Wednesday, December 12, 2007

draft

Tp go home…

It’s back to familiar digs for our bold adventurer as he retraces his steps to the coconut clad shores of distant Kerala. That beautiful skyline served a fitting unicorn chaser to wipe away the acerbic bitterness in his mouth, said bitterness having been caused by a less than stellar performance in his semester exams. The old haunts have not changed much, the food still tastes glorious, the roads still sport potholes of impossible sizes, the rustic air still retains a touch of purity. His old enemies the mosquitoes are still ridiculously easy to kill while internet speeds remain as slow as ever. No, not much has changed but our protagonist knows that given a few years, that hated adversary Change will have replaced his corner chai shop with that most reprehensible of food outlets, McDonalds. Not in my lifetime, he prays. He cares not if the net takes an aeon to load the BBC homepage. He wouldn’t trade his rustic hamlet for all the modernity and convenience of the largest megapolis.

Signs that globalization was slowly gaining inroads became apparent when our strapping lad looked to his father’s interesting new side business: tourism. For nigh on seven years, his dad had been arranging tours for foreigners, mostly Brits. With their tales of foggy isles and presents of Scotch whisky, Sheffield crockery and chocolate from Harrods, their presence had been a mostly interesting aside to our hero’s life. The latest in a long line of visitors were a wacky bunch, to be sure. The 1.97m tall John Fack wanted to get married in the country…