Bucaramanga is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains (See Photo). It is located in the central region of Colombia. On a recent visit to this town, as seen on the Hotel marquee (See Photo), I presented a seminar to engineers. While in town I heard a rumor about Gandhi sightings  and I decided to find the truth. 

I asked the beautiful and talented staff (See pictures of Sajuri, Andrea and Silvia) at the Hotel lobby if they knew where Gandhi was. I explained my interest by stating that I was originally from India and they immediately said Tata. I was confused. I would have expected them to say Taj Mahal  or yoga but then I realized they were talking about Tata companies. They did not have the answer to my specific question but were always eager and willing to help. They pointed me to the bellman named Daniel who spoke some English.  Daniel did not know about Gandhi in Bucaramanga but knew about Michael Jackson. Daniel even showed me the moonwalk and other Michael Jackson moves.  (See Photos of Daniel’s Moves). The guy is talented. I started calling him MJ.

One afternoon, while driving to a restaurant for lunch, I asked my colleagues from work if they knew about the rumor. They did not. However, as our car stopped in front of the restaurant what caught my attention was its name “La Fonda Paisa”.  I found out Paisa was the name of business community from the city of Medellin. My contact told me that the Paisas were into money. In Hindi paisa means money. That is odd. It is like calling the Patel community “the Rupaiyas.”

I walked around the city. The streets had vendors everywhere just like back home in India but the streets were clean. The city was full of hustle and bustle that diminished steadily along with the temperature as the sun set. I tried to strike a conversation in vain. About one out of 20 people I met spoke or understood English. I tried impressing them with my Spanish by telling them I was from Houston, Tejas. They repeated: “You mean  Houston, Texas.” I did not know this but Texas is called Tejas only by people from Mejico  or as Colombians would call them Mexicans.  And, talking about Mexico, the only people who wear a formal attire in Bucaramanga are the Mariachis from Mexico. I ate at a vegetarian restaurant called Albhaca (Basil Leaf in English) . The food was delicious. The Guanabana drink was fantastic and  made me forget my quest to find Gandhi.

Then, one evening my colleague decided to take me to a mall called Mega Mall. They play 80s music in the mall. The sound of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time after Time” gave me some comfort.  We decided to eat at a restaurant called Crepes and Waffles. It  is a chain of restaurants that originated in Colombia. It is staffed entirely by women. Someone told me that the chain only employs single mothers. Some in the U.S. may call it discrimination. I call it enlightenment. I felt like I was in a time warp. In one sense because it is landlocked Bucaramanga is like the M Night Shymalan’s movie “the Village.” On the other hand with many Universities and everyone carrying a cell phone it is sort of like a modern day town in India; only 5 years removed. Based on GDP one would have called this city a third world city. But,  they have a Blockbuster video store just like in today’s Houston. They played 80s music so they seemed a generation behind, yet they had a restaurant chain that seemed to be from the future.

We sat down and I opened the menu. It had pages and pages of many delicious items. I zoomed in on the list of vegetarian crepes and there it was. One of the crepes was called “Gandhi.” I could not contain myself. I had found a menu item named Gandhi at a restaurant in Bucaramanga, Colombia. I quickly took out my camera and was about to snap a picture when a waitress ran over and covered the item (See Photo) and informed me that I was not permitted to take picture of the menu. It is as if they did not want the world to know that they had  Gandhi. My friend ordered Gandhi unfortunately they said they had run out. So, technically I have yet to see Gandhi. I am a vegetarian but on my next visit to Crepes and Waffles I hope to eat Gandhi!