Your New Friends

I saw a cultural difference on my first day. People aren’t afraid to stare at you. (Comes with being foreign-dressed white guy. You’re noticed.) But unlike the US, I could make eye-contact with someone a block away, smile, put my palms together (fingers up) and bob my head and they would smile and do the same.  An impulse of respect  which I found pleasant – even at fifty paces.

If you want to start up a jolly conversation with almost anyone, it’s easy – as long as they can speak English. If they can’t, it’s hard. Sometimes you’re treated like a movie star. Young people come up and ask if they can take a selfie with you. (There are worse things in life than having to feel like Johnny Depp for 15 seconds.) But by and large, if you look like you want to be left alone, you’ll be left alone.  

I’m not an unfriendly person but I’m not gregarious. I’m more an introvert who happens to like people. But just liking people goes a long way here. I arrived in India at the age of 65 and made more friends in my first year than I made in my last 20 years in America. Three of them are very close friends. Two of those consider me part of their family. The feeling is mutual. It’s like it says in “Three Cups of Tea”, by the time you’ve had a third cup of tea with someone, you’re a real chum. (I think that’s what it says. I should read that book sometime.)