It’s 6:30 on a Saturday evening and I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch of a dear friend in Chengalpet. Wearing my sari, I admire our friend Ammu as she prepares herself for the wedding that we will attend together. Ammu is decked in her favorite gold sari, her hair neatly braided and adorned with a garland of jasmine flowers. Delicately–and with a big smile and laughter because she is a woman of abounding joy–Ammu braids her daughter’s hair, not forgetting to pin a small rose at the top of the braid. Ammu helps her daughter and son to choose the nicest clothes to wear from their small selection.  All the while, I feel the radiating warmth from their laughter, conversation, and care and attention for each other. I look around their simple house. I can’t help but think that it’s true they have little materially, but perhaps they are the richest people in the world because they understand the importance of beauty.

India has been to me a great teacher of beauty. It’s here in India that I’ve seen the greatest poverty, but I’ve also witnessed the most intricate attention to beauty. The lives of the Indian people, particularly the women, are interwoven with small gestures of beauty. If you awake early enough, you will find our street lined with all of the neighborhood women making a Kolam–a small drawing made with a sand-like substance that serves as a gesture of welcoming for all who come near their home. Surely the Kolam will fade by evening, and surely the woman will wake again with the sun the following morning to draw it again in front of their door. It’s so clear to the visitor of India that this beauty gives meaning and a dignity to their often simple life, especially amidst our friends who are poor. The tireless cultivation of beauty by the Indians reminds me that beauty in fact will save the world–it surely has brought light and dignity to the lives of our friends in Chengalpet.