KERALA DAIRIES: The need to chat!!

It has been two weeks since i am back in Kerala - My home state.

Most of the time i spend cooped up in my own house, happily involved in doing stuff that requires minimum interaction with people.

But when i do have interactions, there are times with it is taxing, embarrassing, irritating etc. Though once in a while there can be situations when it is amusing.

Couple of days ago,I was returning from a trip into town and i decided to have the bike of mine washed at a service station.

As it was being serviced, i had to wait.

The owner of the establishment meantime decided to strike up a conversation with me.

In that half an hour of waiting he basically coaxed out of me, where is my village, where i worked, how long i worked there.

Once he learned i was in mumbai, he commented on his few years in mumbai and how a fast life it is over there.

This is an instance of a taxing conversation. I did not want to talk. I was happy watching wash the bike.

But the amusing instance comes next.

Post the washing, i took the bike and headed to fill it up with petrol.

Situation is , i was having a slight diffculty in balancing a bottle of coke i was having while riding the bike, so when i coasted to a stop at the pump, the coke bottle fell down. the lady at the pump with a laugh handed it back to me.

As i was struggling to open the fuel cap with the key, the lady attending started telling a story of a drunk customer who too seemed to have a difficulty opening his cap.

She went on to comment on how scared she was and how she is scared of drunks and mad people.

All this while i was under the assumption, she was talking to her fellow employees but when i looked up , i realized she was talking with me.

I couldn't understand ,if in that nano second of returning back my bottle we had made some connection and she felt the need to tell me her phobias of drunk and mentally ill people.

As i drove away from the pump i realized, it wasn't a connection. she was just using the story to get me to open fast the damn cap i was struggling with and that i was acting like a drunk.

Coming to think of it, she might have probably thought, the bottle of coke was actually booze.

(a trick used by booze loving expatriates in gulf countries)

Needless to say , i have decided to use such encounters to see the amusing side of peoples need to interact