Life comprises many things. For some it is love, for some the luxury of a good conversation or the warmth of a cosy room, where the vibe is good. The exchange takes you all over the world — geography and history is all unfurled. In the background, life is good by the grace of God, and all this is not short of a miracle that we talk about here, in this quaint hillside, according to Rudra Rana, manager of Nagarkot Farm House Resort. This place attracts international non-government organisations and the embassy crowd. No canned food or juice. Everything is cooked in a natural way. They grow vegetables themselves. There are 15 rooms and a meditation hall — nice and clean, and this is not a place for many people.

I might add, with a beautiful breeze, grand golden crisp sun and a little stupa on the hill, the cobblestone pathways and cosy rooms were very inviting. After all, this journey is all about cosiness and conversations, drinking to new friendships and good times. In a world where there are a lot of people suffering, these simple extended evenings are actually miracles from the almighty — at the cost of being cheesy, and sugar eating, this is the truth, and we are drinking to him as far as I can see.

The beautiful flower was the star of the week and my mother, who wore it, was no less than a star herself. Also the lady of the forest with stories like fairytales, which I shall mention later, was brilliant. I recommend all of you to befriend that beautiful woman. So, here’s to friendship again!

But here in Nagarkot, the view was amazing — the rust colour and stone walls with warm lights hanging from the wooden ceiling lit the dream again. It evoked a feeling of Christmas in the north, with church to attend.

A sign of poetic evening could even be the figure of someone reading a book beside the fireplace, and the stillness remains with the passage of time in a state of grace. The fireplace was elaborate with one of those old-fashioned chimneys. A man we will talk about later sat there handling the wood; he fitted the role. His French wife and his niece and their daughter read fables on one side. It was magic as I understood.

The young niece came from Valle’ de La Luna — the name for the biggest river in France, where they are many castles like Château de Chambord, where Francois de Premier held the reins, ran his blade and romance was elaborate.

That was the place where there were plenty of fields — a historical place, from the time of the Renaissance and Leonardo Da Vinci.

The German said if the sun does not come, what can we do? I said we return to Babylon and make a pair of shoes.

That lone German traveller was joined by two Norwegians at the corner table. A lady ran a bar, which had a very Brecht-like dramatic look about it.

But she was the quin­tessential bohemian free spirit with golden hair, like I had in the good old days, when I was rather stable.

She had red lipstick and a face from the ancient galleries that was weather beaten and classic. She was some faint mystery from the Bible. She carried a smile coming from the goodness of her heart. She was also a face from 1940 and she was a fighter with the dark.

She walked around in cold forests gathering wood for fire. She carried stories, folklores and benevolence from good virtues and a hard life, fearless of a curfew. She carried wine and other spirits; she carried stories of ghosts, fairytales, oracles and mysteries. She was the grand­mother, the one who rose from the ashes of the war, and served hot broth, steaks and pudding, and made you laugh with a sound from the forest when you were sore.

We sat with the English couple and we became friends very soon. It was one day before the skies would be seen in the presence of a full moon.

We spoke of their children — performing music in Notre Dame by the Seine. Later we joined the fire, and we came to know of their life at Oxford. They lived in a little cottage of beams and poles, by the manor, from 600 years of possession. They summed it up as “lovely” in the end. “Better to die young than to die growing old” is what they said in the cosy dining room wrapped in a gift when we were held together by the leisure of that day.

They kept speaking of their children and their wedding at Jesus College on a Tuesday at quarter to five. They spoke of life, and of Cambridge where a child of theirs lived.

“But sir, my whole family from a hundred or more are mostly all from Cambridge,” my mother, who couldn’t resist, had to quip that one in.

But they had a great sense of humour, the Brits always have. As for me, I kept thinking how silly I have been. I should have got settled earlier, rather than waltzing with sin.

In the other room, there was a game of black gammon that went on and a beauteous creature played with the cards. But she was elsewhere, some 10 feet away, like an evening clubbed together by life and this likelihood of chance. It has to be said that I was reassured all along, that I had my love back at home waiting for me. I was just playing with the realm of exploring nothing serious and then it was gone.

The clear vast canopy of blue sky and the stars, one night before full moon, I was not sleeping but dancing. There nature had the last word and then it was gone. The lights in the dining room were warm and soft and appeared snuggled like the winter in an inn in England.

This was before I made the children laugh and ate 10 eggs and became tall like a giraffe. This was before we sat around and spoke to the Renaissance man with a tattoo around his eyes. Dennis Hopper was the quintessential underground man of the sixties. He never came out, he did a lot and then he died.

We knew he was there, that’s how I met him as he was accessible to the art world. This was after the easy rider going with Jack across America on motorcycles looking to get wired, and looking for wisdom in the world.

Then he got off the road. He summed up the underground in California back in the cracking seventies — till for his sins and his piety the quintessence was shunned. He said we would speak of the fables of Babylon later; that Jung believed in a higher God, his genius came down the Nile from the creator.

The girl with the sun in her hair was not eating much. She and her family were right next to us; it was where the evening left, now looking inside out, the time was made for us like a colour photograph — mute images of paradise while dining.

It stays forever till the last supper, when you are left alone, and then say that life was a warm night and dinner made with embellishes from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, India, France and England and this village was willed to be the promised land of the crucible.