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Nothing and Everything

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Nothing and Everything

INDIA | Thursday, 18 April 2013 | Views [180] | Scholarship Entry


The wedding was over. The tittering crowd, with their lavish attire and mentalities dissipated. I walked hurriedly toward the pacing chauffeur.

A woman caught the gaze of my naïve eyes and smiled hopefully at the perceived significance of my hesitation. Her hand reached out, offering me a sole blade of grass. I looked around quizzically, wondering if any one else had accepted her whimsical offer. Was it a post-wedding custom? My understanding of the moment remained inchoate.

“She wants your money.” My uncle’s booming voice, tinged with a slight English accent, curtailed my reverie.

“I have nothing,” I said. My Express wristlet had no rupees or dollars.

“Ah, but you have everything.” Her voice was smug. Even the dirt etched into her wrinkles exuded confidence.

At first, it was strange to realize that she was right. The proof was in our differing perceptions of nothing and everything. Despite the crippling and omnipresent anhedonia, I felt. And, the feeling was multifarious, laced with pride, fortuity, and overwhelming guilt.

I was humbled, but only from my privileged standpoint. My own ignorance begged me to pity her and loathe myself. My UCLA brain desperately grappled with academic concepts, only to focus on the “just world hypothesis,” which maintains the existence of a cosmic, karmic balance. Who governs the universe, and makes the choice to dole out poverty or clinical depression?

It was easy to discern what I had that she did not. It was easier, still, to discern what we both had: the inherent and utterly human poignant propensity to want we do not have.

By now, she had already muttered a few angry curses and turned her back on me. Her discolored sari hung like a shroud around her thin body. She hovered, again, protectively around her children, leaving them only to make her plea to the sea of people exiting the temple. She continued to smile, this time with her eyes, and offer blades of grass in exchange for rupees, dollars, pounds, anything.

What did she have that I did not?

Tags: Travel Writing Scholarship 2013

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