Was gone for a long while. reason: took the plunge of going into the fray, the sea of people, the common man. the place where i am the happiest and which i was away from for the last five years. The children are old enough, and i have emerged finally from my personal grief, if not unscathed, atleast intact. i am proud to be a public servant, and have gone to what bureaucrats fondly call the field. I joined civil service with a lot of idealism, because i wanted to make a difference for my people, and believed that those of us, who are born to a privileged life as i was, should not live selfishly but try to give of themselves to those common people who have nobody to rely on but themselves. that in my opinion is what public servants are there for. People have asked me many times who i have loved most. i have loved, and once perhaps a bit too much,with fleeting joy and lasting pain, but there is nobody i have loved more than my work, because it gives me the chance to be with other human beings and to help them. Perhaps it sounds cliched, n so many talk about helping the poor, the commoner,that perhaps it is a bit, but i would never leave my work . For anybody. it makes me happy because i can do good through my work, and i would never want to let go of the personal freedom it gives me: the freedom to choose who i am, the freedom to be what i am, rather than what others would have me be. Work keeps me occupied but happy, but i return again to writing, because it reminds me that i have a voice which can be and is heard. My beloved mentor, the one i learnt most of my own self from,who is so much like me, gave me this gift of voice, made me believe in myself. so what if my idealism is smashed each day by the machinations of my peers and the realities of public life in Pakistan, it shines at me again and again when i am able to help somebody , when i see the difference i make each day. There is lasting joy here.