JOIN USWhen we meet a new person, we immediately try to find out connections.
One night last week, we were having dinner with two other couples. One of them, a German married to an Indian, was relating the unusual manner in which we had become friends. At Singapore airport, while waiting to board a flight to Bangalore for the first time, she ran into an acquaintance who gave her my number. Not only did we become friends but she moved into the apartment block where I lived! I wondered aloud if her husband thought this habit of ours, of eliciting connections with all and sundry, weird. On the contrary he was amused and quite excited. His wife told me that he looks forward to these narratives!
I thought of the concept of six degrees of separation, which is the idea that everyone is approximately six steps or fewer, away, by way of introduction, from any other person, in the world so that he can with “a friend of a friend” statement, connect on average with any 2 people in six!
And that is what we Indians believe and take comfort in, that we are all connected in some way. The stories stretch one’s credibility. A friend from Chennai had referred her young friend to meet me on the latter’s transfer to Bangalore. When she came for tea, I offered her some laddoos which had been made by my cousin’s wife, also from Chennai. When I mentioned that they were Gita’s laddoos, immediately my young friend said that must be her husband’s cousin, since she also makes delicious laddoos. And indeed it was!
When we meet a new person, we immediately try to find out the connections. However, far fetched it may seem, if we probe, somebody would turn up in the wood work!
Why do we do this? Is it because we establish a comfort zone, this way? Is it that we feel that if he or she knows someone we know or is related, then they must be OK? Or is it just a conversation stimulus? A strategy to slot the other person? But it is guaranteed that in this game, some person will turn up as a connection. Having established that, we feel free to get on with the relationship.
I have had an enquiry about a cousin twice removed, whether she was related and when I asked my friend what made her think so, she said: ”She speaks softly, like you do>” What were the chances of her being correct??
As far as I am concerned, the degree of separation is no longer six, it is more like one or two. A dear friend told me that India is a long one- Way Street through which everyone has to pass; therefore you will meet everyone at some point or the other, coming or going.
And the circle widens as we intermarry, as we increase in numbers and connections become convoluted, tenuous and confusing, but they remain. Amen!