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Sunday, November 6, 2016

Daniel : thesocratespot: AAUW : Chapter LXXXXV

Daniel, was somewhere in North Carolina, attending to a prep for an opera he was invited to  conduct, it was on Schubert. He was the sound engineer for the Opera. The opera itself was being led by Steven Isserlis and his Cellist troupe backed by the New York Philharmonic of which Daniel was an employee.

He was just about finishing his part of the contract when he received a call from a friend of his, she was volunteering as a nurse for red cross and was posted somewhere in Sudan. They were old friends, they had met when Annie and Daniel were touring Uruguay - so she knew Annie - Annie and Daniel had stayed over at her apartment at Montevideo and later also had travelled across Alaska during one of her trips to the US.

Daniel was initially a bit curious when he got a call from Elisa, thought maybe she was visiting New York, but he was a bit uncertain coz he had just chatted up Elisa on Facebook just a few days ago and she had only mentioned about her Red Cross volunteering and about the situation in Sudan she had never mentioned anything about any impending trip to New York - by the time Daniel finished his call from Elisa he knew he was Africa bound. Elisa, happened to be posted on Sudan and during a routine posting at a make shift hospital for the mentally ill in that region she had come across Annie, being treated for a bi polar disorder bordering on Schizophrenic, she had become prone to violence, she had hurt her doctor treating her but she had no clue.

Elisa gave Daniel the coordinated to the temp Hospital in Sudan - mentioned to him that given the civil war situation and the increased Russian aggression, she was not sure if the temp base will remain where it was, but Daniel could take Elisa's coordinates for all communications.

As Daniel boarded his plane to Sudan - it was a complex itinerary to reach Annie, Daniel had fly to Khartoum and then head by any available transport to Eritrea and negotiate his way into Sudan - he couldn't help allowing his mind to journey back into the past, allowing his mind journey through the days when he was a kid and so was Annie and how they had met again after fate had split them from Shanti Niketan, in Mettiguda, Lallaguda, Secunderabad, in India.

The second time they came together was in a smaller town, Dornakal,  in a convent by name Nirmala Convent.  Both their parents happened to be stationed temporarily at Dornakal - a charming little town surrounded by mango farms, forests and rivulets, deeply imbibed in the culture of Hinduism due to its proximity to Bhadrachalam, Dornakal had many other facets but for Daniel it is in Dornakal he had met Sister Beula - a young, petite Nun who doted on Daniel - and then he had once again come across Annie in his own class room, doodling though her math work book and humming something vague.    

           

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