Scene 1:
I was travelling back to Eindhoven from Salzburg and was somewhere between Munich and Frankfurt. It was around 2 in the morning and I was trying to grab some sleep in the train. I was suddenly woken up by 2 men. One thin and one burly. I noticed that they were in unifrom and thought they were ticket checkers. I was about to show them my ticket when.....
Thin German Guy : So Where are you headed to?Me : Eindhoven....Netherlands.Thin German Guy : You are in Germany on work or pleasure?Me : Uh....I work for ******* in Eindhoven.Thin German Guy : Can I see your passport?I then realised that they were policemen. I started digging out stuff from my bag trying to find my passport. It was somewhere deep down in my bag and I was taking time retrieving it.
Thin German Guy (staring at me and the contents of the bag) : So you are an American?
Me (looking up) : Uh....no...Indian
Burly German Guy : Ah India....Bombay....
Me : Ah here it is...(Holding up my passport)The guys had nearly lost hope of seeing my passport and the thing guy quickly scanned through it, wished me a safe journey and left. I continued to ponder over his remark on me being an American......
Scene 2:
A couple of weeks after acene 1 I was returning back to Bangalore. I was in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris "looking" at "people" and also searching for a Swiss chocolate called Lindt in the duty free shops there. At last I found it and took them to the girl at the counter.
Girl (smiling....could be sarcastically since I was buying for the least amount among all the others) : Could you show me your boarding pass?Me : Ya sure....here it is.The girl started searching for information from the boarding pass such as my flight number etc. and somehow looked lost.
Me : Anything wrong?Girl (turning the boarding pass around) : This boarding pass looks new to me....its different....
The boarding pass was a bit different because I had tried out automatic check-in at the Amsterdam Airport and had got the boarding pass from a machine. It did look a bit different from the normal ones and maybe the girl in Paris had never seen one of this type. Though I didnt explain any of this to her.
Girl (at last finding out what she needed) : It is the first time I am seeing one of these...So you are from the United States?
Me ( uh....not again!!) : Oh no....er...Amsterdam (could she not see Bangalore as the destination on the boarding pass)Girl (smiling) : Ah Amsterdam....I left the shop wondering.....Do I even remotely look like an American.....Hmmm at least the Europeans seem to think so.....And I thought they never falter at identifying an Asian.
