India, Aug. 22 -- In these days of doomscrolling, I often crave a short story or novel that will warm the heart.

If I can't find one from recent times, fiction often being as gloomy as the times it's written in, I go back to old favourites, to feel at least momentarily uplifted.

Rin (Debt) is one such short story, particularly apt for Teachers' Day (September 5). The writer, Badiuzzaman (1928 - 1986), was introduced to me by his son, Shazi Zaman, a journalist and accomplished Hindi writer himself. He gave me a volume of short stories by his father, and that's how I read Rin.

The story is in the first person and begins with an unnamed narrator remembering how his Abbajan, a teacher, once taught English and arithmetic to a small group of...