Way back, fresh out of college in India, I was prone to misadventure. There was this time I was trying to hitch hike from my college town in Orissa to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. At one point, I was traveling in the back of a truck. The other passengers were a teenage kid and his goats. It was evening. It started drizzling on the Orissa-AP border. Then there were thunderstorms. The goats started bleating. The kid and I started talking in a mixture of broken Hindi, English and Tamil.

"What do you do?"
"I have just completed my degree in Electrical Engineering".
"Lying is bad."
"I am not lying!!"
"Huh!"
There was silence for a few minutes before he tried again, "I make (Rs.) 700 a month"
"Hmmm"
"And you?"
"Umm, yet to start making any money." my voice drifted off.
"Huh!"
He didn't speak to me the rest of the way.

I was reminded of that conversation the other day, when I stepped inside the Weinstein Gallery in Geary Street to view these paintings. They have a terrific collection. I had a great conversation there about Li Jian Jun's works.

Snippets:
"So, are you thinking of buying?"
"Umm...we are kind of, well, toying with the idea"
"Ah, I completely understand. These are beautiful! Aren't they?"
"Yes. They are awesome!"
....
So what kind of painting are you thinking of ..?
Feeling vaguely guilty, "Well. We are not yet sure. It?s a lot of money to invest. We are still looking around."
Still later,
"If you want to look around, there is some great stuff upstairs. It goes up to $75,000"
Gulp.
I went upstairs. They had Dali's paintings on the second floor.

But surreal conversations aside, it?s an awesome gallery. The staff is very helpful - irrespective of your intention to buy; I am sure they can smell Dali buyers!