This one's from the archives of my old blog... I was studying, or trying to, before yesterday's exam, when I suddenly remembered this incident. I'd forgotten all about it, but it's a nice story, so I thought I'd put it up here...
The original post was dated February 13th, 2008.
So there I was, in a busy market, heading towards a book shop. I'd parked rather far away from it, because I wanted to swing by a shoe shop on the other side of the market to check if they'd gotten these black sneakers in my size (they hadn't) . It hadn't been a very happy day, or a very happy week for that matter, so it was a rather ill-disposed lastknight who stalked the sidewalk, inclined to scowl darkly at the milling crowds who seemed to want nothing more than to merrily laze around getting in his way.
I looked up to chart a course around an island in the river of humanity, and spotted a bloke in what seemed to be a beige suit. Closer inspection revealed it to be a pair of beige cargos and a similarly-coloured beige corduroy jacket. I mentally commended the bloke on his outfit and had just passed by, when I heard a voice speak in a distinctly un-Indian accent, "Mujhe bahut bada stationery shop chahiye." Of course, what came out was more like, "Moo-jhay baa-hoot baa-dah stationery shop chaa-hee-yay." I turned around, and spotted a rather fair-skinned oldish bloke trying to communicate with two girls who seemed to be making a considerable effort to keep their faces straight.
I walked up to him, and asked him if I could help. He immediately looked relieved, and transferred his full attention to me. The girls looked rather relieved themselves, and I soon found out why. Up close, the bird grabbed me by the hand, and asked rather intently about the whereabouts of a stationary shop. However, knights being known for their iron nerves, this one held his ground, and further questioning revealed that the bloke had been going around the market for over an hour hunting for a purveyor of quills and such. He kept trying to talk to me in Hindi, though, upon which I had to interject and say that English was fine. :P I directed him to the nearest one, and pointed him in the general direction for good measure. As I walked him back to his rick, I noticed that the driver seemed to have steam coming out of his ears. He demanded money from the bloke, who responded with something like, "Money later! After trip! Not now!" Anyway, so he thanked me fervently, and they set off. Into the sunset and his happy ending, I thought, and smiled to myself. Little did I know that this tale was far from over.
I watched them go down the road - and turn right straight into the wrong lane. I stifled a curse and charged after them. When I got to the spot where they'd stopped, I found that the bloke had dived into a musty bookshop, and was about to follow him, when the rickshaw driver buttonholed me and started ranting about how he'd been driving around the bloke in circles for hours, in the promise of much gold, but had yet to get so much as a whiff of it. In the meantime, the bloke emerged from the shop, with an owner who looked like he'd seen too many winters, and a boy who certainly hadn't seen enough. The owner told the boy to accompany the bloke to a stationery shop, which I dutifully conveyed to him. He was appreciative, and also rather gratified about the fact that I'd followed them to try and correct their course. He was all set to charge off again, when the rickshaw driver announced his refusal to travel any further without being paid. The bloke told me about how he'd planned to give the rick driver a hundred bucks, so I convinced him to give him half then and the other half later. Driver suitably mollified, the bloke and the boy set off again. Oh, and I explained the way to the boy too, for good measure... again. There we go, I thought, that should be it. Only it wasn't.
I walked back to the main road, looked to my right, and saw the rickshaw emerge from a side lane and stop. The boy hopped out, looking bemused, and starting asking passers-by about the whereabouts of the stationery shop. I shook my head, took a deep breath, and charged towards them again. I got there, dismissed the kid, and told the bloke I'd go along with him. He grinned from ear to ear, thanked me a few more times, and we were off. Along the way, I learnt that his name was Ron, he was from New York, and he'd been coming to India every year since the 1980s to a spiritual guru, and then to his son, for a spot of meditation. He needed to find a stationery shop to buy markers, to write name-tags for some function to be held at the ashram he was staying at. He spoke of the peace and serenity he found in meditation, while I marvelled at the bloke's passion. He asked me if I'd ever tried it, to which I replied in the negative with a smile. He said something like, "Ah, but you're young..."
What followed next was the most interesting bit of the conversation, though...
Ron: "I'm so glad you're here. God sent you there to help me find my way!"
Me: "Ah well, just glad I could help..." (shrug and smile)
Ron: "You know, I could from your face that you would help me"
Me: "Really?" (incredulous)
Ron: "Oh, yes. God creates your face according to your karma. You can tell what a person is like by looking at their face. I looked at your face, and I knew you were a kind, intelligent student who would help me find my way..."
Whoa. Deep, what? Capable of being interpreted in a frightfully politically incorrect, maybe even morally incorrect way. But I don't think he was talking about looks in the conventional sense...
So we reached the stationery shop and bought four markers. Walked out in silent triumph. Ron then hit me with the line of the evening.
"Do you want love?"
Alright, so even an iron-nerved knight can falter.
I was in two minds whether to stay or flee, but he kept speaking, about how some people want money, and some want power, but only those who want to find love find true happiness. He wanted me to come to his ashram give meditation and all a shot, which was about when I started breathing again. :D However, by then I'd had enough of the spiritual talk, so I told him I was kinda busy. Anway, so we walked back to the rickshaw. The driver eagerly asked me if we'd found what we were looked for, and when I replied in the affirmative, he seemed to seriously consider the thought of doing cartwheels interspersed with the odd somersault or two. He decided against it though, much to my disappointment.
Ron then dropped me back at the market, and thanked me a few more times on the way (the lastknight's modest smile was experiencing rather heavy use that evening). I disembarked and saw off a rather happy pair - Ron, who'd successfully completed his mission, and a rickshaw driver who'd earned a lot more for a few hours' work than he normally did. Then I finally went to the bookshop, basking in the afterglow of a day's good deed done.
The entire episode had taken about forty minutes from start to finish. But the moment of the evening had occurred just after Ron and the kid set off from the musty bookshop - as the rickshaw drew away, Ron leaned out of the back of the rickshaw, beamed at me, and flashed a V-sign at me.
I swear, I hadn't grinned that broadly in the entire week before this episode.
Hm. Maybe I was meant to be there at that place and time. :)
The original post was dated February 13th, 2008.
So there I was, in a busy market, heading towards a book shop. I'd parked rather far away from it, because I wanted to swing by a shoe shop on the other side of the market to check if they'd gotten these black sneakers in my size (they hadn't) . It hadn't been a very happy day, or a very happy week for that matter, so it was a rather ill-disposed lastknight who stalked the sidewalk, inclined to scowl darkly at the milling crowds who seemed to want nothing more than to merrily laze around getting in his way.
I looked up to chart a course around an island in the river of humanity, and spotted a bloke in what seemed to be a beige suit. Closer inspection revealed it to be a pair of beige cargos and a similarly-coloured beige corduroy jacket. I mentally commended the bloke on his outfit and had just passed by, when I heard a voice speak in a distinctly un-Indian accent, "Mujhe bahut bada stationery shop chahiye." Of course, what came out was more like, "Moo-jhay baa-hoot baa-dah stationery shop chaa-hee-yay." I turned around, and spotted a rather fair-skinned oldish bloke trying to communicate with two girls who seemed to be making a considerable effort to keep their faces straight.
I walked up to him, and asked him if I could help. He immediately looked relieved, and transferred his full attention to me. The girls looked rather relieved themselves, and I soon found out why. Up close, the bird grabbed me by the hand, and asked rather intently about the whereabouts of a stationary shop. However, knights being known for their iron nerves, this one held his ground, and further questioning revealed that the bloke had been going around the market for over an hour hunting for a purveyor of quills and such. He kept trying to talk to me in Hindi, though, upon which I had to interject and say that English was fine. :P I directed him to the nearest one, and pointed him in the general direction for good measure. As I walked him back to his rick, I noticed that the driver seemed to have steam coming out of his ears. He demanded money from the bloke, who responded with something like, "Money later! After trip! Not now!" Anyway, so he thanked me fervently, and they set off. Into the sunset and his happy ending, I thought, and smiled to myself. Little did I know that this tale was far from over.
I watched them go down the road - and turn right straight into the wrong lane. I stifled a curse and charged after them. When I got to the spot where they'd stopped, I found that the bloke had dived into a musty bookshop, and was about to follow him, when the rickshaw driver buttonholed me and started ranting about how he'd been driving around the bloke in circles for hours, in the promise of much gold, but had yet to get so much as a whiff of it. In the meantime, the bloke emerged from the shop, with an owner who looked like he'd seen too many winters, and a boy who certainly hadn't seen enough. The owner told the boy to accompany the bloke to a stationery shop, which I dutifully conveyed to him. He was appreciative, and also rather gratified about the fact that I'd followed them to try and correct their course. He was all set to charge off again, when the rickshaw driver announced his refusal to travel any further without being paid. The bloke told me about how he'd planned to give the rick driver a hundred bucks, so I convinced him to give him half then and the other half later. Driver suitably mollified, the bloke and the boy set off again. Oh, and I explained the way to the boy too, for good measure... again. There we go, I thought, that should be it. Only it wasn't.
I walked back to the main road, looked to my right, and saw the rickshaw emerge from a side lane and stop. The boy hopped out, looking bemused, and starting asking passers-by about the whereabouts of the stationery shop. I shook my head, took a deep breath, and charged towards them again. I got there, dismissed the kid, and told the bloke I'd go along with him. He grinned from ear to ear, thanked me a few more times, and we were off. Along the way, I learnt that his name was Ron, he was from New York, and he'd been coming to India every year since the 1980s to a spiritual guru, and then to his son, for a spot of meditation. He needed to find a stationery shop to buy markers, to write name-tags for some function to be held at the ashram he was staying at. He spoke of the peace and serenity he found in meditation, while I marvelled at the bloke's passion. He asked me if I'd ever tried it, to which I replied in the negative with a smile. He said something like, "Ah, but you're young..."
What followed next was the most interesting bit of the conversation, though...
Ron: "I'm so glad you're here. God sent you there to help me find my way!"
Me: "Ah well, just glad I could help..." (shrug and smile)
Ron: "You know, I could from your face that you would help me"
Me: "Really?" (incredulous)
Ron: "Oh, yes. God creates your face according to your karma. You can tell what a person is like by looking at their face. I looked at your face, and I knew you were a kind, intelligent student who would help me find my way..."
Whoa. Deep, what? Capable of being interpreted in a frightfully politically incorrect, maybe even morally incorrect way. But I don't think he was talking about looks in the conventional sense...
So we reached the stationery shop and bought four markers. Walked out in silent triumph. Ron then hit me with the line of the evening.
"Do you want love?"
Alright, so even an iron-nerved knight can falter.
I was in two minds whether to stay or flee, but he kept speaking, about how some people want money, and some want power, but only those who want to find love find true happiness. He wanted me to come to his ashram give meditation and all a shot, which was about when I started breathing again. :D However, by then I'd had enough of the spiritual talk, so I told him I was kinda busy. Anway, so we walked back to the rickshaw. The driver eagerly asked me if we'd found what we were looked for, and when I replied in the affirmative, he seemed to seriously consider the thought of doing cartwheels interspersed with the odd somersault or two. He decided against it though, much to my disappointment.
Ron then dropped me back at the market, and thanked me a few more times on the way (the lastknight's modest smile was experiencing rather heavy use that evening). I disembarked and saw off a rather happy pair - Ron, who'd successfully completed his mission, and a rickshaw driver who'd earned a lot more for a few hours' work than he normally did. Then I finally went to the bookshop, basking in the afterglow of a day's good deed done.
The entire episode had taken about forty minutes from start to finish. But the moment of the evening had occurred just after Ron and the kid set off from the musty bookshop - as the rickshaw drew away, Ron leaned out of the back of the rickshaw, beamed at me, and flashed a V-sign at me.
I swear, I hadn't grinned that broadly in the entire week before this episode.
Hm. Maybe I was meant to be there at that place and time. :)
