Hilsa Poche...

In general I find Indians can be extremely courteous and not, in equal measures. The not-so-courteous can be sub-divided into different types while there are 'deceptive' courteous kinds as well. It requires some skills and courage to steer past/ into this type of population. Thankfully these skills do not disappear with lack of interaction, much like cycling. Thus my story begins when I decided to buy some souvenirs for my colleagues and noted an advert for a tribal art exhibition in Koramangala. Being new to Bangalore, Koramangala sounded a place far away and man it sure was. So I travelled all the way and got into a seedy BDA building. This is how most Government buildings (that I have seen) are, but with lot of people around I felt safe. I walked past broken staircases into a room hidden away on the first floor. This was where the art exhibition was and I went crazy choosing beautiful artefacts. While there I was chatting with the nice sales people about the weather, the price of the goods etc... Finally finished my shopping and reached the billing counter when a person behind one of the counters asked if I ate non-vegetarian food. You must know that I can never refuse an offer to have non-vegetarian food. So I said, yes I do. And quickly started thinking, is this man offering to share his lunch with me? Or do they sell food here (which did not seem possible)? Then he says, we have fish, would you like to try? This is killing me, I would never refuse such an offer but was really unsure what this man was offering me. Then I realised he was looking to sell the raw fish to me. My mom would kill me if I took one home, so I regretfully declined the offer.

So you see what I mean, it is so easy to be confused. Had I naively believed he had offered to share his lunch, I could have been in a world of trouble. What would I have done with a huge fish?

P.S- Also why an Indian artefact exhibition would sell fish is beyond me.