All the World’s a Home

The other day I could not help my tummy ache when my friend told me that his nephew wants skates for both his ‘feet’. We talked further and I was quite sure that the little boy might have observed a single skate board in some movie or on the idiot box and so wanted to specify which one he exactly wanted. My friend did prompt for a half assertion as he excused of being unaware of the child psyche. Neither do I master it, but this was what I could gather after spending a good time with my three cousins all full time imps. We talked further over our human mobility defining devices called as mobiles and I gradually turned him to ask whether he got something for the family or his naughty nephew who really deserved something from his ‘chachu’ (who had been loitering away in the streets of LA, enjoying the snow of the SF; read San Francisco and romancing with the beauties on the sand and sun of Maldives). And guess what? All that he had to answer was a big ‘No’. I really complimented him on his brazen remarks and he took it with pleasure. God! Friends are one thing in the world who even if beaten up a million times cannot get better for the less. At last tired of all the rebuking I had to willingly ask him what the reason was exactly. He reluctantly answered that was no such thing that was unavailable in India. “Even if you talk about the international brands which though I don’t feel like spending a penny over is available there in any of the glammy glittery showrooms of Delhi or even be my own work place Hyderabad.”, he said. I did ponder over it for a while and then lost in my reverie I could see that my dear friend was quite right. I remember on my trip to Bangkok the only thing I could find useful was five kgs of chocolate for which I almost emptied the shelves of the mall and none of which I wanted to give away to my team mates (as they yearned for it after having lost the opportunity of buying them as they had forgotten that this too could be taken home as token of gesture); some key chains with their national animal elephant made on it and a piece of the traditional garment ‘su’. I must admit that my friend is right on his opinion (it’s just that I like pulling his leg every time I find an opportunity to). Goodness gracious, if I talk about another instance it was my brother’s friend whose daddy went to a place in may be US if I am not wrong to get him an English willow and ended up finding a cricket bat ‘Made in India’. Blame it on the globalization; I think India has a better grip over the world than ‘Osama’. You can see many Indians tattooing the butts of totally white and totally black beauties and at the same time you can see whites and niggers selling away ‘Bhagwad Gita’ in the Iskon temples in Delhi We have everything from every nook and corner of the world and every Indian specialty hovering over the globe – be it the ‘curries from the kitchen of Sir Noon’ or ‘Dr. Sanjay Gupta assisting the US President’ or ‘The Pussycat Dolls displaying the Indian dress up’. What all you need is a plastic card that can shell out an ample amount of cash for you at any point of time. So, next time you want to go out for a holiday, you just need tickets for the destination and look out for the rarest of the rarest thing that might be unavailable in your motherland. What else can I say – shopping bags are avoidable on an overseas trip!!