It was my seventh birthday and we were going to have a party. In the kitchen my mother feverishly cooked food and cookies I was partial to. I dropped in from time to time to see the progress. Beads of perspiration lined her face on that warm day, but she smiled every time I came in. She wanted it to be a special event for me.

The party was a great success; my friends enjoyed themselves; I had a great time and felt proud of my mother’s achievement. However, mother had to go to the doctor the next day. I heard her telling my father, that the nurse reprimanded her for ignoring such a severe burn for several hours. There was an unsightly scar on her arm for several months.

Decades have passed since then. I have never been able to forget the accident or to forgive myself for inadvertently causing so much pain to my dear mother. I knew she had deferred going to a doctor because she wanted to make sure that my birthday party was impeccable.
​
I spoke to her the year she died at 91 and told her of my tenacious, troubling souvenir. Characteristically, she said, “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was careless.” She added, “I was so glad your birthday party went well.”

​Last year, as in many previous years, I sat next to my phone on my birthday at eight in the morning, waiting for a call. I kept waiting. The call never came.

I get a few calls from friends and family on my birthday. But I could be certain that a call would come at exactly eight on that day. It always came. Penny Strong was punctilious on that point. She told me that she had the date and time entered in her calendar. No matter wherever she was in the world – she traveled a lot – and whatever the local hour was, she would call on the dot.

I first met Penny in Kathmandu. As the consul in the US Embassy, I had rejected the visa application of a young Nepali woman, Luna, who did not meet our criteria: she had no money, scant education, and could not explain why she wanted to go to the US. The next morning a spirited American woman turned up in my office. She had a foundation that worked for poor children in Nepalese villages, and Luna, a staff member, needed training in Denver. How could I be heartless enough to refuse a visa? I reversed the order.

Three months later she was in my office again. She had brought in a large consignment of books, notebooks, pencils and blackboards for village schools and the customs bosses were demanding excise duty. Since I spoke the local language, I could vigorously argue to customs that the entire lot was for charity and the only beneficiaries would be poor Nepali children. It also helped that I was on first name terms with the Home Minister. The levy was withdrawn.
​
Penny ran a foundation that focused on women and children of Nepal. She had come to Nepal first as a tourist, but had seen first-hand the misery of women and the malnutrition of small children. She was kind and sympathetic, but she was also resolute and indefatigable. If I ever made a casual promise to attend a meeting of disabled girls or blind boys, she would make sure I did not renege even if the Heavens fell. She induced me to visit polio-stricken kids and disabled orphans no matter how long my hours were in the consulate. She would call, leave me a million messages, buy me dinner – in short, do anything that would advance the children’s cause an inch.

Initially I resented her multiple calls. My secretary and assistants passed me her messages with a sardonic smile. In time she won us all over. Nobody could question her total sincerity or fierce devotion to the poorest and the most disadvantaged. Nobody could doubt that she would go to any length to bring relief to people whose families had no resources or whose government had no capability to bring them education or healthcare.
​
She lived in Colorado but visited Nepal four to six times each year and never came empty handed. She would fight her way to the executive suite of major US companies and persuade cynical but affluent fatcats to make huge gifts of exercise books, ballpoint pens, cereals, vitamins and packaged food, then sweet talk transport companies to ship them free to Kathmandu. She would go to major hospital groups and persuade top doctors and dentists to come to Nepal for a fortnight: a week of splendid vacation and, then, -- you guessed it -- a week of free treatment for Nepali children. She wangled free medicines, solutions and bandages from pharmaceutical companies.

Over time we became friends. We went together on trips, to mountains and monasteries, verdant valleys and towering temples, and also to nightclubs and speakeasies she had spotted while crisscrossing the land. She did not drive – and would not let me drive either, saying facetiously, “you wouldn’t look at me then” – and engaged a young Sherpa chauffeur who drove pell-mell through cattle and crowds, all the while whistling Bollywood tunes.

​On my monthly visits to the US commissary I always gathered supplies of Campari for me and Bristol cream sherry for her. They represented the fuel for our endless discussions, while candles flickered and cast shadows on her fair face during Kathmandu’s usual power outage. And all discussions had to end with the final question: How do we do better for Nepalese children.

No more of such discussions. Not even a call on my birthday. Just as Nepal’s capital collapsed in this summer’s earthquake, her world collapsed a year ago with the implacable advance of Alzheimer’s.

​I was born a subject of the British Empire, on which, reportedly, the sun never set. I was a citizen of India, a subcontinent that included then five countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. It was a vast land, an ancient culture, and a huge source of precious raw materials, but its people – all 350 million of them – were to be treated as no better than beasts-of-burden for the Empire’s pillage, cannon fodder for its colonial wars and, at best, ‘army of clerks’ for its administrative chores.

A student in a missionary elementary school, I heard the big news that an inspector of schools would pay us a visit the following week. Though only eight, I knew what made the news big was that the inspector was an Englishman and a royal emissary in effect. It shook everybody in the school, from our plump easy-going headmaster to the lowly, skinny groundskeeper. None had a doubt that the slightest lapse could mean a swift sack for any staff. For a student found wanting, in performance or in conduct, the fate would be worse than words could express.

For me the situation felt worse, for I seemed to get little sympathy from my usually genial parents. My father had worked with Englishmen and thought my terror overblown. My mother, without saying as much, credited it all to a fevered imagination. She said airily, “An inspector will inspect. No big deal.”

I knew they were both wrong, very wrong, but I couldn’t find a way to persuade them. So the fateful day came and I went morosely to school, wearing the school uniform of white shirt and khaki trousers. The headmaster had pressed his torso into a ridiculously tight gray jacket and nervously paced in front of his office.

We went to the school hall and waited an hour before the inspector turned up. He was a tall, bony man with a red face, made redder by the fierce summer sun, carrying a large leather case and sporting a comical felt hat. He took off the hat, revealing a mop of sweat-dappled brown hair, and, with a sign from the headmaster, led us in a prayer. We weren’t so familiar with English and, given his grammar school accent, we didn’t understand a word of what he said. He then left the hall, after the headmaster had told us that the inspector will later visit our classes. It sounded like an ominous threat.

In the third period, while our history teacher Grasshopper – we called him that because of his jerky style of moving – was talking of Emperor Asoka, when in came the inspector with the headmaster. It was the height of miscalculation on the latter’s part, for Grasshopper did not speak a word of English.

​In an unusual act of bonhomie the inspector said, “Good afternoon,” though with a funereal face, and Grasshopper said, “Sir!” That was an English word he spoke, because by that time the word had entered all Indian languages.

“What do you teach?” was the inspector’s first question.

“Yes,” said the Grasshopper. He probably thought the inspector was asking if he was teaching, though the answer sounded as silly as the question. To save the situation, the headmaster quickly said, “History.”

“And what are you teaching just now?” We waited with bated breath for Grasshopper’s response, but he continued with the only word he could handle, “Yes,” adding a “Sir” at the end to be polite.

A true bureaucrat, undeterred by the Grasshopper’s brevity, the Englishman popped his third question, “Aren’t you going to tell me what you are doing with these students?” This was far too complicated for Grasshopper, and he stuck to the only response he could think of, “Yes, sir.”
​
By now the august inspector was visibly flustered and annoyed.

He narrowed his eyes and said with the utmost contempt, “I don’t know how you can possibly teach these students history or any other subject, when you can’t even say what you are doing in this class?” He almost spat the words.

A front-row spectator of the entire drama, I shivered with anger and embarrassment. The Headmaster who could have explained or intervened did not dare do so. Whatever the quality of his teaching, Grasshopper did not merit such humiliation simply because he did not speak English. As an inspector of schools, the arrogant Englishman should have known that most schools in India taught in local languages and not English.

As loudly as I could, I yelled, “Sir!” The inspector turned to me with great surprise, while the headmaster looked stricken with a cardiac problem.

“Sir,” I affirmed, in a voice tremulous with fury, “he is… a very good teacher.”
​
One good outcome was that, when the highly agitated headmaster reported the incident to my parents the next day, they told me they were sorry they hadn’t listened to me well when I had expressed my concern about the inspector’s visit.

When gracious hosts say, “Tea or coffee,” I have a hard time deciding, for I love them both. I never believed Shakespeare that love is not love if it alters when it finds some alteration, and confess to a mild preference for coffee when I wake and for tea when I return from work. So please do not read partiality in the following words that are limited to coffee.
​
I was recently in Colombia and spent some time in Manizales, a university town in the coffee growing area. In the morning I would buy three local newspapers and walk into a roadside café and say, “Un café, por favor.” The next moment, for a price that would scandalize Starbucks or Panera, I would be served a large helping of aromatic brew to which those establishments could not hold a candle.

So, while returning, my large suitcase emptied of the gifts for Colombian friends, I decided to fill it with choice Colombian coffee. Manizales is in heart of the coffee belt that produces the biggest chunk of the Colombian harvest. It receives prime quality coffee from the three major provinces of Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. I bought a large number of packets, choosing a great variety of blends, from mild to strong to espresso.

At the departure point of the airport, the security official asked me to open the suitcase for examination. Her eyes popped at the sight of the array of coffee packets.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Coffee,” I expressed what I thought was obvious.

“Why so much?”

“I like coffee,” then added, hoping to appeal to her patriotic pride, “Colombian coffee.”

Clearly it did not melt her heart. In a second she came up with a Swiss knife and cut open a couple of packets. She looked, she sniffed and, then, as she was about to put in a finger to check the content, I could not bear to watch. I offered a plastic spoon from my briefcase and insisted she use it instead. Finally she called her superior and after another bout of sniffing and spooning, they taped the open packets closed and let me go.
​
As I was leaving, relieved that the inspection was over, I heard the superior disgustedly mutter something to his team and I just caught the word “demasiado” (too much). I wondered what he considered excessive: my love of coffee or the amount I had purchased.

When I arrived at Dulles airport hours later and went home, another surprise waited for me. I opened the suitcase to find a letter from security authorities telling me that my suitcase was examined “for special reasons.” I found all the coffee packets systematically opened and taped back again. I had to drop the idea of giving some of the mutilated packets to my friends as gifts.
​
I have been subsisting on Colombian coffee for over four months now. It tastes as good in Washington as it did in Manizales. To be honest, it tastes a little better for it brings back cherished memories of a congenial town, bright mornings in friendly roadside bistros and pleasant Hispanic chatter in the background. The lurking thought of a couple of diligent security sleuths cutting open a large number of coffee packets in search of drugs and, then, no doubt frustrated, taping them close one by one, adds a little spice to those memories.

“A sucker is born every minute,” said the 19th century showman Barnum. I saw enough of that when I lived in India and, on the recommendation of well-meaning friends, met revered gurus who quickly proved purveyors of snake oil. They would spout sacred verses in Sanskrit, which most Indians don’t know; but I had painstakingly learned the ancient language, in which most Hindu texts are written, and I frequently found them blatantly misquoted or misinterpreted.

When I came to the US, I found a parallel phenomenon with religious leaders. They would volubly cite Biblical verses, then interpret them to neatly fit their crass social or political views. A famous preacher in the south would massage them for a happy, upbeat creed, while a popular televangelist would use them for fiery anti-Arab diatribes. They cared little for the historical meaning of canonical texts.

So you will understand my hesitation when a friend in Kathmandu suggested that I join him and visit a reputed Buddhist lama. The latter, I was told in a hushed tone, was both a Rimpoche (the word means jewel), a scholarly abbot, and a Tulku, a child prodigy who is the custodian of a Tibetan Buddhist lineage.
​
I had barely sipped my first cup of coffee that Saturday morning when my resolute friend came to collect me. Seto Gumpa, the white chapel, was a charming midtown monastery, neither small or cramped nor huge or overwhelming, and, with colorful little flags and bright curtains, almost unmonastic. We sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor of a sun-drenched hall with sixty other visitors, and presently the Rimpoche arrived.

A middle aged man, with a young and sturdy look, he wore a loose brown-and-saffron garb and walked briskly across the hall to take his seat on a slightly elevated platform. The broad eyebrows and firm lips were a contrast to his sparkling eyes. When he spoke, his tone was of genial conversation, not weighty discourse. He gave pauses, seeming to invite questions, and when some came, he explained himself mildly, almost deferentially.

His was the shortest spiritual talk I have ever heard. When he stopped, some of the foreigners present asked him about Buddhist practices and he responded readily, sometimes drolly, to everyone.

Then suddenly the Rimpoche pointed at the last row, and I thought he wanted to talk to my friend. My friend whispered, “He wants to talk to you,” and quickly wrapped a silken scarf around my neck. I walked up to the Rimpoche, and following the Tibetan custom unwrapped the scarf, bowed and placed it around his neck. He acknowledged the gift with a bow and then placed his own scarf – gently but more deftly – round my neck.
​
As I sat awkwardly on the floor in front of him, he smiled and asked who I was. I gave the conventional reply that I was the American consul in Nepal. He said that I looked a little different from the other Americans in the room. I explained that I was born in India of Indian parents and had spent a large part of my life there. Why did I then move to the US? I had met and loved somebody in India, who was an American. When she returned to her country, she wanted me to join her, and I did. He smiled broadly and said I was right to do so.

Then he asked me a question that stumped me. Was I happy? Did I like doing what I was doing in my life? I thought a little and said that there were parts of my work – parts where I felt I was helping other people – that I liked. There were also, I added, other parts that I did not like so much. In my private life too, I liked the affection of friends and family, but weren’t comfortable with some other elements. I paused and then hesitantly said that I was often troubled by the feeling that my life was far too focused on small things and on myself; I would have preferred “a larger role for larger things.”

He looked at me for a long time in silence. His face was as placid as it was earlier, but now it had a tinge of concern and sadness.
​
He asked me to tell him my full name. When I did so, he repeated it and asked me to help him pronounce it properly. I said it twice more and he repeated it. When I nodded to approve, he asked me, so softly that I had to bend to hear him, to take care of myself. “Good care,” he emphasized.

He was again quiet for a while. Then he said:
“Do the small things well. As well as you can. And wait for the larger things to appear.”

More than a decade has passed since that strange encounter. I cannot forget the astonishing tranquility the Rimpoche somehow conferred on me in those few minutes. Never have I talked with a total stranger and felt every syllable heard with supreme attention and, also, acceptance. I had heard rumors that he was clairvoyant. He didn’t need to be, for he saw, I felt, right inside me. He didn’t just hear my words; he absorbed my thoughts, my feelings, all my fears, hopes and concerns. Ludicrous as it sounds, I said to my friend, I felt like a little boy sitting in front of my mother, loved, cared for, fully understood.

I loved to debate in college. It was a fierce clash of ideas. It was fun; it was learning. Surprise! The last presidential debate made me puke.

Let me explain.

When I came to the US in the seventies, the news hour, or half hour, was sacred. If I couldn’t finish my dinner well ahead of it, I had to have it afterward, however hungry I was. I watched the news intently, with full attention. It deserved such attention because savvy newsmen like Dan Rather or Peter Jennings narrated world-wide events that merited our interest and thought. Then it all changed. News in major channels became a part of the entertainment division and news broadcasts started including ‘human-interest’ stories about well-trained seals or performing dogs that rarely merited any human interest.

A parallel depreciation has occurred in debates of presidential candidates and aspirants. You expect a forum that probes the problems of our country. You hope to hear of different ways to solve them. You look for new ideas and new policies. You will have none of that. You will have carefully patterned ‘entertainment’ instead.

Every time candidates open their mouth out flow the most hackneyed phrases and shopworn clichés. Liberty and leadership, economy and ‘exceptionalism,’ fast-growing government and slow-acting presidency – all the old peeves and new mantras are paraded with painful regularity. No matter what the question is, candidates quickly switch to a set piece, doubtless written by their aides and drummed into their heads by other aides. One doesn’t have to see the movie ‘Game Change’ to discover that candidates – of whom Sarah Palin is just the most egregious example – are too busy raising funds and poll status to lower their eyes to social, political or economic studies.
​
They are, frankly, ignoramuses, who will not be able to identify Ukraine, Uruguay or Uzbekistan on a map or name the president or prime minister of a major ally, let alone know the difference between presidential and ministerial forms of government. All they have are pat answers to some popular and predictable questions. Whatever issues moderators raise can only evoke well-rehearsed glib and giddy responses. It reminded me of college again: it was the dummies, who, instead of learning the subject, memorized set answers to expected questions and, facing a test, regurgitated.

No surprise, then, that there should be howls of protest if the test is a little different from what was expected. The smart student does not care: he or she knows the subject and responds with confidence. The unthinking ones want to change the rules of the game. Quite unsurprisingly, the debaters want more time for longer opening and closing statements. Those may be the dullest parts of a debate, but those are the parts where gophers and flunkies can best prepare the words for the mouthpieces. It also helps the 158 millionaire families – who, according to a New York Times study, are financing all these candidates – to make sure that the approved words are spoken and nobody goes off-script.

I read newspapers and magazines. But I want to know more about the problems of the country. I want to learn about solutions, remedies, new and smart policies. None of that will happen in these presidential debates where trained performers will perform their inane acts unctuously and without shame.
​
No, I am not entertained. As Queen Victoria would have said, “We are not amused.”

I am fortunate. I have a very good friend right next door.

I am a pre baby boomer: in common parlance, as old as the hills. She is not Generation X, not even Millennial, but Generation Z – she is just eight, yet to join school.

She does home studies and reads quite well now, though words of multiple syllables are a challenge for her. She does additions and multiplications too, but I am not sure she is enamored of doing them. What is no challenge for her are the iPad and iPhone, which she manipulates like a pro and has no compunction pointing out my ineptitude. She uses drawing programs to sketch animals and angels, and plays an array of video games, from sprinters that race winding castle alleys to choleric birds that fight and shoot and play havoc in pig fortresses.
​
To keep company I have occasionally tried to learn these games, but my skill level hardly rises after abundant instruction and diligent practice. My scores leave my young teacher disgusted and in despair. “You have to practice more,” she advises.

She has a pixie face, crystal-bright eyes and long hair, usually in a braid, but sometimes bound in a bun to let her do gymnastics. Oh, yes, gymnastic skill is another of her many accomplishments, in dramatic contrast to my gauche ways. She underlines the contrast by cartwheeling effortlessly in the living room and sitting on the kitchen floor to display nimble contortions.

The more important skill is the readiness with which she proceeds to prepare tea for me the moment I tread into their home. She will get on a stool to reach the water heater on the counter and then stir the tea vigorously and serve in exactly the china I prefer. Most of the time she even remembers to retrieve the empty cup from my hand.

As if this were not enough, she runs to open the door for me and switches on a radiant smile before her parents have had a chance to say, “Come in, please.” That smile is, as the ancient Indian texts say, brighter than a thousand suns, and enough to keep me warm on the coldest fall day.
​
I am really a fortunate neighbor.

I have always lived in large and noisy cities. When I moved to Washington, it was more of the same – much more. I loved it. The smell of the downtown thrilled me as much that of the Brooklyn sidewalk had pleased Woody Allen.

Then I took an interesting job in the exurbs and, in short order, bought a house in Reston to avoid the painful commute. The change was, literally, breathtaking. The first breath told me I was in a different place. There were trees and bushes all over; there was a lake next door with a spouting fountain; I could walk down a myriad trails without ever seeing a car. I did not know such a place existed except in some quaint European town.

Before I could settle down, however, I changed work and returned again to the big city orbit. Now in different countries. In Kathmandu I drove through cows and cattle to reach my office. In Abu Dhabi I drove through deserts to reach others’ offices. In Manila, I lived in a plush, gated community that fashionably called itself a ‘village’ but was located at the junction of two roaring highways. In Delhi, vendors hollered at passers-by to sell mangoes and curried peanuts. In Cairo, even the Coptic churches seemed all large, all noisy, and all seemed fun to me.

Then again back to Reston, after fifteen years. In all these years, Reston had grown and changed. But it had somehow managed to retain its essential nature: an urban patch that tenaciously holds on to a pastoral charm, with swatches of green that surprise and please, a community of clusters that look after themselves and yet manage to have common interests and activities.

As important perhaps, the world had changed. The city meant a lot to me. Particularly what it offered. The theater has been a major force in my life from my childhood. I understand much less of music, but the variety of music, from classical to pop and jazz, thrills me. Libraries are an abiding source of joy; just to hold books, let alone browse or read them, gives me a delight I can’t explain. Above all, the clash of ideas excites me. I love to attend book launches where authors not only talk but also cross swords with bellicose listeners, think tank seminars where multiple speakers contradict one another or even simple lectures where speakers allow – or, thank Heavens, even encourage – contrary views in the garb of questions. I loved big cities for these.

But now you don’t need a city for these. Books, music, lectures, debates, all turn up in your study at the flick of switch on a glowing screen. Books you download, music you can see and hear performed better than in an auditorium, and seminars and debates you can play and replay on your television. Yes, you miss the sense of immediacy, the excitement of being at arm’s length of a Nobel winning author, but in reality you see more, hear better and can retain what you like.

Something else I hadn’t noticed. I had changed. I had begun to notice that there are things beyond books and ideas. Quiet, that improbable thing, meant nothing to me earlier. I had lived happily in rowdy, raucous cities like Kolkata and Manila. Now, suddenly, it seemed strangely refreshing to be in a silent space: to hear the rustle of leaves, a bird’s homing twitter, and late in the evening, absolutely nothing. Most absurdly, the two giant trees I see from my living room began to seem like old buddies, steady and majestic, with a message of perennial placidity. Now, in a mellow autumn, as the foliage around my deck changes to amber and gold, my heart turns unaccountably to a quiet tune I hadn’t known earlier.
​
Perhaps I am not a city man any longer.

Aunt Tara was a widow of modest means who lived in a small town far from the big city in India where we lived. So when she wrote to my dad, asking him to look for an inexpensive place for her youngest son to stay and attend college, we offered him a place in our spacious downtown apartment. Biju, quiet and shy, was a pleasant person. I gladly shared my room with him and we quickly became friends.
​
Something bizarre happened five months later. Biju went out one afternoon, saying he would meet a friend near the railway station. He did not return. We called his friends and acquaintances; then we checked with the local hospitals. When nothing turned up, we called the police. Since I knew him best, I took the lead in the fruitless search, and it fell to me to inform his mother. Aunt Tara listened to me gravely, without a single interruption, then softly pleaded, “Please get Biju back to me.”

I persisted with the search for several months, talked to the police, placed notices and rewards in the newspaper. Finally I located a local trader who had encountered Biju close to the railway station. But that was all. We had no clue as to what happened next to Biju. The police closed the case.

Disheartened but dutiful, I undertook a trip to visit aunt Tara and explained in detail the effort that had been made and the scant result it had produced. There was now no alternative but to abandon the search and simply hope for a lucky break. Aunt Tara did not say a word till the end, “Please get Biju back to me.”
​
No lucky break ever came. I could not face aunt Tara and tried to avoid her at family gatherings. At a wedding I could not help encountering her and politely asked how she was. She in turn asked about my family, and then, with a pause, quietly asked, “Any news?” I shook my head ruefully and passed on.

​In the next twenty years, I came across her another four or five times, and each time, after we had talked about other things, she would pause and simply look at me. I knew she was gently inquiring without articulating the question, and I would shake my head in mute response.

​Aunt Tara died of cardiac problems at 89, in the house of her daughter, who had brought her to town to see a specialist. I drove over to see her and happened to be with her in the last hour. As I sat next to her bed, holding her hand and answering her questions about my children, there was a pause, and she looked earnestly at me and murmured, “Please get Biju back.”