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Monday, July 27 2009 | Compassion, Conciousness

The Kindness of Strangers.

Getting from A to B can now no longer be taken for granted. India. Hailing an auto. Full. Full. Full. Empty – wonderful. Vasanth Nagar is home, but however you pronounced that in your mind just then is wrong. Try it slowly. Clear diction. Inexplicably the driver finally understands and replies “Vazzanagar”. Yes, Vasanth Nagar. He shakes his head and just drives off! Maybe second, third or fourth time lucky. It’s the same process every time.

Okay, so not all strangers are kind but I have had an exceeding number of encounters in such a short time that my faith in my fellow human animals is very quickly on the increase. Certainly, multiple daily encounters with questionable auto drivers are far outweighed by these deeper experiences. I’d like to tell you about one of them.

Fiona and I have spent the past three weeks living in a foreign country with someone we had less than half a dozen conversations with two months ago. We met Amrita at the Sivananda Ashram and like us she was there to find some peace and answers to her inner questions. And now I’m sitting on her couch in Bangalore as I write this. So I asked her what in the world came over her when she decided to say “when you come to Bangalore, come and stay at my place” to two Aussie girls she was sharing a drink with at Beatles café in Kovalam.

Amrita has a depth of trust in her own intuition, which I find fascinating and inspiring. In my life, I have not been one to take huge risks, trust strangers easily or make big decisions quickly based only on my gut feelings. I’m slowly learning that there are great experiences to be had if one oscillates to the other side of one’s own cautionary brick wall of life occasionally!

The decision to let two foreigners live with her was based entirely on the vibe Amrita felt when she was around us. In contrast, there were other travelers who would have also benefited culturally from a local home stay, however Amrita is insistent that she would not have extended the same invitation to any other tourists she met at the Ashram. Why? She just felt she wouldn’t gel with their personalities.

I’m not trying to define a special characteristic in my and Fiona’s personalities, but was genuinely interested to know why someone would make such a generous offer to two complete strangers. I feel I have been taught to be so cautious and I wonder, if the roles were reversed, would I invite two newly arrived Indian tourists to live with us indefinitely in our apartment in Australia? It’s an interesting question to ask yourself.

In some ways, Amrita says her invitation was an exercise in self trust. In the past, she has made regretful decisions when she has not followed her own instincts. She wants to make deep and connected friendships with likeminded people and she views meeting us as an opportunity for her to do this.

It seems she didn’t question her own judgment, and didn’t concern herself with worrying about potential problems. Amrita strikes me as a decisive and forthright woman who would have had no qualms in moving us along should we have had disagreeable personalities. I have admired and been inspired by her ability to advocate for herself in an intimidatingly masculine culture.

Some might say Amrita was lucky in her decision as it turns out that Fiona and I are not sadistic murderers, in fact we’re not even messy! We are considerate house guests – although a daily maid makes light work of keeping house for all of us. And the three of us get along famously. My question to myself for the next few weeks will remain – why am I not certain I would take the same risk Amrita did? Why do I perceive it as a risk more so than a wonderful opportunity for connectivity?

So now we are the three musketeers of Bangalore! Our names, painted on rice earlier today, are hanging around our necks symbolising our life long friendship. Osho says, in his book on Intimacy “Trust is possible only if first you trust yourself. Trust has a magic in it. If you trust in yourself, you can trust in me, you can trust in people, you can trust in existence.” Amrita is my realised example of these words. She seems to easily differentiate between trusting her developed instincts and falling into situations naively and with no desire to manipulate the moment.

I hop into the fourth auto I have hailed, once I have agreed on my destination with the driver. He turns to me and says “twenty rupees”, indicating he is now placing a surcharge on top of the metered price for my trip. “No, meter only”, I reply. “Ten rupees, Sunday Ma’am”. “No, meter only” I say as I exit the auto. “Meter, meter okay”. Not knowing the city roads, I can now only trust that my journey will actually end at my current home, Vasanth Nagar. Vasannagar. Vazzanagah. Vahzahnaga……