He said he was a dancer. He looked like a young Parsi fellow to me, in his 20s, gaunt, a little bewildered. It was 1973 and my editor had asked me to do a piece on him, adding that he seemed like a sport and might be up for crazy ideas. I was 21, just five years younger than him, but no less crazy. What about walking through busy Calcutta, I asked him, and he breaking out in spontaneous dance wherever the spirit seized him?

I noticed then that his cheeks dimpled when he grinned. They still dimpled exactly the same way 47 years later when I saw him for the last time in Mumbai last year. He was still dancing. He looked just a little tired.