The irony of history.

Two very brief, and interesting conversations in two days. 

Yesterday, I answered a call from a 0000000 number. I usually don’t answer these kinds of calls, but thought it may be someone from overseas. The guy was selling healthcare, and started asking me questions. Not wanting to be rude, I told him to call me back with a legit phone number, or give me a callback number. He ignored my requests, and kept persisting with his questions. 

He wanted to know if this was my personal number, and I said it did not matter. Then he asked me if I was from India, and I said yes, still patient and polite. I had no intention of ruining his day by hanging up on him. He asked me some more questions, and I told him, they were irrelevant, unless I knew his official credentials and contact details. 

Then, very abruptly, he said, “Go back to India.” I don’t take these things personally, and smiled to myself, and still not wanting to be rude, said “Sure, I will. Thanks”, not wanting to ruin his day. As I said bye, it occurred to me, that I had wasted a good three minutes of my time trying to ‘not ruin his day’, but he had done it to himself, by his bitterness and bigotry. 

This afternoon, I was loading my car, after shopping at Costco. I asked 'Bob' to help load the case of water, when he saw me struggling with a heavy box, and nimbly lifted it up and placed it in the back. Pointing to the avocados he asked how I use them. “I put them on my toast,” I told him and proceeded to show him how to check if they were ripe. 

"My wife is Mexican," he said, and told me he actually had guacamole and tamales for lunch. My envy must have showed, because he elaborated, “she makes everything at home, from scratch.” We got talking and he said his family heritage was from all over, though mainly Scottish and German, but it also included Indian. 

Then we both said together, “Indian!”, and laughed. 

“You do know, how they got that name, don’t you?” I asked. 

“They were looking for you,” he grinned, and laughingly said, “They thought they found you!” 

They say history is written by the Victorious. It probably is. However, history is often forgotten when convenient, even by the Victorious.  

Veenu Banga
10/17/2018.