Two stories...for the price of one

Story number 1

A short time ago in this very galaxy I was passing some time in Mumbai with a group of German tourists.  We were a total of five people and a cab fits four.  We needed a cab and didn't want to pay for two so we found a driver that would take all of us.  As we were on our merry way, and it was a merry way indeed, the small plot of this story came into being.  While the traffic is just on the far side of insane and the confusion on the very far side of unimaginable, it all moves at a relatively slow pace.  This means police officers don't need to be in vehicles to monitor traffic, they just stand anywhere in the road and flag down whomever they suspect of breaking the law.  Or rather whomever they have time to flag down.  They are never still for long and while they are taking care of one infraction they are undoubtedly missing a thousand others.  In order to catch them all, half the population would need to be in traffic enforecement and then there would be no people around to be driving and therefore no money from tickets to pay the officers.  That is how balance comes in capitalism... or it might be, I didnt take to much time to think about it.  Anyhoo, we were flagged down for having too many people in the taxi.  The fine was somewhat substantial, but as the driver made us pay, it was not so bad split between five.  When the cop saw that we were paying, after giving the man the receipt, he handed half of the money back to us.  (Can you imagine having that happen in any other country in the world?  India is simply incredible)...
Now here is the punchline of the story.  What made me decide to write about it and hopefully makes it worth reading to you. 
After it was all done the cop escorted us back to the cab, and told us to hop in!  Once you pay the fine you are allowed ot go on breaking the law!  We proceded unhindered to our destination and that ends one more adventure in babysitting.  Just kidding, in India.


Story number 2  (it is possible I wrote about this months ago but I dont think so)

A little longer time ago at a hill station not so far away we were hiking in the moutains with our trusty guide.  You could trust him to know lots about the ecosystem, trust him to show you many villagers and crops and trees and grasses and trust him to stop every now and then to repack a beady cigarette with some sweeter smelling plants and light it up.  It was a gorgeous day with a shining sun and burned forearms on the horizon.  We visited several hill tribe villages and each one gave us some chai...  In Canada when you have a chai, it is black tea spiced with cardamom and clove and cinamon and often other spices and some milk.  Here that is known as masala chai, and regular chai is black tea, sugar and milk, and available on every square foot of realestate in the country.  The name of most of the tribes we visited is 'Toda'  (Toe-da).  After we received our tea I asked our guide how to say thanks in their language as they did not speak one of the main languges in the region.  He said in their language there is no word for thank you.  I am assuming it is not a concept they have.  Maybe it is just a given that you give what you can, and people will do the same for you.  The punchline here is that in Hebrew Toda (Toe-da) is the word for thank you.  So while they dont have a word for it, the name of their tribe is Thanks. 
Toe-da for reading.