Meeting Bill Clinton..

My office in Manhattan is located at the intersection of Park Avenue and 58th Street, and from my cabin I get a good view of the life on the busy intersection. On that day I happened to be looking out from my cabin and I saw this tall silver-haired gentleman with two black-suited escorts slowly coming up the 58th street and going on to the Park Avenue. He crossed the Avenue, turned left and went into the Borders Bookshop on the Park Avenue, across the street. In a flash I realized this was Mr. William Clinton, ex-president of USA.

This was a chance I did not want to miss! It took no time for me to go down to the street and enter Borders, where Mr. Clinton was browsing through books. By the way his own latest auto- biography ('GIVING"), as well as the latest offering from Hillary, was on sale. Here was the ex-president of USA, rather casually moving around among the regular book buyers at Borders, browsing , buying books, and exchanging pleasantries with a few among the curious crowd! When he passed me I could ask him. 'How are you, sir?'.

He said, 'good.'

I wished I had my camera with me. But of course, I had my Cell, and I asked him whether I could take a photograph.

He said,'I am not supposed to stop here'.

Anyway as he did not object I went ahead and had two snaps with my cell camera. And, here are the snaps!






I understand there is extremely tight security for such political figures, but the Americans should be admired for doing it without disturbing the people around. Probably they do it through their surveillance gadgets and stuff like that. But the public is never made to suffer in the name of security. Contrast it with the scenario back home: how politicians consider the extent of chaos they create (traffic stoppages, road blockades etc.) the barometer of their political importance!