I read "the Cricket in Times Square" and Beverly Cleary and books about horses and young Indian braves and biographies of George Washington Carver from the school library.

In particular, he likes to recall Dutugemunu, a famous warrior-king of the second century BC, who defeated Elara, a Tamil usurper from India.

The body is transcended and the soul is made pure by mortification of the flesh-including piercings with these needles-in the annual Hindu fire-walking ceremony on Viti Levu Island in Fiji.