“Mister Sampath A Good Person”

Children can tell if an adult is a good person just by being in there presence for a moment. Our neighbor –Mister Sampath was East Indian. Our friendship started when I was very young. Every Friday when I came home from kindergarten, he used to tell my mother to send me over to his home. The moment I arrived, he would tell me to have a seat on the little bench on the porch and he would sit in a chair.

Mrs. Sampath would be in the kitchen cooking and the food always smelt delicious. He would be talking loudly to her. Every now and then, they would both laugh at their jokes. I would quietly sit there looking seriously at him and listening. I was never afraid or uncomfortable with him. He would eventually look at me and say, “How was school?”

I always had a story to tell him, so I would start to chat. Mrs. Sampath would come out of the kitchen with a large enamel bowl of curry goat, put it on the table then hand him one medium size bowl and a small bowl. He would dish out some curry goat into the small bowl and hand it to me, serve himself then say to me, “Eat. Tell me how it tastes?”

“I would say, “Nice~ Hot~ Pepper.”

He would smile and say, “Bring some water for the child.”

I sipped my water and ate the curry goat. When I was finished eating what was in my bowl, he would put more meat into it. We would talk over our bowls of curry goat. Sometime later, I would head home with great anticipation for the next Friday, of our little chats over bowls of curry goat…