thnks guys for ur comments :) :) i will be posting regularly and see where this story leads me..... please feel free to give me feedback - shakshi ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (PART II) As I stepped outside the glass doors, soft trickles of rain gently splashed on me. I didn’t rush to get under cover. It couldn’t have been a better welcome. ‘Pani paryo bhane sait huncha ni’ echoed a distant voice. It seemed so long ago, yet it was my uncle commenting on the same rain that bid farewell in another city, another place just 12 hours ago. At that moment I felt like I was transcending through two chapters of my life. Just then a hand tapped on my shoulder and I turned around. ‘Have you forgotten us already?’, said my sister with a cheeky grin. I was so lost in my thoughts that for a moment I had forgotten that my family were coming to pick me up at the airport. With warm smiles they greeted me. My mum gave me a hug. In that one embrace I felt how I had missed the love of my family in the last few years. As I looked up into her eyes I could feel the same emotions inside her. ‘Your going where?’, was the first thing my mum said in late 2003, when after finishing my year 12 I announced I wanted to go back to Nepal. For a few minutes she looked at me in utter disbelief and half hoped I was joking. When I stared back with seriousness in my eyes she calmly put the cup of tea she had in her hand on the table and shouted out to my dad. My dad gave me the same glance. ‘She is actually serious!’, mum exclaimed. Without missing a heartbeat I looked at dad and nodded. It took a while to convince them both that I wanted to go back to Nepal on my own and live there for a few years. After a few days of negotiating, they knew I wasn’t going to back down. My sister thought I was crazy and so did most of my friends. But I knew this was something I had to do. Somehow I wanted to find my identity and at the age of 18, I knew that if I didn’t do it then I would never get the opportunity. The strong minded will power I had received as an ancestral inheritance was no match against any reasonable arguments. My parents agreed. I was going to do my Bachelors in Nepal and my arrival date was January 15, 2004.