Nepal, March 29 -- Back from the barber shop after trimming his hair, Pun Dai sat in the balcony of his house, from where he observed a flock of birds returning home after a long, humid day. Pun Dai found this evening a bit different. Instead of going straight to the ground after the haircut, he had urgently walked towards the house, where his mother gazed at him in mock surprise. Why did her balding son find it necessary to trim his scarce hair? "How was your date?" the mother joked, just to make fun of her son, who, according to her, lacked the colours of life.

The son, as always, wasn't impressed with his mother's joke. He hardly reacted, and when he replied back sometimes, there was no trace of bitterness in his tone. In his mother's...