While strolling on the sidewalk of the Boston River (English named it
Charles River), I noticed a handwritten poster “Diwali Night”. That
evening, Indian diaspora in the United States were celebrating Diwali,
in a local Harvard college hostel, with music and dance night. Around
8.30 I entered the hall, and there were a few young Indian couples busy
decorating …being a stranger, I sat in a corner inquisitive of social
activities of the Indian- Americans. Young girls and boys were slowly
trooping in the decorated hall. Always an enthusiastic moment of meeting
a co-patriot – like a lost friend of years…By now some hundred couples
had crowded in the hall, and Indian pop songs were blaring with a few
bhajan and puja rituals.…It must be around 9.PM, when an attractive girl
in 20s, in a beautiful –Gujarati dress ghagara, rushed towards me:
“Uncle, keep this for me while I teach them garaba (Dance)”, and handed
me a small packet. The butterfly flew away but left behind a heavy
mettle-like weight tied simply in a colourful hanky. The dancing girl
had gone – for good 2 hours without coming back for her packet. As I was
to take an early flight back to Mother India, I must go back to my
hotel. But it was now midnight; the girl was nowhere to be seen. I was
still holding her deposit. I looked into the packet –it was gold
jewellery – that she did not want to keep on while dancing with force…
Strikingly, I did not see a single girl in slacks or jeans.
In desperation, I started looking for the owner of this
responsibility…but how to recognize the girl among a crowd of 200
couples circling in various musical ecstasies under the psychedelic
flood light (I could not tell anyone that I was holding a huge gold
collection and not sure to whom that belongs to?). I could not just go
up to any girl and say, “hey, is this gold yours?” In the dancing hall,
I could not recognize the girl who had darted before me but for a few
fleeting moments. I could not recognize a circling Gujarati girl with
whom I had but a brief encounter that evening -like young Madhuri in
America, mingled in the middle of the dance-musical gala performance in
a college hall of Harvard University.
It was past mid-night around 1 AM; the music stopped, and the Madhuri,
totally oblivious of my problem, was enthralled and overjoyed with
Diwali dancing in the United States, arrived to thank me for the safe
custody of her rich Indian heirlooms…
Could you have entrusted this to …a total stranger?
“Never…” But to an Indian elder in the U.S. – that is a different story.
