New Delhi, Aug. 30 -- It's already too late, for some are gone, but I owe an army of people thank-you notes. The teacher who unravelled poetry for me. My dad's colleague who guided me through an early bout of despondency. The journalist who spent nights in the early 1980s on a typewriter teaching me how to write leads.

And also the broad-shouldered man from Kolkata, his love for learning inexhaustible, his manner unaffected, his time-keeping awful (though he always showed up), his generosity unceasing. Ask his friends and they can't remember when he took a fee from a patient.

I called him Doc and he died two weeks ago.

My friend, 18 years older, was an Olympic medallist in hockey but never showed off about it. He worked in cricket and ...