Many years ago, I read a very interesting story in The reader's Digest Condensed Volume about a cheetah who had gone a long way away for hunting in summer.Whilst hunting she was shot at by hunters and grievously wounded. The story was about how the cheetah pulls herself back from the unknown forest to return to her part of the forest and finally die there.

When I had read the story its style and description, word play made an immense impact on my mind. I followed the animal step by step through the deep forest with the hunter pursuing it relentlessly. Every move of the cheetah's was mine, every shaft of pain was in my body, each time she fell and rose was my triumph!! It was a lovely story and I remembered it often through my growing years.

Many years have gone by since then, and I am now in my mid- life and once again for some unknown reason the story comes back to my mind. And sitting as I am in the autumnal fence of my life I empathise with the dying cheetah in another way today. I now realise why the cheetah needed, wanted, to get back to her side of the forest. Why she needed to rest where she belonged.

As a young person where I lived was not so much of consequence as how I lived. It did not matter to me that I had lived a part of my life in one city and then moved away to another so long as I had a certain standard of living. Being friendly and accommodative I was never short of friends. My friends did not all last me a lifetime.... but they were great while they lasted!

But Time has come around and now I am like the wounded cheetah ..... I long to have a place to return to. I want to have a place where I can lay my bones to rest. I realise the sentiments which compelled the author to have written that piece. There comes a time in every life when one wants to be still and communicate with oneself. Its when far away places have lost their colour and we want to go back to the roots. I realise I want to go to the place where my near and dear ones have lived and died. I too want to be with them in my last hours. My deepest emotions, perhaps unknown wholly even to myself needs to unite with the ones who were the cause of those emotions. It is a need to unify with the past, to be melded with thoughts left behind, to reach for rest where it is most satisfying. Which is why my own 'native land' is so important to me. I am the embodiment of everything the cheeta was as she is of what I am.