After a rather long car ride, I eventually reached my brother-in-law’s house in Kharagpur where my inlaws are now staying. I had gone completely unannounced. Needless to say, everybody was very surprised.

None were, however, as surprised as the maid servant at their place. The poor lady had never seen a middle aged man in shorts and shining shaved head in front of her. Curious, she discreetly asked my sister-in-law “Uni ki Bombay thekey esechhen?”. Evidently, she had guessed that I have some connections with the movie world.

She accurately guessed that she was way off. Her first hint was my sister-in-law’s uncontrollable laughter 🙂 So, she promptly corrected herself “Oh! Football kheltey esechhen, na?”!!!! She thought I was part of a soccer team and had come to play in a local tournament!!!

You can’t blame her. I am sure two months of World Cup soccer on TV is enough for anybody to associate shorts and shining pates to soccer players. The fact that I was wearing a two-tone panel shirt and old pair of running shoes did not help matters either 🙂

After being really hungry for an hour, the breakfast place at ITC Sonar hotel finally opened at 7am. Of course, that does not mean service started at 7. I got my coffee at 7:20. After that it picked up fast though. In fact, every time I needed attention, three waiters would crowd my table – one attending to me and the other two listening intently to what I had to say and then instructing each other what to do 🙂

I was whiling away my time glancing idly thru the local newspaper pages when I saw the attached headline. I am given to understand the two ladies mentioned in the headline are very successful and famous movie stars in Bollywood.

Therefore, you will forgive me for immediately reacting “Call me a skeptic, young lady, but I do not think “finding” is going to be your exact problem. And if it is, you are doing it all wrong”.

Fortunately my steaming hot coffee arrived at that point and I was able to throw the newspaper away and focus on more pointless activities – like writing this blog entry 🙂