Kathmandu
The author considers flute music to be 'the most universal and most particular' of all music. This is a musical instrument that is common to all cultures. We have the reed neh, the recorder, the Japanese shakuhachi, the deep bansuri of Hindustani classical music, the clear or breathy flutes of South America, the high-pitched Chinese flutes, etc. Even though each of these has its specific fingering and compass yet, for the author, to hear any flute is 'to be drawn into the commonality of all mankind'. This is because in spite of their differences, every flute produces music with the help of the human breath. Similarly, despite the differences in caste, culture, religion, region, all human beings are the same, with the same living breath running through all of them.
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(a) Why is the writer unable to tear himself away from the square?
(b) Why does the writer consider flute music ‘the most universal’?
(c) Find a word from the passage which means ‘harmony’.
How does the narrator describe Kathmandu?
How does Vikram Seth describe the Hindu temple?
How does Vikram Seth describe the Buddhist shrine of Kathmandu?
What is the belief associated with the half-immersed shrine in the river Bagmati ? What does it tell us?
What attracts Vikram Seth’s attention in the square? Why?
What differentiates the flute-seller from other hawkers and vendors?
How does the flute music affect the narrator?
What does the flute music remind Vikram Seth? Why?
How has the Kathmandu trip changed Vikram Seth’s view?
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