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The place is buzzing with people you’d rather not meet or get close to on a good day. As you sit there observing and taking in every minute detail of the geography around, you realize how much you hate to be here. Also how much more dangerous it could have got. The seats you are sitting on makes wooden chairs in police stations seem like a bed of roses. You turn your head around to get all sorts of cadaverous images in your head. There are people lying down on seldom mopped floors as annoying kids keep running around, sometimes tripping over without them flinching an inch. Add to all this, the rain outside. The only way the whole setup could have been beautiful was if it was in a Mani Ratnam movie. Yet here you are against your wishes, against your command(that never had any chance anyway) hoping against hope that it’s just another bad day and nothing more.

It’s your chance and the woman there ushers you in. Everything is so quiet and clean inside that it’s hard to believe there is a frikkin’ farmer’s market on the other side of the door. The man in charge takes a hell lot of time to go through everything in his disposal. He then interrogates you like you are some five year old kid who’s come running to him because the other kid took away your cricket bat. You know, the one that starts with, “What did you do?”

And then he asks you a question for which you answer in the affirmative.

He then drops the bomb,”Not any more. Stop that, will you?”

Oh really? India hasn’t won a world cup since 1983 but you continue supporting religiously every time. No matter win or lose you support Roger Federer at every tournament. No matter good or bad you watch that movie for the fourth time to record those intricate metaphors and subtexts. It doesn’t matter if it makes you happy or sad or even if it kills you. Or even if it makes you stranger. A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there is one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion.

(Inspired partly from some recent events in life and partly from that scene below from El secreto de sus jos. Sorry couldn’t find a video with subtitles. The last two lines in the post are same as the last 20 seconds of the video. For a more elaborate description of the scene, read this. Actually, while you are at it, also see the brilliantly done 5 min tracking shot and chase that follows – here.)