Nathu Thakur was a fairly satisfied man.

He stood outside the doorway to his house, taking in the clear, crisp January morning. He was in Paranjapur, the home he loved. He took his time gazing up and down the main track through the village, watching his neighbors undergo the daily rituals of village life. The ground was dappled with sunlight, shaded by a canopy of banyan trees. Beyond the shade lay fields of wheat, mustard, and lentils, punctuated here and there by patches of bare earth, laid fallow.

He was jolted out of his reverie by a voice.

“A ji, come drink your tea before it gets cold.”

Nathu turned to see his smiling wife, Radha, holding a cup of chai. He accepted it gratefully, as there was a chill to the morning air.

Radha gazed at her husband with affectionate concern. She could tell he was uneasy. He hadn’t been able to relax since the villagers had dispatched Raghu and the tuk-tuk to Mumbai.

“Why are you looking like a worried goat, Nathu? Did the sky fall while I wasn’t looking?”

Nathu’s face looked pained.

“I wish you wouldn’t joke. It has been over a month, and still nothing. No sign of Raghu. Nothing to show for our effort. What will people think of me?”

Radha had initially harbored reservations about the village’s decision to join the global tourism economy, but her husband’s love for Paranjapur made her believe success was possible. He was one of the tourism scheme’s chief proponents, and many people supported the plan due to his encouragement.

It pained her to see how wounded Nathu was by the village’s failure to procure a single customer. She tried to soothe him.

“Don’t worry. Place your faith in God. Raghu will come back, maybe next week, maybe tomorrow, maybe at any moment.”

Both of their heads turned. Off in the distance, very faintly, a tuk-tuk could be heard making its way slowly in their direction.

Nathu’s face lit up. He stared at Radha in amazement as if she had willed the tuk-tuk into being. Radha was all smiles.

“Hurry,” Nathu instructed. “Gather the kids and prepare the welcome. I will go and tell the elders.”

Nathu strode briskly away while Radha went inside. She put her face down close to her son’s.

“Run, Lalla. Gather your friends. The visitors are coming. Remember, if you boys sing a swaagat geet for our guests, I will give you all sweets. Lots of them.”

As soon as he heard the word sweets, the boy began moving as quickly as his little legs could propel him.

———

“Terrence wasn’t kidnapped,” Jim interrupted my conservator, Emily, over the telephone. “We are positive.”

“Why do you say that?” she demanded.

“We went back and talked to people at the airport. They remembered the specific rickshaw Terrence got into. It wasn’t a taxi. The driver was from some small village. He had only come to Mumbai to ferry tourists back to his home for some sort of rural vacation experience. Hardly anyone at the airport had ever spoken to him before. But none of the other drivers thought the guy had ill intent.”

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“Fine. So you are saying Terrence rode off with ‘a guy’ to ‘a village.’ What was the name of the village? Why aren’t you driving there now?”

“Nobody at the airport could remember its name,” Jim confessed.

There was a pause. Jim could hear someone clicking on a computer keyboard on Emily’s end of the call.

“Well, there are six hundred and sixty-four thousand villages in India. You’ve sure narrowed down the search.”

“I didn’t say I knew where he was,” Jim grumbled. “I only said that he wasn’t kidnapped. I’m confident of that.”

———

My fingers, numb from cold, tightly gripped the shawl completely enshrouding me, even covering my head.

I was coated with dust and grime, blown in from the open sides of the tuk-tuk over many days. But it wasn’t my filthy state that troubled me. As we progressed into Madyha Pradesh, the temperature began to fall at night.

I did not have the proper clothing for cold weather. I shivered for two days straight until finally throwing a tantrum sufficient to get Raghu to pull over and let me buy a handwoven shawl from a roadside vendor.

The shawl did little to stop the wind as we drove endlessly onward.

Things weren’t so bad in the afternoon when the days warmed up, but for some reason, Raghu insisted on waking up and getting started before dawn, like a farmer, in the worst of the chill. It wasn't pleasant.

On the morning of our fifth day on the road, I sat miserable, cold, and hidden from the world beneath my shawl. I had grasped the meaning of ‘life is suffering’ when the tuk-tuk came to an unexpected halt.

I heard Raghu shut off the engine.

I pulled the shawl off my head, and my heart almost stopped. We had parked amid a cluster of rural farmhouses, and everybody living in those farmhouses had gathered around the tuk-tuk as if they had been awaiting our arrival.

There had to be two hundred people. And they were all staring curiously at me.

I was confused. I thought I was going to Martin’s relative’s house, but this was an entire family compound. How could so many people be related to my friend?

Raghu gestured for me to get out of the rickshaw. His body language was signaling, “We’re here. Get out. What are you waiting for?”

I threw off the shawl and stepped out.

A distant goat bleated disapprovingly.

An older gentleman, standing closest, stepped forward and greeted me, saying a few words. Then other older gentlemen did the same. It began to seem like there were too many grandfathers for one family, but I didn’t know anybody’s backstory (and couldn’t ask, anyway.)

When this was complete, a group of Martin’s little nephews or cousins began to serenade me.

An aunt and uncle stepped up. He waved a burning lamp around in circles a few times, and she used her thumb to place a red mark on my forehead.

I saw the dignified man who had first greeted me, speaking with my driver, Raghu. There were big smiles on the faces of those around the pair. I supposed they were explaining to Raghu that he had been ferrying a guest to a wedding. To my shock, I saw Raghu give the dignified man the bag of money I had paid him. Everyone was stunned.

The generosity of Indian culture completely blew me away.

The extremely warm welcome Martin’s family had extended me was one thing. But to see a humble rickshaw driver give away his earnings as a gift, simply to help a new couple start their lives together? My eyes began to tear up.

After more introductions, most of the two hundred family members walked me to my temporary home, with the nephews still singing and clapping.

The ground outside had been decorated to welcome me.

I found a place to sit, an air mattress to sleep on, and an altar inside.

I had become accustomed to the first two from previous travel experiences, but an altar was a new amenity.

I expressed, as best I could, my gratitude for the incredibly warm welcome but that I desperately needed to take a prolonged rest. Everyone smiled and seemed to approve.

Before the crowd had dispersed entirely, a young woman brought me a bowl of water and a clean rag so that I could wash the grime off me, a greatly appreciated act of kindness.

I brushed off the straw piled on top of the air mattress, lay down and was instantly unconscious.

———

Nathu Thakur was an extremely satisfied man.

Any number of improvements to the village would be possible using the money paid by their first guest.

It felt like a very hopeful day for his beloved Paranjapur. He stared beyond the lights, out into the darkness of the fields, listening to the hum of insects, consumed by a feeling of peace.

“Come inside and sleep, ji,” he heard his wife call softly from the doorway.

He turned to gaze at her, his heart so full of promise.

“He had tears in his eyes, Radha,” Nathu marveled softly. “Our guest had tears in his eyes. He loved this place. Did you see?”

Radha smiled and nodded yes.

She had noticed. They had all noticed.

The strange young American had made a positive first impression on the villagers.

But more than anything, seeing her husband’s hope restored filled Radha with happiness.

It gave her hope, too.