"I think you're becoming Indian" said Nam, my favorite counterman at my neighborhood Subway sandwich shop. I was dressed, as usual, in a longish colorful kurta with harem-esque pants and dangly Indian earrings. Guess it kind of looks that way.
We've discussed at length my love for Indian culture, the work I do with Indian classical music and my pseudo-quest to find a handsome (ex) maharajah--so he knows all about my jones for India.
In about two seconds, in the time it took for him to ring up my sandwich, we went from idle chatter about the size of India and the number of people who live there to how long it took his family to fly to their refugee camp in Karnataka from Delhi. Suddenly I was seeing the "Free Tibet" demonstrations in front of the UN; here it was in real life, not seen from the safety of my car or in an article about the Dalai Lama, it was here in front of me. Nam told me the size of their dwelling in the camp for three people is about half the size of the Subway shop and if a child is born a refugee, he or she stays a refugee and so on for each successive generation.
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