Had been to a cousin’s wedding today… after a long time I was witnessing the wedding function… met many long-lost relatives, and a few others whom i didn’t recognised came adn talked to me as if they’d known me for ages…
My father’s native village is close to the border with Gultland (AP for the uninformed) and hence many of our relatives are from across the border. Gults’ fondness for foreign shores is well known. There is this story that a gult working in Burkina Faso earning one-tenth as much as one in Hyd gets ten times the dowry. (unconfirmed reports say that a Reddy IITian living in the US is ‘worth’ INR 10 million.)
Given this fascination for vilayat among gults and pseudo-gults and half-gults and one-millionth gults, the way I was introduced around at the wedding was damn interesting… especially by certain uncles who hail from places closer to the gultland border than my dad does…
“Meet Karthik. Son of Shashidhar. He is going to London next month”. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing in life. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done in life. Father’s name is just for some reference or ‘handle’. All that matters to these people is that I’m going abroad. And the typical response to this from the person I was introduced to ranged from “my neighbor’s cousin’s uncle’s son works abroad. he’s doing this…” (goes on for around 5 minutes) to “… .. .. .. ” (i forgot what i wanted to put here, sorry )…
I’m going abroad…. hence I’m great…