Taken for Granted . . . Redux

You know you truly feel at home when first-time visitors let you recognize how much of your surroundings you take for granted. Sarah and I have now lived in India for a year and a half–with plans to stay here at least a few more–and several of our friends, when we were visiting in the US this summer, pointed out to us that we often said “back at home” or “when we head home” referring not to Indiana . . . but to India. Yet the depths of that feeling of “home” really sank in when our American friends, Tony Olbrich, and his wife Nancy Napier, visited us in Chennai for ten days in early December.

Tony and I met almost exactly sixty years ago when we had both moved to a small Appalachian town in Southern Ohio when we were ten years old—me from a larger Ohio city and Tony from Germany—and we connected when we served together as acolytes at the Methodist church. We were buds for a couple years and then Tony moved away and we lost touch since a hundred miles in those days was a longer reach than the other side of the globe today.

We reconnected just a handful of years ago when Tony contacted me through Facebook and asked if I had ever lived in Portsmouth, Ohio, and we’ve enjoyed an electronic friendship ever since. That is until this past July, as Sarah and I and our daughters, Anna and Elise, were celebrating family and the 4th of July at the old Hockman Family Compound outside Columbus, Ohio, and I got a messenger note from Tony who told me he was going to challenge my spontaneity! Turned out he had been in Columbus too, had an hour to waste before a flight home, and invited me to meet him for coffee. I aced the improvisation test and we managed to spend a precious sixty minutes catching up on nearly sixty years of history in rapid, summary fashion . . . and swore to not let another half century pass before we met again.

It didn’t take long for Tony and Nancy to make good on that commitment, as they contacted us only a couple months later—when we were already back home again in Besant Nagar—to let us know they had decided to visit India for the first time. They were both seasoned global travelers, as Nancy had taught international business for years in a program in Hanoi, Vietnam, as part of her role as a professor at Boise State; and Tony had just retired from a career in international banking. But while they had spent quite a bit of time in various parts of Asia, namma India hadn’t appeared on their radar . . . until now.

I think Sarah and I were as excited and they were, and we enjoyed helping them plan an excursion from Chennai to explore the Chettinad country and Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu as we had a year earlier. In fact, they delighted us by mentioning that our own adventure there and my subsequent blog post about it had been part of the inspiration that led them to plan their trip to India.

After many weeks of banter and planning, Tony and Nancy finally arrived, their suitcases topped off with a supply of ziplock bags and sinus meds and acid reducers and greens powders enough to last us a good while. Of course, that worked well as Nancy’s personal mission was to add to her Asian-style wardrobe with several new kurtas and pashminas. Sarah loved introducing Nancy to Fabindia, Kalpa Druma, Nicobar, Good Earth, and of course, Anokhi, the last of which hit the sweet spot and refilled that suitcase. And while they tracked down lovely hand-made clothing, Tony and I found our way down a few narrow lanes as he introduced his camera to the smiles that greeted us along the way.

The best part of our shared time here in Chennai, though, was watching Tony and Nancy discover so much that we now take for granted, things that have become nearly invisible, have become mere custom. Of course, Proust said it best: “Custom! That skillful but unhurrying manager who begins by torturing the mind for weeks on end with her provisional arrangements . . . For without the help of custom, [the mind] would never contrive . . . To make any room seem habitable.”

Thus, as the doorknob seems to turn of its own accord without our conscious effort, Sarah and I no longer felt a touch of delight when we passed a cow standing contentedly in the middle of a busy street; when we walked under what could only be a million wires tangled and hanging haphazard above our heads—although I did recently notice someone using a cable outside their window to hang dry their wash; when the paper collector crooned his morning song walking in front of our house; when the ironing man heated the coals for his daily livelihood; when the spice of our sambar tingled the tongue; when the brilliant colors of the saris charmed the eye; or when we unconsciously waggled the head just a tad as we listened to a conversation.

So, a heartfelt thank you to Tony and Nancy, for not only bringing us a wonderful new friendship with well-read global travelers who have been smitten with namma India, but also for refreshing our own perceptions, for reminding us of charming details we had come to take for granted, for letting us see once more that precious doorknob.

As I finish this post, we watch the winds rise and the clouds begin to darken as another cyclone forms in the Bay of Bengal and heads toward the coast. Since the Northeast Monsoon has been rated a failure this year for Tamil Nadu, we truly need the rains . . . The water supply cannot be taken for granted . . .