I got a nice mail from a guy who had some info about some stuff I wrote a couple years ago while I was walking along the canal in Aleppey. I'm posting this here because I wanted to put it somewhere except over top of what I originally wrote. For reference, listen to this crazy shit. Someone corrected me a while ago and told me that all that yelling was a lotto ticket seller but I don't go back and revise stuff on my website. If I did that, I could take out all the initial impressions that I had that turned out to be uninformed and wrong. I decided that they're good primarily because they're immediate and unrevised. So I'll post on my blog and leave the original in its bewildered state. Some people, mostly Indian, who are dismayed at my speedy judgments, don't really get this and think I'm writing a serious essay. They are serious thoughts and I think hard about them, but I also want to record the process of understanding and that includes a lot of guesses.

Hey Dave

This is about the Aleppey Newscast mp3 you have on your site on /november/kerala_and_back_to_bangalore.html.

I think I recognize what it is you heard - not a newscast, gossip or an auction, but a promo for lottery ticket sales! I don't know if you noticed, but the guy who was playing the stuff prpbably also had a bunch of lottery tickets you could buy and get in the running for the 'Who want to be a millionaire' big one, almost. What the guy's saying roughly translates to

"The Kerala Weekly Lottery draws tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow! Don't miss your big chance folks. The first prize is 10 lakh rupees, (1 million). The second prize is a Maruti car. Its only 5 rupees come try your luck. Its your day dude, the draws tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow" and pretty much the same thing over and over interspersed with the sounds of Darth Vader zapping the universe...!

I'm from Trivandrum, about five hours south of Aleppey, and these lottery ticket guys are a way of life.

I thought you did a good job on your website... your impressions of India are pretty damn accurate! To quote a line from a hit movie starring Govinda, "it happens wonly in India..."

Keep up the good work!

Jish