I met Thomas Huntingdon while waiting for a suburban bus and we got to talking. Tom – that’s what he insisted I call him – told me that he was from Concorde in New Hampshire in the United States and was presently travelling through India on what he mysteriously called a “spiritual and metaphysical quest of an intense personal nature.”

Now I am a typical Indian solidly sold on everything American and with knowledge of American Constitution, history and current affairs at the back of my palm.

“Concorde!” I exclaimed,  suppressing my rising excitement, “that cradle of the great American Revolution. The historic place where the American patriotic forces under the immortal General George Washington crossed the Merrimack river on the night of May 2, 1773 to defeat the British colonial forces under Lord Cornwallis!”

If I had been wearing a hat, I would have doffed it in silent homage to Concorde. I stuck out my hand to Tom to grasp.

“Oh, Concorde’s all right, I guess,” said Tom rather depreciating, “but I simply love India. Look at that snake charmer and monkey tamer over there. What spiritual effulgence and divine aura radiates from his serene face. Do you think he could be my religious preceptor and guru?”

I wasn’t through yet bossying America. “What a magnificently beautiful country America is,” I enthused, “the marvelous Grand Casnyon, the majestic Mississippi river, the incredible Disneyland!”

“Pooh!” said Tom derisively. “You pooh Disneyland?” I cried aghast at his blatant apostasy.

“Yes” said Tom, “and I re – pooh it. The trouble with you Indian dudes is you read too many American glossies and start rooting for the old country worse than the US International Communication Agency and the Voice of America. Shucks, America is just another backwater hick country like Rwanda or Lesotho, but what spiritually inspiring people you Indians are. Over on the Deshwamedh Ghat in Benares, I met a barber who assured me that he was a god – realized soul having performed penance in the Himalayas for twelve years standing on one leg and in return for a thick wad of greenbacks, he promised to show me the path to truth and godhead. Since coming to India, I have realized my true inner self.”

I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. “I think Obama’s one of the greatest Presidents in American history,” I said, “What a man, and he’s right in standing up to the Cuban and Chinese communists and the Al Quaeda terrorists. Sock it to them Barak!”

“Oh, I guess Obama’s all right,” said Tom rather apologetically. “But more seriously, a Naga Sadhu I met in Rishikesh – Hardwar told me that there’s a godman somewhere hereabouts. Can you take me to him? I want to embrace Hinduism and become a monk of the ‘swami’ order.”

I give up at this point realizing that it is a futile exercise backing America in the company of an EOG.

S. Raghunath