Nina Simone's voice makes me feel like I am in heat, but of a more mystical kind

We were at the fag-end of winter, I remember because the homemade Haleem we were gorging on felt soul satisfying in a way that can only be so when you feel ever so slightly chilly. We were a motley bunch of writers, and we'd gone through a range of exhilarating conversations that evening on the terrace of the home of my wonderful gynaecologist, Ruma Satwik, and her husband, Ambarish Satwik, a vascular and endovascular surgeon and author of the short story collection, Perineum: Nether Parts of an Empire.