Connections of the heart

I have a tendency to stop and talk to anyone I bump into- shopkeepers, the corner farmer, the Starbucks Barista, the little kid in the park, the teen walking her dog and those who I don't talk to somehow just make eye contact and start talking. so last week on a farming stretch of the road I as usual stopped at a farm Stand. There, a really old gentleman with a long hennaed beard literally came running up to me and grabbed my wrist and held his and said "same same". His speech was garbled and I couldn't understand what he said so he took his pen and on his palm wrote "Karachi- Agra" and "Hindi", I smiled and said I'm from Delhi. I spoke with him as much as I could understand and then his beautiful wife called me to the car and said "I'm from Karachi and he is from Agra. He loves India so much that even after 36 years in SFO he still rushes to anyone he thinks is of Indian origin and embraces them, he's had a stroke so he can’t speak much but I must thank you because most people don’t have time to listen to him”. It brought a lump to my throat to think how much regardless of who and where we are, our countries and place of birth unite and connect us.
This is a feeling which I see very strongly in my dad. In summer on a trip to the market my dad suddenly made a dash for a fruit cart on which sat an aged man in a long beard, checked lungi and a skull cap. In our native tongue which is Bhojpuri, my dad asked me “ Please say namastey to Rehmat Chacha, he is from our surrounding village”. And introduced me to him as his daughter who has been to Bihar very rarely but knows Bihar very well. The old man in turn gave the best watermelon to him for me and said “please pay only Rs. 50 instead of 70, our homes are the same”. The 20 was nothing for my dad but it meant a meal for the old man and he parted with it just because of the connections of the heart. The watermelon was that much sweeter and I’ve carried the sweetness 15000 miles over the seas. So when I see and hear of all the religious divide happening in my country and the world I often ponder that we really are “same same” so why the divide?