Bombay airport worker

The first time I came to India from the US was through Bombay airport. Then to Patna.

At Bombay airport an employee asked me, “are you coming from America?” When I said yes, he demanded money as tip. I wondered what has be done to deserve a tip, nothing it was obvious, but one of somewhere, I looked into my pocket and found a done dollar but after some calculation (Rs 50 = 1 dollar) passed him that one dollar bill. He refused to accept it, telling me to keep it, which I did. wondered about that incident for a short time.

Many years later, a classmate of mine, Milind Joshi from Pune came to the USA. He came to Irvine, the town I lived in, and he wanted to meet a friend from Irvine.

We sent. Seemed like he was from IIT, same batch. He lived in a big house, had made big money through house-flipping in Irvine.

Then his wife appeared. We started talking. She told me India has become easy to travel. She keeps a pack of 100 twenty dollar bills, and anytime somebody demands money, she tosses one of those to the person. 20 dollar US bill = 1000 rupees. Now little less than rs 1,600.

I thought of the airport guy at that moment.

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