Virtual India

On this Mac that I'm using, there is a program called VirtualPC. it's basically a program that lets you use a windows operating system within a mac. But it doesn't exactly do that, the deception goes one step further: it mimics the working of a PC. So when you run and use PC applications, your eyes are telling you one thing, but the program is telling the mac another thing. So everybody's happy: you get your PC experience and the Mac holds you to itself.
I was reminded of this program when I went down to Parramatta. It's apparently an Indian hub in Sydney and all the indians tend to gravitate there. sort of like a Little India, or like Bradford in England. We (A and me) went to an indian grocery store to stock up on indian food and ingredients. the shop itself was a bit surreal, you could find all sorts of stuff that i would have expected to never see agin till i got back home. The treasure of the day was instant bisi bele bath, which as I later found out, actually tasted like it should and not like some factory drone's idea of how bisi bele bath is like. After filling our bags with provisions, we headed for one of the Indian restaurants in Parramatta, and that was when the surreal Virtual PC-ness of it all hit me. inside, the restaurant was filled with Indian (oh well maybe some were Sri Lankans, who knows) . I could see all form of traditional Indian clothes, and the music was Indian, the smells were familiar. We ordered and headed for the table and then it struck me, that we were in a separate world of its own- a world where I could not forget that just outside the door is Australia, and inside is a re-creation of an amorphous Indian experience. Virtual india.