Arko-jee, That's a priceless compliment. Thank you. Biswo is a good debater himself and one of many things I like about him is that he is very frank. I am posting his comment about my book below. They will speak for his veracity. *** *** *** *** *** *** Timetraveller-jee, Your kind words just melt me. Give me a pleasure to send a complimentary copy of the book to you. Write to any address you find. *** *** *** *** *** *** Radhaupadhyaya-jee, Thanks for your kindest word. Although I feel fairly secure about the literary merit of the work (thanks all the well-wishers for their kind comments), I still honestly do not know about, say, the accuracy of depiction of a woman's intimate feelings. I have yet to hear from a significant number of female readers. Then, I am also curious about socio-political (I mean feminist) interpretation of the story, specifically the concluding part of the story. I am sharing a comment which might be close to a feminist view. I said very close, because it is from a male reader and who is none other than Biswo, a Sajha alumnus Arko-jee was talking about. I am taking liberty to post his comments and my reply from our conversation in Nep Dem Google Group (yes, sometimes we also talk about non-political stuff there). Biswo is critical of the concluding of the story and has other useful suggestions. Biswo writes- "Read your novel (should we say it is a story? It was pretty short, and given the book size, it is like a long story, right?). You wrote it well, I must say. It was gripping, and I am sure anyone who is more interested in 'affairs' will love to spend time with it. I am not into love story a lot, but still I enjoyed it. I would have written a longer comment had I not been away from California right now. Two major comments: 1.You have been very lazy in letting us know the city, the college, the surrounding of the story. I think most of the kaaljayi fictions have one property: they damn well go into detail, they depict the snapshot of the soceity where the characters live and breathe, in a way the novels are not only novels, but also the places/norms/milieu that surrounds these characters, and they are often supported with philosophy and subplots. I hope when you write next time, you will be very specific, and you will describe in detail the roads that your characters walked on, the houses where people lived. We say a fiction is a mirror of society, the way I understand it is if 2 hundreds years down the road somebody reads it, he will be able to construct a snapshot of our society. In a way, you being a drama actor yourself, assume you are writing a script that a director will use to create a setting where people will be acting. I often appreciate those jesuit travellers who passed by Nepal in seventeenth century who wrote a good description( though even there some wrote a distorted version that were later discarded); or Syvlain Levy whose classic book on Nepal's history written during Bir Shamsher's tenure for what I think was probably slightly distorted yet mostly accurate description. Niyatra might have as its goal a pure motive of transporting its readers to another setting, in another time, but that is exactly what a novelist should be aiming for, with the help of some fictional characters and circumstances, especially when he wants his novels are remembered hundreds-years down the road. We shouldn't forget that feelings are 'historical constant'; if we write a love story without characters and places they will be same whether we write it in prehistoric time or in future. What separates us from our predecessors or progenies is the locales, dresses or other our generation specific things and it is my view that we should record it carefully and honestly when we write a book. 2. I thought you wrote it well, but your ending reflects the platitudinous capitulation to bourgeois morality that is so common in so many Hindi movies/novels. It was not necessary for the girl to go back to her husband in your novel. Why do we care about this anymore that she goes to the man she married. I am a conservative and it pleased me to see that a marriage is saved, [it often irritates me to see depraved characters of samrat upadhyay's stories] but I know that it is also a confirmation to the social norms, and it is always a central theme of profit oriented Hindi movies. Most of the time, it looks so artificial because it first shows a strong woman, and then in a hurried finish, it reduces woman to an obeisant creature." And here is the reply I posted- "Biswo-jee, It's an honor to have you among my readers. It's a pleasure and relief as well to see that you found the book gripping despite your disinterest to 'romance' genre you admitted earlier. And thank you for your insightful comments. The content is indeed a long story in form, but with all elements of a novel, except for anonymity of location and time. The concise nature of the work comes perhaps from my Shayari instinct. Naming of locations etc certainly would have beautified the story. Regarding your comment on the concluding part of the story, I feel my purpose fulfilled to find different and conflicting opinions from different readers. Murariraj-jee who posted before you called it "really carefully crafted, unique, superb". I think the comment was also meant for the story itself (I have to check with Murari-jee). In any case, the ending was meant for open interpretation. Regarding your view that it was confirmatory to conventional norms, I would say it was not meant and therefore it was not. The girl's decision to return to her husband has nothing to do with the idea of saving her marriage. Her decision in whole has to do with the discovery/invention she made to satisfy/kill her quest. So it's really an unconventional ending. The marriage was not aimed. It just happened to be saved. Saving marriage was never ever an issue there. However, you have raised an important point. Whether the story has reduced a strong woman to an ordinary woman ? This part is open for interpretation. And yours is certainly a valid interpretation. My views are also similar to yours. It's the degree of uncertainty in the interpretation, that was meant to be the strength of the story. Thank you once again for your very tasteful and useful comments." *** *** *** *** *** *** Nepe