If I can call this seasonal

Ok this is where I had said, I would be watching myself “at it” and this is my journal, so if you think this is “intellectual/emotional masturbating” please go away and come back when the weather clears?  If you are a friend, am sure you are going to see the fun-part and have a good laugh anyway and you would know am doing the same too, myself, even as I cope with it all…

One of the absurdly redeeming aspects of a horrible event happening in your life is that you are in front of the mirror once again and ask that khandani existential question yet again: who AM I?  O why?  You take a good hard look at yourself. It’s Stock-taking moment – STM.

Breaking up with a man you love dearly is one such (unpleasant) event that turns you in –  inwards. Of course, you re-orient and move on. But before that is the phase where you plunge in, go underground to explore the hidden depths of your being, ostensibly looking for the source of that well spring that restores : faith, sanity, well being…

And it is at this time you are wide open – to all kinds of ideas – ideas you believed in and ones that you never even thought of before. In the effort to re-establish balance, to find equilibrium, you go through that strange but wonderful flux-n-quest that takes you through such a varied and colourful experience it feels like you are riding the Kaleidoscope instead of just eyeing it!

Dregs that were churned up : 1) letters from friends which cant be produced here, 

2) tarot card reading of who I am:

 

You are The Lovers(!)

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE.. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can’t understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. PS – This I come to find and read on the very day I lose my love. :)

Dregs that were churned up: 3)  a quiz showing what flower I am:

I am a Daffodil   What Flower Are You?

” You have a sunny disposition and are normally one of the first to show up for the party. You don’t need too much attention from the host once you get there as you are more than capable of making yourself seen and heard” it says at the site.

Dregs that were churned up: 4) a favourite line : “….Life remains a blessing though you  cannot bless…” from who else but the great Bard of England.

Dregs that were churned up: 5) Another favourite -  a poem by May sarton

 ”If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.

Well, what do I now? Miss dinner. Spontaneous fasting. And then sweet slumber till another day dawns and the sun shines. Wait, let the tide roll, and time flow and just carry on…….

wish – 2live

Someday soon, I want to be able to walk right up to some man I admire and say to him, “Shudhi, bless me with a child!”

I should be free to marry when I will. At age fifty-two, if that is when I find a man I wish to serve and share and spend my whole life with. Didn’t mention love here because that is obvious. You dont want to serve people you do not love, do you? Well I don’t.

I should be free to marry who I will.

I should be free to use my womb as I will and should not be forced into an arranged marriage with a gay man just because they think he has to be hidden under ‘cover’ of a ‘normal’ marriage, and then together with him, suffer the ignominy of either being unloved or be a ‘divorcee’ for no fault of ours.

Someday soon I should be able to enjoy all the individual rights my predecessors had thousands of years ago, as I am as competent, as intelligent, as sensitive and in every way as capable as any of them. And also because I live in times that we are made to believe have ‘progressed’…

If Kunti could have had IVF babies from four different able men she had chosen herself, if Madri could have had two, living in the twenty first century, I should be able to have atleast one from the man I want it from?

I harbour such dreams because I am true to the culture and ethos of my country, I have the courage and conviction to nurture such a wish especially since I am an Indian? But I rue the fact that my dreams would continue to be dreams for another – well, how many fifty years still, till we are really freed?

If you care to know more, please refer to the great Indian novel, The Mahabharata, our myths and legends and you would see what I mean. (to post links later)

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nalish

phoner pashey

chup korey aka

bhabey boshey tar mon:

chaina shey prem

feley rekhey jaey

kandaey hashaey

je jakhon takhon…

Wish – to die

When I do, I wish to die like a Bird, or like a ripe old Leaf that falls in the queer silence of the jungles

Rajar Raja an English Translation

Sarahan Visited

The first time I saw it this way on the net.

This is the way it was before the King, who is also the CM of the State of Himachal Pradesh had the jungle cleared to restore the view of the temple and planted an apple orchard in the courtyard

My first view of the temple from the HTDC Srikhand Hotel

This is what I call the definitive view of the famous Sarahan Temple :the centuries old Bhimakali Temple built in the Indo – Tibetan style, for goddess Durga.

The main temple showing one of the twin towers that tilted during the devastating earthquake of 1905.

The inherent elasticity of the interlocked wooden beams encasing Ashlars worked stone structure prevented major damage and a later earthquake straightened the plumb to an extent.

The temple complex is almost an acre, includes buildings, courtyards and this is the royal palace.

This is the main entrance.

In Hindu myths Sarahan is known as Shonitpur and there are beautiful legends about this little hamlet dating back from the vedic era, nestled in the foot of the Srikhand Peak (the peculiarity of this Himalayan peak is, it is the only one, whose tip remains uncovered with snow).

One tale is about a war between Lord Krishna and Banasura, one of Prahlad’s hundred sons, on account of Banasura’s daughter, Usha’s love for Krishna’s son Aniruddha. Krishna defeated him but later returned Bushair as dowry for Usha. Sarahan is in Bushahr of Rampur district of Himachal Pradesh.

Another tale is of how a bengali devotee called Bhimagiri, set out from Bengal with a staff, on pilgrimmage, at Sarahan his staff sank deep into the soil. When he looked he found buried there was Bhimakali’s image. She appeared to him in a dream and said this was her home and this is where she would live. So the temple came into being.

Lovely Kinnauri girls who had befriended me. Legend has it that Kinnaur-Kinnauris epitomising beauty adorned Indra’s court in heaven!

Sarahan is the base for some of Himachal’s finest treks to Badahal, Sangla and Shrikhand Peak. The treks are however open only between April and June and September-October.

From the circuit house compound which was under construction when I visited in April 2006, you get this view of the HTDC run Srikhand hotel (with green roofs), built like the temple itself. You get typical Himachali warm reception here, and all the other 3star(?!) comforts such places provide at 7150 feet (“well used and basic” as one traveller* remarked), the most important and useful of which, for a lonely trekker, is perhaps security, hot water, made to order dinner and electricity in the room.

The road leading up from the circuit house and  lined with these straight tall beautiful himalayan juniper

leads to the Apiary housing the world’s most colourful bird – the western Tragopan, which seemed even more beautiful than a peacock to me.

The Nathpa-Jhakri Dam here feeds hydel power to the entire northern grid and it’s amzing to listen to the stories from the resident engineer about how electric lines were laid in the mountains. The CPWD quarters look nice too from the bus/car while entering the village. I couldn’t stick the picture here as I lost it. Sorry

Sarahan is 177 km and six hours drive from Shimla on the NH22 upto Jeori thereafter bifurcating to Sarahan with the other road leading to Rekong Peo. From infront of the HTDC office near Mandi House in New Delhi, a Volvo service leaves at 7 p.m. daily and reaches Shimla via Chandigarh at 4 a.m. The bus to Jeori starts at 5 a.m. reaches Sarahan at 11 a.m.

*http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/meandher/transplanet_1/1119691380/tpod.html (blog name Twin Tower, dtd 2007)

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/BabeInTheWoods/sarahan-7-lights-switches-equals-one-bang-plus-photo-link.html#more-45 (for ‘hiccup’ experiences – 2give u an idea of what to watch out for)

http://yashasvi2001.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/11/touching-the-horizons-chitkul-sangla.htm (for ITBP passes from Sarahan for further forays towards the I/Tibet border)

Pictures were taken by the author except the Juniper Trees and the old view that are netscavenged material.

blogger/journalist?

 

“…while the distinction between blogger and journalist (if it ever really existed) has slowly dissolved, all the infrastructure around recognizing who a journalist is — from press credentials to legal protections has changed very little. So whether I really am a blogger, a journalist or a blogger/journalist might not matter to me, but it will matter when I’m trying to get a press pass or if a judge wants to ferret out my anonymous sources.

What do you think? Does it matter what my identity is, or how people view me? If you’re a blogger/journalist, how do you deal with these issues? Share your thoughts in the comments below.”

Mark Glaser of MediaShift/PBS examines the issue in this manner.

Greg Hankins, editor of Sevenlakestimes of Carolina, US said : Folk who decide to keep a diary — or contemplate their navel — on the web may be journalists, but they aren’t reporters and what they write is not news. Folk who write the news, whatever their medium, are reporters.

By Greg’s definition am a journalist, a web-logger who keeps an online log of stuff that is important to me. To answer the question Mark raised, I feel that the author’s identity as writer does link with ‘how he/she sources information’ and as such important to me, as reader.

As for how people ‘view’ an author, that matters too if am a new reader, a history of credibility reassures me.

The question of earning and keeping the reader’s trust ought to be an important concern, when am the writer. I  agree with Edward Itor’s view there:…since we are anonymous, we have to take great care that the information that we present is accurate, and if we do interject our opinions, we try to do so in a way that our readers can easily tell our opinions from our facts.

http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

cactus

Kolkata Park Street

 Halogen

With the music of some of our bands listeningis like watching a film. You are off on a little trip. Alone or together with who ever is listening with you.Life appears to be like the world reflected in a mirror in the hands of a playful little girl. She turns it round and round in her hands and the ordinary mundane shabby things change colour, take on a new intensity and becomes beautiful! Pictures on a shard of glass…the mass of heavy stuff that is life is now compressed into tiny manageable portions that no longer intimidate or depress but actually appear attractive!

A rarely heard or performed-in-public Cactus song is Halogen

Woven with the lyric and music,Halogen

is a collage of strange moments of life in a metro. You are transported to Park street or Dalhousie office para at 1900 hours in the late seventies (or early eighties).You see darkness stealing upon a weary old city. The clock strikes seven and you find long-red-nail-polished little hands poised in air like little birds flexing their restless little wings, raring to take-off. Flying fingers droop like leaves of trees at nightfall. Jangling Remington typewriters fall silent.  You ‘see’ steel file cabinets and office drawers clanging shut.

Out of musty old multistoried buildings towering over the blue gray streets below, people flow.

Shadowy spirits doused in the other worldly Halogen light glide out of the confines of office space and swing in to another mode of existence. Hungry eyes rove the halogen lit semi darkness. Lecherous hands reach out for the softness of willing waists. Practiced lips bargain.

Like in a synchronized musical show, lights change and darkness fades in and out of different lives. Taxi doors open and shut. And… “Bacha kena choley – footpath ar rastaey”… transaction continues… on the footpath and the streets : 7 o’clock is the moment of transformation in Kolkata office para.

Cactus deftly captures the spirit of the hour. The wailing blue notes transcreate the time and the moment every time the song is played – a bit of spacetime of Kolkata city frozen in the sound of music forever.

**Incidentally Cactus is the only band in the country that recorded the first ever song about gay rights in 2005. The song is called Pakkhiraj, known as The Punished Pegasus in English.

**The band is based in Kolkata and is over ten years old. The official website is at cactusmusic dot com.

**There is an MP3 version of Halogen at esnips, but am not sure if that is a safe site to download from. Their first album Cactus features this song. Record label is HMV.

paul martin’s dialogue on stem cell

The Great Stem Cell Debate
For Hayden

I met a little stem cell
Who said, “I’m human too.
“It’s possible I could divide
“And then feel pain, like you.”

“Right now,” I said, “You’re like… the same,
“That is, as all your neighbors.
“Undifferentiated as can be –
“You’re lamer than an egg is.”

“An Egg’s not lame!” Sir Stem replied,
“And no, nor Sperm Cells neither.
“If they met, they would divide
“And be like you and me are.”

“I’m not like you,” I countered,
“Please note who wrote this poem.
“Without my fingers at the keys
“No words would you intone.”

“I am a full-fledged Cell!” cried Stem,
“So stop your condescension;
“I hold my rights unconsciously –
“And in God’s name, I’ll mention…”

“But what of us!?” my cells rejoined,
They really were dismayed;
They’d multiplied already
And had a lot to say.

“One hundred trillion of us live
“In just one human being –
“That is, the kind that walks and talks
“And likes the taste of ice cream.”

“Without the needed research
“We prematurely die;
“You’re telling us God likes you best…
“How come – is God a scientist?!”

“Maybe up in heaven, then,
“God’s researching a fix
“For fuzzy stem-cell thinking –
“The kind that makes us sick.”

With that, my cells had had enough,
We had to call it quits;
By now we’re mostly bedridden
Like Petri in a dish.

– Paul Martin

Paul Maurice Martin on himself in his blog: I have an M.A. in religious studies from the University of Chicago divinity school and an M.Ed. in counseling from the University of New Hampshire.

an interesting letter n the muse

 “In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off….” ???  Naomi Wolfe. 

 “ Naomi Wolfe makes the case that porn has subverted the traditional power of the woman which is sex.From a cynical male’s point of view, Wolfe appears to be lamenting the good old days when men were at the mercy of women for sexual gratification. It sounds nicer when she says it, though she cannot help but draw the same economic analogies that I will. Because it is a market,  and the issue is supply and demand.

That is why it is good for Wolfe, that “When [she] came of age…There were more young men who wanted to e with naked women than there were naked women on the market.”

But here she makes explicit her model of sex: an economic transaction, replete with buyer and seller. (Implicitly throughout the article, men are buyers, women the sellers).

Wolfe herself speaks in marxist terms about the vagina – and not merely to make sense of today’s hypersexualized dystopia: according to her, vaginas have always had an exchange value. My question : why the scare quotes? I think the gist of the article is summed by one sentence: For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted the [the power and allure] of real naked women.”

Sorry, Wolf, but I agree with you. Today, it is a buyers’ market. But the solution is not a regression to a romantic middle eastern cabin, set with candles and draped with embroideries, a “pre-market” sexual space: such a space has never existed.” By masonk on 03/04/2008 at 9:00 am

I agree with Masonk here that it isn’t a matter of regressing to the romantic and that such a space probably never existed, what then is the ’solution’? So what next then and how? I wonder…

I want to cry at times

I have been appointed to fill in for a teacher who used to teach classes IX and X. With the current batch gone for their board exams, and the syllabus finished in the other class, I have nothing much to do at school. So I end up with a lot of substitution classes filling in for teachers who are absent or on leave. On one such substi, I found myself with a set of bubbly, chubby, cheruby set of nine and ten year olds. This was class V-C. It was my very first day with them, and I knew I would not be taking their class henceforth, it was a one day event, so we had name games and quiz and as is usual with me I had done lots of drawings on the board. Every time they came up with their adjectives or answers, I would immediately do an illustration on the board. They appeared to be excited and amused to see their ideas become pictures on the board and there had been lots of laughter and good cheer. They were surprised but very happy to see miss doing that.

In convents, substis are not fun periods, one gets a regular teaching class and the children get their regular dose of class work and home work too. It happened that in this next class (today actually) I was asked to do Mode of Narration. We were studying reported speech. There obviously was a lot of conversation and a good deal of ‘noise’. At one point, with their enthusiasm bursting out of hand, the babies started to get out of their places and by ones and twos began to gather around me. Now this is unexpected and also not done in such set ups where there is a large number of children in the class (this particular one had sixty). The children at the back, restricted by the furniture are held back and so they try to keep the teacher’s attention by shouting. In short the whole room looks chaotic from the outside.

So on this occasion, being a new teacher here, I decided to get everybody seated first. That way, I announced everybody would be able to see everybody else and we could have everyone participating in turn. The cherubs, when they could hear me, started trickling back, away from the teacher’s bay, but it still looked crowded and I felt I still didn’t have enough space to move, so I closed my eyes and raised my hand in a gesture of counting silently (I had witnessed the gesture produce great results in one of my erstwhile colleague’s classes). The idea was to communicate that by the count of all the fingers in my hands the class should settle down in their places so we could proceed with the lesson (‘better be fingers of  only ONE hand’ being the subversive threat).

Now everybody was in place. I was ready to resume from where we had to stop. But I could not. A thin little hand shot up in the air. Interruption. I didn’t want it at the time. So I ignored it firmly and tried to carry on, “so then, what changes do you see in this sentence here”, but this child had got up. She was scrambling out of her place and hurrying in front, and another one behind her and another one from my right. ‘No’ I indicated silently. I mouthed ‘please’ and waved both my hands – go back! There was a pause, then instead of clearing away two more started very determinedly, very eager urgent expressions on their little faces “Miss…”.Like it was a matter of life and death…But am in no mood to humour that now. I am new. I don’t even have my own slots yet. I can’t make up if I mess up the time-table. O-o no! Not now! Have to finish this, I would not get a second class and I can’t keep something incomplete and go away. Today is the 5th. Deadline for completing syllabus is the 8th. What is she doing? No, please bachha (kid), get back, let me finish this first…bachha nods but completes her little journey anyway and fumblingly spreads this piece of paper out on the teacher’s desk, briefly looks up at me, hesitates for a few seconds. Doesn’t get the friendly response. Quickly runs back to her seat.

Seemed like some drawing. Now what has that got to do with mode of speech? Silly girl. O, ok, would look at it later. I give her a smile then not to acknowledge but mainly to get her attention in place (selfish, limited, teacher’s reason) and firmly placed a duster upon it without really looking, determined not to be sidetracked from mode of speech again. Nobody says a word after this and the lesson is duly completed. Am happy when the bell rings. “O great! You have been great bachhas, thank you for being good” and am preparing to leave. Little figures all hands and feet rush at me, eyes like little chunks of diamonds, shining brightly, “It’s Blessing – do you like it?” What blessing? The picture? I open it casually to look. And this is what I find there :

the lovely dream of a set of lovely people, so naive…this is so absolutely humbling.

It made me want to cry.

Blessing is a child, a thin little girl with a pale shy face and a quite little voice. Here is her wish for her dear teacher who didn’t even know her name and nearly tried to ignore her out of her skin in her stupid attempt to ‘finish’ a ‘lesson’! Whose lesson? What lesson? And can one really ‘finish’ lessons anyway? A lesson the teacher learns then…

east and west

In my country there is a very-very definite N-E-W-S cultural dis-tinc-tion.

I had read about this in geography books in school. They tell you on TV, in ad copies. Now I am certain. I mean now I know.

Take Tea for instance.  

It’s amazing what happens to a simple cup of tea as you change directions within the same country.

Here’s how they make it in the East, where it is grown: A Bengali would let the water boil very well before adding the tea-leaves. Thereafter the leaves would be allowed to soak until the flavour is released. It would be either on simmer or if the leaf is fine, the stove would be turned off. The pot would be covered to protect and hold the flavour. Only a dash of preheated milk would be added to neutralise the slight natural pungence of the tea. Sugar would be added in the pot while boiling the water or while the brew is soaking in the lidded pot. In formal occasions sugar is served seperately but that is only a formality. The  stirring with the sugar cools the tea. So it is avoided. So, you have a nice aromatic cup of Darjeeling tea in your hands. Nestle the silky smooth bone china in the cup of your hands if you like and enjoy your tea with your eyes, your tongue, your nose and your mind! 

Come over to the West now, how tea is brewed here: Boil the milk mixed with water (more milk, only a dash of water is preferred) and sugar. Add the leaves. Add cardamom, elaichi, bay-leaves, ginger and whatever other spices that you can lay your hands on. Let all of it simmer together on the burner without cover until it’s heavy and thick. Strain and serve hot. In a steel glass or a cup, any cup, could be a thick rimmed coffee mug. Now you have a thick, heavily spiced, creamy concoction that tastes more like sweet broth meant for the old and the convalescent than tea as we know it in the east.

Culture meter reading: in the west they are hard working and less finicky and more happy-go-lucky with life. Everything has to make sense, even a cup of tea should taste like something more substantial than just tea (leaves). Nobody would waste a quarter of an hour just soaking tea.

In the east, life is easy, with the fertile gangetic plains, abundance of rainfall and plenty of river water. The general idea here is everybody would live for a hundred years atleast. So there is no hurry. The practise is to take their own time over everything, be it making a cup of tea or working through a file or composing poetry.

tea brewing

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of My Children

  All of them are in the four to sixteen bracket.That covers nursery to standard ten in Indian schools.

Recently while I was training at an experimental International school in Ahmedabad, I had had the opportunity to interact with the four to thirteen age-group too, quite closely. For the fourteen to sixteen age-group, I draw from my experience at other places and that spans the entire course of my eleven years as English teacher.

This afternoon while I sat through a few empty periods, as class ten went through the last bit of formality collecting their hall passes for the ensuing board exams, I found myself ruminating on all the good times and the steamy screamy times I had togetherwith my classes over the course of all these years of teaching and learning. I realized how much it means to me to see my brood smile. It feels like being in the sun in chilly weather! 

But I do get so crazy mad sometimes! And I lose it-completely. And then I feel bad. But then being born with the sun in Sagittarius, the moon in Leo with a Scorpio ascendant and an exalted Mars, life doesn’t exactly move along a merry-go-round routine. It gets pretty choppy and although like evrybody else it is circular, but, mostly it is circular in roller-coaster motion.

Well, so what am I trying to do here? What was I thinking? Actually, when session begins this time around, and in the new year, I decided that I want more sunshine in my life. I mean ‘normal’ is like six months, like fifty percent of the time? This year – and here goes my new year resolution- happening in March 2008!

Well, I dislike doing it on the 1Jan or on the 31 Dec. I mean there isn’t any rule or something written down somewhere, is there that one has to follow the Roman calendar while making personal resolutions? For work we do. But this is personal. In my country atleast, there are many new years’ days for various people following various calendars : there’s Bengali new year’s day on April 14, then there’s the Parsi new year’s day, the marathi new year’s day, the Chinese new year’s day and so on. Being an Indian, I guess am free to choose to make resolutions anytime, then, on any new year’s day…great!

So as I was saying, I decided to write down some stuff about my children here, so I can look at it and remember. O I know it’s childish, but then I work with them, so why not? Be a little like them especially if it makes life more cheerful and fun. 

Herez five things my brood love: 1) when I smile at them, 2) when I say let’s play, 3) when I tell them a story, 4) when I let them sing songs, play antakshari, 5) when I say “O am so happy!”

And herez five things they positively HATE : 1) when I scowl and sulk, 2) when I scream, 3) when I refuse to look at them, 4) when I forget their names, 5) when I refuse to listen or explain.

And when they are happy? O well, well, well, then the whole place is buzzing with laughter and light and the sound of little wings flexing and whirring – O it feels like you are sitting in King Solomon’s Kingdom itself!

Five horrible things you can get away with - in style and with plenty of panache when they are happy and in that lovely we-like-her mode   : 1) having given away A’s copy to Z and he has left school and there is no way to retrieve lost property unless you get the Police, 2) two solid hours of solid lecture about all the crap about you-know-what-they-should-and-should-not do, when you are in that silly know-it-all-done-it-all mode (yeah I know - two solids there and light pun intended here – you probably have no idea what happens when a sagittarian decides to lecture! They do! ) 3) double composition classes, 4) stay backs for crap work like school mag, wall mag, inspection decoration announced at the eleventh hour, 5) any of those ’silly’ school-routine things that needs them to slog their jolly little hearts and creative little brains out. They would do it. For you. Making you feel like queen Bathsheba herself.

It’s great to be loved by your children. It’s great to be admired by them. It’s great to be able to fly, fall, and bounce right back into the air with them. It’s wonderful being a teacher!

            

Sarahan-The First View

  For most of the world Sarahan is just a word beginning with ‘S’.

Some would guess that it is a place somewhere. Few would know enough to be able to associate it with an Indian mountain state. There is this man however, who knows all this and a little more.

He had seen this woman once, walking straight down the footpath to him, wrapped in a lovely olive green printed Murshidabad silk saree, with the thick Kolkata winter evening neon-lights reflecting in her jet black hair, her face, her eyes. Moments later he had heard her speak his name. Still later he had walked down Rashbehari Avenue measuring his steps to match hers- absorbed. In the dead of the night he had heard her speak. 

Blossoming apple orchards, straight-backed juniper and deodar lined Himalayan slopes, fragrant picone strewn pakdandis winding up and down the mountain, the mist shrouding the view outside the windows – he had seen it all.

He could smell the early morning sunshine at seven thousand feet. He had felt the evening descend quietly, sliding down the steep slopes behind him even as he felt her slumberous eyelids drooping and her voice beginning to ‘sound like a kitten’. When she was sleepy she always sounded like a kitten he thought.
  
He had groped his way back up the deserted roads without streetlights towards the place where husband and wife served Tibetan thukpa in round stainless steel bowls. He had lingered there long after she had drifted off to sleep and the phone had clicked off.

One day, while the sun shone brightly and the whole world seemed to be in a haze of heat and work and strangeness, his temples throbbed. That is when he had seen her again. In a noisy boardroom one thousand and four kilometers away from her city it had suddenly seemed to be the right place and the right time to reach out to her. Her voice had echoed in his mind and had walked him down a little slope and up several separate flights of stone and wooden stairs to this beautiful temple nestled in the lap of the snow capped Srikhand range.

   He had seen Sarahan.

He finally knows what her Sarahan really is. He knows that it is a vision inside this woman’s head.

He knows that she carries it around with her, so that Sarahan is sometimes inside a cafeteria, where she drinks it up with the aroma of her cappuccino and the conversation of her friends.

Sometimes Sarahan is inside a semi dark auditorium reverberating with exquisite fingers spraying magical notes in the air sound of which filled her with the fragrance of exotic pale pink apple blossoms.

  Sarahan is where she wants to be. Sarahan is where she has wanted to be. This is where she can be. Herself. Deep down in his own soul he knew that Sarahan is where she exists. That is where he would always find her. That she had planted a Sarahan inside of him too!