Enigma: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand. An apt description of the life of R. Franklin Cook. Tadpole chronicles this enigmatic life: from Cook's formative years in colonial India; to his experiences during the tumultuous period of its independence from Britain; to his adjustment of returning to the United States, a place he had never considered home; to his witness of the revolutionary 1960s and the 1989 breach of the Berlin Wall that opened
the Iron Curtain, Franklin's life and career have often intersected with global events. But India always beckoned him. India, the place he spent his first 16 years, is the compass that always pointed him home.
