Friday, July 31, 2009

Colonial cousins

Ali is French Algerian. Drives a Black Cab in London and wants to go to Mumbai some day to see the Taj Mahal. After breaking his heart by moving the Taj to Agra I settle in to a random conversation with him.
He thinks we are colonial cousins. His great grandparents were ruled by the French and mine by the British. They conquered and plundered half the world, says Ali, and now they want to make up for it.
"They want to make good now eh for all the bad things they did," spews Ali, "they call othe countries barbaric. Guess who were the orginal human rights violators my brother".
He drops me off with a smile and a salaam. Go well, Ali.

2 comments:

TechScribe said...

So True. BTW I couldn't help remembering the Akkal bhi nahi shakkal bhi nahi observation of the b'lore rickshaw driver.

anil said...

Sudhir, yeah that was a long time ago:) These guys have the most interesting takes on humanity.