A train ride with Arish Chandal

Why don't you wear arguments?

What?

In your ears and nose--no instruments!

What do you mean, instruments?

Ornaments!

Oh, we call them piercings.

 

Abraham Lincoln was the first prime minister of your America.

Actually he was the 16th President.

He was a good man--a good black man!

No, you know he was a white man.

Das Capital. A very fine book! He wrote all about the landlords and made the first capital of your America!

 

You know Graham Bell? Edison?

Yes.

So many solutions! More than 50 solutions they created! Amazing!

 

We Indians are intellectual and also emotional.

Foreigners all are self-centered. Only intellectual, not emotional.

 

Do you live with your parents until death?

 

In America, everyone is rich, no?

In your America, you may just have living relations with any person, no problems.

Like Bill Clinton!

In my India, boys and girls, we are not allowed to have living relations.

Even after marriage, it is not allowed for 2-3 months.

In America you can just kiss someone, no problem, that is your system.

Here, we go to jail for 6 months! 6 months!!!

 

In America, what is your caste system?

In India, we have four castes. If we marry outside of our caste, the father of the groom, the father of the bride--they will murder you! You will be murdered, most definitely!!!

 

We have 6 seasons in India: winter, spring, summer, fall, and rainy season. Hot, cold, wet, and the junctions of the seasons.

 

God is a super-artist. He made lovely animals, lovely plants, lovely rivers, lovely human beings!

 

Do you know Mendeleev's charges? What is the symbol for glass?

Gold is Au, Silver is Ag, Mercury is Hg.

But what is glass?

 

Indian girls like to wear these bangles. Mostly glass, some gold, some silver, some brass. You don't like to wear?

 

What is Newton's law?

 

So tell me what is your life's mission?

 

This what we are having its called intellectual discussion. I learn some things about your America, and you learn some things about my India. We make a good masala.

 

He picked up my book, trying to prove his knowledge of the English language. Very easy, he said.

No sooner did he read the first 2 sentences than he was interrupted by a telephone call, at which point he simultaneously realized that this was his train stop. He was going to see the Taj Mahal. He put my book on someone else's lap and was gone.