આકાશ ને થીંગડું મારી શકાય?

THE GERMAN GIRL

Waiting for the bus at the City-Gold bus-stop, Ashram road, I saw this tall Fair Girl sitting on the bench. Her white skin and auburn hair suggested a Firang origin, but the Punjabi suit and bags of grocery in her hands suggested that probably she was just another beauty-saloon miracle. Foreigners are not a rare sight in Ahmedabad, and nor are the girls in Punjabi suits, or sarees. But the cloth-bags characteristic of middle aged native women for shopping was confusing me. 'OK, so let’s check out my suspicions systematically' I thought.

A bus came from the right side, she got up in a hurry-but it was not destined to go where she wished to be, so she sat down again. A Rikshawallah approached, stopped in front of her (ignoring us not-so-fair-skinned : me, a middle aged lady and her daughter). She came forward and said: "Gandhi Ashram (in a weird accent with something like silent Dh)

Yes ! She was Firang then for sure. The Rikshawallah replied with his fare. She started to haggle, but he won't budge. I almost caught the gist of the situation. 'She was a college student from some western country (probably some European country, because you know American girls.......!) visiting India to study Gandhian philosophy, and trying to explore the city on her own, being dressed in an Indian attire. And the Rikshawallah was trying to make easy money by charging her more than what she'd read in her guide-book'.

As with my Indian upbringing, and a Y-chromosome in my genome would not let me sit back and watch the Damsel-in-distress show, I approached the haggling pair and tried to be the Aamir Khan of 'atithi devo bhava:' campaign. 'aamni pase thi vadhu thoda leway kaka! Aa to apda maheman chhe' I said to him, 'emna desh ma jaine kevi vat karshe? Kharab chhap padva mango chho tame?'

Seeing that he was having a 2:1 odds of losing a fare, and the prospect of getting another customer if he made the offer reasonable, the rikshawallah softened a bit, and lowered his rate. As I too had to go that way, I jumped in after her more for the purpose of having a little chat with her than reaching my destination earlier instead of waiting for the bus.

The obvious question was asked first, 'Bahar thi aawo chho?' She might've had expected this question so she replied A pre-conceived template answer: 'Ha ,maro desh Germany chhe, ahi Gandhi ashram jowa avi chhu.'

She spoke good Gujarati, but her accent was terrible, so I asked her to converse in English if she's comfortable. She did, and told me that she's been living a full year in Ahmedabad.(that explains the grocery bags and haggling with autowallah!) and she's returning back in a few days.

I know she might've acquired a list of FAQ'S people asked Firangs in India, but still I could not refrain myself from asking the usual question. "How do you find India?"

She replied in the same words we hear so often from Firangs "people are good, villages are good, but cities are not good. I don't like big cities and blah blah blah......"

I tried not to be the clichéd Indian psyche but still had to ask the 3^rd question in the FAQ list. “ in Germany. Which place precisely? If I may ask?”  Though I know only a handful of german cities by name, it was important to show off.

She replied, “haphen" or "hauffen" or it could have been "hyphen". i'm not sure, though her English was immaculate, her accent was making it difficult to comprehend.I tried to scroll through the names of German towns I've read during my study of the history of World war II and  the The Holocaust and the Berlin-Wall. But it didn't fit any of them, so i nodded my head in despair.

 she then asked me had i heard the name Leipzig. i had come across that name somewhere. she said she was going to go there from here.

as the auto moved ahead, i mentioned her that I was a doctor by profession.(Had to, you know can't sit still without boasting the degree, Typical Indian mindset). But it was also intended to make her understand that I was not just another stalker making a pass at her. she was surprised, "doctor?" she repeated, "but you look so young!" i didn't know to take it as a compliment or an offence, so I let it pass and described  how I had lagged behind my peers in physical development while slogging my way up the educational ladder to medical school. and that i was just an intern yet, and had still 6 months left before i got my graduation.

She then started to talk about Gandhi Ashram and how she had worked there in the year she had stayed  here in Ahmedabad. the conversation then shifted to the nicety people show to the foreigners. i told her that we Indians have a soft corner for any two-legged thing with white skin. and that she was a foreigner made people interested in her and prompted them to talk to her so as to boast to their freinds that they talked to a foreigner today.

  

Well, I don’t know why but the autowallah was giving me a very angry looking the rearview mirror. Maybe he was pissed off because I had prevented him from swindling with her, or maybe he was thinking that I was making a pass at her by talking in English and smiling too much with her. (But who gives a shit to what the autowallah is thinking?)

We carried on our discussion on The Holocaust and Nazism.  She said Hitler’s book “MEIN KAMPH” is banned in her country, and here it’s selling like hot-cake in every book-store in India. I argued that it’s such a nice piece of literature, why prevent people from accessing it? But of course, the Anti-Semitic views portrayed in it are not desirable, but don’t have to look at the other side of the hedge too before passing a verdict? Whatever his personal views maybe, Hitler was a great leader, and he had immense control over the German psyche to lead them in so fierce a battle.

 She was surprised to hear such Pro-Hitler remarks from some Indian. Because she had in her mind that all Indians subscribed to the Ahimsa protocol. And I for one reason had just discussed the Gandhian  philosophy with her. But alas! She couldn’t understand the basic concept in Gandhism, that we do not pass a judgment before looking on  the other party’s side.

But probably she had missed to learn that point. I wanted to ask whether she was a jew,but then thought better, and changed the subject.

I know, she might be wondering what a fool I was to consider the positive side of Hitler's persona while he had committed such a heinous task of killing millions of innocents just for his prejudice.

I wanted to carry this discussion further, but alas! The Ashram came a bit too early, and the auto came to a halt. We alighted, paid our share and parted our ways. She, to the Toran Hotel in front of Ashram, me to the bus-stop for the 200 number taking me to civil hospital.

Had she been going to visit the Ashram, I'd have happily joined to accompany her, so that we could chat more on this topic. Because there were so many questions I wanted to ask her, so many things to probe into, that could fill in the details to add to my cerebral encyclopedia. Or probably it was that I wanted to talk more with her just because I wanted to show off how much I knew about her country, and make an impression on her that we Indians were really smart. But that was not meant to be, so I carried on my journey and decided to keep my thoughts to myself.