Messages and Gratitude

Today I woke up thinking about how much messages from home mean to me. I receive so many text messages here from people I have met once, insistent and when I don’t respond, seemingly worried. Many of the messages that fill my inbox are ‘inspirational quotes’ that different new friends send to me. This love of self-help quotes is equally reflected in the books sold on the street. Brent tells me that they reflect the possibility that is emerging in India for someone who knows English to get somewhere, to make something, a kind of Indian ‘american’ dream. I find my inbox overflowing each morning with messages that are meant to inspire, championing hard work and determination, reminding of potential success, telling me to seize opportunities. All of these things could be found in a business leadership handbook. But some messages give emotional advice as well. A moment ago, Sarang sent me a message that said, “it is much easier to smile instead of explaining why you are sad, so smile.” I don’t see the wisdom in this message at all. Maybe it is my mum’s gentle encouragement to feel what I am feeling, to let it all out that invokes a reading of this message as an unhealthy recommendation for repressing emotions. But, who am I to talk? It is easier sometimes to pretend to be fine, to smile. So often here, under surveillance, I smile and nod and think of my happiness as my currency.  Only recently did I learn that saying thank you annoys most of my classmates to no end. So, my attempts to be polite, warm, and express my gratitude, are interpreted as overly formal , a cold mode of distancing. After missing class today and asking for a recapitulation of the lecture, a boy sat down with me for two and a half hours, buying me tea and taking me step by step through what I had missed. He actually sang several Urdu songs in their entirety and translated them into English for me. I was amazed that no one in the canteen turned to look. He exhibited no embarrassment.  I thanked him. “Why do you say thank you? Come on! I am not doing you a special favor, you are my friend, you are a student, you are Lina, I am Huzaifa, you are Catholic or something, I am Muslim, we are human.” I overlook the Catholic thing with a shrug and say, I don’t know what I am. He told me on the walk down the street some of his story, his suffering. He told me that I looked like his little sister, showing me a picture. He bought me another snack and I tried to suppress the thank yous and just smile.

Varsha, the girl with the beautiful smile appeared behind me. We walked together to buy her medicine and then she bought me a coconut that we sipped together. I scooped out the flesh and she took a picture of us together. We entered the biggest temple in Pune, with a long series of stairs and I prayed to Ganesh and gave the offering of flowers and sugar to Shiva. From the top of the stairs, all of Pune was visible below us and the rising incense smoked past our heads. She told me that she wakes up at 4 every morning to study in the library and take notes on day's newspaper, studying for a huge exam in a year’s time that will decide her future. I am not sure what this exam is called, but she has been preparing for it for the past three years. Hearing about her long days and Huzaifa’s life makes me hyper-aware of the extent of my own privileges, all the comforts that will soften any fall.