“Anyway, last November I returned to this village and I had not been there in 35 years and 10 months. I literally had to coerce the driver to take me up there. And I parked the car and I walked into the village and within minutes a woman who was 12 when I was 19 addressed me by name. And I was taken from pillar to post, hut to hut and probably served 50 glasses of tea. I was shaking like a vibrator. I couldn’t sleep the whole night when I finally got back to Delhi. I was shown photo albums. I met the children of children. I saw weddings. I saw funerals in these albums. Simply put, this well transformed the agricultural economy in this village. Not only did I presume nobody would know me, I presumed the well wouldn’t work. I now was this sort of present-at-the-creation circumstantial folk hero, because I was there. I would love to tell him the story.

–James Mathieu '72