By Mahendra Shah
As summer arrives, picnic season seems to arrive right along with it. This year, our community picnic was announced in the community newsletter. The announcement included directions, a map, and the venue:
“Picnic at the shelter near the lake in North Park.”
On the day of the picnic, I set out confidently toward the location. But then the familiar problem began. The notice simply said the picnic was at a shelter near a lake. Now, with seven or eight miles of lakeside shoreline, how was I supposed to know which shelter it was?
Finding the community shelter proved far more difficult than I had expected. And when your wife is sitting in the passenger seat, it is generally unwise to describe the driver’s mental condition during such situations!
Every shelter seemed to have a parking lot full of cars. Looking from a distance, I couldn’t tell whether those cars belonged to our community members or to some other gathering. Usually, spotting a few ladies in sarisor in Punjabi attire would have solved the mystery instantly—but not this time.
In America, locating fellow Indians is often quite simple: just look for the largest crowd. Unfortunately, even that method failed me. I drove from one parking lot to another, circling shelters, making U-turns, and slowly watching our chances of enjoying lunch, watermelon, and roasted corn disappear.
Finally, I thought, “At this rate, we’re going to miss the picnic itself. Couldn’t the organizers have provided just a little more information?”
After wandering through a few more parking lots, my wife’s patience finally ran out.
“Enough!” she declared.
She ordered me to stop the car, got out, and sat on a nearby bench.
Meanwhile, I decided to make one final attempt. I pulled into another parking lot, got out, and started peeking through the windshields of parked cars.
And then— Bingo!
On the dashboard of one car sat a small container of Pan Parag.
Within seconds, I had found the correct grove and the community picnic!
For those unfamiliar with it, Pan Parag is a popular Indian mouth freshener. Apparently, it is also an excellent navigation device.
Only then did I realize that in America, GPS may help you find the park, the lake, and the parking lot—but sometimes it takes a container of Pan Parag to find the Indians.
And yes, by the time I found the shelter, my wife was still sitting on the bench, looking very much like the only shelter I had successfully located all afternoon!
(Mahendra Shah is an architect by education, entrepreneur by profession, artist and humorist, cartoonist and writer by hobby. He has been recording the plight of the immigrant Indians for the past many year in his cartoons. Hailing from Gujarat, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
