Take any group of people, like a WhatsApp group for example, a group that had been co-existing peacefully together for a long time, sharing memes and laughter alike, and mention just one name - "Donald Trump", and you'll most probably see the group divided like never before, one side attacking the other and hurling abuses at each other.
Even his famous building "Trump Tower" in Manhattan, NYC, is a favourite spot for people to hold their protests. Democrats, Liberals and Far-Left groups on one side, Republicans, Conservatives and Far-Right groups on the other side. It is a place under constant surveillance and security.
Well, we have our very own Trump Towers here in Pune too. Unfortunately, it lacks any of the drama and flair like the one in NYC possesses. The only time the place is chaotic is during office rush hours due to the Metro construction going on in the middle of the road.
So the other day, just before I quit my job, there was a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Trump Towers, and I immediately signed up for it!
The CEO of our company where I used to work (up until last week) owns two floors at Trump Towers. In fact he was the first person to buy an apartment and when the building was inaugurated, Donald Trump Jr. himself personally came and handed him the keys at the inauguration function.
We, the employees of Jetsynthesys, were cordially invited to the exclusive book launch of Simon Taufel, a 5-time ICC Umpire of the year. I asked my colleagues if they were planning to go and many of them weren't because they weren't interested. As for me, I was excited, not because it was an exclusive interaction with Simon Taufel (I didn't even know the person, in fact that was the first time I was coming across his name because I don't watch cricket). I was excited because the event was taking place inside Trump Towers.
And so, at around 5:30 PM, I left office with some of my friends. Trump Towers was around 10 minutes walking distance from our office and so we walked there.
There was a lot of security at the gate, but all our names were there in their roster and they quickly let us in.
I know a couple of Mizos and Nagas working at Trump Towers as Concierges, and I even met some of them later that day. They told me that Trump Towers Pune is purely a Residential building, so random outsiders and tourists cannot just walk inside, only those guests invited by the tenants were allowed entry. Apparently, according to them, I was the first Mizo visitor to enter Trump Towers!
Lolz, yeah, kinda ironic, considering there are so many Mizo Trump fans out there, and yet the one person who is the first to step inside is me, probably the most non-Trump fan around :D
The building was majestic though, and we walked from the gate to the reception, which was surprisingly not near the entrance but much further behind at the back.
I decided that I was never going to buy an apartment there because if I came home drunk from a party and my Uber dropped me at the gate, I would have to crawl for such a long distance just to reach the lobby door :P
My concierge friends told me that usually on other normal days, they were equally divided between the two towers, but on that day, since the event was held at Tower A, reinforcement was obtained from Tower B.
Stepping inside the lobby.
There was this large board welcoming Simon Taufel.
One of the concierges led us to the elevator.
Once we were inside, she pressed "P" and the elevator moved up. I was like, "Cool! There's a Parking floor above the ground floor!" But then I learnt that the P stood for "Podium" and that was the floor where the event was held at :D
The Occasion Room at the Podium.
We roamed outside at the balcony before the program started. Refreshments were organized by our company people.
Nice swimming pool. At the far end is Tower B, which apparently is identical to Tower A in terms of structure and ambience.
I took a picture with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Jared Kushner. :P
Again I found another reason never to buy an apartment here. Look at the building behind us, the complete closed glass walls. Where the hell will I hang my washed undies after I take a shower? :D :P
Refreshments time!
The sandwich was personally made by Ivanka Trump, and the samosas were fried by Donald Trump that morning :P
The guest of honour Simon Taufel with our CEO and MD, Rajan and Rakesh Navani.
The Navani brothers are definitely one of the most down-to-earth people I have ever met, and most of us have a lot to learn from their humility and simplicity.
Finally once everybody was done eating and taking pictures, we headed inside the conference room where the book launch function was about to begin. I slyly snuck out and headed straight for the elevator and left the building :D My mission was done. No offense to Simon Taufel, but I don't even understand Cricket rules properly, nor do I watch the game even when India is playing, so it was going to be extremely boring for me. But I wish him all the best and success on his grand book launch.
And with that, I left my footprints at Trump Towers.
As usual, of course I sent my photos to all my Mizo friends who were Trump fans just to make them jealous. They were seething with rage. Nah, just kidding. I have left that "Me versus You" debate a long time ago. Just because they worship Trump doesn't mean I hate them or anything, everybody has the right to have their own opinion. People who follow my blog or know me well will know that I lean Liberal in most issues, but lately I have seen many left-leaning individuals silence conservatives or traditionalists and even deem them to be inferior to their intellect, which is not a belief I agree with. And that is why I hate labels. Let us not label each other.
I now treat this whole Pro-Trump versus Anti-Trump debate in the Mizo online world as just another football match. I am a hardcore Arsenal fan, if you are a Manchester United fan, I will curse you and abuse you and taunt you during our entire match, but after our match, you and I are back to being best friends drinking together and making merry whole night. That is how all political debates should be like.
Also, I think we really need to tone down how much American media we watch. Already, we have the dangerous precedent of calling any news as "FAKE NEWS" if it is not favourable to us, thanks to a certain fine gentleman. And then there are the numerous number of conspiracy theories being spread as real news at various Mizo FB groups. And finally there's the name-callings. The other day, I was arguing with a Mizo Trump supporter about LGBT rights in India, namely section 377. The guy was somewhere from Lawngtlai in Mizoram according to his FB profile, when suddenly he called me a "filthy DemoRat"! I was like, WTF??? Lolz. A "DemoRat" is apparently a nickname used by Republicans to call Democrats in America. Like seriously? I really don't give a rat's ass about Democrats or Republicans, we were arguing about the basic human rights of an individual here in our own Country. See, that is how far we stray from reality if we watch too much of American media all the time.
So with that, I will leave you all, raising my glass to you all for a "Cheers", regardless of which side of the political spectrum you belong to. Thuthlengs.
