Sometimes I am playing a game all my own: I write down all my social roles and different identities -- a husband, a businessman, a writer, A student of world history and current politics,the son of Namboodiri parents, a brother, a Hindu, a friend of this or that person, an inhabitant of Chicago, a traveler to a big part of the world from America to India, a tourist who lived abroad for a while, a person who is interested in learning and communicating with other cultures and a member of this and that association. Then, I become happy because this game reveals how rich I am. My richness is magical. Whatever the investment is, it is increasing daily. The most effective way of adding more to my wealth is to travel, especially within India. These travels always surprise me; I feel like the owner of a very large enterprise who has many things but is seeing them for the first time. I am not only talking about the ancient sites of India -- I also mean different cultures, the variety of the lives and meeting people who are as rich as I.

Let me explain. Most of the time when I travel in India, I feel the same surprise as a foreign tourist. For example, meeting with young boys and girls in Kolkatta who came from towns far away in order to participate the book fair makes me surprised and happy. Visiting Shanti Niketan a suburb near Kolkatta adds to my wealth. In this well-preserved village, while my ears ring from the silence I hear the villager serving me tea saying, Have your tea, I have to get back to the set of a movie filming, surprises me, too.

In Kannur, Kerala while most people think that the city is becoming the center of political violence, noticing the people with their open hearts and minds makes me happy, too. I am astonished to learn that in a very touristy place in Kannur they serve tea and pazzampori, but not molakku bajji because it is too hot. Or the streets of Andheri, Mumbai where just standing near the McDonalds I see people from all over the country, while enjoying my favorite Pani-Puri, while ,making a small talk with the street vendors who seem not so busy only during the office hours. The camaraderie on the local trains in Mumbai is something that I always enjoyed.

I do not claim that everything I see around India seems nice, nor do I ignore the huge problems, conflicts or bad moods. But in the end my country makes me rich, just like my social roles and identities.

But one of the biggest problems of being rich is the threat of being robbed or victimized by an enemy. In the middle of richness, there are those with bad intentions. They are so poor in their hearts and minds that they cant see they are actually as rich as I. The only thing they are able to think is making people like me as poor as possible. Their usual method is either not to communicate or try to cut the communication ties between me and the people like me. Sometimes they are really doing their best to turn others into one-sided, one-dimensional people, sentencing the people like us to miserable poverty.

But I know one thing for sure: richness can grow only if we share it.