Vijay and Ambiga meet David

All good things are a result of volleyball. Let me clarify this. In the evening on our first day in Mahabalipuram we were walking down the street talking about how it’d be fun to join in on some games if we see any kids playing together. We have often seen groups of children playing cricket together and have always talked about joining them, but never had. Not ten minutes later, I looked over a large wall on a side street near the beach and saw a volleyball net and a bunch of young men and boys. It didn’t take us long to decide to approach them and ask to play. Everyone stared at us as we walked toward the net, but were very friendly when we exchanged greetings. We asked if we could play and they were more than happy to let us. One of the older players (mid-twenties) was quick to kick another boy off the court to let us play (I felt bad that we didn’t rotate in – they didn’t rotate at all – but the guys that sat out were happy to go and seemed just as entertained to watch two foreigners try to show off their volleyball skills). The game was fun and they were impressed that we could play their game. Some of them were quite good and the game turned out to be competitive. As it got dark they called it quits and we stood around chatting with everyone for awhile. We ended up standing in the middle of a circle asking and answering questions back and forth. We were about ready to head back to our hotel when David, the oldest boy, who seemed to be a leader (and who had the best English), invited us to his house. This turned out to be the beginning of a deep connection with him and his family.

We weren’t sure what to expect, but we chatted in broken English on the way to his house, which we later learned was in a little community of his extended family. He brought us in to one of the rooms, introducing us to his wife, mother, father, sisters, and nieces along the way, and sat us down on two chairs. Everyone else just stood and smiled and we spoke to David and his father – the only two who could speak English.

David handed us a photo album and we started looking through pictures of him over the last few years. We learned that he has a lot of interests and unique talents. He is a gymnastics master and teaches a class on the beach, he has played on a travelling volleyball team, he is in a dance group, he is a welder, and is currently studying at a college. He also told us how he had become a gymnastics master. He said that he was playing on the beach one day, doing some acrobatics, when an older German man approached him. The man told David he was impressed and later offered to send David to a gymnastics school to further train him. He paid for an entire year and at the end of the year, David was at the master level. When the German man returned, David was already teaching his own classes. The man came back often and had many connections with Mahabalipuram. We had the impression that this man had helped many people in similar ways.

As we looked through pictures, they brought us some delicious herbal tea (Mandy wasn’t a big fan of it) and smiled at us a lot. After awhile he moved us to he and his wife’s room and showed us their wedding album and told us about their traditional marriage ceremonies.

By the end of the evening they had given us ice cream and drinks, we had exchanged contact information, and had planned to see each other again the next day. They had even helped to give us Indian names, who happened to be famous actors. I am Vijay and Mandy is Ambiga. We walked back to the hotel excited to have made some new friends.

We were back the next evening with our wedding pictures on a thumb drive and they all gathered around to look. Before we even got started, his wife, sisters, and nieces were admiring the way Mandy did her hair (side French braid) and I suggested that Mandy could do the same thing to the youngest niece named Vanilla.

They loved that, and as we looked through pictures the rest of the evening, Mandy did the other niece’s hair and David’s wife’s hair in different styles that were foreign to them.

When Mandy was done, I told David to ask his wife if she could do Mandy’s hair. She did a cool fish-tail braid and decorated her hair with a fancy hair clip and jasmine blossoms. But they didn’t stop there. They put make-up on her forehead which is not only decoration but also designates that Mandy is married.

As we went through our pictures, David kept telling us ours looked like a Hollywood wedding with the bride in an “angel dress” and the groom in a suit and tie. They pointed out that we were smiling in every single picture and said that was nice (but clearly different from their pictures). He showed us the dvd of his wedding and we showed him “Time in a Bottle” that I played at our luncheon. Then he started playing some of his favorite music and a little dance party started right there in the small bedroom.

As we were getting ready to leave, David and his father expressed to us how we had become dear and close friends. They said we were now family to them and invited us to come back and stay at their house. They told us that in a year a new temple would be finished and that if we came back, they would bring us to the temple and guide us through their ceremonies. We in turn offered them our house in Utah and shared with them how wonderful it had been to know them. We also gave them a pass along card with a picture of the Salt Lake temple. We walked back to our hotel smiling and hoping to see them again. We talked about how, if we were ever rich enough, we would like to fly them all to Utah. We also talked about the German man and how he helped David. We were impressed with his method of giving. He didn’t just give David money, which would’ve been the most convenient thing; instead he did the more effective thing and invested his money in David’s life, so that he could improve his own circumstances. This was another example for us of ways we can serve, even remotely while living at home in Utah.