This brings back the episode. I worked in a small software development and consulting lab, and on Friday the boss gave us free lunch. The free lunch combined the two companies that he owned, so often we would see new people at lunch, that we otherwise would bnot be familiar with, from that other, larger, company.
I shared the ride to the other company's lunch room with a Hindu friend of mine, whom I'll call Gupta. The lunch was over and I waited for Gupta to finish a conversation he was having with another Hindu gentleman in Gujarati. I positioned myself at the table and followed the conversation in the language I didn't know, sort of like dogs do. Finally, Gupta introduced me and we all switched to English. The other Hindu gentleman was very, very Hindu looking, with a long nose and dark features, and an unmistakable accent.
- Where are you from?, he inquired of me.
- I am Russian. I've lived in America for a long time, I explained.
- A! I am the Russian also, the Hindu gentleman declared.
- You are also Russian? You don't look Russian. Where were your parents from?
- We are all from India, of course, but we are all the Russians. Tell me, friend, what makes you the Russian?
I explained that my both parents were Russian, that I was born in St. Petersburg, etc. That did not satisfy him.
- But what makes you the Russian now? In your heart?
I went on to explain my being baptized Orthodox, and something about the Russian language.
- I still don't understand. We are the Russians and we know why we are the Russians. Our entire village is the Russian. We were the Russian for centuries. We were the Russians before the Hindus were Hindu. How come you are the Russian?
At this point the conversation entered a twilight zone. I imagined a village of Russian hinduized peasants wearing shoulder-collared shirts and birch bark shoes, all speaking in the broken English of his and getting college degrees in America. He probed something in my soul that I imagined had to do with Dostoyevsky. Finally, Gupta gently suggested that we perhaps should go back to work.
In the car Gupta had a pregnant silence, and then he asked:
- You still don't realize what went on?
- No, I said. Can we stop for a beer?
- He is Zoroastrian. He heard you say you were Zoroastrian. He was very surprised. There are not that many Zoroastrians even in India.
- Why did he not realize what I am from all the references to St. Petersburg and Orthodoxy, and Russian language?
- [timid smile].
LOL. You’d sure make a great Zorouassian. ;o)