From the time I was born, my life has revolved around moving to different parts of the India. My father’s job in the Indian Air Force involved moving to different parts of the country every couple of years. I fell in love with this design of my life. With each move, came a change of school, teachers and friends. The Indian Constitution mentions that Hindi language in Devnagiri script is the official language. Yet, every part of India has its own vernacular language and culture. I picked up basic conversational skills in Punjabi, Gujarati, Assamese and Telugu and Dakkhani during my travels. The charm of getting acquainted with a near-endless list of people who have shaped my world with their language, culture, genius and experience – an experience that is distinctly theirs and one that I can love, celebrate but never really understand quite as they do, was alluring.
My dream of sharing the love for diverse cultures came true when I met a gorgeous girl with a beautiful soul who accepted my proposal for marriage after a brief courtship. A Tamilian with a heart of gold, she grew up in the Western hemisphere. Her career as a musician has taken her to every continent and she has friends from all over the world. Our love of travel and exploring culture through food, music, architecture and sports gets stronger with each passing day.
Everyday in the past three decades, my life has been profoundly influenced by people. I see them as human beings who can teach me. An innate curiosity and a naive belief that there is more good out there than the negative has fuelled this belief. Each human being is a gift of God. Our eyes and countenance constitute a minuscule part of knowing and understanding a fellow human being. To truly begin to knowing someone, we need to listen and accept them for who they are in this world. Acceptance is the ability to see that others have a right to be their own unique persons. A right to their own feelings, thoughts and opinions. When we accept people for who they are, we let go of our desire to change them. We let them feel the way they want to feel and let them think differently from us. Once we understand this truth, we can stop trying to change them into the people we want them to be and start accepting them for who they are.
Accepting people does not mean agreeing with them, approving of them, waiving our own rights, or downplaying their impact upon us. We can still take appropriate actions to protect and support ourselves and others. Or we can simply let people be. Either way, we accept the reality of the other person. We may not like it, may not prefer it and one may feel sad or angry about a person’s stance. However, at a deeper level, we can begin to be at peace with this reality. That alone is a blessing.
To sum up this piece, the above picture is from a party at the Siam Reap hostel I stayed at during my SE Asia backpacking trip in 2016. The group includes an Indian sales guy from Mumbai, an American teaching English in Japan, a Chinese-descent Singaporean who is serving in the Singapore Armed Forces and an Eritrean-descent German IT Consultant. All of us waiting for our Angkor pints(leading Cambodian brand of beer).
Leave a Reply