The Secret Life of a Black Aspie: A Memoir

by Anand Prahlad

I had the greatest teachers everywhere I went, not just in classrooms. Famous teachers. Philosophers and mystics, scholars and poets. I met teachers on the way to school and on my way back home. I met them at the back of the bus and on the street corners, in stores and restaurants. I met them at bus and train stations, in homeless shelters, in the lobbies of fancy hotels and halls. I met them under trees in the park, in gardens, in beds of linen and cotton and flannel and down. I must have been doing something good in another life to have such great teachers in this one. All my teachers nurtured and took care of me as if my mama and granny had called them up and said, “Can you please look after our child?” They passed me invisible things. They helped me to keep my dignity.