When you have travelled as much as I have, having shifted base so many times, you tend to meet a lot of people and have conversations. Sometimes, these are terribly mundane and you tend to forget them as soon as they are gone. But once in a while, you meet people and they latch onto your memories in a way that makes you ponder long after the conversations have ended. They seem to drag on like stretching a rubber band and as it so happens, compels me to share them as anecdotes with others.
Today was a day of such unnatural encounters with two of the most bizarre people I have ever met in my stay on this planet. This was the first one. I was roaming through Downtown Houston aimlessly on this pretty sunny spring afternoon. Suddenly there was someone calling me "Hey, are you an Indian?" I have found out by now that being Indian is a great conversation starter. I turned and saw this man of about fifties (he told me later he will exactly fifty in some days). He had a persian cap on and glasses with one side missing. A huge beard over his face , a handle bar mustache and very intense eyes blazing through me. I responded with a short nod. (You must understand that the enthusiasm of being indian in a foreign land fades with time). "Which part of India?" Now if there is a list of questions that people asked Indians, this would always be the invariable no.2. Though more often than not, people who ask this have a very poor grasp of world geography and I get blank faces after this.
Me - "I am from a city in the east, Calcutta".
Him-"Oh Kolkata!!".
My interest got piqued. I checked again. No, this guy certainly didn't look Indian. I was pretty much certain that this guy was American. I approached cautiously - "So where are you from?"
Him - "Oh I am born here but my ancestors, they were gypsies from Eurasia. [A pause] I am Michael Zargarov, His Highness of the Sovereign of Zargaristan, exiled in America. Nice to meet you." (He shook my hand).
I was pretty certain at this point that this guy was trying a practical joke on me or was a lunatic. Still to humor him and the fact that I had no work in my hand, I asked "So where is this place?"
Him - "Oh this is near Iran. It was a very small country and when the Pashtuns attacked us, my grandmother and grandfather had no choice but to fled the country. I was born here and brought up here but I am trying to get back to my country. Its a country that belongs to me through my ancestors and you are nothing but a fruit of the legacy of your ancestors. You exist simply because your ancestors existed."
And saying this, he whipped out his "business" card and handed it to me. I studied it intently. Nothing amiss. It proclaims him with all his royalty and his temporary address. I don't know whether it was the incredulous look on my face that did it or just his habit, but then he moved onto how he was conceived. He laid a crisp two dollar note in front of me and continued- "I will give you this two dollars if you can answer my riddle. I was born in Houston but I was not born in the territory of America. I was born in a foreign soil".
I frowned. This didn't make an iota of sense to me. I just moved my head sideways conveying my ignorance.
He suddenly got this misty look in his eyes as he recounted his birth story. "When the royalty is born they have to lay claim to the land, the soil. So my grandparents brought suitcases filled with soil, and I was anointed after being born in a Houston hospital".
"My grandparents used to tell me stories of my place. They used to travel through the middle east to as far as Rajasthan. The ancestors, they live through us". He sighed audibly. He offered me the two dollar note. I politely refused.
"Come and have tea sometime".
"Sure"
And then he was gone. I stood there looking at him going away diminishing from my line of sight. Was it real? I asked myself. Why will anyone devise such a cock-and-bull story? At last consciousness came back in the form of a homeless person asking for money for a meal. I briskly departed from the scene.
Epilogue
Came back and found something interesting on google -
http://pasadenaadjacent.com/2012/03/06/zargaristan-beloved/
https://www.facebook.com/HSHMICHAEL
Today was a day of such unnatural encounters with two of the most bizarre people I have ever met in my stay on this planet. This was the first one. I was roaming through Downtown Houston aimlessly on this pretty sunny spring afternoon. Suddenly there was someone calling me "Hey, are you an Indian?" I have found out by now that being Indian is a great conversation starter. I turned and saw this man of about fifties (he told me later he will exactly fifty in some days). He had a persian cap on and glasses with one side missing. A huge beard over his face , a handle bar mustache and very intense eyes blazing through me. I responded with a short nod. (You must understand that the enthusiasm of being indian in a foreign land fades with time). "Which part of India?" Now if there is a list of questions that people asked Indians, this would always be the invariable no.2. Though more often than not, people who ask this have a very poor grasp of world geography and I get blank faces after this.
Me - "I am from a city in the east, Calcutta".
Him-"Oh Kolkata!!".
My interest got piqued. I checked again. No, this guy certainly didn't look Indian. I was pretty much certain that this guy was American. I approached cautiously - "So where are you from?"
Him - "Oh I am born here but my ancestors, they were gypsies from Eurasia. [A pause] I am Michael Zargarov, His Highness of the Sovereign of Zargaristan, exiled in America. Nice to meet you." (He shook my hand).
I was pretty certain at this point that this guy was trying a practical joke on me or was a lunatic. Still to humor him and the fact that I had no work in my hand, I asked "So where is this place?"
Him - "Oh this is near Iran. It was a very small country and when the Pashtuns attacked us, my grandmother and grandfather had no choice but to fled the country. I was born here and brought up here but I am trying to get back to my country. Its a country that belongs to me through my ancestors and you are nothing but a fruit of the legacy of your ancestors. You exist simply because your ancestors existed."
And saying this, he whipped out his "business" card and handed it to me. I studied it intently. Nothing amiss. It proclaims him with all his royalty and his temporary address. I don't know whether it was the incredulous look on my face that did it or just his habit, but then he moved onto how he was conceived. He laid a crisp two dollar note in front of me and continued- "I will give you this two dollars if you can answer my riddle. I was born in Houston but I was not born in the territory of America. I was born in a foreign soil".
I frowned. This didn't make an iota of sense to me. I just moved my head sideways conveying my ignorance.
He suddenly got this misty look in his eyes as he recounted his birth story. "When the royalty is born they have to lay claim to the land, the soil. So my grandparents brought suitcases filled with soil, and I was anointed after being born in a Houston hospital".
"My grandparents used to tell me stories of my place. They used to travel through the middle east to as far as Rajasthan. The ancestors, they live through us". He sighed audibly. He offered me the two dollar note. I politely refused.
"Come and have tea sometime".
"Sure"
And then he was gone. I stood there looking at him going away diminishing from my line of sight. Was it real? I asked myself. Why will anyone devise such a cock-and-bull story? At last consciousness came back in the form of a homeless person asking for money for a meal. I briskly departed from the scene.
Epilogue
Came back and found something interesting on google -
http://pasadenaadjacent.com/2012/03/06/zargaristan-beloved/
https://www.facebook.com/HSHMICHAEL
No comments:
Post a Comment