Meeting Sandhya

Sucheta called me into her office. She read over a piece of paper as I waited eagerly, nearly bursting out of my seat. On the request form for host families I had written “lots of little kids!,” followed by a smiley face thrown in for good measure. 

“Ah, Sandhya,” Sucheta, the head of the ACM program as well as the Marathi language teacher, said, leaning back in her chair in a way that told me she was about to delve into a trying story. “Sandhya’s husband died three years ago. She is still quite heartbroken.”

The happy train moving full speed ahead in my mind came to a screeching halt. “Oh,” was all I could manage.

“She has a twelve year old son. Oh, and she is a great dancer.” Sucheta gave me an encouraging smile.

 That woeful scenario coupled with a brother who was much older than I was expecting caused the excitement I had harbored within me just moments before to begin to ooze out, despite my best efforts to collect it before it had the chance. But I kept a positive outlook and was excited to meet my new family. 

Sandhya picked me up at the hotel that night. I was the last to get picked up by my host family. She came with her son and a tight schedule. “Sarah??”

I quickly stood up, a polite smile spreading across my face. I towered over her, but she had a command of the room unlike anything I’d ever experienced. “Come,” she said.

“I am in a hurry because I must get back to the dance lesson I am teaching,” Sandhya explained, speed-walking so that I had to jog every few steps.

“No problem at all!” I announced, reminding myself internally how super-duper great this all was.

The instant we entered the dance room she began to simultaneously sing and count in Marathi while the five students danced in front of her, perfectly in sync. At the end of the lesson, Sandhya presented me with two paper bracelets, one for myself and one for someone for whom I feel “brotherly love.”

Upon entering her apartment, I formally met her son Niranjan who has the sweetest soul you can imagine, and Sandhya’s mother, Sumati, another beautiful soul but who speaks absolutely no English and had a hard time grasping that I know very, very little Marathi. Sandhya gave me a tour of the apartment, and I was taken aback by a few things. First, have a look at the "Indian-style toilet": 

It was a shock, that's for sure. Plus, see that little turquoise bucket in the corner? Yep, that's what they use for what we use toilet paper for. It's a struggle.

We had the most delicious dinner and I never wanted it to end. There was a stir-fry type thing with okra (or ladyfingers, as they call them) onions, and other vegetables; poli – a type of Indian bread similar to a tortilla; peanut chutney; a yellow curry (amti) with lentils; beat and tomato soup; and steamed white rice (not pictured). It was this first meal with my host family that I fully grasped the extent to which Indians eat with their hands, which I had heard about before my journey. Most Indians eat only with their right hand for the entirety of the meal. 

Eating without utensils was very weird, of course, but I followed the rest of the crew as they poured their curry over their rice, mixed it up vigorously with their fingers on their stainless steel plates, and put it directly into their mouths. I felt pretty stupid to be honest and got the feeling that all three of my new family members must have internally been laughing at me the whole time. Halfway through, though, I felt – how do I say it – closer to my food than I do at home, if that makes sense. I felt its texture with both my hands and my mouth, which we very rarely have the opportunity to do with the food we eat in the U.S, besides snacks, mainly. I felt the chutney’s delicate graininess, the rice’s comforting smoothness, and the firm, slightly prickly edges of the okra. 

I looked over at Sandhya at one point to find her sitting in an entangled yoga-like pose on her seat, mixing her curry and rice together on her plate as she gracefully ate the dinner she had just prepared. A pang of intense respect and admiration for her shot through me in that moment. Little did I know this overwhelming and quite emotional feeling would swiftly intensify as this incredible woman steadily became a defining character in the story of my life.