Every once in awhile one of my students' immigration stories starts to haunt me. Prakesh's maybe has the makings of a novel. (Prakesh is not his real name--I Googled a list of common Nepali names.)
He stayed after class to explain why he had come in late and didn't have the assignment done, and little by little the story unfolded.
He is from a working-class family in Kathmandu, and never seriously thought about leaving. One time, as a passing lark, he and a bunch of his friends all put in applications for the U.S. immigration lottery. By one of those random twists of fate, Prakesh won.
After that, he didn't have much choice. The family pressure to go to America and make money was overwhelming. He had no contacts in the U.S., but picked San Francisco as a place that sounded good, got a job driving a cab all night and signed up for school during the day. I had him in another class a few years ago, and remember that his work was pretty good, but often late. Apparently he then got overwhelmed with loneliness and homesickness, and decided to give it up and go home. But after he got back to Kathmandu, his father became sick and money was needed for his medical care, so Prakesh had to return to America make more.
So here he is, living out a lonely and exhausting adventure that sprang unexpectedly from a long-ago joke.
That's one of the saddest things I've ever read. Goes to show that riches don't always equal money, huh?
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