He lost his father while he was still in his early teens. The confusing cusp between infancy and adult life, where an unknown outside world stands in sharp contrast to a simpler inside one. I didn’t know him well then and that event passed me by without a trace. My memories of him were that he was plump, quiet and had a beautific smile.
I lost touch with him after school and we met many decades later. He had lost weight, was strikingly handsome and a book publisher. I had read a foreword by him a decade earlier in a worksite camp room on a hot sunday afternoon. A fleeting curiosity coursed through me about the journey that had brought him to those pages, though I never finished the book then. He had a peaceful aura about him now that made me look forward to the rare occasions when we would run into each other.
Click here to read the essay on Anand’s blog.