Abscond

by Abraham Verghese

He’d read somewhere that an infant could recognize its mother by her scent alone; he would know his mother from these abrupt volleys of sound.

His father wagged his head, his chin swinging like a pendulum, a gesture that could mean any number of things.

In her vocabulary, “passion,” 8especially in a child, was the grass fire that had to be stamped out before it destroyed everything the farmer planted.

To be the child of Indian parents meant you also had a secret self. Like having brown skin, you had no choice.

“Saving it, was he? Look how that turned out. What a waste, eh? Well, let’s not stand on ceremony. Find it, will you, lad?”

I need that ritual, even if I came to it late.

“You see, Ravi, this world isn’t just all the things we can see and touch. It’s also all the things we can’t see, the things we choose to believe.”

He’d been dreaming of his future; he thought he had it plotted out, but now such things felt naive and immature. Yes, he could plan, he must plan, but he had to take into account that fate—or God, or the universe—had its own plans; it was indifferent to his plan. For that reason, and for the first time in his life, he saw that a secret self was so unnecessary. Whatever he chose to do, he’d do it to the best of his ability. It was silly to worry about pleasing or displeasing others with his choices; life was hard enough without such meaningless concerns.