The world of Nepal researchers and their friends is a small one, with lots of people multiply connected, so it's not surprising to find that people are linked by just one or two degrees of separation. But the whole world is small. In Kathmandu I'm staying with friends L and T - I met them last time I was here, in 2010 - who are most generous hosts to many folks passing through Nepal. Another houseguest, a political anthropologist, went to grad school at Cornell with L back in the day and has returned in Nepal for a postdoc study in the Terai. "Where do you live in New York," she asked at one point.
"Prospect Heights, Brooklyn," said I.
"After Bard I lived on Prospect between Vanderbilt and Underhill."
"What? That's my block!"
"Two sixty-five..."
"Two sixty-five?! That's my building! Don't tell me..."
"Fourth floor."
Yes indeed, five years before I moved up there, she and her husband were in the very same apartment of the very same building I now live in. The very one. Eat your heart out, Eugène Ionesco. Kinda mindblowing, in fact.
"Prospect Heights, Brooklyn," said I.
"After Bard I lived on Prospect between Vanderbilt and Underhill."
"What? That's my block!"
"Two sixty-five..."
"Two sixty-five?! That's my building! Don't tell me..."
"Fourth floor."
Yes indeed, five years before I moved up there, she and her husband were in the very same apartment of the very same building I now live in. The very one. Eat your heart out, Eugène Ionesco. Kinda mindblowing, in fact.
