Carlos met at the airport and drove us to the hotel. In this situation, Khushwant Singh would have told you a lot many other things. That his mother is Spanish and his father German. Carlos is a good cook. And his soprano can be heard till miles. I have no appetite nor the patience for documenting such details. It is peaceful outside. Every one is minding own business. The car was smoothly gliding at a hundred plus.

Pawan broke the silence and asked -- how come that you  don’t experience such luxurious tranquility, back home in Delhi. I tell him there are reasons. Three of them, in fact. One -- the road is bad, two  -- the cars are terrible and three -- the drivers are obnoxious. Conversely, Pawan asked, if that was to suggest -- Carlos is a safe driver, his Peugot is an excellent machine and the Municipality of Madrid is unforgiving in the matter of quality of the highways.

We  do  not want to give credit to others. I don’t want  to  declare, as yet, Carlos is a better driver than I am. Pity. But the fact is that every one of us allow distortion, aberration --  in every thing.

Yes,  back home the road is not in good repair. But we know why, don't we? There aren't enough funds. The whole world  is aware  of it. The road building labor is on strike for the  last six  months. How do you expect the roads to be maintained ? The vehicle manufacture is poor, no doubt, and there is no discipline for quality control. To top it all, we  are the  meanest drivers, we jump red lights, ride on the wrong side and hoodwink the Police whenever convenient.

Don't  be harsh on your countrymen. When the TV is focussed, the picture  is clear and the colors are sharp. The red,  green and blue  are discernible. When each one of them tries to outwit the other, for a place on the screen, the picture is blurred. The output lacks clarity and purpose !

Charity  should  begin at home. Then everybody else  will  follow you. Calcutta is supposed to be chaotic. Still the metro is not allowed to be littered. Standees voluntarily refrain from  reaching the top deck of the bus. Ladies are respected.

When  my mother sets my room in order, I feel  like maintaining that shape until I can -- don't I ? It is like that.  Every  one likes to follow a good example. A trend setter. And a good leadership. That  happened in the metro at Calcutta. The cleaning  of  the Maidan and Dharmatolla is beyond human capabilities, however !

There are places, may be, that are more noteworthy than Madrid. Or there are towns more disturbing than Calcutta. We tend to ignore them.

They  had called me for a lecture, in Spain. A pravachan on the virtues of liberalization  as the Indians experienced. I told them  how  we have liberated the kerosene supplies, cooking gas -- and how we have improved the Telecom business after we have liberated the same from the MTNL, VSNL and the DoT.

Carlos  was  impressed and entertained me for one more large. I said I could suggest methods through which  the Spanish can multiply business. I had gotten into the mood.

I showed Carlos that there are terminating the telephone lines, for example, in Spain, at the  basement  or  below the staircase in every building  on Distribution boxes.  This, I told him, has been found, as unnecessary. We run  the wires from point to point -- we save on copper. It is also easy for access in case of troubles.

The same distortion was also seen in their distribution of the Cable TV. Like using Distribution boxes  and straight  wiring  parallel  to the walls and all  that,  with the coaxial cables. This also, I added, we have found as  unnecessary and  have long back done away with. You can stretch the coax  from one building top to another -- as a crow flies. You  will just not believe the savings on infrastructure on this account. There are other benefits, besides.

I  politely refused the next small Carlos offered. So he filled in a large again. The largesse in me showered once again. I expressed dissatisfaction on the extent of the automatisation they have been doing. Machines for dispensing coke, sale by the wire, credit card phones, e-commerce, e-cash  and  all that. I suggested they can deploy a lot of fellow  human  beings for such menial tasks.

Carlos  lamented there are not so many people around. I said -- you have hit the nail on the head. Come on, Carlos, I have the  solution for you. We Indians can not only supply you the knowhow but also lend people for manning and womanning the positions.

However much I try, I am not able to recall the reaction of Carlos. Pawan says I had fallen flat. Would you believe that ?