Sunday, November 18, 2007

Man from Poland and Woman from Ivan

Life is strange sometimes and Journey can be stranger. On my latest trip to India after a very long time, I had experienced something strange and something very surprising (pleasant as well). In the first flight from India, I met a gentleman who was from Poland but now works in Germany for one of my favorite car company (three letter ... well if you have to think!!!). This was his first time to India and he spent almost two months in Nashik, where his wife is going to stay longer to teach French to the kids there. He knew a lot about India and seems to have some friends in Nashik. I was impressed with all the information he gave me and it was good to see more people visiting India and getting to see this great country up close and personal. When I first arrived in USA, the stories I heard about India from people who do not know India much not surprised me, but sometimes shocked me. Some people still thought we use elephants to go to school, we still don't have any high tech stuff in our country, all of us are poor and what not. Well, that has not only changed but changed for good. We have proved to the world that with around 300 million (which is roughly the total population of United States) people under the age of 25, we are the largest work force in the world. We not only represent our country with our culture and diversity, but also represent it with one of the brightest engineers and tech icons last century has seen and this century is going to witness.

On my connecting flight to SFO, I met this lady from Ivan, who now lives in Bay area. She has been teaching Yoga for many years now and knew about Indian culture (well, in the right perspective though). We talked about a lot of things including the marriage culture in India, astrology and human nature in general.

It was a good experience talking to these two wonderful people. I have been an avid traveler for quite sometime now and always found that you can learn so much about other cultures as well as your own talking to people during your journey. of course it also makes your journey a little less boring ... I meant the flight not the overall journey of course ;)

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