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

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!!

lol
i was thinking abt the pangden too
we dont wear dem:D:D
seriously samsara didnt miss that :D:D
samsara i saw u playing guitar in lhosar dvd:D:D wid gangas husband i forgot his name uffff short term memory:D:D
anyways amber muuuuaccxxxxxxxx for the lovely story xcept for some exageration indeed in couple of places i dont knw i just felt it:D:D
i think the gurl falls in lop wid the monk now :D:D spritually lol,, i seen very good looking monks lol see im already accumulating lotsa karmas ,,,in jest :):)

When there is too much to bear in life you find ur asylum in the virtuality and ultimately death!! Thats what she did!! But still life is for to fight and she did loose on that!! She choosed to lose rather than to fight!! I wished she had rather fight back and and find her Karma!!
I thought Lobsang was savior; but rather he unknowingly inspired her to death!! Or maybe death was her last resort!!
Nice story Amber!! :)
Keep writing!! It is one of best story I have read in sajha!! :D

Thanks Samsara and Angeleyes for reading it.

Tibetan and Manange Culture...they are not too far, isn't it? These days one could see Nepalese women wearing different kind of dresses which are not supposedly original Nepalese dresses.Besides, pangden is just a piece of cloth. So , is it unacceptable for the Pangden to be around Amu's waist?

I'd beg to differ. Tibetan culture and Nyeshang culture are only similar in terms of clothing and following Tibetan Buddhism (there is more similarity to the Gurungs of Nepal)...Dr. Harka Gurung often attended Nyeshang events and considered himself and all Gurungs to have originally come down the Nyeshang Valley from Tibet.

As for the pangden, I'd estimate that if amu is over 40 years old, then she shouldn't be wearing it. BUt these modern times, amber, you're right, people may wear clothing from other societies/races but it is still frowned upon by the elders.

Wait! is that the end? coz I don't see your lovely phrase "to be continued" anymore. :P...if this is not the case and you're still gonna continue, then am eagerly waiting, else, have to tell, you've rushed through the story and just murdered what it seemed like a promising plot! :P

and i'll tell you why i felt so:

your story started on a promising note with two complete contrasting characters: dhriti and karma getting to know each other and in spite of the poles apart characters and background, finding a niche for each other.

1) why the need of the third character Lobsang (the monk) in the third part, if it'd got to be the last part? unless you have brought strong enough point for dhriti to NOT like Karma or vice versa , there was no need of the third character to ruin the slow romantic plot that was developing between dhriti and karma!

2) secondly, if the monk had to be there in the story, why bring him in the last part? how can you expect us (readers) to believe that a conservative, classy character like dhriti will fall for a new character so quickly? don't you think you hurried on it in a quite unconvincing manner?

3) the story could have done great even without some dramatic moments like lobsang massaging dhriti's feet or she playing basketball with them men! thank god, you didn't play a background music hehe :P. you brought some typical hindi masala movies moments (kuch kuch hota hai or sth) by doing so and marred the seriousness of the plot. it didn't suit a character with panache that dhriti got!

4) it was never told that dhriti had a disturbing family life until at the ending. it came too quickly to me as a reader andi found it hard to believe in.


all in all, i am not quite satisfied with the ending (the last part). i hope you're still gonna continue, coz after reading your "bharyang muniko rana" and the first two parts of this story, i thought you could do a lot better than this as a story teller.

don't take it otherwise. you took my first comment as a constructive criticism. hope you'll do the same justice to this :)

LooTe

hey loote could you do me one more favor since you were so attentive.Summarize the story .for A grade :D

LOL! i would write my own story (few plots that i am thinking of jotting down someday) than writiing a summary to someone else's story! baatho gadha! :P....read the story by yourself...it's neither that long and nor that boring ...and you can read and write english unlike AZN who can't read nepali :P :D...

Heheh..it is nothing like i cannot read and write i am just trying to test your summarization skills:D
So com'on challege to u ..you cannot summarize this story!:)

hahaha.....i can't do a justice on someone else's plot...moreover, it's more entertaining for you too, if you read the original piece..:D...haha...ke ko challenge ni? :P

on top of that, it's a short story! DUH! :P

hmm ..let me be simon cowell ..I didn't like the names of the characters:P

ya just do it man!!!what's the unjustice about ?and also change the names of characters :D

Smoke draws a Blurry Lines on the air. Life lost its meaning.
Some lifes are so vincible that a obiter dictum becomes the ordinance.

I gave it a second though and as sunnydev wrote, perhaps that is what life laid on blurry lines is about. apology amber if i seemed like a super cool analyst with my attempt to dissect and trisect the story :-)

Arnico/Samsara/Captain Haddock-Thanks! Now, I would like to hear on the issue of" stereotypes" which was raised previously by few of you. Any traces of Pride and Prejudice ?

Juggy- Thanks ! You do understand the writer's perception. Being a writer yourself, I hope you do understand why most of the writers prefer penname.

Lootekukur- No apologies boy. Writers are blessed with the readers and reviewers like you.Critics like you help them to evolve.

SunnyDev- You actually could read the writer's mind. Loved your lines. Hats off to your twenty four words in two lines!

ImI- Read the two lines from SunnyDev. It summarises the whole saga of "The blurry lines."