vimal

And yet, whenever I tried to picture his life, the first thing I saw was Vimal dropping a burlap sack of grain on his cousin's doorstep.

One day Vimal wrote to me saying that he would be taking a few days off to celebrate Makar Sankranti, or Kite-Flying Day.

Vimal told me that on Makar Sankranti, "all ages of people find happiness flying kites in the sky and enjoy" .

I wouldn't have been so surprised had Vimal and I not got off to such a promising start.

Vimal finished the project , and several weeks later I turned to him again, this time to help me move my website to a dedicated server .

The message rattled me, and yet it also fitted neatly into my dark liberal fantasies about Vimal's poverty.

I wired Vimal the money right away, even though the project wasn't complete.

I would show Vimal the trouble I was having with my cable modem, and in the morning it would be fixed.

I badly wanted to believe Vimal , but I no longer did .

Perhaps best of all, in working with Vimal, I had joined the global economy.

It was also the warm formality of Vimal's English.

He signed off every e-mail "Thanks & regards, I remain. Sincerely, Vimal. "

I had no idea if Vimal's family needed grain.

After I paid Vimal, he stopped returning my e-mails.

Vimal again asked that he be paid upfront for the job.

I was convinced that my money was buying grain for Vimal's extended family.

Whatever I asked, Vimal could do.