John Galt,
Here you come again after a long time or it is me finding you in Sajha after a long time.
This time I caught you. You are Bo..y or An...g.
Seems you are always having fun in the net, cheers man.
Saral

I too have succumbed to the John-mania spreading on Sajha - it's always fun reading your stories, John. Keep up the good work!

:)

Billions of blue blistering barnacles Haddock,

You make me blush....not anymore now.
thanks for reading.....

Hehehe . . . : ). More about the smiles later.

First, let me thank John for another beautiful anecdote. About the lady in question, don't tell me she was pursuing her masters back them.; ) I am talking about, say - two years ago. Anyways, keep em' coming "Anecdote John."

Don't worry about the lying bit John, we all do it. Some plays, some gets played. That's all. ;) After all what's life if it's not a game?

And we make our own freaking rules. As long as you 'actually' did not hurt the other party, it's all dandy. There are some who actually does. Re kya ;)

Now, about the smile above, it was just my natural response to see the humility the Sajha luminaries have illustrated.
Touche! Hehehe.

So much so that, if Sajha was Egypt she might as well be the Cleopatra ;). We do have many "Cleos", and as many "Patras" here, if I may, but merge these two, and what a lethal combo it would be. ;-)

I was not raised in as aesthetic an environs as was Sandhurst Lahure, or for that matter even as much John, but I do however enjoy the free flowing conversant conversations between the learned ones. It has been a pleasure so far, notwithstanding my smiles, it just does not cease. I just want to state that it is light hearted and detached from any ill intent hai feri.

Miss Flip flip,
It is just an honor to be mentioned in the same breath as that with the "lady with a razor tongue." I was just about throw some attitude, but her modesty in portraying herself as a ?sikaru? - kind of took away my joy-devoir, and i stopped short, lest I prove myself to be an idiot :p (<---Go for it) ( Damn her ! hehehe ; )

But thanks for enjoying my nonsense. I am just about learning to walk. Honestly!
Thus, any impetus is greatly appreciated.

IndisGuise : )

John and SITARA,

So, it's my turn then to let myself wallow in the plaudits you shower me with - undeservedly so perhaps. Thank you both so-so very much for your kind words. Yet more excuses for my wofflings if I can use that slang, that you're having to put up with!

John, about the 'aesthetic environment'. Thank you for your comments - yes, it was my immense fortune to have been brought up in that sort of setting. I owe it a great deal to my uncle who created for me a creatively conducive environment to grow up in and be active as a reader if not as a writer. When I now look back and think, it was this familiarity with that setting which offered me the outlet to think for myself and explore a world beyond what I was perhaps incapable of imagining myself doing - stepping beyond the boundaries of my own comfort zones. And reading naturally became part of the greater design, and the books its means. And before long, it became a habit - a monstrous one - slowly turning into an obsession blown out of all proportion, and I have still got to live with it, though it has mellowed down somewhat over the years. I don't read these days as much as I used to. More commitments (career, family) as you grow older, and this inevitably leaves you with a very narrowed range of choices to contend yourself with. Mine may well be a case in point! Oh, well.

Now about my being a writer. You've got to be joking. Okay, I am comfortable with words, but then when it comes to writing something original ie. creative work, I get a complete mental block. I used to write a few bits and bobs in the past, but not any more. Might try my hand again, especially now that both you and Nirman have started nagging me! Might write travel memoirs for all the places I have been too: Paris and Mexico springs to mind immediately. Something I have always wanted to do. A tall order for me - a very tall one indeed but we'll see.

Now about your curiosity regarding my pseudonym. I wanted to give it a rather elusive charm, so people kept wondering whether I was indeed what my name said I was. A curious cliff-hanger, deliberately placed - something of a red herring! Now that you ask me, I am left with no choice but to spill the beans! Yes, I am in the military - British, not Nepali. And yes, I am at Sandhurst but not as a student - on posting, this being my second one. Glad to hear that you have heard about the name. Sandhurst - let me blow the trumpet - is the world renown academy, the mil equivalent of Oxford/Cambridge. The academy's lecturers are among the best of world authorities on conflict studies, international affairs etc. Its former alumni include Winston Churchill, Jordan's both late & present kings, many Arabian royalties and many more famous names worldwide. The most famous of literary names are Wilfred Owen & Rupert Brooks (both war poets) and the novelist, Evelyn Waugh (he wrote 'Sword of Honour'). So, the place has got a bit of history. I'll leave it there for now, will talk about it at some other time.

SITARA, so very nice of you to comment on my postings. Didn't think you were actually following the posts in this thread, honestly, but it turns out, you were. Delighted to know that. I regret missing your posts in Sajha for whatever reasons, though my experience with Sajha is relatively young. Whenever I am free, I have tried and read your threads which I can locate via your name, so a little bit of a back-tracking to do, but will get there, sooner or later. So, no worries. And you ARE indeed, to quote John, a writer par excellence. No doubt about that. To reiterate what I said earlier then: our very own Jhumpa Lahiri in the making, though I know, this is a pretty daft comparison to make given my limited knowledge on your works, and especially because, your stories could be more interesting to us your readers, than Lahiri's for all sorts of obvious reasons, and by extension, it will be wrong to use her literary standing as a yardstick to measure the merit of your creative works. So, SITARA could be only SITARA, no one else. And we - your fans - want that from you rather than any thing else: the originality, the SITARA prose rather than Jhumpa Lahiri. And your own pedestal where we can put you onto with pride - the road to that pedestal is paved with just so much promise, Sitara. Don't let your talent go waste, and don't let us down.
(ps: the same goes for John)

Now, Nirman, thanks for your comment. Kunai din post garam la - pratikchha sanchnu hola. Btw, did you get to read my comments on your toilet door? Jackson Pollock/Tracy Emin comments! Amusing eh!

Okay, this is by far the longest post I have written. My apologies. I have got to shoot off - it's already 6:30 pm here in Belaayat. Have a good day.
Carpe Diem

Ps: If you lot happen to be in this part of the world, pse do let me know. I will be delighted to show you around the place - the academy. I'll be here until next June.

Indi..Nice to see you here..:D....For me, I guess this is the best thread. It might be because the subject matter kinda relate my experience..:d

"Thanks for enjoying my nonesense"...???????...Didn't quite get it....enlighten please...I'm slow to understand...like a tube light:P

Thanks for elaborating on the word Sandhurst Lahure.It sounded quite unique and I hadn't come across that word before.Appreciate your insight.

Hey John.....the aftermath was as expected...Who in the world would like to know that the other party, whom you have been chatting over a year, has been lying to you most of the time. It was obvious that he kinda had a trauma.....or could better say mixed emotions of anger and shock I guess....and of course I did get a title of " Guffadi # 1"....I still do talk to him whenever I see him popping up in the messenge.....

Don't know about LOVE SOVE but cyber sex is good when you're not getting any.

:O .....Huh..???? astonish to see sudden change of topic...not impressed...

One of my friends who lives in Virginia loves chatting in the net. He used to play all kinds of tricks while chatting like disguising himself and flirting around with men (bokas) in the net. I wonder John, if you have also been one of his victims....:-)

On a serious note, I liked the story. Thanks for revealing your penmanship once again. A real "John_Galt" is indeed in making, it seems....:)

John, SITARA, sc, flip-flop and all those that have contributed to this thread.

Happy dashain and tihar. Have a good one. I am in on Thursday next, so you will hopefully see my shadow passing past you then. Say hello to me if you do. Cheerio.

Carpe diem

Thanks for elaborating lahure, most of the time we stereotype army men as gruff crew cut hunks who know little except wine,bullets and women....how well have you thwarted our preconceived notion in mere few lines. I had known few things about sandhurst from word of mouth, never knew it had such personailities as alumni. Wish I had the time and money to come to UK, I definitely want to visit the academy someday....thanks for the offer. Happy dashain and tihar to you too....take care.

Indi, mention some Caesars too.

Flip- flop, first and foremost, I liked your room in the other thread and second...I wish to read some creations by this guffadi number one. Write something and let us read.

Cryptonite, sane minds prefer one on one.

Hunk, I don't know dude....you kept me thinking, I never really knew if she was a woman. Honestly....he is worth praised if he actually duped me.

HI Sandhurst!

Confessions of an egoist--- I plugged in "Sitara" after a long time and that's how I came to follow this thread. :)

Thank you for the captivating words on Sandhurst. Indeed, impressive. I had heard about the academy but not in such detail. If I may---your eloquence knows no boundary.

As for the other, pray do not put me on a pedestal so high---I fear the fall. My school (this semester) has pushed me beyond my comfort zone where my writing has been scrutinized and workshopped on. The magnifying glass my peers and professors hold give me sun burn when the spotlight hits me. It's during these times, I wish I could crawl under a rock and hibernate!

Happy Dashain to you too and all readers/writers---May the powers of the universe bless you and yours!

John,
I have been slightly remiss about this post but better late than never! Thanks for your post. About stereotyping, it's an all too familiar social trait borne out of convenience perhaps rather than anything else. We all tend to develop certain ways of looking at things, people and everything else around us depending on our familiarity with the immediate surroundings and oftentimes, end up with, to quote your own term, the 'preconceived notions' - an ingrained mind set. But I think, we do it because this affords one a plausibly convenient way to describe one's situation in a given scenario - something we do without even realising what we are doing and why. Most of the time, we do it for fun, I think, and that's why we have those Indian jokes, for instance. The national stereotypes. And that's fine by me as long as one's habit of throwing remarks on one has that humour currency attached and this is done in a healty manner i.e. not causing incitement of hatred, racial or otherwise. Whether one finds it offesive is a different matter altogether - purely a matter of personal choice rather than priciple.

Back home on leave, I do come across a few blank faces with gaping mouths now and then when I tell people what I do for a living. A friend (Nepali) of mine who is halfway through his Phd from a UK university and is still serving in the Brit Army tells me the same thing when he goes home on leave. Now about us being hunk, ahem! Hunk? Far from it - a cross between Woody Allen and Bart Simpson would better suit the description of yours truly! :) :) Wine? Yeah, a few sips now and then won't go amiss! Bullet?? Self-explanatory. Women?? Come on John, we all love women, don't we? :))))) And vice versa. I mean, who wouldn't like the sight of Pammy Andersons shooting past you. It'd be foolish not to. We men eh!

SITARA,
Thanks for your post and for your kind words. I trust that your course is progressing well. All I can say is keep up the hard work. The 'sun burn' is definitely worth taking the brunt of and remember, you always have us and Sajha to lean to whenever you feel the need to 'crawl under a rock and hibernate'.

Oh, forgot to mention one name for Sandhurst's former alumni: Robert Graves. Another Oxonian, saw action in the 1st World War, after war went on to live in the Mediterranean island Majorca in the late 1920s and 30s. Later lectured at Cambridge before eventually going back to his alma mater, Oxford, to become a professor of literature. They apparently have a monument of him put up there in Majorca for what he'd done to the place like his predecessors - the most celebrated couple of the Victorian era, the trousers wearing French novelist George Sand and her boyfriend Chopin, the flamboyant Polish composer - had done to it many years before him. So, Graves to Majorca is exactly what Hemingway is to Cuba and West Quay.

Hope you had a lovely Dashain. I better sign off as this post is becoming boring with my woffle. Have a good day.
Carpe Diem

Had me in giggles... pretty typical scene, well written work. Golly gosh... this Lahure guy.. he writes miles and miles and shows no sign of stopping. Does he do it at lunch time or doesn't he get any work done at all ? Or is he one fast thinker and an even faster typer.*pheww* And hardly any grammatical or spelling error. How ndoes he manage?

How about a sequel huh? Like, you could go really sci-fi.. suppose the woman was actually some other being from planet xpiladocious??! Kidding!

Scarlett (O'hara!),
Thanks for your comments. I may well be just another 'goofy gormless goon', spreading virtual tyranny in the Sajha land with my ravings which can easily pass for some third rate pub gossips for most of the time. But at other times, the mind tends to get filled with a fair dose of wisdom and energy out of what I get to read meaningful threads such as this one: something that tickles my thoughts. And this gives me a ready pretext to try and come up with yet more of those gibberish rants - the posts above for instance. Maybe these interactions are all very useful exercises for one to sharpen one's perspective intellectually, or maybe not. My verdict may well be ill-founded and the pukka answer lies elsewhere. I don't know, but I know one thing for certain about such pursuits: the entertainment value. Only Sajha can offer one in such abundance. So, this is why I keep coming back to Sajha relentlessly - a seemingly insignificant pursuit initially, or so I thought, which has now turned into a comfortable habit, almost an addiction in itself.

Okay, I've got carried away again.
Yours,

The 'goofy gormless goon' (being very poetic today!)

Hey John, how about another lil tale? ;) Am bored bored bored. Goofy gormless goon , u r cute and a half baked poet too; beat that! As Lil Red Riding hood goes," My my, what big words you use!" Enjoyed it !

Gone with the wind..( a relief not to have to explain that no.. im not a guy with some scars !:P)

Dear Miss Ohara, you have indeed gone with the wind with your compliment. Thanks. 'Cute' is perhaps not exactly the right term you're looking for when descibing yours sincerley - a cross between Woody Allen and Bart Simpson would do, in case you didn't know! :) Half-bakes poet? Far from it - he has not even made it as near as to the baking tray, forget the oven! :) As for the 'big words' - don't they say: The bigger the man, the better the mark! So, there you go - size does matter afterall!

I hope my goofy gormless thoughts above will dispel some of your triple-boring spells. Being poetic again! Have a good day.

***************************
John, yeah could do with another spellbinding tale from Alabama - the Forrest Gump country! Hope you had a restful weekend.

Carpe diem

A cross between Woody allen and Bart? Now, now thats some image! Nearly fell off me stool. My 2 fav tv charatcers :) Where have u been all this time?? My life long search has come to an end. And no, i dint get the slightest whiff of a poem !:P

Gone with the wind..

:)) scarlett.. cheers. I am a little rushed off my feet today - Monday you see. Hope your day has been equally busy but productive.

Keep on firing away at your keyboard hai. Now back to work.
Carpe Diem