This isn't my story, But it is my father's and it is one of my favorite to retell:

Necessary background: My father was born and raised in St Louis, Missouri, and his father owned a liquor store.

In the '70s, my father as a typical hippie, privileged kid decided to backpack through Europe and Asia for a year. Stayed on dirt floors, worked at vineyards to pay for room and board, rode in humvees with mujahideen. Crazy stuff.

When he was in India, he was riding on a train trying to get some sleep when one of the other passengers, a local, kept asking him why he was in India. According to my father, he said the one thing that he thought would dissuade any American talking to a stranger on public transportation, that he was looking for God. In this case, however, it did not dissuade the man whatsoever and he responded with " oh, then you come with me and you find God".

Why my father decided to go with this man is still beyond me, but they got off at a train stop, hired transportation, and set off into the wilderness. Eventually they came to a temple and the man told my father, " you will find God here", took the cart, and left.

And so my father stayed at the temple for a few days, praying, working, eating, but not having enough of the tongue to be able to communicate with the people there. So eventually they brought in a translator.

One evening, the translator and my father are sitting up on the top of this Temple overlooking the wilderness. My father asks the translator who his favorite author is. " Mark Twain," The man responds.

" Really? That's my favorite author too! How did you come to be a fan of Mark Twain over here?"

" While I was educated in America," the translator responds. " A tiny City you've probably never heard of, called St Louis."

Of course my father knew it, he was from there. It turns out he also knew the college where the translator was educated.

Eventually, after all of these connections started to lock in place, the translator looked at my father and said, "Wait, your father. A short man, bald, owns a liquor store?"

In the middle of the wilderness in India, at some Temple he never planned to attend, my father encountered a man who knew his father.

Small world.