A Gentle Man

Last night I stopped for take-out at the Kebab Factory, a stylish Indian place. While I waited the waiter brought me a pair of onion rings in Indian sauce -- "Compliments of the house." They were good onion rings, and when the waiter came by again I asked him if onion rings were traditional in India -- why not? -- but both he and the bartender became embarrassed. I tried to smooth over their embarrassment; it's a nice combination of traditions, I said, and nicely done. Then I took out my practice book of songs.

I felt the waiter leaning over my shoulder to look at the book. "Italian Songs," I explained, "mostly from three or four hundred years ago."

"Do you play them on the piano?", he asked.

"No, I sing them."

"I play the guitar," he said, and I looked at him. He was youthful, with liquid eyes. He smiled and said, "I am from Nepal."

This man might be gay, I thought, but this doesn't feel like a hustle. It feels like the attention of young boy, or a bird landing on my arm. I asked him if his guitar was Nepalese and if he played folk songs. It was a Western guitar, but he did play folk songs. There is a Nepalese instrument, he said, the sarangi, made from wood and skin with a horse-hair bow, but Nepalese boys these days would rather learn the guitar. There was one Westerner, a German man, who learned the sarangi and came to Nepal and sang folk songs. He was good, and they made a video of him.

I told him that I sang folk songs, too, some from America, and some from the Soviet Union. Then there was a lull, and the waiter said, "Thank you, Sir," and returned to work.