A sliver of India

After a monstrously long post, let's try a really short one. I was on the bus from Boston to Taunton calling up my friends to kill time and yapping away in Hindi. Buses are not the most popular means of transport here anyway and as usual the number of my co-passengers numbered in single digits. I wonder how the bus operators make a profit out of running a 56 passenger capacity bus but never getting more than 7-8 odd passengers. Nonetheless not my concern as long as they have the cash to waste.

Sitting right behind me was a typical white Latino dressed in what else but huge baggy pants, oversize jacket, pierced ears, soul patch beard, inverted cap et al. He along with his black pal were right out of a hip-hop video and talked between themselves in the manner you'd expect such a pair too. When I got off at Taunton with the rest of the passengers, this guy casually wished me "Jai Sri Krishna!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at such an unexpected turn of events. Not only because "Jai Sri Krishna" is an Indian greeting but that it is also a very very typical Gujarati greeting. I had heard it out of our local panwallah's mouth in my childhood and responded in kind. To hear it in the southern part of Massachusetts and that too from a Latino was really off the hook. It turned out that the guy's girlfriend was an Indian and I am guessing a Gujju too! Next time, if I hear the bus driver play Garba music, I shouldn't be too surprised.