"Ram Sharma" and I talked long about the wisdom of doing this piece. He wanted to share his isolation and humiliation with another human being and possibly get some help in extricating himself from his situation. Regarding an interview, he said I should decide. No, I replied; he was the one at risk. He thought, then nodded. He was so desperate he would try anything, he said.

I'm not sure I would be as brave. As an illegal worker in Japan, he has a lot to lose.

As of Feb. 18, according to revisions made last year of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, illegal stay is now a crime. Also, the period of refusal of landing for anyone previously repatriated (the nice word for deported) for illegal landing or stay has been extended to five years.

Ram Sharma's visa ran out last December, so he falls within the provision of the original act. This decreed that any person staying beyond the period of stay authorized would be punished by penal servitude or imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine of no more than 300,000 yen. Authorities have rarely imposed such penalties, choosing to repatriate offenders as quickly as possibly instead. But this still places this normally responsible and mild-mannered Nepalese in one hell of a bind.

In 1993, the number of official foreign workers -- the tip of a rather large iceberg, it is believed -- peaked at 300,000. That was in response to Japan's need for outside labor -- largely Asian -- to do the kind of jobs that no longer appealed to Japanese workers. As recessive forces bore down on the economy, the crackdown began. Last year, of the 48,493 people deported, 40,535 were illegal workers. As of Jan. 1, 1999, 271,084 entrants were counted as having left when their visas expired, with 268,421 remaining in Japan six months later.

Ram Sharma is not his real name. He chose it on my suggestion as the Brahman equivalent of Suzuki Taro, or John Smith. And I will only say that his daughter's name translates as "someone who has a lot to do in her life and will be remembered." He is normally part of a large extended family in Katmandu. "We are my wife and daughter, my two brothers, their wives and three children, and my father, 75, and mother, 65. Eleven people in one house with one kitchen. This is our culture."

He and his wife only became aware of their daughter's condition when she was 20 months old. "She began to tire easily; that is when the doctor told us she had VSD (ventricular septal defect)." A graduate in geography from Tribhuna University, Ram was working as a technician in central government. "I worked there 20 years, as a draftsman."

With only one children's hospital in Nepal, the family was told they must wait seven years for surgery; in the meantime there was a chance the hole in the heart might close naturally. It didn't, and at age 7, Ram took his ailing daughter to the Indian Medical University in New Delhi. Told that tests were lengthy and expensive, he took her home. Eventually he was given an operation date in Nepal, but then another family member required emergency treatment.

Soon after Ram's daughter was put back on the waiting list, he met a Nepalese doctor who had just returned from Japan. "He told me if I could take her there, she would have a new life."

Given the name of a colleague, Ram wrote and was referred to a Japanese cardiologist in Nagoya. "I made an appointment, applied for a tourist visa, and with my daughter and a younger brother arrived in Osaka on Sept. 5." From there (with some difficulty it should be said, since neither brother knew anything of Japanese culture, and Ram had little English) they made their way to Nagoya.

After being admitted and given the full range of tests for her condition, Ram was told that his daughter did not need to be operated on immediately, but if she showed any symptoms of heart failure, then she should come back. When she left the hospital on Sept. 9, her father picked up the bill. "I paid what I had," he said, simply. "But it wasn't enough. I still owe some 300,000 yen."

Ram had taken out a loan in Nepal, the remainder of which, after purchasing tickets, he transferred to a bank in Osaka. The loan was a huge amount by Nepalese standards: the equivalent of 1.3 million yen. "My salary is $N3,000 a month (around 5,000 yen). So you can see, it would take a lifetime to pay off. But at that time, my only concern was my daughter."

For two days, they hung out in Nagoya Station, with no money left, trying to work out how to get back to Osaka. Eventually Ram made contact with people who helped them get the child on a plane back to Katmandu. She returned alone on Sept. 12.

Ram was faced then with three problems. The loan to pay off in Nepal. Repaying the hospital in Nagoya that had been "so kind and gone to so much trouble." And the possibility that he might need their urgent help again, should his daughter deteriorate. "This made it impossible for me -- or my brother -- to run away." He wouldn't anyway; far too much a man of honor.

Asked if he had planned to work in Japan, he shook his head vehemently: No, no, never, never. Somehow he ended up north of Tokyo, wondering what to do next. "I am 38, but after 38 days in Gunma I looked a lot older!" The only solution seemed to be a job. "My brother had gone to Hamamatsu. He speaks good English, and as far as I know he is still there. Bits of money keep arriving in my loan/hospital account, so I guess he is OK."

Ram found employment on Oct. 11. His tourist visa ran out Dec. 4. For a man of his intelligence and sensitivity, it must be hard to spend 13 hours a day, six days a week, working in a restaurant in central Tokyo for 110,000 yen a month plus meals. (Should payment be late, he had no means of redress; anyway, his employers are in defiance of the law in hiring him, so he's grateful.)

He sleeps in a room at the back with three other men. Only two of these workers are legally employed; Ram and his friend officially do not exist. And here's the rub. Despite the current unemployment rate of just over 4 per cent, few are prepared to do what Ram does for that kind of money: washing up, scouring ranges, scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets. (Interestingly, as the number of illegal workers officially goes down, their payment is going up -- from 7,000 yen to 10,000 yen a day on average.)

It is a miserable life, especially as he keeps his spending down to 10,000 yen a month ("just cigarettes, my only real vice"). He never goes out, and has no close friends other than his fellow illegal worker. "If I didn't have him, I don't know what I'd do. For him, Japan was a steppingstone to America, but then his visa was refused and now he's stuck. Neither of us are bad people, just trapped."

Ram has already sent 150,000 yen back to help pay off the loan in Nepal. He is also liasing with staffers at the hospital in Nagoya as to how to pay back what he owes. "I need 10 to 15 months at most to get clear, then I'll be off like a flash. I miss my family. My job is in jeopardy. And I don't understand Japan at all. I'm not having a good time here."

When I suggested he come down to visit on his day off, his eyes filled with tears. He would like that very much, he said. "As you can see I have nothing, so anything is a gift." But then he gathered himself: "In my country, people cannot afford medicines. I was lucky I could come here. Even if I lose my job back home, I have a small pension. I'm very optimistic by nature. There are a lot of people in the world much worse off than me."

What he needs is a kindly benefactor (my idea, not his): someone willing to help defer his medical expenses and any legal bill incurred in going home. Or a sponsor for a better job; it seems terrible that good skills should go to waste. His dream -- what keeps him going when washing up hour after hour -- is to learn everything there is to know about GIS (geographical information system) software. "There is a great demand in Nepal. All I want is to pay my debts, go home and see my daughter. Is that too much to ask?"

No, it's not. The question is, how? Ram is just one of the many workers that Japan says it does not want, but at the same time can't seem to do without. Some would call such a double bind the worst kind of hypocrisy. Personally, I think that criminal.