New York city, “THE” dream city. The city that never sleeps. The city of New York was on my bucket list since I had first heard of it. Yeah, you can blame Karan Johar’s (a director in Bollywood) movies for painting a beautiful picture of New York city for me since 4th grade. I happened to visit NYC this summer and since then, my love for Omaha (a small city compared to New York City) has increased immensely. I used to adore New York and its tall buildings. I was so impressed with the skyline that I hated myself for not being able to afford studying in NY. Anyway, long story short, as the plane was landing at the La-Guardia airport that night, I couldn’t restrain my happiness. My mind wandered thinking of all the amazing pictures I was going to post on my social networking accounts for obvious reasons (ssshh..yeah..it is mandatory for people to know where we are and what we do all the time and what’s on our mind!) Oh yeah, I had unambiguously decided the captions for the posts in my head already.

I am 24 and like other girls my age, I enjoy partying and other fun stuff. But as I sauntered through the streets of New York city, I wished I could take back my thought of studying here. I could go on and on and bore you by writing a huge list of things that I noticed in 3 days and hated the most, but I’ll spare you and mention just a few of them. The infuriating noise of the traffic, awfully overcrowded streets, people's 'I don’t give a damn' attitude, incessantly running for subways, congested places, eerie looking stations, overpopulated crammed areas, and a highly overrated city. I visited Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island, the Statue of Liberty, flatiron building, 5th avenue etc. All of these that I first saw in movies were right here, but there was a lot missing. If you decide to take a walk in Omaha, you will be surprised how people who are complete strangers smile and greet you everywhere. In the two years that I’ve stayed in this country, I thought this was something people here were taught in school. However, this was not the case in New York City. Nobody cares. People literally live like zombies. Yeah, yeah, I get it, NYC is the coolest city, blah blah, but this is what I noticed. Working like robots, worrying about not having enough always, and getting lost in the crowd is not cool for me. No offense here, but people in NYC have something to worry about all the time! I do know what it is to work and live in a big city but NYC is an exception. I have traveled in over-crowded buses and autos in India and have seen many unhappy faces, and the city of New York is jam-packed, bursting with people and their unhappy faces. You will have to run and search for peace in this city that ‘shows off’ its tall buildings. If peace was a person, there would be a huge cash prize for finding it in NYC.

I was significantly impressed by a page on Instagram that had photographs of extravagant places in New York city posted by a photographer, but actual reality was way beyond those digital pictures that I saw on my phone every day. I was not happy when I first moved to Omaha as it was tiny, had an unimpressive skyline, and was hardly crowded. But after visiting New York city, I realized the importance of the lush greenery everywhere, the corn fields, picturesque and attractive lakes, and, most importantly, quiet surroundings plugged with peace. People currently residing in New York city definitely might not agree with me, and I respect the fact that different people have different perspectives or opinions, and this was mine.

Again, if peace were a person, you would find it happily running and hopping like a little child here in Omaha.

Someone asked me “You did not like NYC? Seriously?” and my answer to that was, “Correct, I did not like New York City”.

–Sheekha Singh