New Rochelle, New York

By Shantha Gamage

In New York all bookshops have been built to resemble libraries. People sit and read before they buy books, be they fast-selling novels or more intellectually challenging works. The city is dotted with children’s parks, and most of them have libraries. Mothers reading and acting out stories to their children is a regular sight at these places.

New York has one of the best museums in the world, the Metro Museum. The entrance fee fetches around USD 30. On the day we visited, they had organised a big show, a parade of dresses from the past. Real actors dressed as kings, queens, and bishops, as well as a host of other functionaries. You could spot everything, from works of art to medieval weapons. We even came across a replica of a gun used during the Kandyan Kingdom.

Of course, most museums are in Washington DC. They are mostly free. The Smithsonian Institute is the best example. When I visited there the organisers were holding a show on ancient artefacts from the developing world. They had displayed, quite prominently, a statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

I am currently residing in New Rochelle. Here we have a Jewish and Italian community. This is May, the month of Vesak. There are no Vesak celebrations here. Indeed, everything is confined to home, including even Jewish festivals. There aren’t many public shows either. Normally Sri Lankan Catholics celebrate their Church feasts loudly, if not colourfully. Church feasts here amount to just one Mass. Things are different during Halloween and Christmas, of course, with fireworks and celebrations everywhere.

I haven’t come across any noisy bars or discos here either. The people themselves are quite friendly. Every encounter with them brings forth a friendly greeting, a “Hi” and a “Good morning.” They are ever ready to apologise and say sorry. When they see people carrying their babies, drivers take extra care to make room for us, letting us cross to the adjacent lane, waving at us, smiling at our children. Almost every person has a regular walk with their dog. Dogs have been trained to be friendly with children and particularly babies, so there are always encounters between them and babies, friendly encounters.

All the dogs stay at home and are treated like family members. Our neighbour’s dog walks out occasionally and interacts with children by the road. Once when I was in front of their house, three cars stopped by and the drivers requested me to take the dog to a safer place, away from the road. Frankly, I was surprised at their concern. It’s not always that one comes across people concerned about dogs in Sri Lanka.

House prices and rents obviously depend on which state you live. With the high interest rates, house prices have ballooned. Not too long ago, a single bedroom apartment in Manhattan, the heart of New York, cost around USD 3,000 a month. By comparison, a five-room house with a garage, a basement, and a large living room, on a 40 perch block of land extending out into a 2,500 square foot, beautifully done front yard, once cost around USD 890,000. Now it would cost above USD 1 million, what with high interest rates. Invariably, of course, homeowners will have to resort to bank loans.

New Rochelle is full of houses that seem a century old. Sometimes they evoke the houses and landscapes of Alice in Wonderland. There are no parapet walls, and borders are usually marked by trees. Land, in any case, is becoming fragmented. I have seen children building new houses on the land their parents bequeathed to them, taking care to divide the land from the part occupied by them. But most of the time the children themselves will move to another location, depending on their job, their children’s education.