Let me list the characters and lines from the stories that epitomize those characters and their status quo: character 1: Mangala Devi (perhaps Pumfa Devi (of the early nineties in Nepal) would've been a better name :P) She was a minimalist when she was not a recipient. ----------------------------------------------------------- character 2: Dhaney (the poor boy) “Dhaney!” Once he yelled his own name, because he wanted to feel, how it felt, not to be Dhaney. that says it all! and my eyes were drenching a bit while i was reading this: Finally, from the side pocket of his ‘Namaste’ bag, he took out an old photograph of a young woman with a two-year-old boy. At the back of the photograph, “Dhana Bahadur ra amaa” was written in pencil. He looked at the photo, wiped it with his shirt, shielded it with the cover of Jagjit Singh’s album and placed it next to his binoculars. ----------------------------------------------------------- character 3: sameer (the rational nerd) character 4: ashok (the spoilt brat) character 5: jhukkyai (the cutie pie) “I believe in believing that there is something beyond me that I’m not supposed to understand. If that is god, I’m sure he is meant to be felt, not to be interpreted.” When Sameer left, Ashok whispered to his mother, “It’s his idea, isn’t it?” “What are you whispering about?” Jhukkyai asked, “Sameer mama says you can be loud when you are right. Ashok mama, are you wrong?” what a great depiction of the characters with a subtle humor! :-) ------------------------------------------------------- character 6: Kamal Nath Kamal Nath was a good family man when king Birendra was an absolute monarch. When he entered the business macrocosm as a larva, nobody expected such a complete metamorphosis. In the habitat, that was created by Ishwor Raj and safeguarded by his ‘Kaangresi’ partisans, in his pupa stage itself, Kamal Nath developed greed cells while losing fear-causing morality cells. Upon his mentor’s incitement, once he switched from ‘Surya’ to ‘Dunhill’ and from ‘Blue Riband Gin’ to ‘Chivas Regal’, there was no turning back for Kamal Nath. i am not a biology major, but those lines reminded me of my high-school biology class. nice juxtaposition there with the character and the incidents! ----------------------------------------------------- just yesterday, i was recommending your stories to somebody for i find a genuine nepali flavor which i don't get to read from my personal collection or elsewhere, you gifted this to us! thanks for a wonderful read, more so for exposing the bitter reality about a typical nepali family. although my own family may not connect to it, i have myself seen one or two families just like that. LooTe