Damn it! I was roped into that familiar news game  find a foreigner and get him to comment on behalf of all tourists.  Just when I thought I was too savvy to get caught in that trap again, the foreign press steals some of my 15 minutes of fame and uses it to make me look like an idiot. Thankfully this is not a common news practice with foreigners in the states, because it has no news merit and generally makes the interviewer and interviewed look like morons. To all those travelers who may be treated as poorly groomed, inarticulate simpletons as a result of my spokesmenship (or lack of) I apologize. In my defense I will mention that my Indian friend, Lucky had a hand in arranging this interview as retribution of sorts for teasing him about events earlier that day.

The Back Story
In the early morning hours of April 9th, Jaisalmer was shaken out of bed by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. The quake was relatively minor, but it was enough to give the fort a strong shake and get everyone to run into the open square pretty quickly. Living in southern California has trained me to recognize the onset of an earthquake, so even from a dead sleep my body had me moving outside before I knew exactly why. Before I made it down the stairs and out the door the shaking was over.

Outside the sun was up and I found my friends Lucky and Yogi. Apparently, Lucky had been about to shower when the quake started and he had run outside and was standing there in the open square in nothing but his underwear. Hindu culture is pretty modest and barring the earthquake it was quite socially unacceptable for Lucky to be in mixed company this way. As we were talking, an old man brought a blanket over and Lucky wrapped himself up. Yogi and I took this as an indication that it was now okay to begin teasing Lucky.

After about 45 minutes the crowd went back to their houses and Lucky, Yogi and I went back to the rooftop for breakfast and some further joking at Lucky’s expense. Lucky is a very good humored guy, always smiling, and always ready for some fun. What I didn’t know is that had a slightly devious side that was already planning a little payback for our jokes.

After breakfast I stretched out on the rooftop to resume my previously interrupted beauty sleep. Next thing I knew, Lucky was shaking me awake saying “Peter! Peter wake up! We have to get downstairs again!” I was up and moving down the stairs before I realized he was kidding. My body was moving but my head was still in the fog of sleep. Lucky was all smiles and laughs leaving me little choice but to begrudgingly congratulated him on his little ruse. But Lucky’s joke had just begun, before I could settle back into my nap, he was telling me that a reporter from the news wanted to interview us about the earthquake. Sure I said, not giving it much thought and assuming that somebody MIGHT be by later – if ever – to ask a few questions. Lucky didn’t miss a beat and said “Good, good come sit here.” I plopped down in the chair he had set up and found myself squinting into the late morning sun when out of nowhere two news reports appeared and I had a microphone in my face and a video camera was rolling.

I sat there, faced directly into the sun, half asleep, trying to answer loaded questions in broken English. Questions such as, “What was the scariest part of the earthquake for the tourists?” “Do you think this will make the tourists leave Jaisalmer?” “Why do you like Jaisalmer?”

I fumbled my words, giving nonsensical answers, and mimicking the reporters broken English for some reason. Before I had myself together enough to start giving lucid answers the microphone and the camera were packed up and the reporters were thanking me for my time. They also mentioned that we could see the report on tomorrow’s nightly news and then quickly departed.

I asked Lucky what all that was about and he explained his friend is a reporter for Rajasthan news and he wanted to interview a foreigner for the earthquake news story. “I told him he could talk to you” Lucky said with an unusually large grin on his face. I began protesting – after the fact – suggesting that he could have given me a little more warning or possibly a few minutes to wake up and wipe the desert dust off my face. Lucky, barely able to contain himself said “I know, but you can’t prepare for an earthquake and sometimes you have to run into the street in your underwear.”

The joke was on me this time. Unfortunately my awkward moment would be seen by more than just a few dozen people in the town square. The worst part is the reporters began the interview by getting me to clearly state my name and hometown (sorry California) before they began the questions.

“Don’t worry.” Lucky said, “It will probably only show in Rajasthan…well maybe Delhi too.”

http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=2848315

Who is that fool on the Rajasthani TV news?, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating
Tags: India, Earthquake, Jaisalmer, News, Rajasthan