Gora for a dinner-movie combo

Earlier in the morning, I had found myself getting up late in the morning and thereby screwing up the day, and I decided that today I was going to end up doing something other than just stay at home. Since Mr. Bach had left, I haven't gotten around to meeting someone for a date etc mainly because of my own nerdy nature. Amongst the few people that I was 'supposed to meet', I decided to spend the evening with a someone who I find very funny and interesting. Funny, he happens to be a Gora too - and an American at that.

We decided to meet up for dinner and a movie at the magnificent Oberoi mall at Goregaon. We met at Crossword where he was shopping for the real version of Bhandarkar's frivolously popular work. The moment I saw him, I realized how Michael Stipe's looks have been plagarized by this body-face-double! Ergo, I'm going to refer to him as Stipe. So, Stipe and I went to the food court and over the most cliched of american fast food, ended up knowing about each other - I got to know more about him incidentally, because I sort was able to shut my mouth longer than what was expected - okay, the Sub did occupy my mouthspace long enough.

Funny to note that he had predicted the impending recession a year or so before it happened and had wanted to move away from some place which is as 'demanding' as the US to some place which has the vibrancy and character and spirituality as India, errr... Mumbai. He's now working here indulging in part time gigs in the movie industry and enjoying himself thorougly. The bizarre thing that we ended up doing was to sprawl up on a red-leather-upholstered couch kinda thing intended for kids orginally like lovers - staring into each others eyes while pretending to have an intimate conversation. That caught the decidedly homophobic and homo-unaware public by surpise which, I thought, was funny and wicked.

We wound the day up watching Bedtime Stories which was very entertaining to me - having gotten tired of watching lame slap-stick comedy on sitcoms meant for television lately. Adam Sandler and co did manage to charm us. On the way out of the mall, we were swarmed by a dozen or so rick drivers who were sure that we would end up paying more for the ride back home because of the gora-dom lurking in the shadows. But that obviously didn't happen. We took our own ricks back home and just paid what we were supposed to.

The curious thing of this entire exercise, as validated by the man himself, is that Gora-dom, or even better, Goritude, takes you places. He was greeted with polite responses from ushers, friskers, waiters and whom not - just because he's gora. He also gets this thing everywhere he goes and everything he does. For example, all the unsuspecting (yet hot [for him]) young Marathi bois in the city would love to sleep with him - just because he's a gora.

I don't want to take any credit away from Stipe. In fact, I want to give him some extra. Here's a guy who's talented, funny, intelligent and good looking. But he also is street-smart. He has learned enough hindi to get around. It makes me happy to know that there are goras out there who blend into India, who can work their in-built charm here without totally selling out and acting like jack asses. And it makes me happy that I have gained a friend during this exercise. Oh, and I think I managed to shake off tendency I have been having to make out/make love with a person on the first date.

(PS: Stipe has blogged about the same encounter. But due to his privacy issues, I can't link it up. I thank him for those wonderful adjectives that he used for me!)