Belgian Chocolate it is

I never knew I have a thing for Belgian Chocolates. But turns out that I actually do.... ;-)

Hmmm this is the third sentence that I have typed. Am not sure what to write, there is so much to gush about and so little of it worthy of words. lets start from the beginning; usually tends to work out fine.....

saturday evening, i decided to rescue someone who was spending his limited time in India in a hell hole of a hotel surrounded by Chinese electronic stores. Being in blore the only thing that made sense for him to do was to head to a geek party.. .. so that is exactly what we did.

A coffee, an ice cream, some vodka shared with geeks, a movie in the night, a lazy morning, a movie, a dinner with another earnest smart geek. (this one actually attended quizzes on Sunday and would get upset when he got the wrong answer and gave us stories about his colleague getting slapped by his mother, as his most memorable 30 seconds of life, when he fell into the indian commode) a night of talking about Peru, art and history, what made Belgium belgium, the best things to come from there.. ( there are like 2.5 things.. Sax, chocolate and beer), a monday morning that began at a time when most people have their week chalked out, a yoga class, lazy walks, heated fights, bowling and fights over french fries...........

The days mingled into one another, as we peeled off the onion layers to understand the other.

How does this work? when 2 people from totally diverse worlds meet and are able to find common linkages that makes the other person seem like an old friend? 

Been thinking about that.. and think a lot of it has to do with the person themselves. Humour and wit, a sense of ease around them, openess to eat crap like baigan ka bharta and puchkas (water balls) with as much enthusiasm and making omlettes the Indian way. 

ENGLISH.. the common delayering tool helps immensely. Hollywood, shared music and Google the handiman that you reach out to every now and then to show each other pictures of your favourite food or hear that song that seems suddenly so very apt

Bonds are created over shared conversations and more than the subject matter of anything that is discussed it is the sense of meeting someone without any expectations whatsoever. 

That is the suspended beauty of meeting a person in transit. 

A bubble land. 

A bubble that you know shall be bursting, vaporising into drops with different destinies

but for the moment the bubble is just to be lived. Truly lived

Belgian Chocolate has managed to teach me a lot, already. The biggest learning has been not about his nation or beer, or trivia about the crusade to be vegetarian but something far far subtler. The act of being. Just being. 

For a traveler he is very ZEN. There is no hurried frenzy to visit places and see things, there is no camera or sharing of pictures, there is no plan to the day, there is a lot of simple flow. Being with the flow just letting it all out. 

I cant imagine going to another country and not agonizing over the map. Wondering bewildered how to see it all. Each day would be ticked off as accounted for only if there was enough seen, enough done. Yet, after each such travel the memories that are sticky are the ones that were the spontaneous conversations had with someone at the curb. 

This is the beauty of meeting someone just like that

i dont think i shall ever tire of it

each of these encounters is a memory is something i cherish; 

taking little smiles with me to my grave.