"Namaste India"

Have you ever wondered what you would say about your country,if you had to introduce your motherland to a foriegner?? This question got into my mind after an incident few days back. On a train journey to bellary i found that there were some foriegners who were travelling along to vasco-da-gama (goa) . There were around 3 guys who were sitting next to our slots of seats in the boogie. There was some guy who was trying to tell about india to these people, this guy was shouting on top of his voice so i overheard their conversation( wrong thing to do!!).The guy who was talking was really good in making people listen because i never heard others speak during his intro. While i was listening to him i got a bit perplexed whether this guy was praising india or demounting it. I eventually thought it was the latter which he was doing, he was very adamant in saying that he was a brahmin and about the caste system which is prevalent in our country. One point to which i completely agree is, he was speaking about the freedom a man posesses in our country he can practically follow any religion of his choice no one is stopping him from doing that. The "brahmin" even gave a ex. of a person who wants to be half muslim and half hindu. can do that without being questioned. Now this is something which i really doubt no one will question you??? i am sure in our hypocritical country atleast one religious organisation will observe bandhs if not many!!

The "Guide" kept on giving different examples to these foriegners who by the way our guests to our nation. On one point which i completely disagree to this guide is showing our country in poor light, he said them that they can overstay here and return back to their countries by just giving a lame excuse as they were suffering from

"swine flu". Yes i agree they might get away with that but as an responsible citizen we shouldn't give such idiotic suggestions.

After a while the conversation stopped and everyone slept and one of those foriegner came near my berth and slept, i was eager to talk to him but i dint. Then i just got a feeling that i should say that foriegner "Welcome to our country and hope you enjoy your stay". This was the line i had literally by-hearted and wanted to say to him as i felt it would just be nice to welcome our guests to our motherland.( not a bad thing to do acc. to me).

Our destination had arrived and to my luck that middleeast fellow( they were from iran) was awake and i could have just said it but i dint!! While getting down too i had an opputunity since he was at the door but again i dint. The reason why i dint say, "I dont know" but i surely was upset that i dint say that one line. wouldn't that have been wonderful if i had said that one line.

I just could not say to our guest "NAMASTE".

Aditya.