May this letter reach you and find you in good health after six months on this shore. You see, I lost the paper on which you had written your cousin’s information when I left you at the depot. Somehow in the confusion of my disembarking at Hambelton, seeing the new people, and feeling deprived of the safety of your company—I was almost struck by a carriage in the bazaar—your slip of paper must have flown from my pocket and landed on the doorstep of some puzzled shopkeeper. Bhai-ji, it is only by memory that I have written your cousin’s postal address on the envelope, and that too using English letters. You know they are not familiar to me. I pray that you located his home without any obstacles and that you are comfortably settled in California State. If you hold this paper in your hands, it is by the Guru’s grace.

After leaving you at the train station I walked more than twenty furlongs to find the home of my village-mate, Pala Singh. I wandered from the main street of the colony to a dirt path. I was soon lost. I returned to the depot and asked the ticket seller, “How to find K Street?” For hours I had practiced the pronunciation of the English words just as you taught me, but still this fellow—so pale, so very pale!—looked at me with a question on his face. He said, “K Street?” and I felt fear straight to my backbone, thinking I had left the train at the wrong stop. He studied my face, my clothing, my shoes. He asked, “You are from British India, or China, or Japan?” From your tutoring, I knew enough to understand him. I told him I was from Hindustan. Suddenly, giving me a big smile, he said, “Ah, Hindu Alley . . . Hindu Alley is what you mean—” and he gave me directions for turning right at the power generator, crossing the railroad tracks, and going straight. He asked me, gesturing with his hands, why I don’t wear the dastar on my head. I was taken aback by his question.