It’s past 2 am and as so often these unusually hot and humid Berlin summer days I wake up in the middle of the night. I decide to read a little more in the book Blink I had started earlier this evening. Written by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Tipping Point, it talks about the power of thinking without thinking, the beauty of knowing when to trust our snap judgment. And when not…
I reminds me of the night of my arrival in Delhi after one of those long train rides typical for traveling through India. I had phoned the hotel where I wanted to stay just ahead of arriving, only to be told that no rooms were available. Surely no problem, I thought, packed my stuff and went over to the carriage with Israeli fellow traveller Yonathan and newly made Indian friends. Little Abhi grabbed my hand and clung to it all the while unboarding the train and walking through the incredibly crowded train station that had put me in a state of freeze when I had arrived there for the first time only three weeks ago. Abhi’s beautiful mother spoke softly but vehemently to her husband who then ‘delivered her decision’ that I was to come along to dinner. As well… They already had invited Yonathan to eat with them on his way out to the airport – en route so to speak… Another complete stranger to them, just as I was. The dinner invitation got extended to stay for the night and eventually all the five nights I’d be in Delhi. Within days I was fully integrated into the family with three kids, a teenage nephew and the parents who – after many years of fighting for their love – got married to each other by choice.
It turned out the home stay of my life, a ride on the cultural roller coaster with all its challenges and intensity. Visitors came and went, everybody wanted a piece of me, we went sightseeing and to the amazing hustle & bustle markets of Delhi town, I danced around the house to Bollywood tunes with youngster Abhi, played Doodle with the younger daughter (when the parents didn’t look), let the elder one chat from my phone, cooked with the mom, debated with the father and ate, ate, ate. Going out for my meetings was met with faces dropping inadvertently and saying ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ was incredibly rude. When I got them a tiny farewell present chosen with much love to express my eternal gratefulness, they got seriously upset. They had just done their duty, so why would I thank them?
This hospitality – the guest is God – shows itself in open doors everywhere and in a curiosity that we Europeans often confuse with nuisance. It’s a life lead by simplicity without being afraid that what they have (or not) and who they are (or not) is not good enough for the rest of the world. It’s these people that despite not understanding my choices and lifestyle (noops mam/sir, I’m not married; no, I don’t have kids; yes, I really am 40 yrs old and not a student) welcome me, ask simple yet powerful questions and force me ever so gently to re-think everything I once learnt to accept as ‘the norm’.
Many people back in Germany later asked me if I wasn’t scared to just go home with perfect strangers. If I wasn’t?? Huhh?? What about them?? It was the week of persisting terrorist threads and for all I know I could have been the lunatic…
I realized I had started to trust my heart to make decisions again. And so did they, in a blink… Reading the book drove consciously home what I had always suspected: We don’t need tons of information to make a decision. Forget about the endless ‘getting-to-know’ game. We have the ‘power of the blink’ and if we listen deep enough, if we refuse to give in to presumptions and see people, life and things for what they really are… Geez, we’d have some serious time to spare. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change??
