Shared Passion

Most of my weekends are uneventful. I think thousand things to do; but do none. Yeah lazy woman growing old each day.

But yesterday was different. Saturdays are lazy most times, I sleep till noon and then the dat shifts right. Breakfast is at 12, lunch at 5 and so on. I had my breakfast at 12:30 and was lazing around when I got a call from an unlisted number from California; with the area code 408. Now 408 is the area where I have spent most of my life outside Bangalore.

Some of my good friends live there but I have their number listed. I was clueless, I picked the call and it was Gautam. Quite natural for him to just call out of random. But as we talked; I realized he was calm. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but I was hesitating since I didn't want to smell negativity just for the sake. Eventually, it did arrive that he was calm for an unfortunate reason.

We did however talked a lot about traveling, how countries like Cambodia are so near to most Indians and yet most stick to Singapore or Dubai. We relived those wonderful days at Costa Rica and time and again, regretting that it was too short of a time. Of course! Costa Rica doesn't end without chatting about William, how he has improved his photography skills and how he might be having fun with tourist girls flirting with them.

I expressed my wish to travel extensively the Central and South Americas. We talked about how wonderful it would be to have some cash in the pocket, take some time off and explore the world. After that I told my experiences at Cambodia. The people, the terrible past history,  life, food, the ancient structures, how it would be to consumed and get consumed in the era gone by. Overall, we spoke for whole 2 hours until the phone got disconnected once it past 2 hours!!

So here we were, two individuals, sitting thousands of miles across sharing a common passion.  I always wonder about not finding a like-minded person/group to pursue my interest closer back at home. It always happens, isn't it? Thats life.

Gautam recently visited Honduras and Guatamela. He wanted to make the trip to Central Americas after being enchanted by Costa Rica. I didn't know about this trip until a couple of months ago; his friend visited my home and handed me over a packet. One was the album having photos from the trip. I kept asking which place was that and his friend had forgotten which place it was :)

And the second one was bubble wrapped. I unwrapped the packet and this is what I found.

It seems it is a piece of art made by a small kid in a remote village of Guatamela or Honduras? where Gautam spent few nights. He has happened to take that toy from the kid to send it to me! This is the most amazing gift I have ever got. I can't measure its value. Here is a piece of wood hand crafted into a nice boat and paddle; and carved with a nice tribal motif of a jungle cat!

Speechless! We are still to discuss about the trip experiences.