Saskun is the word used by the nomads in Yarkand, China, for an illusion, where you feel you can see your destination on the horizon, you can feel it, almost touch it, and will be there soon, but in reality you are still far, far away..... This is the story of my Saskun..........but in reverse. The year is 1853. I am standing in the middle of the afternoon, around 2-3pm, on a single lane, black tarred road. All around, the land is barren, dry with scattered patches of brown grass. Something pretty similar to Khajurao or Jhansi. Semi desert landscape. And it's all hot and dusty due to summer time. The sky is clear and has a whitish haze due to the heat. The road goes straight and right ahead is a white rectangular pillar around 2 feet wide and 6 feet high on the left side of the road. There is a small square platform on top and then a round white structure on top. There is a white boundary wall on the left, but on the right side of the road there is neither a post or a bou...
Monday morning 4:42 a.m. Is it normal to get up so early to finish a book you have been reading? Was in the midst of Haruki Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart" when I slept, rather early, at 11 last night. Woke up all of a sudden at dawn, or was it pre -dawn?, and straight away took the book from my bedside and was engrossed in the mystic world of words within minutes. Finished it finally at around 7am, just before leaving for the gym. The book was spellbinding needless to say. Short, sweet and a standard Murakami . Later on it made me think. Is there anything else in this whole wide world that would make me get up so early and eagerly? No, I guess not. I couldn't think of anything. Isn't this weird? But then being normal was my forte.
So I have this record which I am rather fond of. I have never lost a friend, as in I am not talking about death, but never lost contact. I have tracked down people who had settled abroad, had changed their surnames and that too before Facebook and Google, after a gap of around 2 decades. There was hardly anyone I couldn't track, and I did track down quite a few and the rest I never lost sight of. Except one. The irony of that was she was in my hometown, so technically she should have been the easiest to track. But I never could. She wasn't there on any social media. The hospital where we both had worked had shut down. We had no common acquaintance. Our one common friend was now semi-hostile. Plus with my bad memory for names I could not recollect of anyone else who had worked in the hospital. In short I had no leads to follow on, so was practically screwed! But I never gave up hope. I used to regularly scan the social media platforms in case she turns up somewhere, but with no...
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