ODE TO THE OLD MEDICINE MAN

Because I've learnt not to mock at the choices that you made in your life.
Because giving up communist rallies in favour of a managerial post in a pharmaceutical no longer seems to me to be a blunder of Himalayan proportions.
Because a 'robab tenga' can be kicked around with the same kind of passion that you tend to associate with a TEAMGEIST football.
Because I now realise that cubism, surrealism and the like aren't just 'words' that fascinate starving artists and their kin.
And that playing truant in Sunday art school sessions was my own rebellion against the SYSTEM - something that the same artists swear by.
Because my proudest inheritance is not the wads of cash that you coughed up to provide for my education, but that emotional streak - the one that causes a lump in your throat (and in my own) when we talk about our heroes and about the perils that face humanity.
Because when it comes to matters of the heart, Mangaldai is as dear to its natives as West Virginia is to its own.