John jee, A good read again. Thanks for sharing. The fluidity of the prose your story displays as indeed does Sixth Avenue Heartache offers much triangulation to the arrangement of your subject(s), the narrative and the overall plot scheme. An impressive end product overall. Also enjoyed your discussion with my fellow posters on your take on the feminist perspective evident in Parijaat's writings in relation to your own story. Yes, Komal is the very epitome of, to copy feminist critics Sandra Gubar and Susan Gilbert, the 'madwoman in the attic'. She is 'mad' because she refuses to (initially at least) conform to the standard 'norms' of femininity as enforced by the patriarchal authority and by implication, should be locked up in an 'attic'. This idea of 'madness' is a theme recurrent in much of the western literature by and about women (late 19th and 20th cent - Charlotte P Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath et al). This fiery squad of 'rebel' writers challenged the very idea of the accepted model that was supposed to be followed by them when producing literary works - something of a tradition passed down by their predecessors. The Yale luminary Harold Bloom coined an intriguing phrase for all of this: ' the anxiety of influence'. They all gave voice and power to their female characters much the same way the male writers gave to men in their writings commensurate with the 'best practice' as passed down by their predecessors. Some feminist writers such as those I mentioned above perhaps went far beyond their idea of bringing madness into their fiction: they did it in real life, in the case of the three writers above, by committing suicide. Plath famously called this idea of death (by whichever means, suicide for instance) as being an art: 'Dying is an art' (Lady Lazarus). Okay, went off tangent there again! A wonderful read, John, as always. Pse keep on firing away at your keyboard. Here's to Komal, cheers. :) Carpe diem