Monday, July 18, 2005

Thankless

In the backdrop of the bomb blasts in London effected by their own nationals, the occassion to relate an incident that happened a few months ago is most appropriate now.

Getting out of the plane on arrival at Caracas and seeing the long serpentine queue at the immigration counter made me all the more tired. Anyway, there is no way I can be excused, so had to stand at the end of the queue carrying my huge baggage. In this unfamiliar place I found a familiar face in the person just in front of me. We just got into a conversation by starting with how horrible the queue to the immigration counter is. The person had a thick British accent, a British national, parents were from Pakistan. He was quite friendly and our conversation spanned from cricket to economic policies of India and Pakistan. He then told me to be careful out in Caracas as the crime rate was high and more so if you were found to be a foreign national. However he said that we can pass off as locals as people from the sub-continent resemble South Americans. He said that the locals have some animosity towards Europeans and Americans. To which I exclaimed with "Oh, is that so?", to which he replied "Koun pasand kartha hain in logon ko" (who after all likes these people) in Hindi/Urdu in an accent that resembled that of Tom Alter who plays the English man's role in most of the Hindi movies;

Now, do not forget the fact that the person whom I mentioned here is a British national, which means that he has access to almost every developed nation in the world with no visa. He has access to the best of the civilized and modern world. Who granted him all these rights even though he was from a country far away and not anyway near prosperity or even civilized society? He or his kind could have been treated as immigrants with no permanent permit to stay (let alone a citizenship) and still they would have hanged on as they can lead a much better life in all aspects as compared to their original homeland. The British would not have realized that they were feeding poisonous unsuspecting snakes in their frontyard. Now the British cannot even weedout these snakes from their yard as they belong to them. You cannot deport them. What do you do with a set of peope owing allegiance to another country and even worse forming a fifth column in a nation which fed you since you were born.

Truly Thankless I felt.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Wine tasting in Air

Although I have nothing against consumption of alcohol, I am not comfortable consuming beverages containing alcohol. What kept puzzling me from days that I can remember is what attracts a large section of people to this? How does it taste? What kind of intoxication does one derive after consuming it and so on...

Well, when I was scheduled to fly across the ocean on a long flight, I thought it is ideal to try out with no known person in sight and I guess superior quality of the beverage that the airline provides.

Last time I flew, I had seen the air hostess pouring RED WINE in beautiful wine glasses and I that's the only name of a wine that I knew. I had read in the internet that red wine was good for health, so I thought this was a safe bet.

Air Hostess: What would you like to drink sir?

Me: RED WINE

Air Hostess: what sort of red wine do you prefer?

......crash....now what do I tell....I did not want to reveal that I had no knowledge on this.....

Me: Give me the best one please

Air Hostess: I will serve you the @#$$%^, i am sure you will like it

She gave me a packet of chips to go with the wine, reminded me of the drunkards having country liquor on the rode side with potato bajji. Here the only difference was that the country liquor was replaced by some branded wine and bajji by chips.

The wine tasted like a stronger version of Benadryl cough syrup. Felt like some one lit a fire in my lungs. After a while felt like I am in air totally intoxicated by the wine.

That was the last time I tasted wine till date and I guess it will be the last for the rest of my life.