One night while we were planning what turned out to be our last trip to India, Mani and I got to talking about the places we wanted to visit someday. After we got past Saturn and the Andromeda Galaxy (we both thought that being realistic was overrated),
I was a bit surprised that one of his dreams was to see the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx. As he knew my interest in Japan, he was less surprised to hear of my yen to visit the deer garden in Nara, Kyoto. We both agreed that our Sikhling really should
see the Great Wall of China, so that was on the list, as well.
Our flight to and from India was already booked, with a few days spent in Paris on the way back. Mani and I had been there in 1982, where we surreptitiously slipped my Dad's ashes into the Seine, but Sandeep had been left in Montréal. The current difficulties we Sikhs are having notwithstanding, everyone ought to visit Paris once in their life.
I remember we were sitting on big beanbag chairs in our family room. I was sitting up and Mani was reclining, head in my lap. His magnificent hair was lose and I had been playing with it, wrapping it around a wrist, when he looked up at me and asked, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"
I didn't even have to think about that one. "I'm perfectly happy right where I am."
I never saw him look happier. "You know, that's the sentence every man wants most to hear from his wife. More even than that she loves him. If his wife is perfectly happy, he is a success whatever else might be true."
That was in April, 1984.
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