The Smallest Thing

In India it’s the smallest thing that can get to you.

A rickshaw driver taking you the long way to your destination to get a few more rupees, getting caught in a monsoon rain without an umbrella…twice, mail getting lost, photos being ruined by the people you pay to develop them, students being late for class and then wanting to leave early, finding out that your salwar kameez has been tailored wrong when you bring it back home. These little things build up until they are one big thing that makes you want to hide under you’re covers and not come out for a long while.

But in India it’s the smallest thing that can get to you.

A student’s pleased face at learning something new, a stranger giving a friendly smile in the street for no reason, being given an unasked for cup of chai, a student telling you ‘Your teaching is very nice!’, a mob of little children charging at you yelling ‘Auntie!’ at the tops of their lungs.

One of these little things can make everything else just fade away.

Catriona McDougall