““The proctor still held the note, and he turned it so I could read it. Imtiaz had written it on his official stationery, with his name and title embossed at the top. “Please allow this student to sit for the exam,” it said. “It is my personal guarantee that his fees will be paid.” He’d signed it with his full name and printed his title below, as if to make certain no one would imagine I’d forged the note. I felt a hitch in my throat and a flush in my cheeks, a spasm of gratitude for such an act of faith and kindness. Imtiaz barely knew me, if he recognized me at all. He owed me nothing. Yet he had staked his reputation, and a sum of money, on me, merely because I had a need for which he was able to provide. I’d always been taught that people are fundamentally decent, and that each individual should be treated with as much dignity as I can muster. But to see it play out, to be the direct recipient of such kindness? To read Imtiaz’s words? Perhaps it seemed a minor gesture to him, a moment of jotting a few lines on a paper, nothing more. But the consequences for me were, literally, life-changing.””
