A visit to Uncle Sam's place (Continued) ...

I was climbing a steep hill, dense with vegetation.As i reached the summit I heard roaring noises. At the top of the hill what i saw was unbelievable. There was a pond at the centre of the terrain and a group of lions was serving themself on the pond. I never heard thatlion or tiger or any other kind of carnivorous animal aggroup. The discovery usually shows them hunting and roaming all alone.This was not the time to think whether lion moved in a group or not. The group affrighted me. Sensing me around, oneof the beast turned around and communicated his finding to his members in a language alien to me.I saw the whole group heading towards me. I turned and started to flee. The group waas chasing me. The situation was very tense and horrifying but my active brain did not stop churning weird thoughts. I was running so fast that i thought if therewas some technology to replace someone from a particlar scene, I would have definitely wanted to replace the group withan thelete of the calibre of P.T Usha. I would have definitely won. But this was a race for life. I showed courageto see behind and my heart thumped. One of the animal was barely 2-3 meters behind me and it took a large jump to grab me.Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep... What the hell. Lions do not beep, they roar. Oh my god it was the alarm clock.I Thanked God. t was a nightmare, which could have led to another. I was already an hour late. My peers would have started working. So I got ready and went to office. The workplace was a single-storey red brick buildingwith an exquisite pond adjacent to it, which had quite a number of white ducks. The workplace was a visual treat.Well no need to mention here that i worked all day long.
Tech-savvy guys buy a lot of gadgets from US but I aint one. Yet i thought of buying a digital camera. I went to a well known electronics store to check some of the latest model. I liked almost all of them, mostly the one with a huge price tag.I selected one model and searched someone to enquire about it. I found a salesman nearby. "I would like to know more about this piece", I said."Every thing has been displayed Sir. There is no information left to be told",He said. I knew this, still I had to ask such a silly question."Well, I wanted to know about the prices and all". "The price tag tells you that Sir". Again I made myself feel embarrassed. Finally for the third time I said, "Actually I wanted to know the final price after adding up all the taxes and all". 'And all' is such a helping phrase.It saves you instantly when you are short of words or in a embarrassing situation. It did help me. I felt so embarrassedabout this whole incident of me asking such trivial questions to the salesman. But I did not know that now it was thesalesman's turn to get embarrass. He took me to the cash counter. The model which i selected was of 300$. He read the priceand opened a document to check for the tax rate."How much is it?", I asked. "Seven Percent", he said staring at me."Ok!", I looked elsewhere."mmm 300 is the price plus seven percent of it i.e 21$. So total comes out to be 321$", I caluclated mentally. I wanted to be faster than him so as to tell him that we are intelligent and more comfortable withmathematics as we belong to the land of Aryabhatta and Shakuntla devi. So i quickly turned to him but he looked confused. He had yet not started the calculation.He used the calculator application from windows to calulate the tax amount. Unluckily he typed in worng data and shouted at himself. He pressed the keys of the keyboard in a frenzy and the computer hanged. Calculating seven percent hangs the computer out there. Any Mr Gates know this? He left playing with his desktop and found a pocket calculator inside the drawer.He siwtched it ON but,to his surprise, it did not have battery. Looking frustrated he searched for help. I felt verysatiated from inside. I thought of telling him that its 321$ and wanted to teach him basic mathematical operations which could help him in such a disastrous situation. I told him."Thanks", he said but still staring. So I dropped the idea of teaching him basic mathematical operations. "Sorry! I wont be albe to buy it", I said and quickyl turned to the exit door and walked away. I am sure he musthave stared at me for a long time.