How The Idli-Hut Has Taught Me To Belong

Earlier this morning, after Sunday Morning sports with the team, I was dragging my heat-treated legs back home. I decided to shed the change from buying new cricket balls for a plate of ‘ulundhu vadai’ (murdered by North India and referred to as ‘vadaa’) at this little hut-shop nearby.

I have known this Idli-Hut couple for quite a while now. As a customer, I am not sure if they are good at their business because it’s a given that they compromise on quality by making small-sized idlis and add copious amount of water in the coconut chutney.

Every time a customer derails and visits another shop, there is an unspoken despair around the shop. Sometimes, they insist I pay some other time, probably to reassure themselves I will come around for another meal.

Aunty wasn’t around today. Uncle began ranting about his life to me in Tamil. He spoke about his three children, who he married them off to, and approximated their appearance and age with the Harayanvi customers that were dining at the shop and so on. “Sondha ooru Thoothukudi,” (Native place is Tuticorin, a southern port-city in Tamil Nadu) he said. I had my eyes on the plate of food while he was narrating his story to me, “My grand-daughter will be visiting in a while,” he exclaimed. At the corner of my lips, I smiled courteously.

In about 10 minutes, I was done eating. While I gave away my plate, he dropped in a crisply prepared ‘Dosa’ (salted Indian rice pancake) and said have ‘da.’ It was already on the dish, I couldn’t say no. It was then I realised how much people want to belong. For him, to find someone who spoke the same language in a different city was comfort. It was easy for him to be vulnerable even though I was a stranger and had nothing in return to offer.

Idli-Hut Uncle and I had barely known each other, we lead totally different lives and do not owe each other any relation, another conversation or an interaction for that matter. While walking back on the cemented path to my building I realised how human beings experience the need to belong, no matter how differently their lives have been laid out.

The sense of belonging — I had come across this set of words in History class at middle school for the first time, that it was a collective sense of belonging that won us Indians freedom from the Raj.

It is funny how we are all always looking to belong, to somebody, to something, to somewhere, every time. My case in Mumbai for example — little did I know that I would crave to hear a little bit of Vairamuthu / Kamal Hassan on screens — this new found love for anything that sounds like home has been uncurling my back these days. It is a great feeling! In fact, what enabled me to strike an immediate connection with Idli-Hut Uncle was the language we spoke — Tamil became the common anchor.

It is, therefore, obvious that in order to belong, there needs to be a popular belief everybody can plug into. Belongingness may happen because people see a benefit in the common idea that knits them together or because it is a source of a feeling you are in search of, which could be a good or a bad feeling. Great leadership is based on this. Cooperative societies are based on this. Trade unions are based on this. Terrorist outfits are based on this. Movements are based on this.

But what really initiates such a connection? Flipping back to the Idli-Hut chapter makes me realise that somewhere in making such great connections happen, empathy needs to reign. Researcher-Storyteller Brené Brown remarks how ‘empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives it away.’ That totally explains how empathy is the key to belong positively. I could empathise with the Idli-Hut Uncle because in a small way, I too was leading a life away from a home that is very different. So even when we do not see an obvious advantage out of situations but still recognise emotions and communicate them effectively, we are putting ourselves in the shoes of the other person to reflect their deepest feelings, in honesty and genuineness. This is when we will commence feeling “with” people and not “for” them. This way, we will be able to acknowledge our associated need to belong, for a greater purpose.

My grasp here, is this. Imagine if each of us could actualise the power of belongingness positively! To unite every human being under the sky, to find buttonholes to sew them together may seem unworkable. However, I have been taught that hope is more powerful than fear.

The one day when the world will soak in the depth of peace and happiness, will be the day its people would have discovered what united them all and begun to belong to it. We will belong.