Rambodoc at large

I have covered Greece in several posts before. This is my last one, and I will spare you my verbiage, letting my simple digi-cam speak for me.


That is the ugly Indian tourist sated at a nice restaurant.


Asleep in Athens.


Weary of tourists in Plaka, Athens.


A Bar in Plaka, Athens.


Santorini


Santorini


A typical Greek sunset.


Athens at night.

A few days in sunny Greece, and I go ‘AWE’ in shock. I attended the EAES 2007 conference in Athens, which I have hinted at before. The majority of people were so different from what we see here in India (and, doubtless, in the US), that I have to draw a few stereotypes. 
Disclaimer: All pictures have been selected and censored so as to have minimum erotic or vulgar content, as consistent with modern as well as traditional high-thinking Indian culture.

THE  HUNKS AND BABES:

These creatures look like they were created from the residual sperm of Apollo.
The guys look like they play Popeye in street theaters, or are training for the decathlon in the next Olympics.  Facial profiles that remind you of the sculptures of old Greek gods, or sexed-up versions of the Clooneys, Cruises and Pitts of modern times. And hair, my god, hair! Each cranium meticulously clad in jet black hair that seems to suck in the olive oil from their stomachs, and visibly growing by the minute, so to speak.

Every horrendous such creature, a living shame to middle age-hood, skin glowing out of near-fatal high levels of testosterone, should be banned.

As far as the females are concerned, they all seem to be in their twenties or teens. Forget about just pretty faces, fair complexions and sharp noses (I have a weak point here), they have abs that inspired some hot fantasies in me. Namely as follows. When I looked at their exposed midriffs, you know what I felt like doing?

Lay my shirt on one such midriff and iron it. Really, I kid you not. Flat abs that have been just made to write on or place your laptop, or just iron.
It is a different affair when it comes to the thoracic region. Every one of the ladies I saw had mammary protuberances that explored the x axis in space. There was not a single specimen that betrayed the slightest interest in gravity. Add to it the freedom from the oppression of human cultural hang-ups like clothes, and you can guess what went through my mind! You got it: ironing my clothes!  

THE SHOP-KEEPER:

Each store keeper seemed to be a combination of Franco, insurance salesman and your uncle in Greece. Some of them would merely bark at you, while others would look like they would reach for the nearest bottle of ouzo to test on your head. Still others would be coyingly, cloyingly pleasant, like an old unemployed cousin come to visit you for a job. 

THE SHOP-KEEPERESS:

She, too, was a chimeric woman. Part Cleopatra, part Aphrodite, and part Gaia.  

THE WAITER: 

He would be your old uncle who would roll his eyes at every dish you named (as a question for a recommendation), and say it was the greatest dish made since mother’s milk. If you didn’t like it, he would change the dish, of course, but charge you for both!  

THE ORIENTAL TOURISTS:



Always seen as a young pair, keen on milking out every yen from the sophisticated cameras they carry, as seen on this picture. They tried five self-pics with the sunset behind them. Till I put them out of their misery.

THE INDIAN TOURIST:


Glaringly visible for the extreme lack of immodesty, resplendent in clothes that should never see the light of an Ionean summer. Enough said, I think.

At a conference hall, in the dark, an Indian surgeon is listening to Europe's top laparoscopic surgeons pontificate on their topics.
While they do their job, this surgeon, like his compatriots, does his. Sleepless in normal life, he is overcome by waves of endorphins and other intoxicants that the body releases when it gets tired of the absurdities of taking life too seriously.
Speakers are agents of the Sleep God. The Greek one used to be called Thanatos. No, not really, for he was the God of Death. Hypnos was. And hypnotic are these European speakers. With their 'ems' and 'aaahs', they could do what wine could not. Give the peace that comes in the mother's womb, and that every man (in futility) seeks in a woman's arms.
After a nice breakfast, in a darkened room, a God-gifted baritone disperses all the tensions of life, and the surgeon starts dozing, only to be rudely (he thought) awakened by a huge Croatian who did not particularly fancy the Indian slobbering on his jacket sleeve. To no avail. He drifts again like a gondola in Venice. Suddenly the mind gets a Google alert. The speaker points to some graphs and lines that look very Greek to him, but he hears the words that woke him up. "Cox regression analysis", he says. Now, this is a topic that is of great interest to him. His Spam folder in his mail account is witness to the world clamoring for his measured attention on this crucial issue.Gives a spin to the term 'Hindu rate of growth', he thought.
Other than this anomaly, he participates enthusiastically in this act of mass mind-grazing, roused intermittently by an intrusive cell phone ring.
As the French are talking of "ze interesting zings in ze world of surgery", the collective "zzz´s" of the hapless audience is audible. At ze end of ze lecture, everyone claps enthusiastically, as if to celebrate a magician's act of mass levitation.
The Indian surgeon, unimpressed, reflects on a truism of life: Clap, and the world claps with you. Sleep, and you snore alone!

This morning, when the world outside looks wet and grey, let me push this short paragraph I wrote for your questionable reading pleasure.
The city of Mumbai is knee-deep in civic sloth, corruption and hot water. I am, as of today, on leave, flying via that city to Greece, and will be back on the 15th of July. I will, hopefully, keep blogging, and hope my camera does not get washed out in the current deluge.