​A walk into a grocery story was my biggest shock when I moved from Kolkata to Washington forty years ago. I stood awe-struck, staring at rows after rows of cereals of every variety. No less than ninety colorful brands, from Kellogg’s All-bran and Apple Jacks to General Mills’ Wheaties and Zany Fruits. There were staple cereals like wheat, oats, rye and barley, and pseudo-cereals like buckwheat, chia and quinoa. The variety was overwhelming, almost intimidating. I was shell shocked. How would I choose the cereal I wanted to take with my coffee tomorrow morning?
 
I know the simpleminded would say: What is the problem? Aren’t you lucky that you had ninety choices of cereal instead of nine? I didn’t feel lucky at all to have ninety choices. I am the kind of person who prefers the simplicity of a choice between two alternatives, at most an array of four choices. My first reaction to a choice of ninety options is one of sheer confusion. It would take me too long to read all the labels, let alone decide which I find the most attractive. How do I know how one tastes and what health properties it has? Ninety choices almost call for a research project.

​In India I was used to two or three brands of refrigerators or speaker systems. I could ask friends and decide easily what suited my budget and quality expectation. In the US, given the wide range of options for every kind of gadget, I need to turn to professional journals like Consumer Reports or Consumer Checkbook. I need to spend hours to find out what I should look for, the amount I should earmark for it and which of a myriad of stores I should explore to get what I want. If this overabundance of options is a blessing of an overactive economy, I would be quite content with a less active marketplace.
 
When our daughters were young, I remember Jane, my wife, used to go overboard in buying Christmas gifts for them. Perhaps because she enjoyed shopping or was trying to make up unconsciously for spending long hours away from them thanks to our diplomatic jobs. Come Christmas, the children would open the first three gifts with great aplomb, the next two with visibly less enthusiasm, and the following ones just dutifully, as if performing school homework. Our friends who imagine our life in plush capitals of affluent countries as a cakewalk through opulent markets will never imagine my distaste for the endless variety of merchandise and the breathless chore of selection.
 
Am I exaggerating? Or looking in the mouth the gift horse of infinite choice?
 
Think for a second: the human mind is not like a computer; it cannot deal with a vast number of variables. If you must choose between two things, you can pretty well compare their relative merits and demerits. If I raise the number from two to four or five, the choice becomes far more complex. If you are buying refrigerators, you must compare their size, capacity, compartments, power consumption, price, guarantee and delivery expense. It gets more complicated if you are prepared to compromise on size provided you get a discount on the price, or ready to raise the price if the supplier delivers at short notice – and open to negotiate on both price and delivery if you get generous credit terms.
 
Think for another few seconds. Your problem does not end with the purchase. After you have bought the refrigerator and experienced a problem after three or six months – problems always arise – your wife will tell you that you should have listened to her and bought another brand that her sister had said was better. If you have the windfall of a compliant, uncomplaining wife, you will find while talking to a colleague that you could have bought the identical refrigerator from another source at double the discount and feel miserable about your gullibility. You may even find in the newspaper the next day the sale of a revolutionary new sixth type of refrigerator no respectable human should live without!
 
Psychologists talk of ‘buyers’ remorse’ and cite the antiromantic example of the groom who marries the girl of his dreams and, after a month’s honeymoon, frets that she rather belongs to his nightmares. Amid the thousand hassles of life today, at work, at home and in your head, if you set yourself up to choose between dozens of options, whether buying a car or a shirt, you are taking a shortcut to the dismal valley of buyers’ regret.
 
As I see it, the key to happiness in matters of choice lies in three simple steps. First, prepare your mind that whatever choice you make, it will never, ever be ideal. You will not know some things and you will overlook some others. Your choice can only be a reasonable approximation of the ideal.
 
Second, reduce the choice to a reasonable number, two or three, after quickly scanning the rest of the options. Assess them the best way you can, basically focusing on the main aspects that matter to you, and then try to cut the best deal.
 
Finally, once you have made your choice, shut out the curious colleague’s counsel and the know-all neighbor’s opinion. Nothing is perfect and you don’t need an interminable review of your judgment.
 
Your happiness trumps the need for a perfect choice.

In a funny television episode, the comic, Larry David, tries ineptly in Spanish to explain a black object and uses the word ‘negro’ – which means the color black in Hispanic lands – and gets into hot water with an African American friend who finds his use of the pejorative word offensive.
 
It touches a chord, for there can’t be many people who haven’t at least once got into trouble for using the wrong word. I know I have. Despite the fact I tend to be fastidious about words and don’t use them flippantly or carelessly. I remember the hard time I had years ago explaining to an irate girlfriend that the adjective I had used about her, ‘intractable,’ was meant to acknowledge, indulgently and approvingly, her independent bent of mind, rather than to describe her as cussedly contrary all the time.

​Clearly, I didn’t learn my lesson well. Somebody had gifted me a portable typewriter; I would occasionally take it to the office and hammer out a complicated report, which my secretary would then print and distribute. Even today I remain an indifferent typist and have to edit out silly typos. One time I edited carelessly, and the secretary printed and sent out a letter to an important client that contained the somewhat pompous phrase, “might have an adverse influence on our business relationship.” Unfortunately, I had typed “averse” instead of “adverse.” Though the two words come from the same French source, “averse” is a much stronger word and, to the English ear, suggestive of a high degree of antipathy. The client took it very hard and it took me a long time to persuade him that it was just a misprint.
 
English of course is a tricky language – far trickier, for example, than Spanish – and can easily trip up people like me making the transition from an Asian language. Its rhythm is quite different, and adjectives and especially adverbs weigh it down much more than the Hindi or Bengali speaker would realize. Worse, people who work in offices, factories and sales centers have concocted a monstrous thing called ‘business English’ which bears no relationship with the language. Letters begin with “with reference to your communication of the 15th instant” and “we are in grateful receipt of your recent intimation” and quickly create a fog of clumsy verbiage. Of course, there is no such parlance as business English; there is only good English and bad English. I created a sensation in my office by writing two-word letters like “We agree.” and “Any progress?”
I received a steady stream of letters in my work where the authors appeared unwittingly to have stepped into a minefield. When they felt some urgency and wanted a quick reply, they wanted “to illicit an early response.” I could not of course give an illegal or illicit response, but, inferring that they wanted to “elicit” a fast answer, I replied as soon as I could. Because my job had a lot to do with the chemical industry, I found my correspondents had a lot of difficulty separating “comprise” from “compose” and spoke of a chemical item “composing” esoteric elements. I tried to explain to a colleague that Bach, Brahms and Beethoven “composed” symphonies and their symphonies “comprised” different movements.
 
When a laboratory chief wrote me to “precede” with a change we had talked about, I had a momentary confusion before I realized that he wanted me to go ahead or “proceed” with the innovation – possibly ahead of other priorities. Another colleague, a manufacturing guy, referred to a raw material shortage and remarked, “I happily except your suggestion;” I thought he was taking exception to my suggestion until I deduced that he meant to “accept” my proposal.
 
A supplier, whose order I had to reduce, confused me by saying, “Our business will be greatly effected” which I first took to mean his business would become more effective; reflection suggested that he meant his business would be badly “affected.” More disconcerting, when a female executive I knew only slightly wrote a pleasant note, starting with “I wish to complement you,” I was baffled, for it sounded faintly erotic, until I realized she wanted chastely to “compliment” me.
 
Even if a word is not wrong or misapplied, I have never understood why business letters and reports are full of multi-syllable Latin-sounding words that give me the feeling that I am eating good cous-cous and finding stone chips in it. Executives seem to think it unacceptably simple, for example, to use the verb “use.” Invariably it is replaced by the pompous “utilize” – which is better used for “use in a tactical manner.” As hard to understand why executives choose “expeditious” instead of “quick,” “commence” or “initiate” instead of “begin,” “modification” instead of “change,” “equitable” instead of “fair,” and “elucidate” instead of “make clear.”
 
I wish business correspondence would be a little simpler -- easier to read and understand. There is no reason our language has to be so dense and hard to digest. See, I nearly used the word “intractable.” But I have learned my lesson.

​I have been exploring other trails for a few days, but this morning I returned to one of my favorites. I took a walk through the woods near my home. I had a surprise.
 
I know it is fall, or as some say in other countries, the autumnal season. Trees shed their leaves, day after day. The last few days have been windy and it rained a couple of days. You can imagine what that can do to the few leaves that remained. I was stunned to see all the oaks, firs and birches totally denuded of their gold and orange leaves. Not a single memento of green I could see. I was looking at a forest of – not barely naked – but nakedly bare trees.
 
I was stumped for a while, but I walked. The trail was hard to see because a mountain of leaves covered the track. I had moments of doubt about the direction to take, but I continued and emerged successfully at the other end of the woods. I wasn’t lost.

​I have a similar sensation when I visit cities that I frequent infrequently, like Abu Dhabi or Amsterdam. Even areas where I have lived or known, I lose my bearing because shops have moved or buildings have been renovated. I had a home near Lodi Gardens in New Delhi that I loved; I could barely recognize it on my last visit, for it had been refaced – or, as I felt it, defaced. Things change.
 
So do people. Faces crease, hair turns grey, gait gets slower, eyes dimmer. Fortunately, something of the person’s core often remains. When you talk to your friend, you can feel a connection. The unique link you felt when you talked with your friend when you were both in school echoes in a strange way when you again talk thirty years later. Your friend too notices that link when he talks of his arthritic leg or a recent accident. He senses he still feels your core. He goes back and tells his wife, “I met my friend after thirty years and, you wouldn’t believe it, he is just the same.”
 
The strange thing is we act very differently when we meet strangers. Many of us don’t seem to bother about what is inside the person and focus on what is around and outside the person. What position the person holds, where he lives, what car he drives, what society thinks of him. Imagine that you are talking with five people in a room and Bill Gates walks in. The talk will end instantly, and all the attention will center on the celebrity who has entered the room. All will happily forsake what they were discussing so far and will hang on every word that celebrity utters.
 
Bill Gates does not have to know anything about what you were discussing earlier. His wealth and fame are enough to guarantee full attention from everyone, who will readily overlook that you were mid-sentence in explaining something important. It does not have to be wealth, it may be an exalted position in government, a business tycoon or a famous actor is enough to trigger the same kind of response. It is not the man but the perceived halo around his head, not the person but the accoutrement that is supposed to give him the charisma.
 
I remember having bought a sporty, supercharged BMW on a whim when I was a visiting professor at the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines. I was sorely tempted to sell it immediately when I found that some had started referring to me as Mr. BMW. A noticeable car had swiftly conferred an angelic ring on my pate that any of my meager capabilities had not merited.
 
That incident underlines another part of the problem. We pick up a small sliver of the truth about a person, the car in my case, and make that the whole or at least the principal reality about a person. It would have been wealth in the case of Bill Gates or genius in the case of Einstein. We would go no further and want to know the other parts of the remarkable person in front of us. In reality, their celebrity, for money or scientific achievement, becomes a screen that we allow to filter out the rest of their humanity.
 
I am not fame-averse. I would have loved to meet Gandhi or Mandela; they would be fascinating people to meet. I would also go to the window if Angelina Jolie or Aishwarya Rai was passing by; I am certainly not averse to beauty. It is quite another thing to act with abject servility whenever a movie star deigns to appear in public or to act demented with grief when a famous singer breathes his last. We are humans and it is to the humanity of our fellow humans, not to their celebrity, we better pay heed.
 
The woods near my Virginia home remain my favorite woods no matter that its trees are denuded of leaves, all the traces of green are gone. Those are the familiar woods to which I will go again tomorrow morning.  A valuable friend remains a cherished interlocutor no matter all the creases on his face or even all the lapses in his memory. No matter their fame or celebrity, their credit or acceptance in society, a woman of worth and a man of quality I must consider worth recognizing and admiring to the last syllable of recorded time.

In college I quickly became friends with Abir, who invited me to his home. He came from a well-regarded Brahmin family; his great-grandfather and his brother were distinguished Sanskrit scholars. They were professional priests and served several royal families during religious ceremonies. Their scions kept up the priestly profession, but not the scholarly tradition, and continued to preside over religious rites in affluent families, royal and plebeian. It was on the occasion on some such religious ceremony that I was invited to Abir’s home. I was shocked.
 
I was interested in stories. Stories my mother and aunts told me at bedtime. That had led to my interest in Bengali literature, which in turn had prompted my interest in the language itself, its structure and style. This in turn kindled my interest in Sanskrit and Pali, the languages from which Bengali was derived. My Pali improved later when I became deeply interested in Buddhist texts, but at the moment all my enthusiasm was focused on Sanskrit. I studied Kalidasa and other literary figures in college, but my real zeal was centered on religious texts. I was fortunate to take lessons from two outstanding scholars who were exceedingly gracious to me despite my skeptical bent.
 
I had of course soon noticed earlier the mispronunciation, misinterpretation and general misuse of sacred texts at religious functions, but in a family that prided itself on its religious reputation and served eminent families and communities in their religious rites I hadn’t expected to encounter such misuse. I was inordinately disturbed. I felt that priests, no more than ordinary mortals, had the right to mutilate spiritual texts.
 
In earlier centuries, the Catholic church had adhered strictly to Latin for its liturgies that clearly went over the head of the laity. That strengthened the authority of the priests, their opportunty to explain the faith in the way they chose to their obedient and mystified listeners. It certainly did not produce better understanding of religion or greater observance of its principles. The Catholic church has wisely moved away from the practice and turned to local languages that ordinary people can understand.
 
Common sense should induce priests to use Sanskrit as sparingly as possible and, whenever they use it, to offer its accurate translation in a language that people in the community use. Not just translation, for often it is incomprehensible without some context. Priests, whose business it is to conduct a rite decently, in a way that people gain from it, mentally if not spiritually, owe it to their sponsors to learn their job and do it in a way that helps people.

​With the typical brashness of youth, I told Abir what I had felt. To my surprise, he saw the point immediately, and went and had a chat with his dad. The result was that seven weeks later when his uncle was to preside over a large religious event in some businessman’s home, my service was requisitioned. It was agreed that the uncle would perform the rites and recite the Sanskrit texts, but I would translate and explain the rite at every stage. I suspected that the leading role fell in my lap because I did not ask for money and, since it would be an assorted crowd, the translation would have to be in both Bengali and English. Abir’s uncle wasn’t that comfortable explaining in English.
 
The event was an immense success. People volunteered that, for the first time, they understood the full import of the rites and the accompanying words. It was a memorable experience of my student days.
 
I remembered the experience recently when I attended a program in Washington, in one of its plush Hindu temples. The priest, imported from India and well ensconced in the capital society, gave a singularly inappropriate talk. He not only pathetically misinterpreted a major religious text, his commentary was arrogant, narrow-minded and offensive for western listeners. When I tried to suggest him a different track, he became upset. It was clear to me that he didn’t know of well-known interpretations of the text, such as those of Gandhi and Radhakrishnan, both popular in India. I doubt if he was familiar with any of the major interpretations of the text which has been widely researched and discussed.
 
India is an ancient land with a wealth of profound literature, some of which have a sacred status. Sacred they may be, but they also offer incredible insights into our life and help us live a happy life that is also meaningful. Amazingly, they often provide a lesson in both human sensitivity and uber-human wisdom. I am sure there are teachers who can help us understand them better, despite a possible barrier of language. But there clearly are priests who find it in their interest to keep the texts abstruse and interpret it from an insufferably narrow point of view.
 
Even for the irreligious like me, religious literature has much to offer. The unfortunate mediation of priests, whose views often remain dated and obscurantist, makes for a formidable barrier to the average person’s quest for meaning and guidance in these hoary texts. A great pity.

The bruhaha is over. The people have spoken. A vulgar, corrupt charlatan has been asked to leave – unless he insists on staying, perhaps behind bars for cheating on taxes or something else. It may have been an election for the Americans, but it was a spectacle for the world. Lots of drama, lots of words and lots of lies. Of the last, one man continues to be a seemingly unabashed, unending fount.

​One mystery remains. And that, to me, is the huge imponderable. 70 million people voted for him; many of them enthusiastically endorsed him. They said, “He says it like it is.” They believed he would make the country “great again.” These are literate people, many of them educated and experienced. They heard him lying, so frequently that many thought he didn’t know the difference between a lie and the truth. They found him abusing his office, using it entice people to his hotels and golf courses and make money. They saw him hiring his daughter and son-in-law for key positions without qualifications. They saw him firing senior staff on whim and destroying dozens of careers. His Chief of Staff, a respected General, who worked closest to him called him an ‘idiot’ and his Secretary of State, a distinguished tycoon, dubbed him a ‘moron.’ He promised but couldn’t deliver even a plan for healthcare – though he tried to raze the existing one. His foreign policy was a disaster; he alienated allies and made friends with dictators like Putin, Kim Jong Un and MBS, the murderous sheik. He bungled stemming the pandemic; ten million people got infected and a quarter-million died.
 
The mystery is that the people who saw this horror unfolding day after day, for four long years, still applauded him. Didn’t they read any of the books in which his personal lawyer and fixer unveiled his shameless shenanigans, his top officials described his ignorance and ineptitude, and even his own cousin, a psychologist, revealed he was a psychopath? Didn’t they read the newspapers where they could find daily accounts of his failure to articulate policies or even to develop one, and of his quixotic plan to build a giant wall to stop ‘rapists and murders’ when the criminals where on his side of the wall? Didn’t they watch television and hear the two dozen women he had molested and see how he gloated over touching women’s private parts with impunity? At the very least, didn’t they see his frequent rants on Twitter, abusing people, misrepresenting facts, insulting men and women, cursing doctors and scientists, and lying, lying, lying? The 70 million people still reveled in his antics and gave him their support and adulation.
 
We talk of respecting people and their opinions. We want to hear different views. We do not have the luxury of discounting people’s views because they are illiterate; these are educated people. We cannot even say they haven’t had much experience, for they have lived for years in a functioning democracy and had the benefit of schools, colleges, libraries, televisions, computers and smart phones every day of their lives? Then how are they so deaf and blind to events, so indifferent to the suffering of people around them?
 
That is the giant mystery that faces us. How do thinking people arrive at such perverse conclusions? The uncomfortable conclusion to which I feel pushed is that many of these people don’t really think. Thinking, truly speaking, is an uncomfortable business for many of us. It takes time and effort. We have to see, read and hear; we have to talk to different types of people; we have to digest widely divergent views. That strains us, stresses us, makes us face troubling ideas, quit cherished illusions, in short makes life difficult. It is so much easier to live comfortably, drink a cool beer or two, watch mindless shows and silly games on television, and, above all, delve for hours in ‘friends’ pages with friendly views that confirm our easy impressions and convenient prejudices. We can go on living the life we have ever lived, unclouded by new ideas, untroubled by the necessity to compromise the privileges we have long taken for granted.
 
So, why think? Why create waves when life can be peaceful and comfortable, thinking exactly the way my friends think and I have always thought? It is less important to be right, in some complex philosophical way, than to be right with my friends and colleagues and neighbors, most of whom adore a politician or a party or an ideology and join the bandwagon. That may be the gospel that inspires and holds the allegiance of good, decent, honest people, who would be horrified at the suggestion that they are doing something irresponsible and hurtful.
 
But their search for comfort does hurt people. Lives are wrecked, careers are destroyed, institutions are corrupted, government becomes an oligarchy – as it nearly became in the last four years. Thoreau, who went to a prison for his principles, insisted that in a land where one just man is in prison, the place of all just men is also in prison. He told us that injustice always flourishes on the assumption that it need not expect active resistance from people. Thoreau’s observation was sadly right: we saw a vast number of party members and politicians who went along with every impropriety, even every illegality, of a false leader. At long last some good men revolted and voted against him.
 
Active resistance? Long before one acts, there must be some awareness – and the biggest barrier to awareness is the comfort born of indifference.

There is no bread like the Ethiopian Enjera, no aperitif like Campari, no cheese like Camembert, no voice like Adele’s, no face like Deepika’s, and no city like New York. It beats any city anywhere, by a comfortable margin. Everything happens there, everything can be found there. It throbs with life day and night. It is the liveliest city in the world.
 
I should know, for I have roamed quite a few cities. I love my native town, Kolkata, and I live happily in my adopted city, Washington. But New York is like a hallucinatory dream. It amazes you, it fascinates you, it grips you by the neck and won’t let go of you. Whether I eat in an Upper East Side restaurant or go to a Pinter play on Broadway, I come away marveling. New York can always spring a surprise.
 
I was in New York months ago for some work and decided to stay the weekend to relax. I decided to take a leisurely walk Saturday morning through Central Park, and then in the streets and perhaps stop somewhere at the end for a brunch. I had no itinerary in mind and wanted to take in a little of the town’s vibrant city life. I had taken a turn on a small street and was passing several small shops.
 
“Hello,” said somebody on my left.
 
I turned to respond and saw a man in his late fifties with back-brushed opulent black hair, in a beige chino and gold-buttoned dark-blue parka, standing at the entrance of a shop. As I responded politely, the man smiled and asked, “Where are you from?”
 
I was about to say ‘from Washington,’ but I bit my tongue realizing that that was not what he wanted to know. I said, “I am from India.”
 
“Where in India?” He persisted.
 
“I lived in Kolkata,” I phrased carefully, knowing that I was born elsewhere and had lived periodically in other places.
 
The man’s smile broadened and his language changed. He asked his third question in Bengali, “Do you speak Bengali?”
 
“Of course. I am a Bengali.”
 
As I responded, I looked up and saw the sign behind his head. It said Bogra Bakery.
 
The man came forward and held my hand. He said in Bengali, “One look at you and I knew for sure you are a Bengali.” He shook my hand warmly, “Please, you must come into my humble bakery.”

​I was not busy, he was earnest, and refusing seemed inappropriate. Inside, the bakery did not seem as small as I would have guessed. It was tastefully organized, a limited seating area on one side and a large counter on the other with several types of bread and some pastries.
 
“I don’t get to meet many Bengalis, let alone speak Bengali. I am very fortunate to have you in my bakery. I will be greatly honored if you have a cup of tea.”
 
His warmth was unquestionable. I was touched and I said I would be happy to.
 
He went to a corner to pour boiling water from a machine into a pot and prepare our tea. I quickly consulted Google on my phone, for the name Bogra had tickled a memory.
 
“My name is Nurul,” my host said and placed a tray on our table with the teapot and two cups.
 
I said my name and asked, “Are you from Rajshahi?”
 
He was surprised and thrilled, “How did you know?”
 
“It is just a guess from the name of your bakery.”
 
He was now quite pleased, “Sir, you must try my croissants with your tea. They are fresh, just made. Please let me serve you two.”
 
I had a strong misgiving. Croissants made by a man from Bangladesh in a backstreet bakery did not seem promising. A delicious brunch hovered on my mind. But I did not know how to rebuff his friendly offer politely.
 
“Could I just have one, please?” I said at last.
 
Nurul got up immediately, gently warmed two croissants and served them on a plate.
 
I now looked at the tray as I broke the first croissant. It was a beautiful Herend Victoria tray and on it was an exquisite matching Herend Rothschild teapot, the kind you encounter only in the most fastidious households.
 
Nurul served the tea. It was out of the world. He said he gets it from a particular tea estate in Darjeeling – “from your country” he said – by special contract.
 
Then I tasted the croissant. It was simply the best croissant I had ever tasted. I asked Nurul how he had learned to make such a perfect croissant.
 
“I worked on a merchant ship for some years but did not like it. One day I just disembarked in Le Havre and decided to take my chance in France. I found work in a bakery and two years later moved to a Michelin-star bakery in Paris. I worked there for twelve years and learned all that I know. I love baking.”
 
His love showed. I forgot about my brunch. I drank all of Nurul’s tea and ate both the croissants shamelessly. Frankly, I was tempted to ask for another.
 
As I said, New York can always spring a surprise.

​I am preparing a note for my daughters. It is about things when I am not there.
 
I feel unhappy with phrases like “when I am not there” or “when I am gone” for what I really mean, of course, is that when I am dead.
 
It astounds me how hesitant we are to talk about our end. Just as all sentences end with a period, all lives end with death. We would think a language teacher inept if she did not teach a pupil how to end a sentence. But we are squeamish to talk about death that puts a full stop to our lifeline. We use silly euphemisms and pretend we are immortal. Until the day cancer gnaws at our colon or a stroke fells us at dusk.
 
I remember I once broached the subject of my end, only to evoke my daughter’s riposte that I was being morbid. It did not surprise me. Morbidity has come to mean, not just the incidence of disease, but a dark state of mind, sheer gloominess. My mind isn’t gloomy at all; it is unaccountably perky and positive. But I see no reason why I can’t talk about a day that is sure to come -- and may not even be far away.
 
Nasty things like Asperger’s or Alzheimer’s are hardly uncommon, but surely such unpleasant possibilities are good reasons for pondering the eventuality. Like everybody else, I would certainly like the end to be brief and breezy, with an iced Campari in my hand and cheery Dvorak playing in the background, or calm and quiet, drifting in my sleep into that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns. But I have limited control over the manner of my exit.
 
But a few other things can be controlled, and I think I may as well say what I would prefer.
 
The one thing I don’t want is that anybody makes a fuss about my departure. I am not Goethe or Gandhi. I would not leave a void of any kind. I would simply, like my father or his father before him, disappear without a trace. The latter died before I was born and my father – that gentle, caring man – I still miss. If someone misses me, it will be an unreceived but very precious gift. Let it be just a quiet sigh in the evening air.
 
I would not like a ceremony or a memorial meeting where people beat their breasts and give long speeches. If two or more want to sit and share a reminiscence, that would not raise my brow, but I certainly don’t want a religious rite. I have attended churches and temples, mosques and synagogues, and read religious texts, in different languages, with great respect and interest. But I don’t believe in the hereafter and have no faith in a deity up in the clouds. I have lived with joy among people; their affection, not piety as defined by some priest, is what I care for.
 
I have seen some ghastly funerals and presided over a few as a part of my consular work. I have also heard of exorbitantly priced coffins and attendant rituals. I would prefer to be unceremoniously cremated, in the cheapest wooden box money can buy. My ashes, useless like all other ash, should be unhesitatingly dumped, unless my daughters care to retain a thimble of it. Despite my general distaste of ‘big’ people and my comfort with ‘ordinary’ people, I realize my life hasn’t been one with which ordinary people can identify. At least, in the way I depart I would like to underscore my utter ordinariness.
 
For most of my life, I have earned more than I needed. Maybe because I never yearned for caviar or cruises. If I have often bought deluxe cars, it was mostly because I understood little of automobiles and wanted something that moved without the need of a nudge. The other thing I continue to splurge on is the computers I use. I always special-order the PCs and Macs I buy, and I buy the most current and potent. I am reluctant to compromise on the things that are not only key to my work but gateways to my ideas. Ideas generate in the head but need the grist of information, literature and music. At least for me. I have always cared little for money but I wanted enough not to have to think about it.
 
I am not Methuselah and, given the present state of science, I don’t care for the idea of a very long life. I enjoy living, feeling the bright sun on my head and the strong breeze on my face, and I would like to live while my limbs function and my mind is still excited by a new idea or news headline. My friends, whose ranks daily dwindle and rarely surge, have importance for me they scarcely imagine; they enliven my days and stimulate my nights. Missing their warmth may be closest to the Norwegian concept of a frigid hell.
 
The people I have loved were simply exquisite. The ones that loved me even more so. If they erred in that, their generosity far outstripped their sagacity. In that, they are blessed. Says my favorite Lloyd Webber song: Love will turn your world around – and that world will last forever.
 
I think it presumptuous to occupy a plot of land and reserve it for my remains, let alone foist a slab of stone or marble with my name on it. But if somebody were to write an epitaph for me, one could perhaps say, “He liked ideas and he had fun.” As Victor Hugo knew, ideas can screw even armies, and life is worth little if we don’t have some fun.
 
And it will be a special fun if my daughters send a thimbleful of my ashes back to India – for a kind friend to pour it into the lake on Southern Avenue, where for years I rowed a boat exuberantly every dawn as the sun slowly emerged.