India is pervasive!

Yesterday, i went swimming at the recreation(rec) centre. I was doing laps and the guy in the neighboring lane comes up to me at the end of a lap and says hi. since both of us were taking a breather we got into a conversation. Bill Wealy (i think that was his name) was a local and was teaching management at the business school here although he is an attorney by profession. so anyway, he suddenly says "ninne kannada gotthu, numke kannada solpa solpa gotthu" and i'm like Oh my god!! is this really happening to me. Here is a quintessential minnesotan trying to converse with me in fluent Kannada. It was almost embarassing as my knowledge of Kannada was far less than his. Turns out he had lived in Raichur for more than 20 years. Here he is telling me how beautiful the city of Belgaum is and how bangalore has developed and I was just frozen there listening to him in amazement. It seemed he was very fond of karnataka from the way he was describing it. He says he will go back there again. Then we went on to topics which were much closer to minneapolis like skiing and the winters and the conversation looked more like one between a local and a foreigner!! phew!

What can I say...........India and its presence are ubiquitous!!