When Angie Met Sochi

A Cambodian taxi driver’s devoted ‘romance’ with Miss Jolie.

- C. Y. Gopinath

“ONE MEETS such interesting people when one travels,” I said to the Fish, who generally never meets any people. His social circle consists of travellers encountered in the National Geographic, from where he also gets his deep insights into life, reality and our purpose on this planet.

“For instance,” I began, “I was in Siem Reap just weeks ago—”

“Everyone is interesting to an inherently colourless fellow,” he said. “Name one interesting person you’ve met.”

“Well, there was a bearded man in saffron robes on a plane to Zambia. Turned out, he was not a Hindu fanatic but a copper mining engineer. His name—”

“You might gaze in awe at a stranger,” said the Fish astutely, “but does he even notice you? Or does he ask you for the menu?”

I ignored his barb. “When you hear about what happened in Siem Reap, where they shot the legendary Jungle Book—”

“It wasn’t Jungle Book, it was Tarzan,” he corrected me incorrectly. “And next you’ll tell me you met Angelina Jolie,” he said, returning to his article on the Hottentots of the Kalahari. “This is why I believe nothing you say.”

I still don’t know how much to believe of the Cambodian taxi driver’s story. His name was Prum, and he reminded me of Stan Laurel. Our airport pick-up had stood us up, so we were now in a rented taxi, en route to a boutique hotel.

The billboard with Angelina Jolie and some poignant words about the release of her Oscar-nominated movie First They Killed My Father, stood where we turned into the highway. Nothing if not free associators, we—the teenagers and I—began remembering the different ways in which Angelina Jolie had become Cambodia’s icon.