Just because you’ve seen only mirages in that vast desert, doesn’t mean water doesn’t exist on this parched earth. Rare as they are, oases lie hidden in the wasteland, where clear, cool water awaits the fortunate traveler. But you must reach them. Walk on, says the Spring, until you find the fertile land of love— and let your song ring like a bell. October 13, 2020 (11:45pm)
The last week of August 2002 was an unusually rainy week. Even after 20 years, I remember that because I spent that week in what was the most hostile, violent and stressful place in my life. Up to now, I can revisit the fear I felt— fear of losing a future, of never seeing my beloved ones again. Photo: Burma Campaign UK I was a third-year engineering student at that time. The final exam was drawing near, and that one evening of late August, I was studying while Mom and others were busy preparing for her 50th birthday treat the next morning. At about 11 pm, three men in plainclothes came, searched my study room, and took me away. “National Bureau of Intelligence,” they said to my family, without giving their names and ranks or showing their IDs. “We have a few questions for him.” “We’ll send him back soon,” they told my family, “Do not make any complaint to any entity.” But I understood that in Burma, a country under military rule for decades, a person taken away at mid...