Devageet, when you sometimes say “Okay” to Ashu, I misunderstand: I think it is okay to me. That’s why she laughs. But still I say, deep within me there is nothing but laughter. You can anesthetize my body, everything, but not me. That is beyond you.

That is the case with you too. Your innermost core is beyond all chemicals and chemistry. Now I can hear Devageet giggling. It is good to hear a man giggle. Men almost never giggle. Giggling has become the sole domain of women. Men either laugh or not, but they don’t giggle. Giggling is just in the middle. It is the Golden Mean. It is Tao. Laughter can be violent. Not to laugh is stupid, but giggling is good.

See how I can say something significant even about giggling: “Giggling is good.” Don’t worry even if I say something correct, it is just an old habit. I can even talk in my sleep, so it is no trouble to talk like this.

Gudia knows I talk in my sleep but she does not know to whom. Only I know that. Poor Gudia! I am talking to her and she thinks and worries about why I am talking, and to whom. Alas that she is not aware that I am talking to her just like this. Sleep is a natural anesthetic. Life is so hard that one has to go under every night for a few hours at least. And she wonders whether I really sleep or not. I can understand her wondering.

For more than a quarter of a century I have not slept. Devaraj, don’t be worried. Ordinary sleep…. I sleep more than anybody else in the whole world: three hours during the day, and seven, eight, nine hours at night – as much as anybody can afford. In all, in toto, I sleep twelve hours per day, but underneath I am awake. I see myself while asleep, and sometimes it is so lonely during the night that I start talking to Gudia. But her difficulties are many. First, when I talk in my sleep I talk in Hindi. I cannot talk in English while asleep.

I never will, although I could if I wanted to. Sometimes I have tried and succeeded, but the joy was missing.

You must be aware that every day I listen to a song of Noorjahan, the famous Urdu singer. Every day before I come in I listen to her again and again. It could even drive you crazy. What do you know of drilling? I know what drilling means. I drill that song into Gudia every day. She has to hear it, there is no way to avoid it. After my work is over I again play the same song. I love my own language…not that it is my language, but it is so beautiful that even if it were not mine I would have learned it.