How does this end?

stanr

When I was in India, me and a buddy walked along Janpath, a pretty big road which leads to the Connaught circle in downtown New Delhi, and came across a very nice Sikh gentleman with a folder. The gentleman introduced himself as an Indian psychic, and wagered to guess my name. The wager was to the tune of US $60 -- if he guesses my name, I pay him; if he doesn't, he pays me.

Given that my real name is non-trivial to guess (I'm from a pretty obscure country), I yelled out that "there's no freaking way you can guess it" and almost accepted the wager, but decided against it due to lack of time. But, to this day I wonder what would have happened if I took him on for the wager. There were no accomplices around; this was on a sidewalk in public view (with a few people around) and not reachable by car. I had maybe 25 kilogram weight advantage and wore good sneakers, vs. his suit and uncomfortable dress shoes; plus, I was with a friend. I had (and still have) these titillating thoughts of "would I be fast enough?," "what would I be reacting to?" and "how would I react?"

shashank.aggarwal

They are tricksters...they are artists...they would be alone..and generally are not a thread...

but you need to be very sharp to catch them...they will ask you several questions ..some of which would have very common answers...but end of the day they know how to trick you with those things...

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rab

They would never have guessed Stan. My late father was a Stan and I've never seen it as that common.

It has to be a trick.

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capt_mahajan

It ends by his claiming that you owe him 60 dollars.

Amyth

Stanr, It could have ended in either you running after him or he running after you... 60 dollars here or there would've been the deciding factor

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New-South-Welshman

Tell the man you'd give him a pat on the back instead of the $60.

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Nick-H

Good grief... if someone can do it, however, I reckon they deserve the wager money!

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Amyth

And I Guess your name starts with N...mmm...N... NICK! Eureka!!

Wager please !!

sirensongs

I did have my Nadi(ancient Tamil palm leaves) read in Bangalore once. They are inscribed in an old Tamil script that modern Tamils can't read without proper training.

With nothing but my birth date (no name, place of birth = nothing else),the dude did tell me a few things he could not POSSIBLY have known. Like, my father's name. My father's name is an olde English one - "Phipps." No one even understands that in America! (He pronounced it "Feees.") Too weird.

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stanr

It actually isn't Stan, Stan is the americanized [per]version of my name. Come to think of it, he also offered to guess my father's name, too (good luck with that, it's Nikolaos).

Basically, I was trying to figure out what exactly this fellow's calculation was. The chances of guessing my name were very low, even if it was Jack Smith. Even if he asked me questions, I would be careful not to reveal anything remotely helpful.

So he was probably ready for the failure. Which brings up an interesting question of "what then?"

Suppose he wanted to snatch my passport, which is the only document I had that would confirm my name. Or, maybe, the wallet. Getting away would be difficult unless he had something that would incapacitate me and my friend at the same time, or a vehicle waiting nearby.

He was pretty far from the road though, and the risk of being beat up in that case was pretty real. Yet, he chose to engage us.

Has anyone had anything like this happen to them? Any other kind of encounters with tricksters? Maybe I can get clues about what would have happened from your experiences.

T.I.P

I feel he would have done it

May be not for the money, but I feel that he would have guessed the name.

The person you met might have been high on weed, however, I would not be surprised if someone can guess your name..

Don't ask me why.. but the country which was called the land of snake charmers, we do have a possibility...

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K_2

Stan,

I may be totally wrong but he may have known your name through your hotel or overheard your buddy calling you by your name or something. If I wanted to make money this way I would find out people's names, say through an acquaintance working in their hotel, and then "accidentally" bump into them. Certainly, Delhi is a big city but every tourist is bound to walk by his hotel, and that's where you can find him.

Noodle

That's what I thought too.

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stanr

Good thinking, but no, that's not it. I was staying in a flat in the Mehrauli-Gurgaon area, far away. This was a random meeting.

He may have overheard us talking. With this particular friend though, we refer to each other as "dude" (apologies).

Noodle

Maybe then his guess would have been just that - "Dude"!