Theloopylululog

A cultural tradition from India that I love?

Offering a glass of water to a guest.

Yes. I know! It’s simple.

You wouldn’t think of it as a deeply entrenched custom ingrained in us since birth, if you don’t actually sit down to contemplate on it. You would not know how rooted it is to the core part of our Indianness until you visit a new country and it dawns on you that this custom is not as common as you think it is.

This is something us Indians do as if it’s part of our automatic responses to stimuli. Someone knocks the door, we welcome them in and immediately hand them a glass of water. We do not know why they are here at our doorstep. We don’t know if it’s business or a casual visit or a courtesy call.

We extend our welcome with water; everything else follows the trickle. Even and especially if they are strangers.

The hospitality doesn’t differentiate or discriminate. The glass of water is a great leveller. A core reason to treat every guest equivalent to God. Kindness. Just kindness. Served and received. No tabs to cross. No count to keep.

I use to think this was universal. Maybe it is. I don’t know. Infact I didn’t really think about it at all. I just assumed that’s how it is done everywhere.

Until I landed in Kenya and stayed there for 4 months.

Every knock at my door received the same treatment. A big smile, an animated hellooo and a glass of water. Many of them followed by a coffee and a conversation. Some of them with a few nuts, sweets and snacks I had carried from home. Sometimes sharing my meal if the knock is closer to my lunch time. It just came naturally to me. No pretense applied just because I was away from home.

Not until I was thanked profusely for my graciousness did it pique my interest to question them. Trust Kenyans to offer gratitude like no one else does.

Some said they felt honoured. Some others felt like being home. Some were reminded of their homesteads. And the best of them, across all friends, acquaintances and strangers… “You remind me of my mom, Lal.”

This left me with a lump in my throat. Overwhelmed with emotions that refused to be labelled.

What is surprising is that Kenyans share a sense of community with everyone around them. No matter when or how often you meet them, they always want to know how you are doing.

Every day I met the same people in the building while heading out to buy milk or vegetables or just running up and down the stairs for some exercise and they would stop and ask me, “How are you, today?”

From the man who wielded the Milk ATM machine Ambrose, the tomato lady Mary or the man who sold shoes on the street Morgan; everyone wanted to know what I had for lunch and how I was faring that day, in a place that had no other Indian walk around its streets. Are you lonely? was an oft repeated query.

Everyday, like clockwork. Not like an automaton but with a genuine curiosity to know me, no matter how late the hour of day. I was deeply humbled by their caring attitude every single day. They made sure I never missed home, not for a single hour of the 118 odd days I lived there.

So you can imagine how I felt when they bestowed me the honour by comparing my offer of a glass of water to the love and warmth of their own mother. No words can describe the feeling. Although I brushed it off saying it’s just an Indian thing, I felt awed, wonderful and grateful; all at once.

It’s only then I realised that something as simple as offering a glass of water to a guest — no questions asked, no reasons needed — is not that simple after all. It is actually what sets me as an Indian apart.

Something that has been passed down generation after generation in every household to every kid becomes a core part of our identity. A simple tradition we all learned not by observation alone but by being served by the hands of someone with no guile, just a smile and a glass of water.

I am never the one to flaunt my patriotism. I think of myself as a global citizen. But if there’s one thing I love and am proud of as an Indian , it’s the power of a glass of water serving as both; a cultural tradition and an act of kindness.

That’s something humanity can learn to pay it forward. Don’t they say service to humanity is service to God? What better way to start than with an offering of a simple glass of water, eh?