tube.
'For the joy of traveling on four stories of escalators' he tells his excited self with a hint of a smile.
***
The river meanders unheeding. Hemmed in with different sizes, molds and shapes of metal and glass. Bridges, so many of them - all of them built around stories or stories built around them. He couldn't tell.
The asphalt has a distinctly silver sheen to it. As if scrubbed clean. People walk about with a hurried pace. All serious, pre-occupied, plugged into more plastic and metal with mechanically recorded voices screaming from around them.
***
At the square he sits for sometime. A hungry stomach demands attention. A glazed packet of peanuts crinkles in his hands. And pigeons.
'The pigeons here seem fatter than the ones at home' silently wonders his still awed self. 'And they aren't scared of me either!'
In ten minutes, he has twenty pigeons flapping around him. 'Peanuts are their favorite too, it seems!' he smiles with delight.
***
Sitting on the steps of the Cathedral, he counted the years it took him to save the money - every precious rupee by rupee - to be where he was right now.
It was a dream - this coming here. And looking about the expanse of clean, spacious concrete and crisp blue sky, he felt a sharp pang in his heart. He shifted uncomfortably for a while, got up and sat down again. Suddenly at a loss.
***
He wanted to bring her along too. They had always talked about it. About coming together. About having one holiday to surpass all holidays. About saving for this one time of abandoned, unthinking happiness.
He sighed. It was too late by the time they had managed the money. She was bed-ridden for a month. And before she passed over to the other side, she extracted a promise from him to go visit the city. And take her along in his heart.
The day he agreed, she crept into her eternal sleep.
***
Finally, he was here. A wizened man of crisp, silver hair smiling at the blue of the sky knowing his time on earth was running out.
Finally, he was here. A child, with eyes full of wonder and awe, climbing up the Cathedral floors to drink in a little of the infinite beauty time affords man.
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