tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17421284.post2947764288079344296..comments2024-02-17T00:59:32.163-08:00Comments on My Take by GVK: B2B with K: Clueless in Germany, a tale of two visitsGVKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17350402171842472556noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17421284.post-4536836031469007702007-02-18T08:42:00.000-08:002007-02-18T08:42:00.000-08:00Stranger things have happened to visitors from oth...Stranger things have happened to visitors from other cultures in other lands. For example, a Spanish History professor from Madrid was 'poached' by Harvard University recently,and his first assignment in USA was to present a paper in Atlanta. After doing just that, the professor, a stranger to America, came out of the conference hotel, and seeing an empty street simply crossed it to go to the other side ( as he would in Madrid,). When he reached the other side, he was stared at by a cop who had just parked his squad car waiting to apprehend this law breaker. The professor has been married to an English woman but yet he could not understand the questions pouring out of this mean-looking cop!. The cop then made a swift move, handcuffed the poor professor, and when the victim struggled as he never had the honour of wearing a handcuff, the cop pinned him down to the ground and summoned help. Meanwhile squirming with pain, the underweight professor with a big mountain of flesh sitting on him, moaned with pain blabbering in Spanish. Sure thing, this guy looked a Latino alien (strange terms the Americans use),an illegal to the eyes of other overweight cops who just arrived. He was bundled into the squad car, taken to a police station and was put in a cell. The professor's cell phone was confiscated and his plea to talk to his wife was ignored. The conference orgainsers did not even notice a guest missing at the dinner table in the evening. His wife expecting a call from her husband was anxiously waiting at Cambridge, Mass. The law took its course, and the professor was produced before a judge in the morning. In a few questions, the judge realised what had happened and set the poor professor free, quashing the charges. The professor said he never carried such a weighty human in his entire life!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17421284.post-52621302317075585042007-02-18T07:58:00.000-08:002007-02-18T07:58:00.000-08:00"But here I was now, a guest of the German governm..."But here I was now, a guest of the German government being ‘carried ‘ in business class comfort, but given a menacing stare by a stranger for ‘trespassing’".<BR/><BR/>Never mind Germany or the 'Bible Belt of USA' where a colour other than white makes waves, I was spat at, called names one of which ' a madrasi' (for them lower than a worm in species hierarchy) in places like Delhi, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh, because I spoke no Hindi and had problems in understanding it. I never strung English words with Hindi words (I do not know any!) which was red rag to a Hindi-speaking bull! This was just two years ago. I was never so terrified in my life. I worked in Germany, in the Bible Belt of USA, walked in the George Wallace's Alabama in 1960s, but yet in India in the above places, I felt a chill running through my spine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com