Random Acquaintances

Its funny how we meet so many people in this world. We end up having so many random conversations with so many random people that it seems really quite insignificant.
Im talking about people, the odds of whom we'll see again being slim to none.
The nice part however about blogging is that we can actually make some of it significant by putting it down. Simply because it was a day in your life you'd have completely forgotten about otherwise.

Ill cut to the chase. On one of my work related trips to Pondicherry I happened to sit next to a young man named Manuel on our big Volvo bus. I’m usually the kind of person who listens to my ipod or reads a book. Never really one to indulge in petty small talk. I noticed him before I got onto the bus and he seemed like the traveler type. Fast forward a little bit and he's sitting next to me on the bus. He seemed like a nice guy with no hang ups.... so I just popped the question of "where you from "? The next thing I know we started talking about all sorts of stuff. Which actually reminds me of a girl back in school.
In my 2 years there we'd only say hi n bye and were formal with each other. But 1 day before she had to graduate and leave I found her sitting alone on some steps at the wee hours of the morning right after our end of year party. Intoxicated and inhibition less the next thing I know we started talking and 3 n half hours had gone by. We realized that we could have been really good friends. We kept in touch for a while after she left....but that’s a different story.

Well anyways he was basically a free lance sound engineer who lives in Amsterdam. His first time in India he was down in Andhra Pradesh to shoot a documentary on farmer women. In his experience of 10 days there he told me more about our agricultural culture than I would expect to come to know living here for the rest of my life. It was interesting to have a foreigner tell me the upsides and downsides of the situation in rural farmer villages. I of course had to ask him your typical stereo-type question of "what’s it like seeing India for the first time" ... he wasn’t your typical culture shocked traveler and could relate to because I came to see that he'd traveled an extensive part of the globe including parts of Africa, Latin America a lot of Europe and here n there in the East. Like a lot of Europeans I’ve met he dint fancy the west too much, particularly 'America' . Although his view did change when we went to see his ex-girlfriend. He met some people and got to know them and I guess that influenced his change.
How we started talking about his ex-girlfriend and then mine, I’m still not quite sure. But I’m guessing I should leave that out. Its strange what extents you can reach meeting someone for the first time.

I told him about my Corporate Social Responsibility project and we talked about how so much stuff was affected by the Tsunami. It’s always nice to hear an outsider’s point of view. On a lighter note we found out that both of us had made New Year resolutions. Mine to quit smoking and his to quit drinking. Different life styles, but a lot we could relate to...

One of the interesting aspects of the conversation was him living in Amsterdam. I took it for granted that he smoked the greens. But he simply responded with " not all people who live in Amsterdam smoke"! When we think of Amsterdam there are only a couple of thoughts that come to our head. The red light areas, the cafes and so on n so forth.. but actually thinking about living there n earning a living. I mean I would consider living there paradise, considering I could walk into a cafe and order a toke of a menu. But how long can you do that for? Considering that most people think of the place has a holiday destination, and well all holidays come to an end.
Well he said that fortunately he lived a little outside the main part of the city which was more quiet and with a bit of country side and all the trouble makers kept to their touristy zones.But it seems to me that living there would be well....ethereal... of course I wouldn’t know.

I pop out my phone coz I've got a message. Next thing I know we're talking about how dependent we are on them and that we couldn’t imagine a world without it....
He narrated a funny incident to me.... he was filming a documentary in Africa with TheMasai.. a tribal group which most people relate to with the drinking of cows blood... so theywere traveling with a bunch of them.. when they suddenly reached a water source... and voila... one of them pops out a cell phone.... only to let the rest of the tribe know where else they can get water.

It was by far one of the most interesting of my many trips to our known French Colony...
At the end of the journey we parted ways without email addresses or phone numbers but with big smiles on our faces knowing that it was one of the better 2 hour bus journey's we've had. Only to wonder whether our paths will ever cross again....