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"I expect you to win, not loose," Fred intervened, defending his offer. "I expect you to elevate the entire situation that you find there." He paused again. "All right, I'll give you two weeks to complete the job and I'll double my offer again. I think this puts the incentive into the proper context of what I expect. I'll even get her to meet you at the airport. This is a bet, Peter, that I really want you to win."
I looked at Sylvia. Sylvia simply nodded and grinned.
I looked at Heather. Heather had a grin on her face too that she tried to hide, but without much success.
I looked at Ross. Ross smiled and said something about a cakewalk.
I looked at Fred and nodded again.
I accepted my 'recruitment' as gracefully as I could and with the understanding that to fail was not an option, which made the challenge appear even scarier. I should have rejoiced. Instead, I felt like facing defeat. I was a diplomat. My boss had sent me on countless missions before, many times with great expectations. But in this case our scientific breakthrough had evidently inspired still greater expectations, perhaps the greatest expectation ever, and all of Fred's high hopes appeared to be based largely on my own doing. I found myself locked into a promise to deliver big time, which I couldn't get out off, that I also couldn't see my way through. How is one to fulfill a request so big and with no allowance for failure? The principle that the whole project rested on was still far too new to me, even to Ross.
In less than a week from that day I found myself on a commercial flight of Air India with a first class ticket to New Delhi. As Fred had promised, I was met at the airport. Fred had called her Indira, which he said isn't her real name. He said it is the name she had chosen according to his suggestion. He said that he had always called her Indira in honor of Indira Gandhi. He also explained that her real name, the name that made her one of the Dalits, must never be used, officially. He warned me that it must be forgotten should it ever be made known to me.
The woman that I met at the airport in India was a tall person, slender, in her forties so it seemed, with a beautiful face, a warm smile. I really didn't know what to expect to find in India that she was a part of. Obviously, she was in the same predicament concerning me. She had a nametag with Indira written on it pinned to her long gown that nearly extended to the floor in simple flowing lines. Fred was right; she wasn't hard to notice. She stood out from the rest. She stood out as someone unique. Her face was alive. The nametag really wasn't needed, except as a confirmation. As Fred had told me, she spoke near perfect English, American English that is. He was right on this point too, except she spoke it in her own unique style.
"Welcome to India," she said to me with a shy kind of smile the moment we identified ourselves. "I greet you and I kiss you," she added with a handshake, but without the slightest gesture that the promise of the kiss would be followed up with deeds. I didn't expect that it would. "What did you come to India for?" she asked moments later as if to change the focus. We had met in the midst of a crowd while I was waiting for my baggage to arrive, which still hadn't arrived. "What did you expect to find in India?" she added.
I smiled and glanced at her. "I came to India to dance," I said I said with a grin.
"Oh you came to dance with me?" she replied almost instantly.
"Actually, no, I didn't came to India to dance WITH you," I said still grinning. "I came to dance with myself for you, to dance my own dance as directed from the bottom of my heart, as honest as it can be, in the hope that you may be enriched thereby. And so I really came here to dance for you. Should you want to join in, that would be great. I don't come with that expectation, however. I think that whatever is right unfolds on its own, because it is right, and not because of what I might expect. Of course you are most sincerely invited to join me laterally on the dance floor. I invite you to dance side by side with me, and dance your own dance as you're directed by your own heart. And in so doing, we would be dancing side by side for one-another, bringing a spark of light into one-another's life."
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