Sunday, July 1, 2007

You Know You Are Back

From India, when:
- Your kids don your Vietnamese straw hat on their neck, then start beating it like a drum and sing the swan song "Aam le lo, kelay le lo, Pyaaz le lo, Nimbu le lo..."
- They keep opening and slamming doors and re-orient themselves to the fact that only one door holds the window to the outside world.
- When they start looking at trees and wondering why there are no aams falling off them.
- When everything comes prefaced with Aaraam Naal and ends with Nahin.
- When the search for rickshaws continues while being seated in their taxi.
- When they mercifully putting the calculus embedded in their brain cells to good use by converting dollars into rupees and telling you "Wow, that's expensive, that's a lot of rupees."
- When they start looking for coolers in their air-conditioners.
- And continue gazing into their pocket map to figure out how much more they have to travel.