Be Careful What You Post

As I walked out of the office on Friday, I was greeted by my driver Ashok. He had taken it upon himself to park on the other side of the road so we didn't sit in 45 - 60 minutes of gridlocked traffic heading in the normal direction. It's little things like this that really make me appreciate how good are drivers are. Especially on a Friday evening. As we stood waiting for "ma'am" to emerge from the building, Ashok (who has become more talkative as of late) told me that he had twenty four pictures of me. Puzzled and slightly worried I might now have a stalker, my response was something like, "Huh?"

He showed me his phone and sure enough, in a folder called "Boss", was a set of pictures mostly downloaded from the blog. I say "mostly" because included in the set was a random picture of a house I didn't recognize and a headstone for John H. Luth who, rest his soul, passed away in 1983. When he got to the headstone picture, he excitedly asked, "Is this you?" I wasn't sure if the concept of a headstone would register and it proved problematic to try and explain to a Hindu that doesn't speak too much English and isn't as familiar with the silly tradition of burying the dead. In addition, he found pictures of himself and Kailash. I had told Kailash I've put some pictures on the internet and that many friends ask what it's like to have a driver. I guess I never really con

sidered that they would, one day, find those pictures.

Ashok, Ma'am, Sir, and Kailash

In addition to the pictures, they've also found the blog. Apparently, both he and Kailash enjoy reading the "stories." Ashok admitted that it's difficult for him to understand; however, he seemed proud that he had found and was making an attempt. I'm not reading any Hindi language blogs so he's doing better than me.

When we leave India, Ashok and Kailash will be two of the people we will miss the most. Outside of the office, there aren't many people with whom we've spent more time and they're a big part of our pseudo-family while here. They're reliable, would do just about anything for us, help put things in perspective, and most importantly, are curious and ask questions. In fact, I think they're just as curious about us and (what I'm sure they see as) our ridiculous lifestye as we are of them.