I first met Fr Charles in my parish church in Dehradun. Good sermons are hard to come by here and I invariably get excited when a new priest arrives because “there’s always hope”! Charles did not disappoint. Except by the fact that he wasn’t staying around.

I discovered, on that first Sunday, that he had been coming to Dehradun since 1987 when he made his first visit as a volunteer at Raphael, the city’s oldest organisation for people with disability. For awhile he came every three or four years but nowadays, he comes annually.

It’s one of the highlights of our year. He comes for a week, usually around Diwali, and we always manage to snag him for an evening at home. Usually, we try to sneak in a few extra sightings as well, though it’s difficult as he has a loyal and devoted fan club.

Charles is remarkable for the breadth of his friendships. There are people like me – ex-pats who are members of the parish – but there are also the residents of Raphael, old staff members, drivers, generals, brigadiers, therapists and special educators. He is as at home in a tiny one room hut on the Rispana River as he is in some of the fanciest homes in the city. He is squired around on a motorbike by Raju, a special educator he introduced me to and on whose recommendation we hired at the CVT. Others drop what they are doing to come and see him from as far away as Delhi and Selakui.

What I look forward to is the chance to talk about the events of our lives in the past year with a person who is sympathetic, keenly intelligent, insightful and very funny.  This time, we happened to be travelling to Delhi on the same day. For three hours (until Saharanpur when the person sitting next to him boarded the train and I had to go back to my own compartment), we discussed our work, political events, the recent attacks on Christians in India, Anand’s advertising work, Cathleen’s theology studies, Moy Moy’s health and spirits, and a little bit of Dehradun gossip.

It was a wonderful ride, and I intend to use some of what we talked about in my next Commonweal column!