The Dalai Lama's Cat (The Dalai Lama's Cat 1)

As a graduate in semiotics, Lobsang understood this. “Good,” he nodded. “I hoped you would find it stimulating.” By which he meant, “Apology accepted. We all have our days.”

There was a pause. Having put the book on Lobsang’s desk, Raj Goel took a step back. He didn’t look at Lobsang directly but glanced around the office for a few moments as though trying to find the right words.

“So … you lived in America?” he asked eventually.

“Yes.”

“For ten years?”

“That’s right.”

Another long pause. Then, “What is it like?”

Lobsang pushed back from his desk and waited till his visitor finally looked him in the eye. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I want to go live there for a while, but my family wants me to marry,” Raj Goel began.

It seemed that Lobsang’s question had dislodged a blockage of some kind. Once Raj Goel started, there was no stopping him. “I have friends in New York saying ‘Come and stay with us,’ and I am very keen to do so, because all my life I’ve wanted to visit the Big Apple and earn real dollars and maybe even meet a movie star. But my parents have chosen this girl, you see, and her parents also want us to marry, and they are saying, ‘America will always be there.’ Also, my boss is pressuring me to go into management development training, but the loan will tie me to the company for six years and I’m feeling trapped. As it is, work pressure is already overwhelming.”

After this sudden outpouring, the stillness of Lobsang’s office was palpable. Lobsang gestured toward a pair of chairs in the corner. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

A short while later, the two of them were sitting together. As Lobsang sipped his tea, Raj Goel spared no detail about the conflicting pressures—pressures that were, no doubt, the real source of his disagreeable behavior the week before. He told Lobsang about the agonies of following his friends on Facebook and YouTube as they traveled around America. How his parents thought that a middle-management position with Dharamsala Telecom was the most he could ever aspire to, but he had his own, more entrepreneurial ideas. How his instincts to spread his wings were in constant tension with the loyalty he felt toward his parents, who had made great sacrifices to give him a good education.

The past few weeks in particular had been a time of great anxiety and sleepless nights. He told Lobsang how he had tried to be rational, looking at the advantages and disadvantages of each course of action.

It was at this point that my casual interest in the conversation became suddenly personal. Trying to weigh one course of action against another

—that sounded familiar! Raj Goel and I were the same in this respect.

Finally, the visitor confessed the real purpose of his visit that morning: “I am hoping you can give me some advice to help me reach a decision.”

Making my way toward a spare armchair, I hopped up on it and fixed Lobsang with an expression of blue clarity. I was most interested in hearing what he had to say.

“I don’t have any special wisdom,” said Lobsang, in the way that especially wise practitioners always do. “I have no qualities or realizations. I don’t know why you think I can advise.”

“But you lived in America for ten years.” Raj Goel was vehement. “And … ” Lobsang waited for him to finish. “You know about things.” Raj Goel lowered his gaze as though embarrassed to be admitting this, especially to a man whose mental capacity he had questioned only a week earlier.

Lobsang simply asked him, “Do you love the girl?”

Raj Goel seemed surprised by the question. He shrugged. “I have seen a photograph of her only once.”

His reply remained suspended in space for a while, like a rising wisp of smoke. “I’m told she wants children, and my parents want us to have children.”

“Your friends in America. How long will they be there?”

“They have two-year visas. They plan on traveling coast to coast.”

“If you want to join them, you must go—?”

“Soon.”

Lobsang nodded. “What is holding you back?”

“My parents,” Raj Goel retorted somewhat sharply, as though Lobsang hadn’t grasped any of what he’d been saying. “The arranged marriage. My boss who wants me to—”

“Yes, yes, the management training.” Lobsang’s tone was skeptical.

“Why do you say it like that?”