November 12, 2017 · New Delhi, India
Doubled Surprise of all surprises (the surprise is at the end)
With this reunion phase of my travels ending, it was now time to make some sense of it all. I have met and spent time with people in various areas of the world, each with something in common, a desire for a better life for themselves and others. My time in Delhi was to meet with people here, who could help me with people there. I met with an IT Technologist Sam Singh to look at ways make use of the internet and market places to help increase awareness of various projects, in which my friends were engaged.
And also, to meet with a multi-talented lady who is a book illustrator, artist, Cultural Museum Curator, and photographer, in other words a person with experience in many of the areas my friends need help to help themselves. We met as a result of mutual Facebook friend Marie Pauline Ferrari… While I was hoping to meet with Saswati Chaudhuri for a few hours or over a number of meetings. I was only granted one audience with this talented lady. And when we finally met, just a few hours ago this time would be limited to about 45 minutes, a creative but busy lady so it seems.
For the initial 15 minutes I asked her if she could help me shop for gift for an artist friend of mine in Ireland with the hope she would know better what a female artist would like, than I would. In one of the shops we found hand embroidered blouses, one yellow, one white, that she assured me were of the highest handmade and cultural quality. As the curator of a cultural museum, how much more authority did I need? Especially to assure my friend she got a great gift.
From there we went to a slow fast food place around the corner, so slow, my 30-minute audience was extended to almost an hour. During this time, I explained to Saswati Chaudhuri my needs for helping my friends with making and selling cultural arts, videography etc. She shared with me some of the things occurring at her museum in that regard, that were helpful. And then she took the time to show me some of her art works and we shared our appreciation of different artists and genres.
But my time had come to an end and we needed to part. As she was getting up to leave, she informed me it was her birthday. To her surprise, I said happy birthday, and handed her the Surprise birthday presents she had selected, for my friend, she had thought, but no instead she had selected them for herself.
She was surprised and pleased and agreed to stay in contact on what seem to be mutual goals and interests.
While I thought my limited time with her was because she was not so interested in meeting, when I looked in Facebook and saw today was her birthday, I realized she was taking special time out of her day to meet with me, a stranger. With no time to shop to buy her a gift for birthday and appreciation, I enlisted her in her own surprise. Something I had done last year in Fiji Sainimili Vuluma and Nikki Louise two ladies who too were deserving of a gift of appreciation, selected by themselves in surprise.
I look forward to working with Saswati Chaudhuri, Sam Singh and any others who can help my friends to help themselves, keeping their cultures alive and improving their life’s in the process.
As do my friends and budding entrepreneurs Lusia Santos, Katrina Garises, Eric Ranivo, Beerma Bishnoi, Brenda Dube Monde Litungi Enock Dube, Mahenintsoa Andriamisandratra Tshepo Cathy Abraham Litu’ngi Nkhuwa Vijay Chandel
