Pardon my delinquency...

...but this entry, and the two that follow in rapid succession, are quite old and only now am I posting! Enjoy!

For a country with such a large population, it is incredible how India can feel so very small sometimes. This could be mostly attributed to the fact that a lot of loyalties are based on small communities (with religion, caste, sub-caste, regional dialect, etc. topping the list as some of the many exclusive and isolating factors), but despite the numerous partitions, being able to identify with several different pockets does allow ample opportunity to feel the warm “ohmygosh this is such a monumental coincidence!” rush that I have started to get used to.

For example, while in Surat doing some research, I met a friend of my uncle who is friends with (not only a very useful political contact, but also) a lovely family with children around my age. After completely bonding with their eldest daughter and being invited over for some delicious home-cooked Gujarati food – enormous portions and several helpings, the works – it turns out that the mother is not only the sister of the head English teacher from Madhi high school, but also (!!!) from the very same small town as my father, several hours away in northern Gujarat. In the end she did not know my dad growing up, but she is really well-acquainted with my grandfather, and that was quite the WOW! moment.

While it does not quite warm my heart the same way when our students accost me with questions about what caste I am in, quickly followed by yells across the 70-student-deep classroom to notify every other Vaishya/Vanya pupil that they do have something in common with Mansi Madame after all (copy-paste this exact same scenario to the Madhi secondary office, but here I also garnered a dinner invitation from the head secretary, who happens to be a Shah as well), it is possible to extrapolate to a bigger picture: even across such huge economic, linguistic, cultural, lifestyle divides, it seems part of the local mentality to forge some kind of common ground with almost anyone.

Especially after reading about how the political preferences in Gujarat are leading to isolation of the less advantaged, I do want to believe that in the small, daily choices and interactions, the people in this state feel a lot of unity over the many overlapping parts of their very separate lives. Everyone manages to be connected to everyone else, somehow. So Gujarat does not quite need the full 7º to play the relatedness game…and this will hopefully be my golden ticket to meeting Narendra Modi before my summer is over.

Cross your fingers, and thanks for reading!