Making Friends

Last night, a walk down our street led us to worlds far away from anything we’ve seen so far. We stopped by a tailor’s hut to have the sleeves on Frank’s new kurta shortened. The tailor didn’t speak English so he had the shopkeeper from the next hut help out. Meanwhile, I could hear live music coming from some place nearby. He explained that it was from the temple around the corner where they were celebrating the temple’s first year anniversary. He offered to take us to the temple, and of course, we accepted.

When we got to the temple, we saw a couple hundred people celebrating with great music, prayer, and lots of food. It was very festive, and everyone welcomed us warmly. We were taken to the front of the line of worshippers to visit the gods and goddesses of cows, lions, and mice. And, even though we had already eaten dinner, temple members insisted that we have dinner with them. A large crowd was waiting to be seated, but they ushered us to the front of the line and seated us immediately. Everyone was very excited that we were there, and more and more people came.

Left, the source of the music that attracted our attention.

We struggled, with our fingers of course, to eat this second dinner, but whatever we could manage was delicious. The servers kept stopping by our place to add more to our plates, but we finally convinced them we couldn’t possibly eat more. (By the way, for our environmentally conscious friends, the plates were made of banana leaves!)

Kamlesh Joshi, the fellow who took us to the temple, then invited us to his flat to meet his family. His flat is about the size of the one we’re staying in. Family living there includes his two brothers, their wives, and kids, and Kamlesh’s wife (Jyoti) and their three children…11 people in all. When Kamlesh took us inside, everyone looked up somewhat astonished and quickly made a place for us to sit. They brought us water, and when we hesitated, assured us that it was filtered water.

We stayed and talked with the family for awhile. Clearly the adults are well educated, and they are very focused on the education of each of the children. Kamlesh’s oldest daughter, Bhoomi, is studying commerce at the local university. She wants to earn an MBA in the United States, but her dad wants her to study closer to home. (I said to Bhoomi that I think Dad’s are like that everywhere. She said dads are most concerned about daughters, but moms are concerned about both sons and daughters…I know that’s true!)

Each of the children speaks English well, which is unusual in our neighborhood. Kamlesh owns a courier business that associates with DHL and other well known services. One brother works in IT networking. Most of the conversation was their asking us questions: How much are we paying for rent? What are we doing here? Where do we work at home? How do we like India so far? I mentioned my yoga experience, especially about cleaning my nasal passages, and Jyoti said she does the same thing regularly. Bhoomi explained that yoga is very important for one’s well being, but she doesn’t need to take it right now because she’s not feeling stressed.

It was great being with them, and I’m sure we’ll get together again soon. I’m glad we connected the way we did, and we could see that Kamlesh felt the same way. Frank and I like him very much.

Click on the link below to see some more pictures:

Link