My friend, Sajjan, grew up in a remote village in Nepal and walked four miles to school every day. The school was a mud hut with thatched roof, where the teacher wrote lessons on an old blackboard and all the students copied in silence. They spoke only when asked to speak, and an eager rod greeted any infraction. Sajjan was young, eager and curious. He wanted to understand a few things he read, and hesitantly he raised a hand in the class.

The teacher, Shresthaji, turned to him, but, as he started speaking, cut him off mid-sentence and sternly asked him to memorise the passages instead. Sajjan never had the explanation he sought. On two more occasions he had taken courage and asked a question. Each time Shresthaji had frowned, and told him to keep quiet and do what he had been told to do. To drive home the point, Shresthaji had caned another boy who had imprudently asked a question. Then a miracle happened. Sajjan’s father and family gained a US visa through the diversity lottery.

Sajjan came to Maryland, stayed, like the rest of his family, with an uncle who had immigrated earlier. Though the uncle’s children helped, it took Sajjan quite a while to get used to the way people lived and behaved in his new world. He joined and attended the local school. It was very different. The pupils spoke out all the time. If Sajjan didn’t speak – he felt uncomfortable speaking English for a long time – the teacher asked him to speak.

If he asked a question, the teacher seemed happy and answered at length. He asked a classmate about caning. The classmate was confused and simply didn’t understand the question. Six years later, the family went for a visit to Nepal. They took a bus from the capital, Kathmandu, and then rented a ramshackle cab to take them to their old village near Nalang. The last few miles they had to walk.

They spent the whole day with relatives and old neighbors and regaled them with stories of their new life in a strange world. Sajjan took his father’s permission and made the long trek to his old school. The school hadn’t changed at all, except that Shresthaji looked much older. He still seemed to wear his old weather-beaten glasses and peered for long at Sajjan’s face without recognition.

Sajjan persisted and mentioned several of his classmates’ names, with no good result. Then Sajjan mentioned key events, such as the time a visiting school inspector had an accident and two mountaineers had died nearby in a climbing mishap. Shresthaji still scratched his neck. Then Sajjan hesitantly mentioned the occasions he had asked a question. Shresthaji’s face lit up with recognition. “So you are the boy who always asked questions?” he said with finality. Sajjan could have said that he had asked a question only thrice. He didn’t dare to venture a fourth time.

He chose, however, to remain modestly silent. He had intended to ask why a student who sought an explanation needed to be caned. But he had already noticed the surprised look on Shresthaji’s face that an unruly pupil, who defied class discipline and asked improper questions instead of compliantly memorizing passages, had done well, wore decent clothes and even gone abroad. Sajjan politely took leave. He walked back all the four miles to his family’s home, quite satisfied.

(The writer is a Washington-based international development advisor and had worked with theWorld Bank. He can be reached at mnandy@gmail.com)