He was a well-known journalist. He was also a good journalist. He took pains to gather facts, weighed them rigorously and presented them impartially. Even though an editor, he modestly referred to himself as a reporter, harking on the journalist’s now-forgotten first duty to report facts. He lately got some minor recognition, part of which was a press association gift of a watch. A golden watch with a golden band.

​Sadly, he never used it once. Shortly after receiving the gift, he also received a terrifying verdict. He had Alzheimer’s. With ferocious alacrity the disease attacked his mind, then his body, until his whole life was a shambles. He never wore the watch; he had lost the ability to read it. It remained pristine in its original box.
 
And so it stayed for years, lovingly preserved by his wife. She couldn’t bear to part with it, associated as it was with pride in his accomplishment and sorrow at his hurtful end. Then her mind changed. Her husband was not one to hoard assets. In fact, he always urged her to make use of things or get rid of them. She put in new batteries and made the watch functional.
 
It was at that point, while visiting India, I told her that I had lost my watch. She brought out the watch case and presented it to me. It was a lovely watch. It never occurred to me to think of it as a hand-me-down gift. I thought of it as a badge of honor.
 
I carried it everywhere with me. It went to Mumbai and Manizales, London and Las Vegas. I liked it and I liked using it. Careless as I am, I never misplaced or lost it. It stayed and became a part of my life.
 
Of course, it came with me when I visited India this year. It went through several security checks with me at various airports. Security rules and standards vary enormously, and sometimes I was allowed to keep wearing it and sometimes I was required to put it in a tray for machine examination.
 
When I was leaving India, at Delhi airport they asked me to empty my pockets in a tray and then, noticing the watch, suggested that I place it in the tray too. There was a very long line. People were impatiently pushing predecessors to finish their check quickly. I just had time to go through the physical scanning and then quickly pick up my jacket, document pouch, handbag, laptop, cell phone and assorted contents of my jacket and trouser pockets. 

​I was well in time for my flight. An hour later, waiting in the boarding area, I looked at my wrist to ascertain the time. I realized with a shock I did not have my watch. It must have been left in the security area.
 
Disconsolate, I walked the long way back to the security area. On the way I asked two security guards what I should do. The first one was highly skeptical that I would get any results. He said that there were thousands of people going by and the watch must have disappeared by then without a trace. The second one was even more emphatic. He described my effort as a wild goose chase and said that a striking gold-colored watch would never remain unnoticed. Some passenger would have taken it or even a security official might have pocketed it. A long time had already passed and the idea of retrieval was, as he said, a pie in the sky.
 
None too hopeful, I walked to the security area anyway. Then I realized the enormity of my endeavor. There were several counters; I had no idea which line I was in or which security officer had examined me. If the person had looked liked Deepika Padukone or even Shah Rukh Khan, I might have remembered. No such luck.
 
I explained my problem to the first security officer who condescended to look at me. He asked, “Which line were you in?”
 
“I have no idea,” I honestly replied.
 
“We have a help desk, over there. Go there.”

With little hope I went to the help desk and met a somber looking six-footer with a less-than-kindly face.
 
“What kind of watch?” He asked with a stony face, and I realized I was about to begin some long, fruitless bureaucratic procedure.
 
When I had given a description and mentioned the brand, like a magician he placed his big fist on the counter and opened it without a word.
 
It was there. My watch was back!
 
I will never again listen to people who claim all public officials are corrupt and all police officers are looking for graft. I have a sparkly golden band around my wrist that says honest public officials still exist, one just has to be lucky to find them.

My longest-lasting love affair has been with books. I doubt the passion will fade any time soon.
 
As a child, books represented a wondrous world to me. They opened the doors to mystery and imagination. Talking birds, wise elephants, beautiful princesses, brave and adventurous knights, audacious scientists and smart, tenacious detectives. They all beckoned me into an iridescent universe and held my hand as I ventured through dark woods and bright valleys, avoided long serpents and murderous villains, and searched for elusive clues and demure damsels.
 
I have some charming childhood memories, but none compares in charm or luminosity with my recollection of listening, ensconced in a soft gray-green blanket in mother’s bed, to her dulcet voice reading magical little folk tales of lordly lions and foxy foxes, pompous priests and kind villagers. Or, a little later, my aunt reading heart-rending tales of a hunchback atop an ancient cathedral or a lover braving the guillotine for his unattainable beloved, while my brother and I lounged, raptured, on an aging sofa. 

Books! Those were the things to have. The passports to unknown galaxies, to adventures and romances, to gaudy, flamboyant spaces with swordsmen, sleuths and swashbucklers. I could freely imagine myself out of a prosaic quotidian existence and forge a solo living, like Robinson Crusoe, on a desert island and next day, like Gulliver, cavort with Lilliputs on an exotic, unknown land. I craved for books, and wolfed one every day, sometimes two on a holiday.
 
Hence, an unending search for books. My mother recalls jocularly my disheartened remark at the end of a birthday party, “I got only five books as gifts!” Shirts, shoes or sweets did not rank high in my estimation; all I wanted were books and more books.
 
Father was friendly with the local doctor, and Dr. Bose encouraged us to consult him for any problem. Once I noticed a luscious detective novel on his desk and quickly initiated a conversation on the subject, hoping to borrow it. He ended it quickly, “I never read such books. They are my wife’s obsession.”
 
In a remarkably lucky break, his wife returned from marketing five minutes later and dropped in to pick up her book, on the way to their apartment a flight of stairs up. The doctor handed her the book and said, “This young man was asking about the book.” As she gave me a quizzical look, I said, “I love detective novels.”
“Really?” she said, “I am crazy about detective fiction. I have a large collection.”
 
My eyebrows must have lifted in admiration, for she added, “You want to see?”
 
In the apartment upstairs, the shelves were bulging with books from every author I knew. I went reverentially touching them, opening some, and simply gazing in awe.
 
“You have a fantastic collection,” I said in genuine appreciation.
 
Along came the magic words I was longing to hear. “You can borrow some, if you want to.”
 
That day, and many days after that, I steadfastly borrowed books from her, two or three at a time. In fact, I kept developing coughs, cold and other complaints at regular intervals just to be able to visit the doctor and then make an excuse to visit his wife upstairs. I returned invariably with a handful of books.

That wasn’t the only trick in my repertoire. I took obliging, bibliophobe friends to the American Library and British Council and made them members, just so that I could use multiple library cards to borrow a bagful of books. It was a pleasure to be able to touch books and see their content, before even borrowing them. In schools and colleges I was only allowed to peek at books, securely confined in closed cupboards.
 
Eventually, my diligent pal, Prasanta (who was later to prove his diligence, with a massive and well-regarded biography) and I joined to create a circulating library, with donations from friends and sympathizers, while some acquaintances joined in with a modest membership fee. That library was a life-saver for me: I met book lovers, reading enthusiasts and people who liked talking about stories, poems and ideas.

​All this came to mind as I explored the Book Festival recently in Kolkata a pleasant January afternoon. The multiple gates had no numbers, but tawdry, oversize pictures of a political leader; the help desk could not offer helpful directions, only hand over maps; the stalls were stiflingly warm and some got overcrowded; the corridors, filled with munching and slurping clientele, often looked like a passageway to a foodfest. Yet I was happy, looking at books, hearing about books, touching books, reading a small poem here, two provocative paragraphs there, simply sharing others’ enthusiasm for books known and unknown. I looked at eager faces, young and old, leafing through books, admiring covers and content, and standing patiently in lines, to enter a stall or listen in the auditorium to a favored author.
 
Doomsayers lament people aren’t reading anymore, newspapers look like cheap tabloids, good magazines wilt and wither. I am still heartened by an afternoon’s memory of eager eyes, plentiful books, earnest talk and sheer, breathless enthusiasm.
 
Perhaps I am not the only one with an irrational, enduring affair.

My luckiest break when I arrived in the United States was not that I found a job with one of the world’s largest corporations, or that a complete stranger lent me a car for three months so that I could attend office fifty miles away. It was meeting Dove.
 
It was fortuitous. I had gone to a public meeting, where I knew nobody. A charming elderly woman met me at the door and guided to a seat. Before I took a seat, however, I had a short conversation with her. When she knew that I was a newcomer to Washington, in fact to the country, she asked that I stop after the meeting and talk to her again.
 
When I met her after the meeting, she introduced me to several persons. She seemed to know everybody, and everybody seemed to like her. Clearly, she was a very popular person. When she introduced me to the person sitting next to me in the meeting, I realized it was her husband, Horace. Horace was of medium build, with graying hair and a thin moustache. He exchanged a quick glance with Dove and asked if I would like to join them for lunch. I was free and I joined them happily.

That modest but long lunch sealed our friendship. They were the kindest and most congenial elderly couple I had ever met. They showed interest in knowing everything about me and commiserated with me when they realized that, on a short notice, I had left behind my country, including my parents and friends. They invited me to their home and said I could call them any time for help. I had just arrived in Washington and knew next to nothing about the city. Friendless in a new town, I readily accepted them as my parents in situ.
 
Dove would call me every other day to make sure that I was surviving well in an alien milieu. Horace took me to the large grocery stores, both to explain how the stores were laid out and to suggest easy ways of making a meal. Since I always had a cook in India and did not know my way in a kitchen, they feared I might perish from hunger or malnutrition. In turn, I called them often with picayune problems that seemed large and vexing at the time. In retrospect, I think I was calling them less to solve a quandary than to bask in their affection.
 
They had two daughters, but both were married to people located in Europe. Dove and Horace missed them, and I might have met the couple’s longing for younger company. Whatever the reason for their eagerness, mine was much greater. Their affection was life-giving at a time when I was struggling to find my feet in a new and different society. They were unfailingly considerate and patiently helpful. Besides, they made me feel wanted.
Horace passed away five years later. It was no surprise, for he was ailing for a while. My relationship with Dove took a different turn. No longer a newbie in Washington, I could now find my way in town with some confidence. Widowed, alone and aging, Dove on the other hand needed some help.
 
She had her doctor, but sometimes she needed some help in locating the places where all the prescribed tests could be done. She had her lawyer, but occasionally she needed assistance in gathering or completing the documents he asked for. I could help her and I could also drive her to places she felt uncomfortable driving to. Most of all, she turned to me for anything large or small that confused or troubled her, for she knew I wouldn’t assume it was a trifle. From my side, busy as I was, I liked doing things for her. She was special for me and it seemed to add meaning to my life.

​Since both her daughters lived overseas, I wanted to gift her a computer so that she could email them. She would have none of it. She was intimidated by the cyber technology. I scaled down my idea and bought for her birthday a high-end phone with a good answering device. She thanked me but said that it was still too complex a device for her. I said I would gladly take it back to the store, but I wanted her at least to see it.
 
Anticipating her resistance, I had unpacked the device at home, connected it and requested a number of people to record birthday messages for Dove. The device now contained messages from her daughters, her grandchildren, her doctor, her lawyer and six of her closest friends. Then I had repacked the phone to make it look pristine.
 
Now I reopened the package in her apartment, connected it and pressed a couple of buttons. The messages started. Dove was at first incredulous, then stunned and pleased, and then her tears began flowing. The device never went back to the store. Rather, a week later Dove called to say that she did not know how she could have lived years without such a device. What she did not know was that I had urged her daughters to call Dove regularly the initial weeks. What they did not know that my guess was that, if they called regularly the first few weeks, the practice might become permanent. It did, fortunately.
 
One of her daughters eventually returned from Europe to live in the US and, to my chagrin, took up residence on the west coast. Understandably, she wanted Dove, now ninety, to be near her and her children. Dove left Washington and joined her daughter’s family.
 
I was left without a mother figure to look after. And, to be truthful, who would look after me. She left a not inconsiderable hole in my heart.

​I was in Japan when I needed to return to Washington for a week-long briefing. I stayed at a Falls Church hotel that had so many Foreign Service officers staying with them that, as a courtesy, they ran a shuttle bus service to the State Department downtown. The bus took an hour to reach the office, making a quick stop at Rosslyn, where the Department had an ancillary office. I had the use of a rental car, but I thought it would be nice to sit back and be driven in a plush air-conditioned vehicle to the office, while I listened to music or sorted my mail on my phone.
 
The night before I had started on a large novel by Haruki Murakami curiously titled 1Q84. Even in the light of the day I couldn’t let go the thought of Aomame, the beautiful, slender assassin who killed her victim by plunging a sharp syringe at the back of the neck at a moment of intimacy. So, at the last moment before boarding the bus, I placed the novel in my briefcase. Grave mistake. It was to prove my undoing.
 
There were quite a few colleagues on the shuttle bus. I would normally chat with them and exchange news of countries they were assigned to. But Murakami’s wizardry would not let me be normal. I quickly took a window seat at the back of the bus, opened the briefcase and took out 1Q84. In a moment I was immersed in the weird doings of Aomame and her strange associates. The bus, my colleagues, the Washington suburbs, in fact the whole bright universe on that radiant summer day vanished from my mind.

I remember looking up briefly as the bus stopped at Rosslyn. Perhaps my body registered the immobility, but it was only for a second or two. I was drawn irresistibly to the book, and plunged headlong in the adventures of Aomame. The world disappeared again.
 
The disappearance must have been for a very long time. I don’t know what made me look up from the book, but when I did I noticed something strange. The bus was not going to the State Department in Washington, it was going in the opposite direction to Falls Church. It took me a minute or two to realize, to my discomfiture, that the bus had gone to the State Department, released all its passengers and was now traveling back. There was nobody in the bus, except me and the bus driver.
 
My first thought was that I had shamefully missed the first part of the briefing I was expected to attend. It was not a grievous loss, because there were ways of retrieving the information I had missed. My second thought was that I didn’t want to miss the latter part of the briefing. I had to find a way to be in the State Department quickly. I could drive or still take advantage of the shuttle service, if there was a second shuttle. Perhaps the driver could tell me if there was another shuttle. I looked at the driver at the front of the bus and knew instantly what had made me look up from the book finally.
 
The driver was driving the bus all right, but he was doing more. He was singing. Loud, full-throated singing, enough to wake up the dead. Clearly, he thought the bus was empty, as he could not see me in a corner on the last row. I sat stupefied at his musical enthusiasm. My knowledge of the opera is close to zero, but I realized he was singing a popular love song from Puccini’s La Bohème, where the poet Rodolfo is offering to warm the “la manina gelida,” cold little hand, of Mimi. He seemed more excited as he sang, and his voice rose another octave.

Then came the passage about a moonlit night and beseeching Mimi to wait. The driver held the steering wheel with one hand, and the other hand went in an arc as he sang earnestly, “Aspetti, signorina.” After that, his hands danced furiously as he sang passionately of his love, first his right hand and then his left, while he barely held the wheel with the inert hand.
 
As I watched mesmerized, he produced a cigar from his pocket, lit it with the car lighter and puffed between the lines. I started getting a little concerned as he continued spiritedly with his song, all the time performing with his hand, which now held a lighted cigar. Deftly, he moved the cigar from one hand to the other, without pausing his hand gestures or the ditty.
 
We were nearing the hotel and the driver was reaching a crescendo with “stanza
la speranza!” when I got up from my seat and decided to approach the driver with my question about a second shuttle. As I approached the driver, I guess I became visible on the driver’s rear-view mirror, and the effect was more than dramatic. The driver was certain that he was alone and had been taking liberties with the rules about smoking and, possibly, singing. Seeing me suddenly appear out of nowhere, his singing stopped precipitously, the cigar fell from his hand, and he tilted aside with a groan, followed by a gurgling sound.
 
He looked terror-stricken and I quickly held him and asked if he was okay. He could barely nod. He had let go of the steering wheel and the bus stopped fortuitously after mounting the sidewalk. Fortunately, there was no vehicle behind us.
 
When, after seven minutes, the driver still seemed in no condition to drive the bus, it was my turn to do something illicit. Though I had no license to drive a commercial vehicle, I drove the bus slowly into the hotel parking lot.
 
Then I handed the key to the still-distraught driver and drove my rental car to the office.