How do we learn to give? Where do graciousness and greed come from? I met the most gracious woman while visiting an informal settlement community in Kolkata. She sat on a metal chair with no backing in front of her home made of blue tarps. She sat there peacefully, in her bright pink bubble gum sari. Her billowing black mane was parted in the middle and little streaks of grey peaked out of the dark mass. She looked placid, as she stared at the busy street before her home, with a garbage dump to her right and a post office across the street. I stepped out of the car and she identified me immediately with a warm smile. I shut the cab door and confidently crossed the street to meet her. I introduced myself and my translator gave a quick introduction to our request to ask her a few questions. She willingly obliged and guided us around the corner to what I’d like to call her front porch. There was an electricity box outside their blue tarp home. She saw me eyeing the tan box filled with electrical equipment inside. She laughed and said “Don’t worry. That’s our cupboard.” Ironic, because the family has no electricity, yet they live with an electricity box as their cupboard.
We all sat down to have a conversation, and soon her whole family had gathered around us. A young woman with her newborn baby, that she cradled as it slept. The woman’s daughter, dressed in blue, a sassiness and strength exuding from her presence. A few of her grandkids gathered around and smiled sheepishly at me. A few neighbors joined the scene too. It was a lunch break, so the woman’s son stopped by and she excitedly introduced us to him before he went back to work. About halfway through the interview, a commotion set over the group. I was unsure about what was happening, but suddenly the woman I was interviewing stood up and disappeared around the corner. It had been a few minutes and I was still unsure of what was happening until my translator informed me the woman had gone to see a beggar man. The woman’s daughter rolled her eyes explaining that her mother is “way too giving. Even when we have so little.” Apparently, the beggar man had been putting up scaffolding for a wedding and had taken a fall while on the ladder. The fall left his body half-paralyzed and left him out of a job. He had been so desperate, he began slumping around and begging for money from strangers. He came across the woman with the billowing black mane, and she insisted that he would get nowhere from begging. She said to him, “I will help you.” Together, they crafted an idea to start a roti stall with his wife, where he could be mostly immobile. All he needed now was money to buy a pan and ingredients. The woman said “Come back to me next week. I will help you.” It had been a week. The man had come back to seek out the kindness of this woman, a stranger. And so, she sat with this man for upwards of 30 minutes, counseling him and then giving him some money to start his roti stall. She finally strolled back to the metal chair in front of us and plopped down, with a warm sparkle in her eyes. The man followed slowly behind her, his body shaking uncontrollably from his fall. He made it to the edge of our group and struggled to lift up his shirt to show us the brace he now wears to stabilize himself. He began to babble in Bangla, his mouth trembling uncontrollably. He shared his amazement that we chose to sit there on little metal stools with this family. We drank the sugarcane juice that they gave us, the bright green liquid sloshing around the sides of the small plastic cups. We laughed and smiled in their presence. He told us that his heart was melting as his small eyes spouted tears. He tried, with all his might, to explain how much it meant to him that we were spending time with his people. The people who lived in these blue tarps. He continued crying tears of joy, as he went on about our presence in this place. He stood there gazing at us with a goofy smile that soon morphed into a grimace, as his body chose to wreak havoc on him as he shook. The man then looked up to the sky, to some god he believes in, and shared his gratitude. He said his goodbyes to the family and slowly turned to leave, dropping his cane as he did so. The woman with billowing black mane gently placed the cane back in his hand and placed a warm new sweater in his other hand. A simple gift to protect his shaking body from the damp Kolkata winter. A simple act of graciousness from a woman who owed this man nothing. I glanced in wonder around me, my heart swelling, and I began to cry. I cried for the graciousness with which this woman received this man. I cried for the graciousness with which this family received us. I cried because these humans had much more to give than the richest humans in the world. I cried for the expansiveness of their hearts. I cried in the hopes that my heart can be as free and giving as the heart of the woman who said to a trembling stranger, “I will help you.” When was the last time you said “here, let me help you” to a stranger. Try it out. Feel your heart expand a little bit and experience the divinity graciousness.
1 Comment
Pat Bennett
2/19/2020 10:34:05 am
What a beautiful and moving piece! I am deeply affected by this ! Thank you first sharing and I think I’ll read this daily to remind me to be giving and gracious .
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Sammi Bennett I am a dancer, singer, creative non-fiction writer, yoga teacher, outdoor lover, and book-binder. Archives
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