The Indian Connection
Anna Zerta was born to German parents while on their visit to India. They had heard lots of stories about the sadhus and elephants of the country. But being historians themselves they decided to explore more. So much was their love for this alien land that they finally decided to settle down here for life. By the time Anna was born the Zerta’s were as much Indian as they were Germans.
Anna shared her birthday and time of birth with Lord Krishna, the Hindu God. He, of the dark complexion and curd fixation, the most famous casanova from Hindu mythology… thief of hearts and curds, as the stories go. Surely Anna must have inherited some of these qualities too, her mother mused years later. In fact, their Hindu neighbour suggested that they must call her Krishnaa. The name stuck.
Krishnaa as Anna was called had learnt the Indian way of life. She even dressed herself up in a salwar kameez and would always dorn a bindi. So much so she called her pet dog Ramu. As she grew up, Anna was taught to understand and respect all cultures and religions. When she was 15, she went to Germany for the first time in her life. Her parents wanted her to know her roots. That was when it happened. It was Christmas eve, Anna would recollect decades later.
She met Govind another Indian in the party. They stood under the mistletoe and Govind did something they would always cherish. He gave her a small strip that had come loose from his mother’s sari and told him to bind his hand in the eternal Rakhi.
She looked at him in surprise and said “I’m sorry, but I think you unravelled your mother’s pallu”.She left and the next thing Govind knew, he was being clobbered by his mother.
As Anna slinked back in to the cozy living room smelling of roasted chestnuts and warm Gluhwien, away from the two bickering forms of Govind and his mother under the colossal Christmas tree in the porch, she realized that it was time she got away from the crowd and resumed her real mission – to find her roots. Four glasses of Gluhwein later, it dawned on Anna that she knew more than enough about rakhi and reiki to heal a truck load of brothers by channeling energy from their over heated truck-engine,though the real concern of the hour was her dandelion spore of a soul which needed roots, and the roots which were a mere two-hour flight away, in Bavaria.
Amigos, you may take up the tale right here (right now, *Fatboy Slim* style!)… let the yarn spinnnnnnnnnnn….under the Comments section.
tomlinsonian says:
I’m truly sorry that it ended
and that i didn’t come across this story during its conception…:D
August 11, 2004 — 11:06 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: I’m truly sorry that it ended
Hasn’t ended!!!
This is just the sum total of what people have contributed… you can, most definitely, continue spinning….:-)
August 11, 2004 — 11:09 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: I’m truly sorry that it ended
4th paragraph was your contribution, wasn’t it?
Will add the link… or else, will ask them to continue it here itself.
August 11, 2004 — 11:18 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: I’m truly sorry that it ended
The ‘rakhi’ episode? That was quite a sudden detour, courtesy…:-)
August 11, 2004 — 11:30 am
tomlinsonian says:
The irony stuck her like a -40C gale – after the Govinda fiasco, here she was, boarding a plane to Bad Kissingen!! Glancing up at the tail fin, she froze in her tracks. Emblazoned on it was the symbol that had been seared into her mind when she was three.It had been carved on Ramu’s water pail -the one she had broken to bits when she was six. Her dad had looked at her with a look of anguish that she had never totally understood.
…..The man next to her was jabbering at her in a language that sounded like Bombay Hindi spoken with a mouth full of breadcrumbs. He was gesturing wildly at the magazine he held in her hands..as she looked at its front cover, she was fascinated and revulsed at the same time. The title read Playboy, and there, right under the title, she was posed in what can only be described as a gesture more suited to Amsterdam than to Germany..Her mind in a whirlwind of emotions, she did what any smart girl of german descent would do -she downed a flagon of beer and went to sleep.
August 11, 2004 — 11:53 am
Lakshmi says:
:-)))
Interesting…
August 11, 2004 — 11:55 am
tomlinsonian says:
Re: I’m truly sorry that it ended
This is what comes of having recently read Da Vinci code, a healthy appreciation of sleazy magazines combined with the Phoebe (of Friends) twin episode, and a little Bill Watterson and his Sleuth.
Adding you,
Manu
August 11, 2004 — 11:58 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: I’m truly sorry that it ended
Me too…:-)
August 11, 2004 — 12:12 pm
Lakshmi says:
Re: Two roads diverging…?!???
???!!!! I am stumped..
August 11, 2004 — 1:23 pm
Lakshmi says:
Re: Two roads diverging…?!???
Check this…
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vasanth/21161.html
August 11, 2004 — 1:24 pm
vasanth says:
now there ! i see something familiar here !
as long as the story keep moving on i am fine. lets see if we can get Penguin to publish this as an anthology someday. we can all get rich that way.
August 11, 2004 — 11:49 pm