When Mr. Lightbody asked what his first name was, it turned out to be an unpronounceable
mouthful.
"Sat…what?" Lightbody's face was a friendly grimace of incredulity.
"Satyendradat," Mr Ghansam repeated.
"Howd'you spell that?"
Mr. Ghansam spelled his name and Mr. Lightbody screwed up his face and made a credible
attempt to sound out the syllables. Finally, giving up, he said, "Listen, why don't we just call
you Gandhi?"
Mr. Ghansam laughed quickly. These aggressive Americans! This quick desire to abbreviate
everything, making foreign-sounding names simple and controllable. He wasn't as nimble with
rejoinders to their frequent jokes; but right then under the circumstances he felt the right
response was to be the team player.
"Gandhi!" he said. "Well, at least that's close to Ghansam. As long as you don't mistake me
for the Mahatma."
"Mistake you for the great Mahatma? Naaah! I promise you that won't happen."
When he got home he told Mrs. Ghansam what Lightbody had said. She was not amused.
Once they'd settled into the carpool routine Mr. Ghansam sat quietly but attentively
through the ride, letting Lightbody, Meier and Brebnor do the talking. Even when it was his
turn at the wheel he let them talk, the fixed smile on his face suggesting the open friendliness
of a man from a distant culture, not quick to take offence. Besides, as he reminded Mrs.
Ghansam, you learn a lot when you listen to these Americans. "They like to expound on
subjects they know absolutely nothing about."
Mr. Lightbody had this habit of donning a NASA Eagle cap the minute he got into the car for
the journey home. "Why do you do that?" Mr. Ghansam asked him one afternoon?
"Do what…you mean the cap?…I don't know. I put this cap on my head and rightaway I feel
I'm a different person…I feel transformed…like I'm not a teacher at the John." Mr. Lightbody's
name for John Wayne Cotter H.S. was the John, or sometimes the W.C." "No seriously, at the
end of the day you want to feel…like you again…like you've dropped a big load off your mind."
And Mr. Ghansam smiled as if he'd sneaked a peek into Mr. Lightbody's soul, and now could
claim he really understood the man.
(from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 