The Thums Up Trophy

I had just come out of the gym and was walking towards our car.

"Eyy Bhai!"

There are lots of Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and Indians over here in Cyprus. Quite a few of them study at the colleges here. Most of the others work as household help, at hotels or at petrol bunks. We code the whole day, which is not really an improvement on what the others do.

"Eyy Bhai!"

I turned around.

The guy standing on the opposite side of the road grinned at me.

"Pakistani?", he asked.

"No. Indian.", said I.

"Aahh. Indian! Good! Good!", he gave me a thumbs up.

"Aaj aap jeet rahey ho(You are winning today).", said I swinging an imaginary cricket bat in the air.

(Pakistan had scored 303/8 in 50 overs and India was 36/2 in 10 overs, Sachin and Sehwag back in the pavillion.)

"Good ! Good!", he said giving me a thumbs up.

"Ok. Bye.", said I.

"Bye. India! Good! Good!", said he thumb still high in the air.

I gave him a thumbs up too.

I walked towards the car pondering about how we have been at loggerheads with each other when we cannot differentiate the one from the other.