:)
Nice read!! Hope to read continuation soon!! :D

Born_to_rule/Freak_ alien/Flip_Flop/Pretty, Thank you. Will come up with next part pretty soon? May be in few hours.

John_Galt, Your dissection is noteworthy and thank you.

Lootekukur, Rule No.1. Never Assume without facts. Of course, world is a small place.

Xena/ Audrey.H, You love Thamel, me too.Characters sound familiar, don't they?

Samsara, Just for you I am writing the next part. I hope you will like it. Thamel rocks( and sucks ) as well.

haus hajur! ;P i know world is a very very small place :D

Almost missed it..hmmmm interesting..waiting for more :)

Khai ta? Amber ta Diamond ko khoj ma hariyo ki kya ho?? Next time, could you pls start posting once the entire story's finished being written...the suspense has officially killed me.

Thanks Sndy.

Samsara, yeah you are rite. Next time I wil definitely do that. Sorry!

Cross Reference for the other story.

TheGeneral's Wife- A Short Story

Hope it works.

Oh gosh!
so this had to come to nagarjuna, nagarkot, godavari et.al? ...and i thought you could do better than that :P...hehe..j/k

but seriously, great work "nile nile" amber. are you still single ? LOL! :P...just asking ...why? .... coz i am getting butterflies in my stomach...trust me. am having this nervous trepidation of may be knowing you that too in person !!! haha...help me puhlease, now will you? :D

didn't get it? oh well, may be this will ring the bell :D ;P

OK, Hold it now. Karma, the manange guy: boisterous, womanizer, tattoos, biker, etc...that was ok. But now, a drug-dealer? Is't it a lil too stereotypical? What next, a gang-fight breaks out and he smashes some guy's hips to smithereens or stabs him in the face???

I always get the same typical feedback from most people I meet whenever I tell them I'm manange. They say, I never knew manange people were interested in pusuing a Ph.D or never expected one worked at a major I-Bank or never expected them to be so and so (said by a few senior members of our "esteemed" Nepali communtiy here in NY and a visiting dignitary from Nepal). Fug all this stereotypical racist shit. Nature vs nurture is whats at play here. The manange guys I went to school with are all doing well with their lives, thank you!...MBAs, a Hotel Manangement degree from the finest school, a Ph.D candidate in Bio-Chem, Ph.D candidate in Econ, etc. Its not only a life of glamor, drugs and easy-money for us all as portrayed by the general Nepalese public.

Next time, if you're gonna write something negative, could you pls omit us mananges outta it. Our population comprises only about 15,000 -20,000 out of Nepal's total population of around 25 Million (not even .001%) and its extremely apalling that a small community like ours has been negatively portrayed ever since the early 70s (the scapegoat for Nepal's notoriety in the international drug arena when the Royals and members of Nepals ruling factions were themselves involved!).

.............
My apologies if I offended you in any way, but on reading your story, I felt a strong sense of disrespect and a very similar negative stereo-typical view-point of my community held by most Nepalis. Pls realize that I am in no way saying that mananges are the best out there nor am I saying that we are all doing well with our lives. We're all individuals and some will definitely turn out better than the rest. But, all I ask is that people stop portraying us as being party-mongers, gang members, drug dealers, etc. when it was all just a phase in time that has long since passed.


Good story though...I lingered on long enough for the 2nd part and am still wating for Karma, the womanizer to bed Dhriti soon so that the damn story would just end...I really wouldn't want to hang around a whole month for the 3rd part. j/k LOL

Samsara- Are you having a bad day, boy? Why this bitterness? We will talk about this later. And yeah ,wait till the end of the story(if you wish). Don't jump into the conclusion, just my sincere request.

yeah...pretty much. Half asleep and am surprised that I still have the energy to type. Been a long, dreary nite!

Ok...will twiddle my thumb and wait till the ending. Even though I think I've had enough of this waiting game, everytime this thread pops up, I'm the first one looking for any updates. K garne, this is how it is.

Amber,

Well written. I like the fluid conversation between the characters from opposite ends. Less banter, more wit as I suppose.
I haven't met Kamra character yet but I am aware of many Dritis. True...they are innocent not naive, inquisitive of everything around them, specially the mysterious ones.
Are you suggesting that innocent smile intrigues you even if you play around every possible human emotions? Karma is nodding "yes".

Amber muuuuuuacxxxxxxxxxxxx i lop the story
oho
Samsara dont make yer own illusions abt wot people think abt manange community , kya nyeshang mi eh? im pretty bad at manange tho :D:D
hahahah lottekukur u gave me a good morning laughing dose :D:D
nice weeken ya'll

Interesting story... but I agree with Samsara here: the story would have been much stronger if it had stayed clear of reinforcing a very unfair stereotype that is common in Kathmandu. True that it's about one fictional character, but reinforcing the stereotype of illegal trade is unfair to my many Nyeshangba friends who work very hard yet face an uphill battle for respect and recognition because of people's preconception.

angeleyes, "kya nyeshang mi eh?", what the heck??? It should've been more like, "kya nyangmi aahi?" And what I said is not an illusion, damn it...can't you see that I've specifically mentioned that people have said it to me (even though I'm a nyeshang)!! Read my post thoroughly before you go ahead and assume your "illusions"!

Samsara im also one those of nyeshang people
and i knw lotsa nyeshang people dealing drugs well phase might have pssed already but
i aint lying and not disrespecting the people i belong to..ive a great respect n compassion towwards them..
i guesss u are one of those victims who are innocent by their act but psychotic by their thoughts...Grow up bro...i didnt mean anythign bad to u or said ,,,,u dont need to damn it so hard :P:P:P i thought as i read yer thread u mite ve those kinda illusions that people tend make it themselves,,well if its not the fking illusion then im sowie for misunderstanding my nyeshang ata,,,,,
peace bro

Samsara/Arnico- Karma is one fictional character. He is not a representative of certain group of people. He is a dynamic character of the story.As the story progresses, the spotlight will shift towards Lobsang who is another Mangai boy. Then, karma will just remain as a flat character. I would definitely love to hear from you then. Lastly, don't jump into a conclusion.

SunnyDev- You hit the right note.

AngleEyes/lootekukur- Thanks .

I found this thread in much delight as I love reading short stories which finish before one has to leave reading in the middle to take a leak. I tried to read what was written but had to waste 5.36 precious minutes adjusting the screen and then my chair pose, for your bold, italicized and underlined text was not helping without much strain to serve the poor myopic and hypermetric me.

I then copied and pasted the content in MS-Word to "un-bold" and "un-underline" the content. I was happy to be able to read it after quick customization. As I was reading through, all of a sudden, the NiCd in my laptop disagreed to run and before I could plug the box into the AC outlet, it switched off! I restarted the machine only to figure out that the Word content was not saved! Gritting teeth, I redid the copy paste and "un-bold" un-underline" thing and reread to recapitulate and continued from where I left.

Phew! After all this, I came to know that the story is still "to be continued" ! I am biting my nails in rage and fuming through ears as I wasted 30 odd minutes for the whole agony and now add 3 more minutes to it to write this comment which I am not even sure the writer will read and understand what I went through.

"Dhriti burst into laughter, ”Then you are one of the Strawberries and Cream Personality. You know, these people are introvert, easily made to feel guilty, irritable, cranky, and pessimistic. I read about this Flavor logy thing somewhere.”

Hey Amber -

Strawberry's my favorite flavor too , and with the exception of irritable (like when I dont get enough sleep :D), I am quite the opposite of what that "flavor logy" says - or so I like to think :) :P

Enjoyed the story. I liked your narrative style and the way you have constructed the characters and the plot. And ooops looks like you touched some raw nerves (and I commend Samsara for speaking up - I wish more people would do that the way he does) . Caste/race/ethnic dynamics are some of the hardest things to potray in a story or other pieces of creative work. I have always wondered how a writer should draw the line between the behavior of one individual (or a number of individuals) and that of the rest of society when he or she writes a story that may step on cross cultural relationships and dynamics. Should a writer try to explicitly draw such a line (and risk distracting from the flow of the story) or leave it to the readers to interpret as they please (and risk his or her intentions being taken out of context)? There are arguments both ways and I will leave that discussion for another day.

That said, I think I might now have an inkling for the thought behind the title. The lines are indeed getting blury and am waiting for the next part(s) to see where it all leads to.

Good luck.

:)

Since I don't proof read my writings, there are several grammatical mistakes and punctuation errors. Amber's apologies for that......

Nice so far...I like what you've written. It is very common among many Nyeshang kids to voluntarily convert to monkhood by choice where it is often seen as a dharma filled deed for the family if one of the members becomes a monk. However, until 2-3 decades ago, it wasn't a choice. The second son in a family was mandatorily forced into monkhood (no ifs and buts about this)...This has since changed with the times once economic progress was attained by the Nyeshangs. BTW, Pangden? I don't recall Nyeshang women wearing this unless married to a Tibetan.

Anyway, good going and enjoyed the read as always. Thanks!!