​I was mortally afraid of water as a child. I grew up in India and crossed numerous rivers in rickety steamers and puny, undulating boats. I heard cruel stories of helpless men and women gobbled up by giant waves. Water represented something immense and implacable, a merciless monster.

​My father sensed this and wanted me to learn swimming. I might have resisted, but some of my friends were learning too and I could not demur without embarrassment. Father had grown up in a village and had learned to swim early. Without a proper trainer, he had acquired an awkward style of swimming, but he could swim a fair distance. Still he was wise enough not to try teaching me himself and appointed an experienced trainer to instruct me.
 
It took a lot of persuasion to get me into water. Once in, though, I wanted to do better than others, and started doing my lessons diligently. Soon I was off in the pool, doing short distances and then longer stretches. I imitated a champion swimmer who had a showy style of stroking and soon attracted a few kudos myself. I started to like swimming.

As I kept swimming, my attitude to water itself changed imperceptibly. Curiously, from an adversary I began to think of the water as my friend. It hugged and caressed; it wanted me to float. Getting into the pool was like being with a pal, who was waiting to receive me with open arms and play with me. I went to a newly acquired friend’s place for dinner and was thrilled to discover the family had a backyard pool. Though I had neither a swimming costume nor an extra set of clothes, I just could not resist the invitation of the blue water in the pool and dived in. My friend’s parents, unable to stand the sight of me in wet clothes, eventually made me wear his clothes for dinner.
 
Years later I was in Hong Kong with a friend and we took a steamer ride around the bay in a charming wine and Dim Sum tour. After the meal, we walked to the end of the deck and she pointed to the wake with her goblet and said something about the glorious sunset. I did not hear it, for I was distracted. I was looking at the gushing, frothing water and thinking: You frightened me once, but I know now you are a friend and you can be wonderful.

Barin was a college friend who had gone on to become a doctor and eventually the chief of a hospital’s pathology department. Whenever I visited the town where he lived with his wife Mila and two daughters, we had a drink together and a long conversation. A strange thing happened last year when Mila told me he wasn’t well and she would rather not have me come to meet him. When I asked what was wrong with him, she was evasive. When I asked other friends, I found Barin had stopped working or Mila had started barring all friends. Apparently he acted strangely, talked incoherently and had difficulty recognizing some old friends.
 
The third experience was with my cousin, Ron, a capable journalist who enjoyed a good reputation both in his newspaper group and in professional circles. He covered business news and was as diligent as knowledgeable about emerging commercial trends. When I didn’t hear from him for two months, I thought it was unusual and went to see him. A voluble man he had suddenly turned very taciturn, and he responded to all my overtures with monosyllables. His brother referred to it as ‘a streak of depression,’ but after he was taken to a specialist at my insistence, it was diagnosed as the onset of dementia.

​The toll of Alzheimer’s is extensive and, in the US, it claims a victim nearly one every minute. 47 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s, costing $700 billion each year; the figure is expected to reach 80 million in twenty years. After heart attack and cancer it is the biggest killer. There is no cure; there is no prevention. There are a couple of expensive drugs that can marginally modify the havoc, but there is nothing to fight the disease.
 
Imagine this insidious blight attacking your father, mother, brother or sister (women seem statistically more vulnerable) – or yourself. Day by painful day, it will shrink and atrophy your brain tissue. The first thing to go will be your memory: you will start by forgetting little things and end up by failing to recognize your wife and your own face. You will lose money and valuables; then you will get lost yourself, because you can’t find your own home. Then you will start losing your mental functions, those that make you human. You will lose your language, reasoning capacity, any kind of systematic thinking. You will forfeit the ability to do any step-by-step thing, like dressing or feeding yourself, and become fully dependent on others. Then will come hallucinations, delusions and paranoia, resulting in impulsive and offensive behavior. The ultimate stage is when you are confined to bed as your body starts shutting down.

​What makes it worse, as my three experiences will indicate, is that the whole phenomenon of dementia is wrapped in misunderstanding, shame and sheer ignorance. Few families have the vast coping skills, extensive support network and huge caregiving stamina and budget needed to deal with an Alzheimer patient. Even fewer have a basic knowledge of the way the disease can change a person’s behavior and make him or her seem uncooperative, resistant, stubborn or just purely monstrous. Family members then try to isolate and hide the person, aggravating the victim’s physical and mental decline. Some even shackle and confine the patients like an animal, shorn of all dignity, ostensibly for their own safety.

I like coffee houses. I like, to be candid, places where people meet and talk for no other reason than they like to talk.
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Practical people, who are proud of their practicality, look askance at such talk and think such palaver essentially a waste of good time that could be put to good use. Woody, a close and dear friend, chose as his company motto: Be a doer, not a talker. I did not have the heart to tell him that talking is doing. It is putting our time to very good use. In fact I believe not talking is profoundly wasteful of good time.

How is talking a kind of doing? Let me suggest two thoughts, both of which derive directly from my experience.

Short of making love, I know of no better way to know a person than to talk. I suppose two people can look into each other’s eyes and share heart-felt messages – the way that George Bush peered into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw his soul – but usually we talk, and talk a lot, to know each other. True we often talk trivial things, what went wrong in a game or in a car, but at times we connect meaningfully and get a true glimpse of the other person. Then the miracle of a genuine relationship begins.
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The other aspect is less personal, but no less substantive. However superficially we talk, whether of politics or of office politics, however similar our interests or orientation, we always leave with the other a trace of our different point of view. That difference is like leaven: it has the potential to change the other’s view, a little or a lot. It is for many people the key recurrent source of daily exposure to a new idea. Maybe sometimes we reject the others’ views cavalierly, without giving them further examination. Occasionally, however, the new idea stays, germinates and becomes the basis of a new way of thinking.

​So I like talk, just talk, nothing useful or practical, perhaps something facile and frivolous, but which still helps me connect and learn. I like places where people talk; I especially like coffee houses where lively conversation mingles easily with the aroma of strong java, and enthusiasm and brio overtake syllogism and precision.
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My first initiation to coffee houses was in India, to a spacious, bright Coffee Board café conveniently located close to both my home and the university on College Street in Kolkata. It seemed forever buzzing with professors and students, journalists and scholars, authors and artists, vagrants and vagabonds. The visitors seemed to have one feature in common: they all wanted to be heard. If there was a quiet person among them, I didn’t meet him. Everybody talked, in unison and at cross purposes, sometimes cogently and always eagerly, frequently at higher and higher decibels when the discussion got heated.

​It was a fun place. The stairwell to the hall had cracks and needed repair, some tables were askew and some chairs were in disrepair, but the atmosphere was electric. The ambience was vibrant, the people lively if discordant. Even the waiters were just right: they recognized us and received us with amused tolerance, patient with our slow ordering and perpetual penury. I loved that coffee house.
That affection prompted me to explore coffee houses in the many countries my work took me. From embassies and project offices I strayed into cafés in Bogota to Berlin, Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur, Paris to Port au Prince, Manila to Mexico City. Sitting alone with an espresso, I watched the cavalcade of men and women sipping latte, smoking cigarettes, reading newspapers and, most of all, talking and laughing and sharing. They differed in look and style, but the essential business of exchanging messages and meanings remained unchanged. People need to talk and connect.

Decades later, I returned to Kolkata and, in a salute to my past, walked in to another Coffee Board café in Jadavpur, in the CIT Market on Central Road. Compared to sparkling new coffee houses that have sprung up all over the country, this one retained the old-world charm of a commodious hall, raucous with debate and discussion. The stairwell had cracks, the chairs were often askew and tables were in varying states of disrepair, but the ambience was familiar: people talked, animated and excited, fought over political stands and literary opinions, waved their hands and raised their voices, a strange bonhomie wafting over the hall like a familiar aroma.
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The coffee was indifferent, but I felt at home.

Right in the heart of Frankfurt am Main is the central cemetery, Hauptfriedhof. It is beautifully maintained and I found it interesting to saunter through its pathways and read the inscriptions on the gravestones. There is even an unexpected section devoted to deceased Jews.
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If you get out of the cemetery and walk south along Eckenheimer Landstrasse, you will soon come across the nearest subway station. Now you turn left and walk only a few hundred yards, and you will be on Weberstrasse. It is one of many downtown streets and to most people nothing special. To me, however, it is very significant.

​Near the corner of  Weberstrasse and lively Schwarzburgstrasse there is a pintsize apartment building and an especially cozy apartment on the second floor. The apartment belonged to my friend, Adette Schneider. Her name was appropriate, for I am told in German the name connotes both grace and femininity. She came from an affluent family, but chose always to find her own way and follow her own counsel. Characteristically, she did it in a suave, considerate way that ruffled few feathers and, in fact, retained the affection of her friends and siblings.

She loved to visit exotic lands and took a job in the travel industry, planning and organizing packaged tours. That is how I met her in India, as she explored cities with tour potential for European travelers. I encountered her in Jaipur’s Amber Palace, as I was about to enter the gun section, and she said, “I don’t like weapons, but if you want to see the robe section I will join you.” I promptly changed my mind and opted for the royal turbans and gilded jodhpurs. The evening ended with a sumptuous Rajasthan dinner and a long chat over brandy.
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Our paths crossed several times after that. We met in the US where I lived and in India which I visited periodically. We met most often in Germany, since the Frankfurt airport was the fulcrum of my innumerable trips across the Atlantic. If I had only a day or two, we would stroll through Städel Museum or go to see the international sculpture collection at the riverside villa Liebighaus, then veer to Romer Pils Brunnen and eat chicken schnitzel with copious Schofferhofer beer.  On a weekend we would spend the morning in the corner bakery, sitting in the tiny terrace when the weather was good, and drinking endless coffee inside with almond croissants when it wasn't.

When we were lucky to have more time, we traveled, crisscrossing from Berlin to Munich and from Cologne to Dresden. My favorite place was the small, picturesque university town of Konstanz, which retained all its old buildings despite the ravages of war because it fooled the allied bombers into thinking that it was a part of adjacent Switzerland by the simple trick of keeping lights on at night. We stayed at the charming Steigenberger Hotel, made out of a Dominican monastery on an island in Lake Constance, with a breathtaking view of the lake. You could walk to the opera, theater or botanical garden. You could also, after a breakfast at the hotel, take a boat over to Switzerland for lunch, and then proceed to Austria for dinner. Best of all, you could stand at your hotel balcony, with a glass of sekt in your hand, and just watch the sun melt slowly, gloriously in the water.

The truth is, if you have a friend like Adette to accompany you, it does not matter where you are, in the middle of a desert or an unforgettably beautiful lake, for the world takes on a brighter hue, every footfall or rustle of a leaf could be the initiation of a Rachmaninov concerto, every conversation a plunge in ripples of imagination and understanding.
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Even a cemetery could be your best compass. A plain street and simple apartment your guide to nirvana.

It was three weeks to Christmas. I was back in Washington for a fortnight’s work and settled in a rented penthouse apartment near Rosslyn. Returning from an evening jog, I noticed the colorful festive banners in the lobby.

The older man who got in the elevator with me wore blue jeans and an elegant suede jacket. He carried three chilled champagne bottles. When we reached the top floor, I realized he occupied the apartment opposite mine. Before I could turn the key, he spoke up, “Could you help me?”

“I am ninety,” he added, “I am not sure I could open these easily.” He indicated the bottles with a glance.

I followed him in to his apartment, asked for a small towel and opened the first bottle.
“You have helped me open this bottle. You might as well help me drink it too.” He smiled and got two glasses from the kitchen. Those weren’t champagne flutes, but we didn’t care.

“It is my wife’s birthday. I had to celebrate,” he explained as he poured the champagne.
“She isn’t here, is she?” I asked, for the place seemed bare of any sign of a female presence.

“No, she is in Milan, visiting her sister who is ill. She will be back for Christmas.”
We kept drinking and chatting, occasionally talking about ordering some food but doing nothing about it. The first flakes of a light snow drifted by the large French windows, as Stan, my host, kept pouring.

It was December of 1942, he reminisced, when the US Army ordered Stan, who worked in the publicity department, to the war front in northern Italy near Milan. He was eager to please and determined to gather some telling photographs, but felt himself getting increasingly ill as he drove. Desperately he drove through the Italian countryside, hoping to reach his camp before he got worse, but, after another few miles, he knew he could not go any further. He stopped in front of what was clearly a farmer’s cottage, hoping to ask for an inn nearby, and knocked on the door. When a couple came to the door, Stan, lacking Italian, tried explaining by signs he needed a place to rest. The man saw his livid face, held his arm and led him to a chair. Stan did not make it; he simply slid to the floor. His last recollection was of an anxious dialog of the couple that he could not understand.
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When he came to three days later, he saw a pair of gray-green eyes in a gentle freckled face, framed in the dark cascade of long hair, urging him to sip from a bowl of soup. He thought he had never seen a more angelic face. When the farmer’s daughter realized that he could not drink the soup on his own, she started ladling spoonfuls to his lips. Stan soon realized that, since the cottage had only three small rooms – a living and dining room and a bedroom each for the couple and their daughter – he had in effect dislodged the daughter from her room. More, as the couple had to work the fields, the daughter was his sole caregiver. The fact that she did not speak a word of English and Stan had the benefit only of an Italian phrasebook, their conversation consisted of many repetitions, some playacting and a large amount of confusion and laughter. The more she laughed, the more angelic she seemed to Stan.

It was a week before Stan could get up, shower and dress himself. By the time he reached his intended camp, the tide of the war had changed and he was ordered to move to another camp in short order. On his way out he again went to the farmer’s cottage, thanked them with the help of his phrasebook and offered them the envelope of cash he had taken out at the camp. They refused to accept the money.

Six months later, after he had received a further order to return to the US, he turned up again at the farmer’s cottage, this time without an envelope of cash but with a strange proposal. He wanted the hand of their daughter.

He told the parents they had to trust him, for it would take some time before the authorities would allow his betrothed to join him in the US and it would take several months after that before the parents could come to see their daughter.

It took eight months for the War Department to deliver the farmer’s daughter to an Air Force hangar near New York, where Stan waited eagerly with a box of chocolates and his phrasebook. He had taken lessons meanwhile, but the moment he saw her come down from the military plane, his legs got wobbly and his words got jumbled. Hearing what he said, she laughed, doubtless from confusion. But Stan thought she looked more angelic than ever. 

​His story finished and the champagne finished too, I took leave of Stan and walked through the festively decorated lobby to the twilit street outside. The last few flurries of the snow were still floating down and my glasses frosted. But I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking of a man waiting eagerly by some dingy hangar for a freckled long-haired Italian girl who spoke little English but laughed a lot and whose gray-green eyes spoke love.