Short-Stories

I crawled through the 2 by 2 feet hole. I checked the map again. If the map is right then in about 30 ft, this passage should open into a big enough chamber for me to walk out of this aptly named Labyrinth cave. My elbows were bruised. So were my knees. And then a small stalactite scratched my forehead. That’s when time stopped for me. I decided to lie down. 100s of small thorny stones were pinching me. I was calm. I looked around. A video feed of this would have been claustrophobic for the viewers but I felt nothing. At least not till my forehead got scratched.

While traveling in the streets of Cairo or Qahira/क़ाहिरा, I came across a group of Indians who didn’t look like tourists.

My flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco was overbooked. There was a generous voucher to take for a volunteer who was willing to take the next flight. The next flight was scheduled for the next day in the morning! I wondered why not take a bus through the California hinterlands instead. So, I volunteered. At the bus station’s waiting area, an Indian-looking man walked towards me. Before I could say something, he asked me in Hindi where I was from. “Haryana”, I replied, assuming he was an Indian. He didn’t recognize it. “That’s beyond west Punjab”, he asked further in Hindi. “Yes”, I replied. ...

I have traveled to many countries around the world. Some accept credit cards. Some only deal in cash. Some accept US Dollars. Some only accept local currency. Nowhere, however, I have dealt with a system as weird as Argentina. There are myriad exchange rates.

An American’s experience in Luxor made me write this. The story is long and vivid, but the core theme is how she and many other foreigners were duped into buying and then selling properties losing money in the process.

Modern day United States is weirdly mono-lingual

The Tijuana border (between the US and Mexico) is one of the busiest land crossings in the world.

He is living in Europe. He is an American citizen. His parents are from Mexico. In Europe, he is an American. In America, he is Hispanic/Mexican. In Mexico, he is a Mexican of European descent.

Indian doctor After having continuous hiccups for ~24 hours, I walked to a nearby doctor’s clinic. " Uncle kaafi der se hitchkiyaan aa rahi hai, iska…" (I am having hiccups for a long while, can something…) [interrupted] He replies in a loud voice, " Beta, hitchkiyoon ka koi ilaaj nahi hota, kai baar mujhe aati hai" (Son, there is no cure for hiccups, sometimes, I have them for days) The tone was part patronizing and part condescending. Total Bill: 0 ₹ Embarrassment quotient: 10/10 ...

“Give me your wallet, bro” he said in his heavy accent while holding a gun to my forehead. It seems, out of pure curiosity, I have walked into this shady neighborhood of San Francisco. “Pull out your wallet,” he shouted, “and count the cash,” this time bringing my full attention to him. I pulled out my wallet, carefully counted all the nickels, pennies and dimes and said, “13 dollars, 59 cents, and one Indian Rupee”. “That’s it,” he blustered at the peak of his voice while I stood sweating profusely on a chilly night. He was not amused and pulled the trigger.