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orphan ceased to mean anything after you had eaten hundreds of meals at your aunt’s table.
    Though proud and sensitive, he was not perceptive. Over the past year he had many times admired his ability to adjust, allowing his TV channel to be changed, doing his own laundry, cleaning the toilet and bathroom. Now as he sought to understand the reasons behind his uncle’s suggestion he concluded that the Sharmas must have tired of seeing his face, while he, pushed in his tiny room, felt barely visible. When his uncle had said, ‘Family here means different things, beta. We help you be independent. We do not want to cripple you,’ he could almost taste the sugar on the pill being used to get rid of him.
    With distance the feeling of rejection became less, the understanding more, but the shame remained.
    Ananda shone in Dental School. His three years of practice in India gave him confidence amongst his fellow students. He was articulate in the classroom, good with projects and demonstrations, always ready to help others. His particular friend was Gary Geller, who was the same age as him. Thickset, small bright blue eyes, short blond hair, ready laughter, only child. His father was a dentist too.
    Gary had taken a few years off after high school, spending this time working at menial jobs and travelling in Asia. He knew India, he had a broad cultural empathy. High time Ananda stopped clinging to his uncle, he said. He realised that sorrow and the pain of leaving his country made him want to hang on to the familiar. But every young adult in North America left home as soon as possible. Come on, man, it was time to be a bit more Canadian. His parents took boarders (as no doubt the Sharmas would as soon as he left), why didn’t he talk to them?
    ‘They hardly know me,’ said Ananda, disguising his relieved, tacit acceptance of Gary’s proposal—still being taken care of, but a step outside home, and a man has to start somewhere.
    ‘They’ve met you enough times. Now you speak to them today?’ It was not a question, Gary’s statements sounded like this, as he was Haligonian born and bred.
    The Gellers would be delighted to have him. They looked upon him as their own, and the rent was fifty dollars a week. That very evening Ananda told his uncle who congratulated him on his independence. He was his own blood, he said with great feeling, and the hundred dollars a month were his till he graduated.
    Dr Sharma felt he could now stand before his sister on judgement day with his head held high. And the year of listening to the slight barbs Nancy had subjected him to was over. The way Indians did things made no sense to her, though he had repeatedly tried to explain the duty he owed a dead sister’s son. Before he had issued the sponsorship, they had both agreed Ananda would spend time with them, but even after years of marriage, Dr Sharma had not realised that for Nancy time meant one month whereas for him it had meant at least a year. He had tried to speed up his nephew’s acclimatisation, but grief made the process slow. Now Gary had stepped in, preventing him from feeling too bad about the boy’s departure.
    ‘You have known them quite a while, no?’
    ‘Ji.’
    ‘Once you are settled I will visit regularly, alright?’
    ‘Ji.’
    Gary helped him shift. One trip in his car was all it took. Lara and Lenny had been ordered by their father to be there to say goodbye. The bonds of an Indian family were strong, he preached, and they said yes Dad, and indulged him—easy since the circumstances involved departure.
    ‘Thank you, Lara, Lenny, Aunty, Uncle, I am sorry for any inconvenience I might have caused you,’ said the well brought up boy.
    ‘You couldn’t help it,’ responded the aunt genially, ‘it is difficult when one goes abroad for the first time. But you have adjusted nicely, very nicely.’
    Dr Sharma beamed. ‘Come and see us often,’ he repeated.
    ‘Well, I must say they’re going to miss you,’ said Gary