There’s a blackened patch of earth in the landscape of my mind as far as home is concerned. When I think of it, I don’t even want to see anyone from high school. I guess I have lived for so long in Kerala I could not tell people anymore what I think of high school reunions. But that the smartest should be sitting in the town council is a piece of glad news, and I would have been gladder if they made it to the mayoralty and vice mayoralty. Conversation always wind up to high school reunion, and our jolly batch of 1980 graduates, my cousin who lives in town, reported to me, topped the bill in the fund-raising. Your batch is the richest, with the guys in America contributing thirty thousand pesos each and an engineer now in Cebu donating another thirty. And as the class treasurer reported to me, the hundred thousands in donation went to benches in the school gymnasium and scholarships. Lord oh Lord, the donors’ names etched on benches and fences. See. I am really Arch Meanie and don’t deserve a peso in donation for my causes, and still Boyet, nicest guy in high school now in the town council, showed me around. They took me to lunch and to my surprise and delight, they did not ask me any questions, and the one who did ask, asked one question that matters. “Happy ka didto sa Jolo, Sheilf?”