Author Description

Dr. Avi Wolff is a geologist, with a specialty in hydrology. The World Bank has requested his assistance in mediating a recent dispute over the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, an agreement between India and Pakistan that involves the water rights of six rivers. This is a powerful issue. And in the past it has brought India and Pakistan to the verge of nuclear war. Each of these rivers runs through India before they go into Pakistan. And whoever controls the water controls the lives of a country.Avi had made some mistakes in his graduate school days at Berkeley. He liked to tease and to joke, he enjoyed stirring people up, especially his roommate Wasim Attar, a Pakistani who now lived in Kashmir and had come to Berkeley for his graduate work in geology. It wasn’t that Wasim didn’t deserve being Avi’s source of amusement, the boy couldn’t get along with anybody. Everything about Berkeley was an affront to his senses.A month or so before going to India, Dr. Wolff started getting emails from Wasim. Why not get together when Avi comes to India? A cup of coffee perhaps, talk about old times, resolve differences. It seemed like a good idea.