“Come on, mister, you buy purse very cheap” said one of the two little boys who was following me.
“I’ve already been through this speech kid,” I replied, “I didn’t buy a purse from Jitesh either.”
The boys stopped in apparent recognition of the name. They said something in Hindi which contained the name “Jitesh.”
We were standing in the sand on Juhu beach, where I had been for the last ten minutes looking for my adopted Indian little brother, so I could take he and Mohesh to see King Kong. The problem with having friends with no phone is that when you want to see them, you first have to find them.
“You know Jitesh?” I asked, “He is my friend. I am looking for him.”
“Yeeeeeees,” the boy, with a ‘you’ve come to the right place’ grin on his face. “I am Jitesh!”
“Oh really….” I replied as a couple more friends appeared. The boy talked to his friends in Hindi, once again using the name “Jitesh”
“Hello!” said the friend, “I am Jitesh!”
“Oh, you are Jitesh too?” I asked the boy selling kites, and then turned to the other friend, a little girl who was selling temporary tattoos. “And are you Jitesh also?”
She replied in the affirmative.
I still suspected that they knew my brothers. I imagine the handcrafted purse selling community must be a pretty tightly knit group over at Juhu beach. I needed something to ‘jog their memories’.
“Do you like ice cream?” They were as quick to say yes as they were to claim to be Jitesh. We walked over to the stand. While I was buying, one more friend showed up, along with a 40 year old man clutching a baby. The youngest boy claimed the man was his father, while the man claimed to be Jitesh.
While the ice cream man filled all the orders, a snake charmer over on the sidewalk kept trying to flag me over.
“Sir! Sir! I have snake! Come see snake!”
I thanked him politely but declined.
“I have so many snake, you see, snake dance, no bite.”
As my entourage all got their ice creams, I asked once more “Do you know where Jitesh is?”
The first boy replied “Jitesh no here today. He come tomorrow.”
The crowd walked away.
“Siiiiiir,” cried the old man with the snake. He opened the basket to show the cobra wadded up inside “I have so many snake, you see.”
I declined again.
“Don’t worry,” whispered the man, “snake no dangerous. I take teeth out with hammer.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want to see your snake.”
He looked a little dejected. “Then can I have ice cream?”

I bought him a double chocolate crunch.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2006 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.