Well, one contract has ended , and another is beginning. Yesterday evening, while riding BART home from teaching, I sat next to a young man who turned out to be homeless. He had spent the day in San Francisco word processing his résumé and was then returning to Berkeley. We ended up talking about his application for an AC Transit job. He had driven a school bus before, and he still had his class B license. He didn't ask me for money, and when he got off at the Berkeley station, a group of eight Indians got on: two women and six men. A young black man asked one of the men if any of their group spoke Arabic. The Indian was a bit confused, but finally answered a simple "no". The young man looked disappointed and left at the next stop. The Indians were speaking to each other in Hindi. I could just make out a couple of words in their conversation: âcchâ and hai.