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One Day in Bangalore : Part 1

I was thirsty. But the water jar was empty from last night. So when i woke up i was quickly out riding my friend's scooty to fill my water-jar. I parked the scooty outside the supply centre & waited for the supplier to take his seat. He took his seat & run the water. 

After filling the 20L jar, i passed him a 10 ruppee coin, which he calmly rejected. I felt strange. Then i paid him a strange look & he was quick to offer me a strange look too. Not a single word. Just a strange look. 

There was a gentleman, around 50 years, standing next to me. Since the water supplier was working in mute-mode, so he helped me understand the situation by settin up a brief conversation.

What he said goes something like "some kannda or telugu or tamil, followed by 'its not working...we are not accepting', followed by some kannada or telugu or tamil". Thank god, the middle part saved me. Then i was like "Ohh..Okay Okay". 

Then both of us carried our respective water jar, went outside, loaded our jar in our respective scooty. Before starting his scooty he inquired "Hey, what you do here?"

I took 2 seconds to come up with a reply & said "I am taking coaching"

"For what?"

"VLSI"

"You are from Odisha?"

I offered a gentle smile & said "Yeah". But frankly, i was a bit shocked. 

"How did you identify me as Odia, sir" i sought to know. 

Then he came up with a reply (within a nano second) which was respectful, interesting & a bit long at the same time. 

"It's your accent. People from that part of India like Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, its easy to identify them from their accent. But you see, people from south like from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, their accent is quite similar" 

"How is that?" i was curious to dig deeper , so i asked. 

"The thing is, when you think in Odia & speak in English, then it's very easy to identify the accent. But if you think in English & speak in English, then people rarely find out the accent".

I again came up with my trademark reply "Ohh...Okay Okay". 

Then i saw the water jar slipping a bit from the Scooty & then i remembered i was thirsty. I bid him a good bye & a Thank You. I drove back to my place & drunk like i was in a desert. 

Later, i took few minutes to let that experience sink in my mind & wrote this blog post. Time to go back to work. Till next time "Jay Jagannath". 


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