Interesting experiences

In November 2000, I visited Paris one weekend. Two classmates, Anand Binani and Ram Venkat were studying there, and we roamed around the city.

At around 6:00pm, we went over to Montmartre. It's up a hill, and there's a cable car that takes you up there. We went all the way up, and got out when a lady behind us asked:

"Is that yours?

We'd left something behind. Went back to retrieve it. The car was almost leaving for it's return journey. We just got out in time...

... to be confronted by the French Police.

Now, this is a scary thing. Foreign country. I don't speak a word of French. And I was dressed like a thug.

The policemen didn't say a word. One of them just made us stand right a the corner of the entrance to the cable car -- politely at first, and then physically, when he realised we didn't understand a word of French.

Now he goes on the radio. He hasn't said a word to us yet that we could understand.

After a minute, he comes back, asking for our passports. I hand mine over. So does Anand Binani.

Ram Venkat doesn't have his passport on him.

Shit!

While he was panicking and I was rooted to the spot and Anand Binani was trying to explain something to the policeman, he walked away with our two passports.

Busy talking on the radio.

Relaying the names on our passports.

Worried that they were both "Anand"s. (We could here that repeated many times.)

Something about wearing a jacket. (We were all wearing jackets.)

Five minutes pass. In the meantime, we had various theories. Three terrorists had illegally entered the country and were going to blow up Montmartre, and we looked like them. Or, an Asian student group was going to murder a senior polician. Or maybe we just looked like the mug-shots on their Top 10 Most Wanted.

In my case, I didn't even have a French student visa. Just a standard Schengen tourist visa, with a UK student visa. I wasn't even studying in the country. If I were deported, would he put me back in the UK or in India? Which embassy would I have to speak to if he arrested me?

Five minutes later, he comes back, hands us our passports, and walks off.

Just like that. No goodbye. No "You're free to go". No "Don't ever do that again". Just walks off.

We just stood there for a couple of minutes, got our breaths back, promised never to venture without a passport looking like thugs, took a snap as evidence, and went on inside the Montmartre chapel, followed by a far more educative visit to Pigale.

I am a vegetarian. More out of habit than religion. (I'm not very religious.) What that means, in practice, is that I don't eat non-vegetarian food knowingly.

But it has happened unknowningly. Many times.

Until I was 22, I had not been out of India on my own, and things were fine. In 1998, I went to Charlotte, NC, for training. (On a KLM flight that placed me illegally in Germany, but that's another story.) I was pretty groggy after an 8-hour night flight. So when I was woken up by the sound of breakfast, I bit into the big yellow thing on the tray in front. Sleepy as I was, I did feel a little suspicious. Didn't quite taste sweet, like I was expecting it to. I saved it for the last, when Ram, my manager, walked past.

"Are you eating that?" (pointing to the nibbled food in front)

"Yeah... why?"

"It's chicken."

My nibble was small, and I was still hungry, but there was no way I could eat the rest of it. Unfortunately, that turned out to be my last meal for 24 hours. (But, like I said, that's another story.)

At Charlotte, food wasn't so much of a problem. A bean burrito for dinner from Taco Bell worked just fine. But we drove to Washington DC one weekend, and that's when big trouble struck.

You see, a bean burrito contains beans. That's why it's called a bean burrito.

Presumably, therefore, a hamburger would contain ham. Why else would it be called a hamburger? I can't eat that. Ham is meat.

But a cheeseburger is safe to eat, since it only contains cheese. So Ram, Gayathri and I (the vegetarians) ordered a cheeseburger each, while Kallol and Dev (the non-vegetarians) ordered some chicken.

As usual, I was the hungriest, and took a big bite.

It didn't feel right. Neither the taste, nor the look of the big red blob that I had taken a massive bite of.

(mouth full) "Kallol, what's this?"

(after a careful examination) "I think it's beef."

Aaargh! Meat is bad, but beef is a sin. My mouth was still full of it. Panic sets in. Spit it all out. Need to wash mouth. Where do I go? Does this country use tissue for that as well? Run into men's room...

After a while, Ram (who HADN'T taken a bite) calmed me down. And I was wiser.

The person at the counter must have made a mistake. It was quite noisy at the Smithsonian Museum restaurants. She must have heard us say the "burger" part, and not the "cheese" part. Quite understandable.

So a few days later, under much quieter circumstances, we ordered two cheeseburgers ("with extra cheese, please") each. For the night...

---

Two years later, at London Business School, Accenture's pre-placement talk was scheduled just after lunch, and they were sponsoring lunch. Naturally, I was there. Wise as I was, I carefully picked the vegetarian sandwiches -- after verifying with two people independently (and re-verifying after one of them had taken a bite of it.)

The good part about being a vegetarian is that desserts are OK. Meat doesn't go into desserts. Or biscuits. Or snacks. Or so I thought.

The assortment of biscuits was good, and I helped myself to a few. One of them was a bit salty, and rather good. So I went over for a second helping. I couldn't reach it from where I stood, given the small crowd that was busily discussing work at Accenture just near the table. So I politely walked over to the other side, from where the biscuit was closer anyway...

... and read the label.

"Prawn something".

Shit. Panic. Nausea.

This time I had actually eaten it. There was no mistaking the nausea in my stomach. I gulped three glasses of water before I calmed down a bit. Convinced myself that it's OK because it tasted quite fine until I figured it was non-vegetarian. And ended up skipping the rest of lunch and the Accenture PPT anyway. (Too queasy in the stomach.)

---

Things haven't changed much since 2000. I've managed to avoid non-vegetarian since. And learned that Pepperoni is not a form of pepper, nor is bolognese a variant of lasagna. But on the few occassions people try to point out to the beef fat content in Mentos or fish liver oil in a sauce, my only response is:

Don't tell me. I'm OK with non-vegetarian if I don't know about it.

P.S: I'm OK with eggs, though.

UTSUNOMIYA, Japan, Dec 1998. I was on a project with Honda R&D at Utsunomiya, Japan.

And I'm vegetarian.

The next day, Yoshioka-san -- our counterpart at Honda -- took us to the canteen and introduced me to the chef. Knowing that "vegetarian" in Japan includes eating fish and birds, I took the chef aside.

"I'm vegetarian," I emphasised.

"Hai. Vegetarian."

"I don't eat fish."

"Ah, so. No fish."

"I don't eat chicken. No birds."

"Ah, so. No chicken."

Pause. He looked puzzled. Just to be sure, I added, "I'm vegetarian."

He thought for a long while, and then said,

"So, you eat only plants?"

P.S. I was finally served rice with brocolli. I ate it with pepper.

Earthquake. We were in class this morning. We started off with 2 minutes of silence for the earthquake victims. At about 8:15AM, we felt a slight shake. We quickly ran out of the room and down the stairs. By this time, the tremors got fairly strong but they lasted only 7-8 seconds. At around lunch time, the estate officer said we were expecting more tremors at noon, so we lined up at the open air theatre, but nothing happened.

Incidentally, stand under a door in case of an earthquake. Or outdoors, of course.

Result: Sensex collapses, cement companies stay firm.