My friend Anna Ruddock of Britain is traveling India (alone!) for three months, and she’s got a story that I just love so much, I had to share it. Here are two excerpts that should make Shiva as interesting to you as he was to me, and then you’ll want the full story:
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….The bar was quite busy; a while after arriving I noticed an Indian man talking with two Scottish tourists across the floor from me; he caught my attention because on learning where the men were from he had launched into an oration on the Scottish dimension of British politics, including the slightly obscure fact that Tony Blair was educated at Fettes, a fancy Edinburgh private school. After bidding them goodnight, he moseyed around the room until he came to me.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Hello,”
“What is your country, please?”
“England,” I replied.
“Oh, which county?” he asked, keenly.
“Wiltshire…”
“Wiltshire. Stonehenge, Salisbury, Marlborough, Swindon Town,” he rattled off.
“Yes!” I said, in surprise.
“And where you are living, please?”
“I live near Bath, in a small town,”
“Hmm..I see. That would be near Yeovil?”
“Not really,” I said, “No, closer to Bath and Bristol,”
“Ok, closer to Bath. So you will be having a BA postcode.”
He told me his name was Shiva and asked for mine, which he acknowledged as a very short palindrome….
Shiva, it turns out, is a bird watcher. He leads what, if he had a public relations graduate in his employ, he might call “rogue bird watching” tours:
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Shiva led us through and around the village along secret paths I would never have found for myself, particularly as most of them involved tramping through people’s backyards, wishing them a good morning as we passed. …. And what birds! Eagles, kites, kestrels, nightingales, various coloured bee-eaters, marsh harriers, open-billed storks, green pigeons, an owl, magpie-robins, and kingfishers that just sat there waiting to be admired, unlike their British cousins of which you catch a fleeting flash of blue if you’re very lucky. Shiva’s enthusiasm and passion for the birds was a joy to experience – “Look! Come, Anna! Look, Alan, come! Oh my God, oh my God.”
Meet Shiva, and other wonders of India, here.
