A stranger at the bus stop.

I am waiting at the bus stand, and a bus just left. This oldish man with a white cane walks up to me and says.. "That is so rude.." First, I think the comment is directed at me, since there isn't anyone else around, I quickly apologize for any unintentional rudeness on my part, but then he clarifies that the bus drivers often see some blind guy walking up to the bus stand, and still not wait. So I assert that yes that indeed is rude, but not to worry, there will be another bus coming up in a few minutes. Then he introduces himself, and asks me where I'm from...
Now, all the lectures I have gotten so far from my parents and specially from my grandparents, regarding not speaking to strangers, crop up to my head and I instantly speculate a couple of ways to get out of there. But then, I realize that he's blind (apparently) so I give a very generic answer "I'm from India".
"That I know, where in India?"
"From the western coast".
"Ah, you would probably not guess so, but I'm a Sikh.... although a bad one, since I smoke"
"oh, is it?"
"Yes, but some day, i will quit"

Then the bus we were waiting for arrives and I ask him politely whether this is the one he wants to get on, and since it is, and since now I am sure that I can easily walk away anytime I want, I get on the same bus too. He gives me many fundas about engineering, and names of a few companies where I should apply for internships, and tells me what was his area of research is, and that he taught at Berkley for a year and half, and that he left because they wanted him to publish, and and how it's important that you do what you are passionate about, and how he loves to eat Italian food, and how he is visiting Stanford to have a cup a coffee with his friend(who apparently runs the cafe there) and how California used to be a fertile farm, and how it's changed in the past 50 years.
And that he liked to surprise people in Indian restaurants by asking for 'pani'.

And that's how I met 'Prankie Fo' (name changed). We had a mostly one-sided conversation for almost an hour, and then I hurriedly said goodbye, and got off at my stop. Now, although I am skeptical about almost everything he said, and have not so far found a single reference to his name anywhere online, and I know he might very easily be telling a different story to every new person he meets on the bus everyday, or might be simply re-telling stories he has heard himself, I would like to believe that it was true. :) He did not seem crazy... and perhaps, he does live in the Philippines after all! =)