On an extremely hot May evening, as I walked across a dimly lit street in old Havana, heading to one of the restaurants that a travel article had mentioned accepted credit cards as a form of payment because they apparently have a VPN, an old gentleman started walking next to me and struck up an interesting conversation. He asked me where I was from, and after hearing my answer there was a smile on his face. He said that he loved people from India.
I wondered if it was a trick. I also wondered who he would mention first- Nehru or Indira. It was Indira. I waited for him to get to Nehru. But he didn’t. He just smiled.
He wasn’t dressed too shabbily but I also could not ignore a faint hint of alcohol. I adjusted my camera bag, reminding myself that this was after all, an unfamiliar place. The conversation shifted to films of Raj Kapoor and I awaited the moment when he would ask for money. He didn’t.
My assumptions had been defeated twice in the course of five minutes. I am usually not like this; maybe it was just the heat that had been irritating me for about a half day. He accompanied us to our intended street intersection and in the end, with his eyes lowered (as if suppressing an emotion), asked if there were any medicines that we could give him.
I politely explained to him that we were mere tourists and were not carrying any specialized medicines. He clarified and said “Any medicine at all’’.
Looking at the news outlets predicting an imminent collapse of almost all critical facilities due to the ongoing embargo, an embargo intended to get the island, it’s people and their government to submit to the will of the powers that be, all I am reminded of is the conversation with the old gentleman who proudly held his head high but lowered it to ask for medicines.
