posted 20 years ago
Travelling in the DC metro rails is always an experience for me. Something strange has to happen everytime I travel. Once it was a bunch of excessively tattoed teenagers, next a Howard Dean political group, next time a group of anti-war demonstrators and then now an interesting conversation.
OK, today's conversation on the train is what I'm going to discuss here. On the way home tonight from downtown DC, the passenger in the seat behind mine was visibly sozzled (drunk!). He couldnt sit straight leave alone stand up straight. He broke the ice by asking me where I was from to which I answered "India". Upon which he tattled off a long diatribe against G.W.Bush and left me wondering what in the world I had said to invoke such hatred from nowhere.
After 5 mins of his tirade he paused to question if I was gay. Now, he had definetly gotten too personal at this point and I didnt want to continue the conversation but for some reason I blurted out "No, are you?". He replied in the affirmative. That made me a little queasy but neverthless I tried my best to ignore him. The next thing he said was as strange as the entire conversation so far.. "Today is my 10th anniversary of being HIV positive". At this point I was definetly uncomfortable but anyway hung on to sanity with the hope that he might get off at the next stop. And sure enough he did. At first I was relieved, but in the 15 minutes of journey that ensued I felt very guilty for feeling the way I did.
I didnt mind him being gay or HIV positive but it was the first time I had come into contact with such a person. Its nice and dandy to hear and see such people on TV and radio but reality is a difference experience.
Commentary From the Sidelines of history