My thoughts wide open

Murmurs

2011-10-15T17:51:00.001+05:30

I want to go to that place sit on the grass on that hillock, look at the expanse field that would end on a village spread like a length of a cloth, a muffler and wonder it that village really existed. I want to wonder on what kind of people lived in that village and think someday I would walk across that field past a small rivulet and reach that village. I never did, I never will. Probably I was not older than 10 years then, I loved sitting on the hillock in the evenings when me and my family went to Jhapa on Dashain holidays to celebrate the festival with my paternal relatives. We used to make a fan out of the dry layer of the bamboo, put it at the end of a handle (stick) and run to see it rotate. Those were the small things that made me happy, perhaps many kids still run with those “Firfire” and boast their fan rotated faster than others. I want to watch the people who returned home on those evenings from the small tracks in the fields. Those were no tracks for real but as people walked up and down through those field linings, the grasses would die underneath the footsteps of the passersby and a track used to be ready. Those tracks were small but they would lead to market faster, they would lead to destination faster. Human nature does not change as of these days we look for faster tracks to destination. Anyways I have no intention to discuss human nature, they are beyond my capacity. Many of those passersby might have been mixed with clay and if rebirth really happens many of them might be in their teen age, who knows many of them might have died again and taken another birth. I want to feel the whiff of air on my face like splash of water. I want to make futile attempts to hold those dry clay on my hand, I want to listen to the whistle of the bamboos. I want to say if I knew growing up wouldn’t have been fun I wouldn’t have grown up but that is not possible. Growing up is not something one does by choice, we just grow up. Mundane life…

I want to smell the smoke of the firewood that burnt to cook food for people in our village, I want to smell the wet paddy in the mills. Look for fish in that small stream in front of our house. I want to visit the garden and look at the parrots. I want to be surprised to see people climb those tall coconut trees and wonder at how the tender looking banana tree could hold such large number of bananas each facing downward.

I have only been a witness to that life never a participant, someone brought up in the city but never learned to adapt to the so called city life. My 10 month old perhaps wouldn’t even be a witness to those thing. Not every long back on the trip to Dhangadi when I visited a marsh and walked past the village I wanted to embrace the life out there, be part of it.

Those who went to see in Dashain holidays are no longer in this world or should I say in the firm and feature that I would recognize and hence no visits to that place in memory. The layers of rust in memories are thicker and I can recollect very few things. I can’t say for sure if I have a soft corner for that place though I can say for sure I am indifferent to my relatives who still make their living there. Just today out of nowhere I remembered that village, those evenings. When I touch my cheeks with my palm today there are no remains of soft clay blown by those whiffs but unfortunately those are not the same cheeks as well. They are rough not tender.

I want to hear the bells tied around the necks of cows that would ring as the herds of cattle returned to their shed guided by their shepherd after grazing the whole day in the jungle. I know the bells were tied so that the cattle would not go missing in the jungle and the shepherd could always track them but when the bells rang in rhythm it seemed they were tied to create a music. I want to look into the big eyes of those returning cows, into their fed bellies and look at the calves that would suckle the milk as if they have been hungry for years.

Life is not easy there, had it been no one from there would dream of coming to this city that I have not liked much. Life is not easy here, it is not easy there, it will never be.

From my death bed...

2010-09-11T18:54:00.000+05:30

There were few months and now there are very few days and who knows its just the next moment, that I will get away from you, forever. This time this is not going to be few days of separation, yes its forever. I am leaving you with memories and what I am taking… I don’t know. Last 32 years of togetherness passed through high and low but what a journey it was. I am rejecting you today because it is more painful to remember that I am leaving you than to think that I am dying. I have been bed-ridden for a week now. I had six months, then five, then four, three, two, one and now just few days. I want to think of other things but what I end of thinking about you. I start from my childhood, remember the friends that I have had but slowly I slip into your memories. Only after wandering into your memories for a long time I remember I had made up my mind to forget you, to give up your thoughts. I turned my face away from you just a moment back when you were away because you are making it difficult for me to leave. My throat chokes when I see you, when I see the fear in your eyes for loosing me, I see the reflections of those days we have been through in your eyes. I knew I was dying soon and the first thing I did was put all your photos away, had those framed pictures of yours slip into the drawers. I saw the picture we took just after the rituals of our wedding completed and we were at home. I looked happy and so did you. You looked a perfect bride and I remember the first footstep you took into my home as my wife. I remember the very next day I had woke up early and you were still asleep beside me. I looked at your innocent face they reflected faith that you had upon me with which you left your parents home just to start a new life with me. The vermillion had fallen into your face and it had made you look prettier. That morning I had made a promise to myself that I am going to make this woman happier as much as I can. I had kissed you on the forehead and I can still feel that kiss. You moved a bit and looked at me, that look hounds my dreams as if my life stopped there. You were there all the way, when I failed you encouraged me, when I got something, you were happier than me, you advised me. From smallest choirs of making my bed, making my dresses ready to raising our kids you had been a great wife, a great partner. I have rejected you, dismissed your presence but it is you all the way, all in my thoughts. I don’t want you to see me the way I am today, I don’t want you to see me helpless and I don’t want to see the loneliness that awaits you. When you try to bring that fake smile I die millions of times. Day-before-yesterday I wanted to move my hands on your grey hair, to embrace you, to kiss you in your forehead and only I know how much pain I inflicted upon myself when I refused to look at you when you came to our room which has been “my” room for last three days. I have asked you not to come to me, not to come to the room because that makes it difficult for me to die. Somewhere its your thoughts that are holding me back. I cried holding the shawl I had given you on the day of our wedding. I want to see you in the same red saree, with same cheerful eyes, and same shyness. I visit to you such so many times in my dreams. When I am awake I am worried if you have eaten well, if you have slept well and in my dreams I see myself watching you sleep, watching you laugh, watching you working in the kitchen with your Kurta’s shawl tied back to prevent it from falling. I am worried if you are well but I can’t ask, I am withdrawing. If God listens to the last wish of a dying man, I ask him your happiness. I love you…………….and that is the only thing I remember at this last moment of my life.

Post demise of Girija Prasad Koirala

2010-03-23T11:44:00.000+05:30

I woke up today to newspapers that were all filled with articles, news, analysis and condolences offered to late leader Girija Prasad Koirala. I among many others have been the one who frequently felt GPK was responsible in one or other ways in the turmoil that is prevalent in the country. Opinions were also building up that no change will take place until GPK relinquishes power and his position as a center of power was broken. GPK on the other hand was far from giving chance for other to rise may be out of fear that his position will be overshadowed or probably he thought no one was capable enough. Whenever anyone tried to raise hood, their political career suffered examples of Saileja Acharya, Krishna Pd. Bhattarai, Sher Bd. Deuba suggest the same thing. Many times he was cursed but he never deterred from whatever he decided. All of us have heard people becoming critical of him, sometimes even cursing him to death. But not many of them felt sad when he left. I wonder how many of us had thought so many people would participate in his last journey. It would be unwise to say all of them had participated because the loved the late leader.

Media now is putting in efforts in creating hopelessness and pessimism as if with the demise of GPK hopes have shattered and doomsday will be soon here. Unfortunately this is the same media that had become so critical of him in recent times. Nothing and no one can be so much of opportunist like media. It is leading bandwagon to portrait the leader as evangelical, someone who only had capacity to take the country out of turmoil, same things that they presented as his stubbornness now has become his confidence, and his nepotism has now become his ability to see right people. The country was in shock to learn that the elderly leader had passed away, catching on the sentiment media led the bandwagon of identifying him as messiah, an emancipator. Minutes later they came up with creative nicknames like “man of the soil”, “man of the nation”, “true leader”, “great leader”, “great human”. I am surprised how creative and enterprising media can be. I am also surprised at the reason they felt he should be portrayed thus. They didn’t look at what the Nepalese felt and had to say about the leader but they took a hint from who was coming to offer respect to him from India. If Indian ministers are coming no doubt he was a great leader. India was first to be grieved to have learnt the demise of the person who they believed was entire Nepal or who knows from whom they could do things they wanted to do here. One of the Indian leaders even went on to say GPK was Nepalese version of Mahatma Gandhi. Either he hated Gandhi or he didn’t know anything about GPK.

GPK did have the characteristics of great leader, he had strong confidence (I had never earlier said he was stubborn), infallible commitment to what he felt was right. Problem was probably in whether what he felt right was really right. He lent ears to few ones entirely dismissing others. Think about how he ruled his party, he was a complete authoritarian. He bypassed party’s mechanism to secure the position of a minister in the minister’s council. He later lifted the incompetent daughter to the position of deputy prime minister irking the dismayed party members. Now wasn’t he also a great bargainer? He played “this for that” and “that for this”, were all those bargains in favor of the country? Indeed he seemed to come out with solutions when there were deadlocks. Unfortunately what apparently looked as solution were only temporary-quick fix the latest being the formation of high level political mechanism. In one aspect he tried to be Gandhi, Gandhi went on to offering whatever Jinnah asked when Pakistan was formed while GPK was doing something similar with Prachanda the President of Maoists Party. His later days inclination to Maoists could have given Maoists confidence in demonstrating what I would like to call “out-of-law” activities and practices. His relationship with the current government was either of a support or threat is again doubtful.

Demise of GPK has certainly left uncertainties behind, but uncertainties have been something that we have learnt to live with the only fact is now even quick-temporary fixes have died out. Politics is an area where predictions enjoy faltering; still we cannot keep ourselves away from making speculations. Being captive of the same, few things look apparent to me as well. First the fate of Sujata Koirala looks bleak; she has lost the shoulders she had so far ridden. If she fails to find a high-profile fool her political career does not look promising, unless she manages to gather sympathy votes. Unfortunately polls are not anywhere near in the future and thanks to short term memory of people sympathy (if any) is likely to fade out.

GPK crushed the hoods of everyone that challenged his position and no succession plan was done. Piggybacking Sujata Koirala took place really late so Nepali Congress is sure to go through the most turbulent phase and extreme of power play. I won’t be surprised if it disintegrates and if it does even it would continue losing its supporters. The leaders in the forefront are not promising at all be that Sher Bd. Deuba, Ram Chandra Paudel, Sushil Koirala. The possibility of paths clearing for younger generation is very unlikely.

CPN UML is already a party with no strong adhesion between members and it will fail to establish itself as a strong party. It also has a bad reputation of a party with no firm stand on anything. People have shown their resentment against the party by defeating their top leaders in the constitution assembly elections. Whether GPK was alive or he passes away CPN UML is already in troubled water, it always has been.

For Maoists, they in real terms have lost their guardian. GPK could have helped them clean their international image, he was the one with whom they could whine time and again for smallest of the things. He was also someone who had lolly-pops for them regularly. He thus in some way controlled their behavior and placated them when they cried. They might be more undisciplined and we will have many more bandhs awaiting us.

Current government might stay for a while as it will take some time for differences in Nepali Congress to surface. When GPK was alive, the NC members seemed to have full support for government while GPK had hinted that an alternative was possible (may be he thought the path for his daughter would be clearer) and this was also viewed as their way of showing their displeasure to the ailing leader.

India might have already engaged itself in identifying the replacement of GPK or to influence the turn of events in its favor. We can only wait and watch who India picks as its man.

Destination Biratnagar

2009-08-19T18:49:00.001+05:30

Waiting for the flight in the airport is one of the detestable things for me and this time the destination itself would bring my excitement down. Its not the destination but the climate that made my destination undesirable otherwise I am someone who love the expanse Terai, the paddy fields expanding beyond the limits of my sight, the whistling breeze that would spell life into the beautiful greenery, the cows returning home and the monotonous ringing of the bells tied around their neck. I love watching them walk, I watch with great amusement the size of their belly little protruded after grazing for the whole day and more content are the eyes of the shepherd expecting the amount of milk he can get. In the early mornings, inside the small tea-stalls the sight of people squatting holding small glass of tea gives an impression how one can find pleasure in smallest of the things. The tweeting birds in the early morning along the wires that follow the road may be to its dead-end, make the morning musical.
Thank god, the flight was in time almost exact except in the runway we had to wait for almost 15 minutes to wait for a VIP who would arrive late at the cost of our time. Time has no value in this part of the world, if you can’t make it today, make it tomorrow, we live by that principle and it is that simple. If we can’t do it next generation will do it, what a wonderful way to shirk our responsibilities. In order to avoid the curses of the waiting passengers we were not told why we were made to wait for no apparent reasons. The authorities knew the passengers were well-prepared for delays.
Anyways the plane took off and as it gained altitude the city looked smaller and smaller, the houses tiny and tiny. The roads looked like lines on the palm of a huge hand. I felt like shifting the crowdedly clustered houses to somewhere else in my palm like the mythical “Hanuman”. I wished I could rebuild the city. The plane penetrated the clouds and the hide and seek started. I could see white clouds like balls of cotton randomly dropped over the earth. Thicker the clouds more excited I was to jump down into them, lay on my back, legs bent one leg over another, my head pillowed on my hands, to look at these flying planes. In my thoughts I was no older than two twin sisters who sat in seats in front of me on the other side. Unlike them I just didn’t say “In aeroplane the conductors are ladies.” This innocent comment from these kids is still ringing in my ear and I cannot resist smiling. I wonder how the attendant would have reacted to this, how much of energy would it have taken for them to maintain their fake smiles. By, the way the attendants were more beautiful than the last time. However the fakeness in their smile grabbed my attention more than their beauty. Prabably that was the painful part of their job. In my last flight the hostess hadn’t said “Namaste” to every passenger, they only brought their palms closer and didn’t even smile. I wonder if we had paid more for the ticket this time.
The plane flew over the rivers and I would try to see their source but they would vanish inside the clouds. The terai was enveloped in clouds most of the time but as it became clearer, I was overjoyed to see the green paddy, no clusters of houses. The majority of the houses I could say almost made me forget we lived in concrete structures. The small huts looked like scarecrow in the huge fields. The bread-basket of the country was welcoming us with the open arms. The Koshi river looked ferocious and it had already engulfed a huge area leaving a large number of people homeless.
We were in the ground after rising to 13800 feet and the temperature of 30 degree Celsius at 5:00 PM made me worried about the day that was to follow. The drizzle that followed brought some solace and I was pleased to feel the terian water in my cheeks. Honking of rickshaws, streets dividing the houses into two sides, sights of women in their bicycle, speed of the vehicles, shapeless smoke rising from the huts, coconut trees, confirmed that I was in Biratnagar or in any other plain. It was hot but not as scary as I had anticipated. The shops opened till late in the night and late till morning took me by surprise. The country certainly has variation. At 7:00 I had to walk to quite a distance to find a shop open to get a tooth-brush which I had forgotten to bring. To my wonder the street looked lonely except for few bicycles carrying the school students. Like villages I had expected even the city to rise early but many chimneys were already belching smoke, the smell of the firewood made me want tea. Tea in small glasses, teas darker in color and teas rich in milk, alas not a single stall is open. Small biscuits dipped in the local tea tasted great. The stalls had this biscuits in thick bottles and they sold it in individual pieces.

Just another evening in office

2009-07-30T11:00:00.000+05:30

My small room is sparsely lit. The bluish light has created a kind of cosmic ambience. I am in love with that small bulb at the upper corner on the left of the entrance that keeps trying to make my room look brighter. When the faint stream of light evades the bulb, I feel like the protestors slipping in through the barricade into the restricted area. I love this rebellious nature light. It has spread like the light that escapes from the corners of unrelenting clouds after a rain. May be it is not only the rebel, its mischief as well. When I was young, very young indeed not even ten, we used to tie handkerchief around our eyes and we had to catch our friends. In those games children life myself used to escape under the spread arms of the blinded person. He/she used to get hold of the preys but alas he would only embrace the air, the abundant air, air that could not be embraced. The lights are escaping from underneath the cover of that bulb, the cover that has given the light the bluishness. The wall clock arms are aligned against each other at 5 and I assume its 25 past 5. I could have doubted the clock but I don’t, I trust it. In these two years, I never had complaints with this clock. I never asked why had it been punctual, always active and running. In this loneliness, I am wondering for the first time if that’s the peon who regularly changes the battery. Probably it’s the same peon who brings me a cup of tea every morning at 11:00. Why is he so punctual? May be that is the reason he never wants the watch to sleep.

I don’t know when the sounds went to sleep, I remember something falling on the other end a while ago and after that somebody yelled. I don’t remember hearing anything after that. Silence looms in this part of my huge office soon after it strikes 5:00, sometime even earlier. I always hear the cheerful voices of people rushing home. They are always in hurry, like the tumultuous school students. I like those sounds, most of them meaningless. In my school a teacher used to say “When one speaks its an opinion, when many speak its noise”, it was more than 30 years back, I must have been 13-14 years then. Once I asked out of nowhere, unprepared “Why not ‘when one speaks its opinion, when many speak its rebellion’”? Back in those days, thrashing students was part of teacher’s duty, when I spoke that something reminded my teacher that duty of his which he had not obliged in last 45 minutes. I gave him chance to carry out his duty. I could not complete my math’s homework because of the welts, thanks to myself for reminding my teacher his duties. The other day, I was made to do 100 sit ups and my math teacher thought my ears were some ugly flowers which he wanted to pluck. Thanks to him my ears pained for almost a week. Somewhere at that point I lost my voice, never raised any questions, just listened to opinions, in spite of that I did get few more thrashings.

I think I can still feel the welts today, I became an introvert. Anyways, I find the light meets my personality. In these years I have not been to many rooms of my department, and I get confused in the names of my colleagues. That has also come with advantage though, my life has lesser interventions, I have to bring less fake smiles, I rather slay from front rather than backstab, I know my enemies better and I get my work done. The cigarette is getting smaller and smaller. The smoke rings twirl and vanish. I like the smoke rings struggling to exist, struggling to outlive their age. When I put the cigarette in my mouth to inhale the smoke, the edges of the cigarette go red. They burn and sulk, I feel like a master. I share the feel of Dagny Taggart (character from Ayn Rands ‘Atlas Shrugged’) proud at being able to tame the forceful flint of fire between my fingers. The papers under the paper-weight want to blow away with the air from the moving fan on the other side of me. The release of smoke has been strangely in sync with the fluttering of the paper as if the paper were excited to see the smoke rise higher and higher, as if it was cheering the paper. By the time the smoke vanishes, the fan would have faced the other side and the papers lie motionless on the table. My legs are on the table, one leg over another and the dark brown socks has given my feet strange look. I enjoy sitting this way specially when there is a cigarette in my hand. At this point of time, even ethics would have gone to take some rest. I have realized that for last few days I have regularly stayed in office after it sounds quiet, just to enjoy the puffs of smoke, to put my legs on the table one over another like a tyrant. My tyranny is against myself.

I was in my room when one of my bosses steno came to my room. Unlike many other stenos, she has this good habit of knocking at the door before scaring you off with unexpected presence. I had the same position as I have now except I didn’t have a cigarette. Had it been somebody else I would have dropped my legs but since it was her I didn’t. I feel she likes this care-free attitude, she leaves with a smile looking back, trying to appear seductive. That is when I want to have a heart full of laughter. She thinks I am hitting on her and possibly she enjoys this.

I can hear somebody’s footsteps, probably it’s the guards locking the rooms, my cigarette’s bud is on the ashtray. It’s time to go home.

Picking up a day from past

2009-06-19T20:30:00.002+05:30

The temperature has only risen this week. Even falling asleep is difficult in the climate where the sky is breathing hot air. In the crowed concrete jungle of Kathmandu, cool breeze is a very rare commodity. That makes me sit under the clear sky in the night on the terrace of my house. Just a day before yesterday, I was relishing on the cool breeze in the night, the sky appealed me, it just lifted my chin to gaze it. Millions and millions of star hung in its expanse shawl. During my childhood, I used to read in science books and poems about the twinkling stars, I used to look at them but I never saw them twinkle because twinkling to me was going on and off the way the colorful lights do during Diwali. Till date I associate the term “twinkle” with lights going on and off. Sky specially the sky at Night has always mesmerized me; I get entangled in the fantasies, laden with so many questions. When loneliness and evening meet they make me nostalgic, so many men are reminded of pain and agony when they look into their past and luckily for me past has been wonderful, probably wonderful that present and they are wonderful because its past.

Anyways, that night under the elderly looking sky decorated with twinkling stars, I revisited my school life in my thoughts. The breeze became cooler as if it was blowing for those days. I remembered rising up early, finishing home assignments and rushing to school, to be part of a class where faces twinkled more than the stars. I cannot extract the meaning of the hubbub but I find music in it, music with no words but with soul. My friends are chatting, running, laughing and even crying. There are so many of those students who I still meet as job-holders, mothers, husband and wives, the impression of time is so clearly visible in them. Some of them are taller, some are chubbier, some have become serious, the faces have altered but the traits shaped by the childhood are somewhere there reminding we have known each other for a long time, very long time. Few have same cunning smile, some faces shine the same way when they laugh, some hands still move impatiently as they talk and some are still children though they have their own children. I sometime feel that childhood has not vanished, it hasn’t lost but its suppressed. When its friends we forget the age, when we meet after long time we remember good old days together reminding one another moments and events that have been rusted by the mighty time. Again matured people talk silly, laugh on silliest of comments, make fun of each other trying to make maximum out of it because when we disperse a different life awaits us. The shade of past vanishes in the dazzles of present. Back at home we have a different role to play because past is past, unrecoverable but sweet, distant yet very close, dream but that was a reality. It seems as if we are just the characters of a novel who sometime come out of the books, the books that only lie in the shelf. We come out, tug the layer of dust, hold each others hand, dance and sing, laugh and cry.

Change becomes something so visible and powerful. The laziest of us are now most active bankers, the flowing and dirty noses are dry and clean, the eyes have become frail and they need the support of glasses, beauties have turned into ugliness, ugliness are now beauties, bullies are empathetic, jokers are serious, mighty have become powerless, dummies have become scholar. Its not the change that is so significant it is what has changed that is so significant and loud.

I am so much captivated by past, by nostalgia because today few of us from our schools almost 10 years back are gathering an hour later. I am pleased, I am excited, I am so touched. I am excited to meet them, to seek my friends, classmates among the grown ups who I will be meeting a while later.

Expression

2009-05-26T19:40:00.001+05:30

The black clouds didn’t let the earth see its beloved Sun specially after it rained all the night. The city is littered and muddy, there are puddles everywhere thanks to the worn out roads where stones and the tars have come out of their places and the roads look like a toothless old man. It feels pity to walk on these road but businesses cannot be stopped for roads. In the evening the beam of light that entered into the go-down like passage of our department, I felt really nice. The roads must have felt better as well as with the Sun peeping through the curtains of heavy clouds it must have given the roads a hope to get dried. But then its nature, why would nature listen to the woes of dirty roads and miseries of people who forgot umbrellas at home, the black clouds were back again. Today we witnessed Sun for not more than fifteen minutes. When it rains occasionally and when it’s the first rain of the season, it’s a different feeling, the smell of the soil, the leaves that dance taking a shower everything part of the rapturous nature. When it rains longer, when the mood is already somber and one has to walk in the littered city now clad in mud the chances of feeling happy is very little specially when one is not pleased with the day, with oneself. The drizzle had already started and drops of water on my glasses made things look blur. In the road everyone hurried to home, few with umbrellas and few without umbrella. In the sleek cars the richs and the important watched we poor souls as we jumped and tip-toed avoiding the puddle which were bigger pools at places.

I was already missing a warm cup of tea as I hurried home under an umbrella whose wires have come out and desperately looking for some repair. I remember their poor condition only when I have to use them and I am using the same umbrella broken at places, may be I won’t replace it until it sags. Either the whole lot of workers had returned home lot earlier than me or I was late I had no problem finding the public tempo. Two elderly people sat facing each other and were talking their things which didn’t interest me. May be after being in a safer place I was busy observing the people trapped in rain, the walking umbrellas as the carriers were hidden under these umbrellas, kids clad in their rain coat. I saw one of the old men laughing. He had lost his front teeth, the gap made him look pretty specially in the grey hair which remained only in their sides. My thoughts were caught in ‘will I live till my teeth fall’. I got interested in their activities, they were talking about a book whose name I don’t remember. They talked how they pass time, about their children, none of them talked about their wives may be they were widower. It must be very difficult to live lonely at that age. As I was pondering about these things, the old man who sat by my side told the other that one of their friends died a month ago. The expression on the face of another old man changed without transition. It was filled more with fear and hopelessness rather than with pity. He must have thought they are all standing in the same queue just waiting to be picked up by death. I wonder if they still had dreams or if dreams had become meaningless at their age. I wondered I would they look back into their lives, what would they think seeing the babies they had carried on their arms now carrying their own babies. Once we know the end there is just meaninglessness around. I don’t know if the old man was thinking people will talking about his death just as similar as they were talking about the death of their friend. Their generation was just dying out, to let others to fill their place. In the long run no one means anything to the world. How do they think when they see young people living the days they once lived. Their frail heart must have been the graveyard of so many wishes, so many ambitions. What would they plan for the next day? In my childhood specially when I was bed-ridden after I broke my leg and when nobody used to be around, I used to think what if I lost my parents and the thoughts would be just expanded and I would cry. How would they feel when they know now the countdown has begun. One often ask a retiring employee how was his/her experience in the job, I wonder what would they reply if one asked them about the experience of their life. What would they think when they hold their grandchildren in their arms? What would they think when they see an old lady in the woman they married, the woman they lived with. Would it trouble them that they might see their beloved partner bading them goodbye for ever. I had become serious, the old men must have talked about so many things when I come out with my questions. The aura of the old man had changed and it had clear tints of indifference when I departed. I am walking the same road, somebody might undergo through similar thoughts when they will see me then.

Haphazard

2009-05-20T06:15:00.003+05:30

The morning is torrid and I am already feeling lazy thinking how hot and scorching the day is going to be. The color coat in a newly painted house that I can see from my verandah is irritatingly shiny. The sky is clear but not soothing. Interestingly I am excited about going to office today which is a very rare case. I took a day off yesterday as I had an exam, I took it without any need just to help my classmates. After so many mornings of a queue of bikes before my house, the passage to my home looks rather lonely today. My mother told the other day I have been inducted into the hall of fame of VIPs, her tone sarcastic and her aura mocking me. I must say I have been busy lately. I have always been busy when I have had exams. The other day I was helping a classmate solve a problem in my room and lecturing another on the cell and there was a call waiting in the landline. Sarita found this rather funny and incomprehensible. Mummy is used to it and she thinks it is futile on my part, but may be I feel good. I feel good when I look important, feel important but I hate this feeling. Everyone likes praises but I think my likings are little too much and that’s why I hate it.

Two laborers are working in our small garden, they are digging a tunnel for passage of water. After watching them work and the work they did, I was thinking I could have done that so that was waste of money. I felt nice to have this feeling though I know it only looks easy but is a tough task in reality. There are books and papers spread in my room, so many papers of assignments and projects belong to those who had been here for study yesterday and days before. Many books are waiting to be read in my shelves and I don’t think I will consider their plea very soon. I will however finish books that I have borrowed from others. That is a promise to those books!!!!!

I am feeling bored as I am writing this, may be it is because I am writing after such a long time. I was busy helping Sarita do her assignments and she always has so many stories of her friends and schools to tell me. The reserves of her stories never empties. Today she was telling me about one of her classmates whose parents had a tough time making the two ends meet. She said, they were made to evacuate their rented rooms after being able to pay rents for months. The teachers have asked the other students to help them with things they have in extra like books and copies. I appreciated the teacher. Sarita would have had same fate were she left at her home in Dhading. She would not have made it to school as her parents are poor and she would have to take care of her younger siblings. It makes me feel a little better because I feel guilty for having a child work as maid. She goes to school and she is happy most of the time, that should console me, I suppose.

The other story she told me was of another of her friends who found a pouch of ribbons red and blue on the road which he showed to the teacher. The teacher jokingly told her since he has so many ribbons he should tie them in his hair as well, the other day the boy came to school with ribbon tied in his hair. Sarita says he is so dumb and passive that he actually thought the teacher really wanted him to see in ribbon.

Though there are books and papers around me I am least interested in them. May be it’s the dazzling heat, I should start studying.

I am powerful

2009-02-27T07:13:00.001+05:30

“But you had said you loved me”, it was a desperate plea. I guffawed. “When did I say that to you?” my reply was sharp and cruel. “Not everything needs to be told”, her eyes were confused, her face had become red, this red was redder than the red when she used to blush, her eyes narrowed and her nose looked more pointed. Her hair were still unmanaged and a lock of it tried to hid her breasts. But there was nothing she had which I hadn’t seen if she wanted to hide her body, she was still naked and so I was but I was pulling my trousers up. Her lips looked like the petals of a rose in a young spring, I wanted to taste them again as by that time I had already forgotten the taste of her lips. She was looking strange, in her anger she looked more matured. Her eyes were still confused. She said which was however a question, “you never loved me”. I have always been truthful, I nodded my head. Its not that she never asked me if I loved her, she used to ask me that question in most of our meetings which she called ‘date’ just to make it sound more fancy. To me those were just meetings and she was just another girl. Every time my reply was ‘no’ and she always smiled, the smile mocked my truth. She used to ask me if I had someone else in my life, I never have had anyone who I regarded my and I will never have one. My reply used to be simple and true, ‘No’. Her reaction suggested security, she seemed to take a deep breath and she used to pull her body so that her neck looked shorter and her shoulders used to get closer to her ear. Now she is accusing me but I had never lied. I never have two plays at the same time. I love playing with weak and helpless because that is what I am. I won’t tell you lie, my relation with women is my attempt to prove I am not weak, I am not helpless. When they beg before me, I feel satisfied. I feel so powerful to be in a position to make or ruin somebody’s life, but I have never put a trap, I have never lied. I have never told a woman I loved her. “Not everything needs to be told”, she repeated. Was that another of the universal truth that I missed in my primary school? “But I always told you I didn’t love you”. She stared at me undoubtedly she was more confused now, her remark was an incomplete “But..”. “So is this the only thing you had wanted from me”. Even after knowing my inclination toward truth and even after knowing the answer and the truth itself, every woman asks me the same thing. “Yes” was my reply, I repented for nothing. I had not forced her to sleep with me, I had not forced her to meet me. Many times the meetings have been her arrangements. Today’s meeting was one of her arrangements in her favorite restaurant. She was happy, she wanted me to ask the reason. I asked her but I don’t remember her reply, I was just looking at her, she looked beautiful, I was looking at her from the eye of an artist. After so many failed attempts to own her body, today’s evening I didn’t even think about sleeping with her. She hardly allowed me to kiss and that had made my challenge difficult and that is what made me adamant to sleep her, to see her naked, to play with her bare body. Today she looked preetier than ever, when I drove her back, she asked me to come in. I still have no hint that today was going to be my day. She had lost her so called “morality” to her happiness, the reason of which I hadn’t listened. We watched TV and whatever happened next was just unplanned. I enjoyed, I know how she looks like naked. I know her now inside out. When everything happened and when she had lost all her physical privacy to me, when she had chosen to be my slave, she seemed to have woken up. Out of nowhere she asked me when were we supposed to marry. My reaction was innocent, “Marry? Why should I marry you” And then was that question “But you said you loved me” She was looking so pretty that I would have made love to her once again, again and again but she spoilt everything. Her red lips disturbed me but I knew she won’t let me get closer. Deceived by my own nature I won’t lie to re-possess her body, play with it. With other women I have slept more than once but with this one, this is the first and this is the last. Oh God why can’t I lie. What would have happened had I said we will marry , next year, next month or may be tomorrow. I would have avoided finding another woman. I cursed myself. Tears rolled in her eyes, they made me more content. I wanted to yell from the terrace into the city that had already fallen asleep that I had made somebody cry, I control somebody. She said, “I have no point to live.” That won’t bother me. I was going to be same, had she wanted me to continue meeting her, I would have done that because believe me my hunger for her body had not satiated. You would say I disrespected women, I considered them as a toy to play with. Sorry, you have got me wrong. In my entire writing do you see I have created a trap, they have just fallen to me. I have never raped a woman, I have never used a woman who has been let down by the world, I have never forced anyone to sleep with me. I respect women more than those who shout for woman rights. I just seek the ultimate pleasure in the universe, just for that one moment I love women. I do not want them cry, I like smiling faces of women.

She lifted her face, the tears had dried but they had left their track through her cheeks. Her anger was still worse, “So, you considered me just a whore, you picked from a market, slept with and dumped.” “No” my plea was desperate. I have never picked a whore to sleep with and I will never do that. As I said earlier, to get what is easier to get is not my business. I do not want to buy a body with money, its passion that I love to possess not just a body of a woman. “I have not changed”, I said. You are no different to me than you were yesterday and few hours before when we were having lunch. I had no intentions to hurt you.

She spit in my face, that raised my temper but it dropped down. I wiped my face and I left the room, she had covered her face with her arms as she sat with bent knees. She looked like a model posing for a nude picture. The door slammed behind me. After walking for 10 minutes I looked back, the lights of her room was still on.

Strokes of thoughts

2009-02-20T17:54:00.000+05:30

More than half of last one hour I wasted in vain looking for my specs and now as I write this I still do not have specs. Without specs I am not feeling myself as if I have borrowed eyes from somebody else, donated by somebody already dead. The vision is blur and strained. From last one hour I had been wanting to write something strokes of words, words if woven become poem, become sentence, become quote, become inspiration, become vision and if spread apart just meaningless. By the way in the last sentence I remembered I had a nap earlier and that reminded me where I could have left my specs. Now the specs stand on my nose. I feel better though in the last half an hour I have spilled so many thoughts that have dried. I carried it more than I could hold, like a kid holding so many things in his arm, walks with care but still unknowingly leaves behind fallen things, clothes, books, beads and so on. Possibly somebody will collect his things but who will collect my spilled thoughts, who will see it, who will fill it when me where they originated have failed to hold them. Why are they so volatile? What is the meaning of their existence? I write while I keep forgetting, I forget still I keep writing. Crazy words!!! I think to write one thing and when they are written they are something else. My thoughts are so restless, so disconnected. Since no chain exists between one wave of thought to another they just vanish similar to the items that vanishes in the hand of the magician. We tighten our fist so that we can hold things, so that it does not go away and we control it. When we tighten fist we are assured that we have strong hold of our possession but in magic they vanish when they are strongly held. In real life it’s the case with relationship I believe, stronger we hold someone away we get from him/her, by the time we open the fist alas!!! There is none left. Drink your tear then, drown in sorrow. Lost can be looked for but those who leave are gone, gone for ever. More we look for them farther they go. I again wrote things I didn’t have in my thoughts when I was looking for specs. The earlier thoughts lived their life and gone they are. I tried to tighten my fist and faster they vanished.

I returned home irritated by the cacophony in a wedding. I had a nap because my irritation would not just go away. I woke up with listlessness which I still have and then I was invaded with thoughts, random ones, those that I never feel like writing, those that have never been beautiful, those that are sticky like gums that I want to get rid of. I went for a bath, while I bathed I bathed with thoughts more than I bathed with water. Water washes the dirt from ones outer body what washes the thoughts that is inside your head, your heart. I had skirmishes with thoughts and I feel ‘skirmishes’ are the appropriate words. I came out of the bathroom into the empty home the home that is just another house when its empty. My dog slept lazily in his couch and he didn’t feel necessary to check who opened the door. I like home when there are voices filled in its atmosphere. I was raised thus in a small world of my family apart from which nothing mattered. I sought happiness among my family and that made me rather insecure.

The climate that has abruptly become hotter is equally irritating, in the roads people prefer walking in the shades. Just few days back, basking in the sun was one thing people missed about holidays but now they just stay in. Roads will be emptier and laziness will take over probably the season favorable for thoughts is slipping away. Probably in the thoughts now will be heated, sweaty and contradictory. I know that won’t happen but who knows scientists in developed world are actually experimenting on it.

Scratches of thoughts when no mood for work

2009-02-15T16:41:00.000+05:30

There is still time for the stars to appear in the sky, the twilight is usual. From somewhere I smell the froth of boiling tea. Ah!! there it is the push-cart, a hotel in a wheel. I have never had tea from these push-carts one I am not a great fan of tea and the other I am concerned about cleanliness and the jazz. It’s been a while that the cart has stood in front of me and as the naughty froth try to come out of the kettle the owner of the business lowers the flame of his stove. I must have been watching the over enthusiastic froth for almost ten minutes and in all these minutes not a single customer has come yet the owner seems to be in hurry. He opens one container after another. There is no reason behind my standing before the book shop watching the cart. Yes I had come to the book shop to check for a book unfortunately the book was not there. I had stopped to think what should I do next as like many times I had become thoughtless, had forgotten everything as if it were some amnesia. I could not make sense of the crowd, they make me feel dizzy, my existence become so minute and trivial, and everyone is in hurry. On the other side of the road a slogan is painted on the wall. It is an appeal I don’t understand, appeal to reconstruct the country. But that is none of my concern; I am irritated by the hubbub. All these people seem to me to have been directed to move, walk, trot in random and they are doing what they are told without knowing why they were told to do so. The book shop is crowded too and people are seeking books in all kind of subjects, subjects even my father wouldn’t have heard in his youth while he was student in a huge city of Calcutta. I believe they have renamed the city to Kolkata, may be they don’t like Shakespeare (“What’s in name that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”). Even many places in Kathmandu city have been renamed but that makes sense to me because that is what New Nepal is. I won’t be surprised if they changed the name of the country itself.
The twilight has come on a hold, it is not changing, the sky has stopped the roads are however busy, I feel the pace of people has widened. This seem to be a competition where every man on the road wants to overtake the other, as if they are running for a jewel and everyone fearing that the mine might be empty when they reach there. The steam from the kettle rises and vanishes. A gate opens and the students come out of the college chattering, playing, laughing just to lose their identity in the crowd, just to lose their voice in the noise. Small glasses are wiped and are arranged upside down in the cart, he picked a small dirty piece of cloth to lift the kettle from the stove and soon small glasses were filled as the student came directly to his stall.
Unfortunately I lost my confidence in academic degrees just after I joined the college and yet the fear of unemployment had me stuck in the college for four years. I won’t deny that I was different when I came out of the college but it has been a little help. Unwillingly I am back at the doors of college once again just to get a proof of knowing things. I try to seek if these students have different opinions. I seek it in their eyes, in their body language and in their expression. Whether it’s the light that has become scarce by this time or because of my own problems I fail to find anything. I see people more aware of political alignment and consciousness than consciousness for quality living. Soon the glasses of tea start emptying, a small boy probably the owner’s son is busy cleaning the glasses. I didn’t notice when he joined his father but I can see a man in the making I hope he grows up to become someone whose shop is bigger and more profitable than his father’s. He dips glasses into a tub of water whose color changes from colorless to light tea. He rinses them with clean water next and it becomes ready for another round.
The crowd fails to clear and I come out of my amnesia. I mix in the crowd and a bus sweeps me from one crowd to next. In my lonely room I feel significant, I feel sad to seek myself in the crowd.

Search for a book

2009-02-12T19:22:00.000+05:30

They say you can find even god if you seek him properly but today after wandering all around Bhotahity and Ratnapark I could not find a good book of Quantitative Techniques. This is not a book I am searching with a choice but rather with an obligation of a course I am pursuing. They also say to seek god one does not need to wander from one place to another, from one temple to another, god is inside oneself, one just need to concentrate and find that god. My concentration has never been so focused and selfless as I have never found the god inside me. I race between one thing to other when I try to unlayer myself, turn the leaves after leaves inside me. There hasn’t been a long time since I have started believing in god and even that was for selfish reasons yet I believe there he is or may be she is. What’s in gender? God is god after all.

Today was probably just another bad day for me. After visiting one book shop to another I still had found nothing but coincidentally I found so many people I hadn’t seen for years, some people whose images had been wiped up from my faintest of memories. I met my primary school teacher that’s more than eighteen years back at time I hadn’t even hit the double figure of my age. Then I almost collided with one of my father’s friend who I hadn’t seen for almost twenty years. Now one will wonder do I really mean I recognized them and I should say yes I did. At the time when those images where carved into my memories I used to be sharp today I am only outwardly witty nothing close to sharp. In the crowded lanes of Bhotahity the whole city seemed to have come, is Kathmandu really so small was a question I was asking myself in my soliloquies. By the way if I close my eyes something else opens its eyes inside me, it is just another me, who keep whispering into my brain one thing after another. These soliloquies are the reasons why I have not been able to find a god inside me.

I really struggled to come out of my burial. I was buried in works and before I could complete one another work will arrive. If one had to breathe voluntarily I would have died finding no time to breathe. I was thirsty as I walked the littered roads, my mouth parched. There was no water in office today because both the peons were absent. I measured the roads between Thamel to Shahid-Gate in vain. Many book sellers didn’t know what Quantitative Techniques really was. To be true even I didn’t know till few days back, I didn’t know statistics was called Quantitative techniques. When the teacher brought the subject before class, and discussed its role in decision making I was puzzled how could decision be quantified? And now I know it. It is not actually quantifying decision but aiding the making of proper and effective decision. Luckily I am not ashamed of my ignorance and that is why I enjoy the Eureka moments. The transition between complex problems to easy solutions is such a wonderful experience. Problems are problems until we find a solution, (what a silly statement it seems to be but that’s it). Complexity are properties of things, events etc. until a way-out has been found. Possibly simplicity is the fundamental property of every thing, may be we just need to discover it. The ‘Eureka’ moments cherishes us.

I almost ran out of the break time as I wasted all the time running helplessly from one book store to next. I cannot afford staying hungry, my hunger for knowledge would never be satiated with a burger but without a burger I will not be able to stay alive to enjoy the hunger for knowledge. Unfortunately this hunger for Quantitative Analysis is an induced one not a genuine one. Hopefully I will find it somewhere else.

Unaccountable coins

2009-02-11T07:04:00.001+05:30

It felt good when the conductor handed me three coins one rupee each when I told him I had a student card while handling him a note of ten rupee. If day before yesterday I had handed him the same amount he would have gruffly asked for three rupees more. I had got a new student identity card from my new college yesterday. Why it felt good, though three rupees does not make me richer neither does it buy anything that I would love to have and unfortunately there are nothing these days I would love to have except when the chill air try to pierce my body when I return from college in my friend’s bike and I wish I wish I had a car. Other days it would have been nothing but books unfortunately not even books appeal me these days. May be its work that is taking its toll; with six projects whose deadlines are already approaching, 24 hours seem insufficient. To add to that next month there will be visits to branches something worse than a pain in the butt.
Ok, now with the three rupees I have saved six rupees in fact. How come? Had I not have the card I would have paid thirteen rupees but with card I only paid seven so thirteen minus seven is six. Unfortunately even six rupee does not make me richer so that I can quit the job tomorrow and lay in my bed my legs crossed with a good book in hand or may be a soothing music in the background. Even all the six rupees I will save these two years I won’t have anything worthy. So, where will that three rupee coin go? Most probably tomorrow when I will be leaving for office, Sarita will ask for one rupee and I will hand her two because I love to see the sparkle in her eyes when she gets more than what she wants. The other one rupee will again go to her or go missing unaccountable. The ‘materialistic concept’ of accounting which I am studying in college these days also holds for me. Why would I bother about one rupee coin? If I keep getting this concession for being a student, coins will accumulate and where will they go? Nothing worth pondering though. Let’s forget Sarita because she does not get coins everyday. Now if I give ten rupees note to the conductor he will return me 3 rupees coin. Tomorrow I will hand the other conductor a note of Rupee five and two rupee coin. Now comes again the remaining one rupee coin and since my pockets have no hole, they will be spent. One of a similar day, an old man hardly able to keep his eyes open, his bony body standing on lanky legs with support of a stick, all my coins will be poured to him. But that does not make me a philanthropist not nearer to the greatest philanthropist in the history of mankind ‘Bill Gates’, the other side says no-one in the entire history of mankind has amassed as much wealth as him. I do not dismiss his being the greatest philanthropist because had I been him I would have never done that. Now that reminds me of another thing.
Only when a colleague asked if I was going home or not I realized it was already time to leave. At the station people waited desperately for a transport and none was to come, those which came didn’t stop as they were filled to limit. After 15 minutes a bus came and there was a kind of stampede to get to the bus. Few fell but I luckily was the third person to get into the bus and secured a seat by a window. While getting into the bus, running after it, a man so aggressively pulled me and threw his hand that my specs almost fell. That didn’t count as my specs were safe, my eyes safe and I was seated in a seat by window. Everyone got into it and the bus swelled. Then it changed its route. That made me indifferent as by either route I would have reached my destination. A man raised his voice, he was to get off at the same place where I was to get off even then he said its not if the bus takes him to his destination or not it should not leave those whose destination was in the other route hopeless. He was a sage who didn’t care if it comforted him or not but he felt others should not be left as such. I didn’t care after all it will reach my destination anyway. The man was seated in front of me, he turned toward me for reasons I don’t know may be to gather my support. He was the same man who had pulled me and almost broken my specs. ‘Double standards’ my boy I said to myself. I could have done surgery on his nature, what he did and what he said then it was time for me to get off then came my change the three rupees. Oops that was where I started. Leave it……..who cares for one rupee afterall.

Crap

2009-01-28T07:10:00.001+05:30

The children are gathered in the open under the dim sky for their evening play. They are running and chasing, hugging and fighting, crying and making faces irrespective of the world, irrespective of a man who is watching them from the terrace of his home. In the background, the hill fades away but some portion of its surface that is not spilled with the shadow of its own enjoys the warm evening sun. In the courtyard Sarita is trying to show magic to the neighbors but every time she wants to vanish the coin away from her hand, she fails she stomps, folds the skin over her nose but keep trying it. Sane moves from one corner to other as the sun light no longer warms him. He looks at the place understands it isn’t warmer either and just slips inside the room, into the passage where his warm bed awaits him. Women in the neighborhood are picking their clothes from the clothesline, mums yell at their children for not wearing warming clothes while fathers are entering home. My elderly neighbors are talking with each other over a cup of tea, the old woman looks content as she laughs exposing the gap between her teeth. A row of birds are returning home after perching in the day. They maintain strange harmony as they make a perfect arc as they fly as if they were held in a string tied in their beaks. I am instinctively lazy and so I am feeling lazy. Laziness is more a desire not to do work rather than having no work. Work can be sought. My room needs dusting, there are wires snaking through my room, the books are in mess and there are spots in the mirror and the closet, the photos trapped inside the frame looks obscure as thick layer of dust has clung upon them. I have never done these things, I find my room cleaned, dusted, my clothes hung or kept on their places either by Mummy or by Sarita so I have taken these things for granted. Once a relative of mine after seeing the poster of Che Guevara tilted on the wall, said it suggested how careless I am when I should have been a perfectionist. Unfortunately I had hung the picture in such way intentionally I don’t know if the hidden intention was driven by my carelessness.

As I type words making these lines, I have a feeling of mockery for myself. What I am writing? Just writing what it comes, no subject. Yesterday I wanted to write a letter to the finance minister on my way to office and was pretty confident till I came to my cubicle only to find there was no electricity. Tsunami swept away my zeal and no letter was written, my laziness hiding under the excuse ‘Why would a Finance Minister read a letter that come by thousands in his site?’. I recollected my spirit later in the day which was again let down by a call from a colleague who wanted my help. “Destiny“ didn’t want me to write a letter to the minister, spare him from reading a thought of one of his citizens. What would I have written? I would have suggested him to open up the economy don’t be another protectionist, embrace the globalization with proper precaution, identify the impact of ICT and use it to speed development and democracy, get rid of sycophants, get the YCL dissolved and if it cannot be done filter it and enforce strict discipline, remind him China got into the track of prosperity only after it adopted the open market policy and so on. Some day I may write it to him anyway but I am just in the right mood.

Its already dark now. I feel a block inside me and somewhere I acknowledge the current anxiety with this deadlock within myself, not being able to do what I wanted.

It's a flat world

2009-01-19T14:55:00.000+05:30

The world is indeed flat. Just two days after turning the first page of Friedman’s “The World is flat”, I sit in my chair mesmerized by the proof. Being an IT guy when I get to read how ICT has narrowed the world, how it has created opportunities and how it has played a pivotal role in pushing people dipped in the gulf of poverty into the brightness and prosperity I pat my own shoulders. But having done nothing to contribute to the above mentioned ICTs gifts I do feel low. More importantly being in a country with GDP hardly greater than 1100$ I do wonder if what the field they are talking about is the field where I have claimed my own space. Well, I do not however intend to discuss ICT, the wonderful gifts it has given to the world, I will talk a little about its impact in globalization and its contribution in shrinking the world.
Before I begin with my own experience, I want to remember an old lady with whom I shared the Micro-bus on my way back to home a week before. The old lady, her hair would have all been gray had she not colored them brown. Her skin thick and shiny and her eyes expressive and intelligent. She was telling to another lady how much she was worried when her husband had gone to India for about three months and how difficult it used to be those days to keep in touch with ones folks. Now she said her grandson went to “Amrika” a week before and she talks to him every day, she can even see him as he talks. “We seem to have lived in a different world back then”, she added. Distances are really being chopped off as the prices of PCs have gone down, the networks have embraced the world, fiber optics and wireless communications bringing miracle to world. We are friends with people who we have never really seen in real life, we talk with them watch them as we exchange greetings with them. How small the world has become? My friends live oceans apart but I know what did they have in dinner or breakfast. Stereotype mums today might say after chatting online with her son soon after he left home for abroad, I wouldn’t have cried so much had I known he had gone nowhere but just inside the computer.
Anyways time to begin my experience. People who say they have little work at Government Offices are sometime really right. When you have no work even surfing the Internet is really boring, you miss giggling with your friends, passing comments in their social networking sites only when you are engaged in other work. Even then just yesterday, I was very free and internet had nothing exciting to offer. My friend sent me a nudge over the msn messenger, I ignored like I was no time, even my status said I was busy!!! Of course I was busy wondering what to do. Thinking it had been some time wandering in facebook, I went there just to see what my friends and people were doing. Following the network of a friend I came across a familiar name though I wondered how that name sound familiar. But its face I cannot remember, I usually have no problem recognizing people and names. There she was a classmate from my primary school, grade four and five. Was it her? Fair, mischievous, short hair (we probably used to call that hair cut ‘thai hair cut’), prettiest in the class. The photo in her profile looked different, I did not have a clear image of her look but I knew how she looked. What wrong in sending her a message and there I was writing a short message asking if it was her. I wrote and forgot. The next morning (today) in half sleep I checked my mail and a mail said ‘hi I m from Kshitiz’. The book (Friedman’s “The World is Flat”) was lying flat on my flat table upside down so that I could begin from where I left it. I was in my flat floor scratching my head, I had learned the world is not round, its indeed flat. Someone who literally didn’t exist for me just pops up out of nowhere. Three hours later I am talking with her over the phone, just trying to fit faces we both knew, some we remembered many we missed. It’s a flat world.

From below the line of poverty

2009-01-13T17:17:00.000+05:30

Even with a power cut of 16 hours a day, the city of Kathmandu looked still polluted and noisier. Not only the people who contributed to the hubbub it’s the new range of generator that not only polluted the air but also made irritating sound. My pocket was a little heavier than yesterday since my salary was deposited today. With installment of loans and few more deductions my payroll looked so helpless. I am planning to enroll to a graduate degree but even with all my salary I will fall short by Rs. 3000 (Roughly around USD 45) a month. I have to get a part-time job in the morning. I am enrolling myself to the degree for the sake of interest in spite of the fact that I could have enrolled to cheaper degrees but I didn’t.

For the first time yesterday I remained almost hungry even after the lunch since my wallet was empty and still three days remained for the end of month in the Nepalese calendar. At home I was so frustrated since I had to compromise the very basic need of a human being, ‘food’. For those who know me, know me as someone forgetful and rather unpredictable. I ruminated over the expenditures this month since this was the first time when I hadn’t been able to save money when a month ended. I pondered with closed eyes, still frustrated for the way life had turned out to be. Even stressing my head which was already aching for more than ten minutes, I couldn’t find where I had failed. Apart for my allocation for lunch and travel only books are the one where I deliberately spend relatively large sum. I usually allocate around Rs. 1000 (USD 15) for books. I had been to Pokhara where I had over spent but even that shouldn’t have made my situation miserable. Just then I got an SMS from a friend which said “I won’t be able to return your book before the second week of next month”. OK, that is what I had forgotten, I had spent another Rs. 1000 (USD 15) on that book. I had bought four books this month which summed to Rs. 2500, Rs. 1500 more than regular. No electricity means no computers, no television which means the only time pass, enjoyment I can offer myself are books. I have finished seven books this month.

So, I started with the weight of my pocket. The city doomed in darkness was still displaying its glamour in the sun which will excuse itself for the day anytime from now. Just to avoid climbing the steps over the over-head bridge built by the KMC’s office (Kathmandu Metropolitan City), I cross the road at the zebra-crossing a little earlier but to my dismay the traffic police had blocked the zebra crossing. I looked at the detested over head bridge which seemed to make face to me. I pulled myself but just at the door of a book shop I just took a turn and I found myself asking ‘do you have Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers?’ the expected reply ‘No’. May be this is what they call the power of money. Yesterday I couldn’t feed myself fully and today I was giving me a different treat. I wanted to backtrack right away but the smell of fresh leaves of books was just too irresistible. I was looking at the shelves decorated with variety of books. There were Bestsellers which would have normally landed to my hand anyway and the pages would have been turned but no. All of a sudden it seemed my appetite for fiction seemed to be a passé. I spent a greater part in the management and economics section. I looked if there was any politics and development section but there wasn’t any. I returned empty handed. I cannot wait for the day when I will be enrolled in the college where a good library awaits me.

But then for those who know me also know my love for books may be just temporary. It may be replaced by new one very soon. Albeit, books and movies may decline in the list of my priorities, they will reclaim their position sooner or later. The recently read books has certainly changed and widened my view of this world. These days my subject of choice is economics and development. Luckily these books have made me realize we as a nation are not at any hopeless situation but the recent power crisis has terrified me that we are already in the path of sharp decline. Everyday more and more industries are closing, surplus labor with no jobs in hand is in rise. While I was pleased to know in spite of the civil war the living standard of people in average had risen I am so taken aback the restoration of peace hasn’t been able to do much.

Roots, a book by Alex Haley

2008-12-27T11:45:00.001+05:30

After a real long time, a book disturbed my sleep, a character denied to be forgotten even for a while and I spent quite some time turning side. The imaginary cacophony of African tribe didn’t let my consciousness drowse. The drums kept beating and “Kunta Kinte” kept me engaged. I felt sorry for him, my throat choked several times as his story unfolded. I saw him being dragged from his tribe in Ghana, in chains buried in his filth into the slavery. The images of his attempts to run back, the atrocities of whites, the trading of blacks like any other good, barring them from speaking their tongue, barring them from allowing them to inherit the name of their father, their children put to labor at an early age, their women raped. Throughout the book I detested that I am among those who grinded their fellow human being and I kept feeling sorry for the poor men. The small post card of Bob Marley glued in my closet kept singing ‘Buffalo soldier..’. How many times I sang his lines ‘Get up stand up, stand up for your right’ as Kunta Kinte fall prey to brutal atrocities. I had a tough time controlling my tears roll down when he caught the feet of his ‘Massa’ pledging him not to sell his beloved daughter. I was really torn down when his wife’s plea to not sell his daughter reminding him how much had she done to the deaf ‘Massa’. I just couldn’t continue reading and to console myself I had to switch on the TV. My heart wrenched when their 16 year old daughter Kizzy was raped the very first night she was bought by a new massa. The book told a history of a family of people who lived in America. I felt so sad as she told the story of his father ‘Kunta Kinte’, his tongue which became a tradition and every new born generation after generation told the same story to their ‘yunguns’ (young ones) until seven generation later Alex Haley, the author of the book thought about doing a research and wrote the book. I rejoiced when his great-great grand children were freed from slavery and how much respect I had for Abraham Lincoln for abolishing slavery. I understood why a black man had cried when Barrack Obama was elected the new president of the United States. The gaunt, black figure of Kunta Kinte revisited me throughout the day even when I was not reading the book. I admired him for having the courage to share the story of his homeland and his people to his child who set this up as a tradition. Just when one is playing a video game one gets so engaged in the game (racings) that when one has to swerve the graphical car in the screen he bends his entire body, I prayed for Kunte to succeed when he tried to escape. I respected him when other black mates of his called him ‘Toby’ the name given by his massa, and he yelled back at them that his name was ‘Kun-tay’. Probably that protest led his generation to come out with this heart wrenching book and as the book concludes ‘ history is written by winners’ the blacks have really won the battle to freedom and its their history and it has been written with pride.
While reading this book I remembered years back when I went to home of these two girls named Nizu and Rizu once we talked about family name. The former asked me why is family name so important, I had told them it gives one ancestral identity and about lineage. I wish I had read this book back then and had been able to tell them the true story of ‘Kunta Kinte’ of Gambia.
The next book that awaits me is ‘Hot, flat and Crowded’. I hope it leaves me equally fascinated.

The experience of falling into the gutter

2008-12-24T18:18:00.000+05:30

Who wants to fall into the pit? Who wants to get dirty? I don’t want, nor anyone who I know but I have this feeling that I have fallen into a gutter, too dirty to acknowledge. Aftermath, I wonder if I fell voluntarily or if I was pushed over the edge.
Jumping like a calf over the top of Sarangkot in Pokhara, I had not any faintest of idea that disturbances were awaiting my return. To my amazement everyone I met in my office asked me if I enjoyed. I haven’t been someone popular who have talk with everyone. In my office I am still stranger to many colleagues and to have very small number of people I exchange pleasantries, but all of a sudden everyone’s interest in my tour made me feel important at first. Then a colleague of mine commented that the whole office seemed to know I had been to Pokhara and everyone he met asked about me. I later learned someone had been spreading rumor that being a close ally to my boss I was sent on vacation. I did get an idea who could have done that. I was really let down but in these cases there is nothing one can do.
Before leaving for Pokhara, I had forgotten to sign myself on the office register so I was marked as absent. Being a normal case I sought for my boss (Department Chief) who was not available and the other day I forgot the matter. Same case repeated again and by sheer carelessness and foolishness I forgot to report the matter. In these cases staffs have to write an application to the department chief who then requests the Human Resource Department to mark the staff as present. The day before going to Pokhara, I wanted to write the application but again there was no one to make recommendation, so on the day when I was supposed to leave for Pokhara, I wrote an application got it recommended from my immediate boss and looked for my boss who had not come to office and I handed the application to the Peon asking him to get it signed from the Department Head.
I went to Pokhara and I had thought my tour to be successful and fulfilling. On the day I returned, my boss asked me why I had been so late in submitting the application. I could have told him the whole story but it seemed unnecessary and I said I had been really careless about that. After all it was my mistake and it was an obvious case of carelessness. However these cases get repeated in all departments and in ours case its too frequent. Again this was the first time this year I had committed the mistake. While I was looking for a document in my boss’s P.A.’s computer I located the application file I wanted. Since I had missed to sign twice, I thought I had to make two application. The application file I found, was an application a colleague of mine had prepared on a same case and he too had missed to sign for two days. He had clarified the whole thing in a single document and so I just replaced his name with mine and made changes in the date. I got that application printed and gave it to the peon. When my boss complained such mistakes are usually taken in wrong sense by the people in HRD, I acknowledged it promising him not to repeat the mistake. I had assumed he would approve my application.
My head swing as I was returned the application with only one day approved. It meant I would be marked absent on a day when I had come to office and worked. I would have taken that as a normal case had there been strict rules for everyone and had other colleagues of mine been slapped with similar consequences. The very department that turns blind for staffs who shun office for whole day just after signing the register. Same department has no rules to be enforced for staffs who return to office after lunch, no rules for staffs staying away from office for hours in the name of tea. Being considerate is different from encouraging indiscipline. If discipline has to be enforced, it should be enforced to everyone.
I don’t remember the last time I had been so furious. I was helping a staff prepare audit report when I was handed the application form. I tried to concentrate on work but my ears were ringing and I had to ask the staff to come to me next day. I sat still a while thinking what can be done and what should be done. But when anger takes its toll upon mind, sanity and the power to make proper decision get lost. I tried to return the application back to my boss telling I don’t need approval even for one day. If forgetting to sign the attendance register once is unpardonable mistake its nature and serious remains same for any other days. But I was destined to know a part of me that had been hidden or I had deliberately hidden. I thought I knew what I had to do. I went to the representative of a union without caring the orientation of the union (political, general), I would have joined any other union had I met its representative first. I asked him to get me a membership form who was himself so surprised to hear that. He asked me what had happened and I told him everything. He said he would get my application approved for both days without any consequences. Had I cared for consequences I would have never come to him but then came my ego which said I should not get the application approved. He talked me about political convictions which I would just ignore, it would have been vaporized by my anger. He got me a form later which I filled however since executives are not allowed to get enrolled to union I could only give them moral support, I became ready even for that. I filled the form to give moral support to the union.
Later another much influential member from the union came to me. Without knowing anything he said he was glad that I joined his union but then what he told next made me realize I was inside the gutter. He said, his union would always be ready to push my points, they would help me get promoted when opportunities come. I would have spit on my own face had it been possible. If I had compromised, the compromise was for survival, but the compromise had been too costly. Had I not already handed the form I would have torn it right away but as the saying goes ‘living in jungle you cannot afford enmity with the lion’. I had never felt so weak. I only said I hope I won’t need their help when it comes to getting promotion. My desire to win genuinely has not yet stooped even by an inch.
I do not think my getting angry on whatever happened over the missing attendance was very wrong. I do accept I did a mistake but there is a provision in the office rules itself for that. Unfortunately I had already wasted one leave just a month ago and I could not afford that. If correction and action were needed why more serious offenders be spared. Everyone says my boss is more considerate toward me, I don’t want that consideration if I am chosen to teach lessons to other. As far as union is concerned, I know how to deal with it, just ignore them, ignore their invitations, ignore their programs.
The other day when I was going to office, I was seriously thinking about preparing for GRE, its not for the missing attendance but its for the offer of ‘help for promoting my career’ and its for the confidence with which I was told not a single person in the office had risen to higher levels without one or other helping hands. I do not smell of a gutter but I know I stink of gutter.

Direct from Pokhara -2

2008-12-22T08:19:00.000+05:30

My sleep broke a little early in fact lot early than it should have. Under the light of the full moon, in the earth that glowed like silver, the silhouette of the huge mountains watched me as I turned one side to another. Sleep had evaded me, yet I was under the delusion of sleep. When I had opened my eyes I took the beam of moonlight to be the soft light of the dawn. There was an instant freshness in my body, my hands went out for watch that I had got rid of last night, it said 12:30. The sight of the watch washed away all the freshness. I woke up to see the mountains, to ensure I was not dreaming. I could see the shape of the mountains that lifted the sky. May be it had been a long time since I took a vacation and in this auspicious land I had truly became a child. I had behaved like a child who wakes up in the middle of the night just to check if the gift he received last evening was still there in the room. I returned to my bed but neither did I feel asleep nor I was fully awake. My consciousness and my sleep fought each other, unfortunately neither won. The day was destined to be gloomy as I was destined to feel low the other day.
I must have been awake lot earlier but I picked the book with which I had slept. Hearing the honks and the voices of people, I yet again looked at the watch which said 7:30. I hurried for the morning choirs. The mountains waited me and in the morning sun they smiled. Yet another morning in Pokhara. The shape of tiger not as distinct as it had been the other day. The snow was lesser and only stiff rock lay on the foundation of earth. I wondered if the light of moon had melted them, they are always eager to run to the womb of the earth into the mighty lake of Phewa, Begnas and Rupa. Yesterday I had imagined them to have blushed and today they had melted out of shyness. I wanted to run to the Phewa lake to see if its level had risen up to see the city of Pokhara, like a little girl standing on her toe to witness noise beyond the wall taller than herself. I knew my comparison was a mistake, how can a lake as big as this be compared with a small child. My host, the branch Manager of my office at Pokhara had told us that we were visiting the temple of Bindabasini, a Goddess. After a cup of tea he asked me if I was ready and there I was standing at the other side of the main entrance into the office building while my host swerved the car. A ant hurried as the car rolled but before it could reach to safety, the wheel of car stole its breath. I didn’t see it die, neither did I see its body which might have stuck to the tire yet I could say for certain it was dead, no more in this earth, I don’t know where. I have heard and even read, soul the energy, the real life in our body is same for man and an ant but the size does matter. I saw that particular ant loosing its life but how many ants might have come under my very own feet and tasted death. Larger the corpse, larger will be the guilt of killing it. I didn’t feel sorry for the ant but believe me I would have been glad had it been able to come to safety. I couldn’t stop the car for an ant, its importance to me depended on its size. I do not feel proud for it, but a tint of shame shows in me. Very next moment the ant is forgotten and I start humming with the music that is being played. I watch the Phewa lake, its level has not risen, but where did the melted snow go. Did it vapourize? I looked into the sky, it didn’t appear nearer than yesterday. On my way to the temple I don’t know how many ants got crushed. If all those lives I had taken rose up with the body with size of even a cat, I would get insane with the sins I have committed, the brutal murder I had committed.
The sun was gloomy today and in the gloomy sun, the tiger didn’t appear clear only lifeless stiff rock remained. A ring of cloud rested on it like a neckerchief. Later when more lumps of cloud approached the tiger, its tip seemed to penetrate the entire sky and soon something will be dripping. I thought may be it wanted to see if there were rain inside the clouds. If it rains in city it will snow in the mountain. It feels sorry for itself for not being able to hold its snow but it expects snow fall pretty soon. The tiger might go into a sleep under the snow till April. Neither its face nor its stripe will be seen.

Direct from Pokhara

2008-12-18T14:47:00.000+05:30

I had not realized I was away from home when I took a murmuring break early in the morning. The mighty range of Annapurna was smiling at me with the Tiger Mountain on its side. Yesterday my colleague had tried to show me the shape of the tiger in the mountain which I had failed to realize. I had however confirmed the appearance of tiger in the mountain. In my night dress I had walked to the balcony to see the morning more clearly, to see the snow flowing in the slope of the mount Annapurna, just then followed the Tiger Mountain from tail to its head and I could clearly see the tiger sitting, its stripes, its tail, its face and paws were so clear. I stood with a sparkle in my eyes without a blink wondering at this work of nature. The huge white tiger made of rocks and sprinkled with snow would always get my attention throughout the day. My eyes and my heart were never satisfied with what I beheld. I wanted to slid through the wonderful mountain. The tiger rested throughout the day as it had been resting on its huge body for the entire history and will rest till eternity. I was thinking if it snowed, the snow will spill all the way to Pokhara burying the entire city, but it has never happened and I don’t think it will ever happen. In spite of a citizen from the country with so many mountains this was my closest encounter with this structure in the heart of earth. Watching the ranges from the small window of the plane had no effect on me as I remained watching the mess that the human race had created on the heart of earth in the name of civilization and development. The tiny vehicles that were moving on the vein like streets looked like ants rushing to the holes before it rains.
I don’t know how long I watched the snow tiger but I knew the sight had made my day. The morning haze had the smell of smoke but that was not the smoke of pollution but of firewood. The sweet smell suggested meals are being prepared for people. The very human race could be excused to mix this smoke into the air after all he got to survive and in this poor country not everyone can afford kerosene or gas. The smell in the smoke made me yearn for tea. I do not drink milk tea early in the morning but today nothing could substitute my longing for milk tea. The taste of tea in a small hotel, on the evening of the day I had arrived had stuck to my tongue. I just washed my face as if I were a child who had to meet a condition before being allowed to join his/her friends on play. I hadn’t brought slipper and I don’t remember when I last hated myself so much for such a small thing. Lacing the shoes would not even take a whole one minute but still that was a huge loss of time. I rushed downstairs where the guard wished me good morning with a smile however I had not yet come out from the mould of a child. I rushed to the road ignoring the guard with a annoyed smile like a child who approaches the toy he finally likes ignoring the sales staff busy showing him other toys. Five minute later my hands held a cup of tea. The city had woken long before I had woken though the shutters of most of the shops were still closed. School going girls had folded their skirts in their waist so that it would remain little above the knees. Surprisingly these girls looked more elegant than those who let their skirts flow below their knees.
This was my third visit to Pokhara but if really knowing the place is to be taken into account this is my first visit. This was still a strange city for me though people spoke my language and they looked so similar. However I had frequently seen an old woman from the very first day and even this morning I met her on my way back to my office. She smiled at me showing me the hole among her teeth. I tried to smile back and I know it was a very tightly composed smile. Encountering the same woman time and again chased away the feeling of stranger from me. I was again a free boy who had been set free to explore the entire toy shop on his own except that I was not running here and there in the city. This visit will certainly postpone my desire to take a small holiday from the routine life at least for a while. The tiger was sitting composed as if it were watching its cubs play.

NO TITLE

2008-12-08T13:44:00.000+05:30

When my colleague took the first yawn, even 10 minutes hadn’t passed since our training had started. Yawning is contagious and soon another colleague of mine yawned and then I joined the yawning bandwagon. Our regular yawning however had no effect on our trainer for he didn’t yawn even once for the next forty-five minutes when I was with the team. Later I left since I had some work. I do not remember what I had in my head but I realized I had walked long past my bus station. I felt foolish when I had to backtrack half the way to the bus station. For some unknown reasons public vehicles have become scarce and to find a bus or a tempo is a struggle I involve into daily. Among so many other people waiting for vehicles, my eyes fell into one particular girl with a very silent profile. Since my parents are head bent to see me married soon and as they have already started looking for girl, I thought this girl might be a good wife for me, may be a good match. She had little dark complexion, dark and compassionate eyes and she waited for the bus as if she won’t mind if the bus came the next day however that does not indicate she looked clumsy. Where she stood was enough to make her one among us i.e. those who waited for bus but the way she looked at the bus and to the crowd suggested she was just an onlooker though her friend looked very anxious, clearly they had been waiting for some while. When I realized I was considering her to be my wife, I felt foolish again but foolishness I would not seriously regret. Even in the morning while I was in the Temple, I had thought might be my match be somewhere around the same temple. I had felt the same foolishness in the morning as well.
The girl vanished just the way she had come to my sight. I had no intention to look for her either, the thought had come just the way the whiff of air had hit me while I waited the bus. Soon a bus came and the people pushed each other to be able to get into the small bus, luckily I was the first one to get into the bus and secured a seat. The bus moved though the people were waving hands to the conductor to wait. I had bought a new book after almost three months so that had given me a little pride, I felt the weight of the book in my bag and was already eager to turn its leaves. I could see the para-military police force moving in line their hands holding automatic rifles. It gave an uneasy impression but that was not for anything special. They have been made to guard the city after rise in criminal activities around the city. When I turned my face away from the window, it fell upon the face of a woman who was holding the rod to support herself as she stood in the bus. The expression was that of disgust and disapproval. She had just turned her head away from the other side so I looked at that site. A boy looking not more than fifteen sat with his face close to the face of a girl. They were holding hands and were talking in whispers, the hand of the boy tried to hide their face. I cannot say what pleasure did the sight give me, I didn’t take my eyes off them. The bus was packed beyond its limit and not many people can afford to sit that way in public. Later the boy kissed the girl in the lips lightly as if he was only trying to feel how her lips tasted. Now that is what I call courage. Is that the young generation? Why did I feel so, how can the act to kiss a girl be laudable as courage? I have no answer but that was what I thought that moment.
At a place the bus was stuck in the traffic jam. From the window I could see few men gathered around a table inside a tavern. Only a candle was trying to keep away the dark though it was not very dark outside. Small glasses reflected the light of the candle and I knew what those glasses had. They were filled with booze. I looked at my watch which said 4:45. What made the glasses fill so early? Did the men have to go home early? I knew the answer was no. Time had nothing to do with their thirst for the booze. Night does not start at the time of a clock, it starts when the curtains of the day is drawn.
At a little distance, the road narrowed and the bus had to move so close by the walls of people home that the twigs and the branches of the trees and plants from the homes extended as if they wanted to shake hand with the passengers. The leaves of these plants had thick layer of dust and clay. When it will rain they would bath to be pure and holy and as soon as the very rain stops they would be covered in the sins of dust again.
I got down at my place and it was already dark, students in their school uniform chased each other. They were just having fun; these are the things they will miss when they will come out of schools and of colleges.
Today the roads look vacant, I need not wait to cross the road. A shivering beggar lying with her knees pulled up to her chest draws my attention. I bend to spill three coins, one rupee each before her. I see her face when she pulls her tattered shawl to collect the coins. I know her, I have seen her in her good days, in the days when her husband was alive. In the days she had no mercy for her step sons. Her husband died young and her very step sons kicked her out of home and there she lies looking for mercies from those who don’t know her. I move on and there is no thoughts of her, no thoughts of anything but just the desire to reach home as early as possible to read the book. At home the first thing I do is write this piece again with no story with no content.

An evening in the alleys of Asan

2008-12-05T10:06:00.001+05:30

When I was wandering on the narrow streets of Asan and Indrachowk a thought with some satisfaction, with some confusion and with some surprise had taken hold of me. In spite of so many malls and shopping centers that had taken birth at almost every major points of the city, Asan was still crowded, the meaningless hubbub and rushes of people made it look no different than its earliest memories I have in my head. I had left my office a little earlier than usual as I had to get a sweater. Not many years ago, I used to buy things driven by needs rarely by wishes. The sweater that I held in the plastic bag in my hand was not a need, I just wanted to have that so I bought it. To be able to fulfill the wishes had given me the feeling of content. My head might have been little raised and my chest broadened. My wish however had not been very expensive mere Rs. 500 but a wish is wish after all. I wanted that sweater to wear on a wedding party of one of my cousins. Even after stuffing it in the plastic bag, I didn’t want to backtrack and head towards home. I wanted to be swayed away by the flocks of men and women and children along those narrow streets. Winter evenings need to do very little to make me romantic and thoughtful. I do not know the reason but that is the truth. The Sun was already preparing to live as the grand stage of the sky had its curtains of night already falling slowly. I had not counted the number of shops that peeped through the small doors along those narrow streets but I was sure their number had been fairly constant. The winter wears had replaced the light clothes in the cloth shops. Even the mannequins had their jackets, caps and woolen trousers. Women were wrapped in their pashmina shawls and sweaters while men bent themselves in jackets. Probably many children were already inside their warm blankets doing home-works or busy playing indoor games.
Not everything was same in those narrow streets. Modern cement buildings had outnumbered the old clay houses. There were many clay buildings with history of fifty and hundred years but as time progressed they posed the threat of falling. They looked old and frail before the stronger cement buildings. However not all clay buildings have been demolished. While some stooped among the tall cemented buildings few still stood taller among the cemented buildings. They looked like old grandfathers who leaned toward each other to talk in whispers as if they were complaining about the city, the vehicles, the dwellers of the city. May be like my grandmother they knitted their brows citing the shortening length of girls skirt, the way they flaunt their bare bodies, the color of their hair, the way boys and girls walk holding hand in hand. They might be saying that in the name of modernity they have dumped their culture and customs. The small clay buildings looked like neglected elders dumped at elderly homes ran by NGOs and INGOs. They did seem to have so many complaints but they feared to spill their feelings and so they crouched between the mighty cemented buildings. Just few years to go and all these old houses will see their funeral and their spaces will be taken by new malls and shopping complexes. In no way it seems Asan might loose its charms, may be it might be busier when I will visit it again with stooped body, gray hair if I lived to see myself that old.
When I was a child, I used to be brought to this place by my mother and she would never leave my hands fearing I might be lost. She used to say the streets in Asan and Indrachowk were so intermingled among themselves that even the grown up would get lost in these streets. That had made me the immature child conscious not to leave my mother because the streets were like puzzles that would never let me escape if I were caught alone in them. Those days more than observing the fascinating shops, people, their dresses I used to be more conscious in not leaving my mother yet I clearly remember how these streets and shops looked like. How these temples along these streets looked like. I remember the smell of spices in the main courtyard of the Asan. I remember the innocent smiles of toothless old men and women that glittered the cover page of so many magazines. Soon I came to the wider street and moved toward Newroad. The road was built more than 60 years earlier but still it enjoys its name as Newroad that gives the glimpse of city and the people who are accustomed with modern technologies, luxuries etc. The shops flaunting electrical appliances, cameras, curios and so on. While Asan still gives the glimpse of old Kathmandu, its tradition and way of living, it leads to Newroad, the face the people and the city is trying to take and display.

One night on the road

2008-11-21T19:49:00.000+05:30

Today I am wandering in the road not because I am drunk, not because the world is moving before my eye, not because my vision has blurred and not because I am living the excitement fed to my body by alcohol but still I am swinging here and there. Standing near the road divider I watch vehicles escaping into the smoke of dark once in a while. My eyes miss to catch their speed but abrupt light jolts by brain. My brain that had been a factory of thoughts that disrupt peace. I have to rely more on my ear than my eyes. The swift whiff try to blow me with it, my hair fly, I feel the chillness in the air of the wintery breeze. The whore that offered herself to me is laughing, I cannot see her face in the street light under the pole but I can still see her face, I assume the smoke that rises from under the pole as the smoke of her cigarette. Same cigarette I gave her, since I had paid for the cigarette, the cigarette was mine but the smoke was not mine. I hear her laugh, meaningless laughter that rip apart the silence of the road. The laughter that ring my ears more than the sound of the vehicles that slides into the darkness. Where there is meaninglessness there is no question of ‘why’ still I question the meaninglessness itself. There is a man with her now and now I hear her shriek. I want to rush to her to check if the man is not hurting her but this desire is not because of any kindness but because of my male chauvinism. Someone was hurting a ‘poor’ woman, a human being who is taken as ‘weak’ for granted just because her genitals were different as mine when she was born, that arouse my ego, that challenged my strength I have carried by birth. Before I reclaimed my self hatred, I saw the two shadows under the poll becoming almost one, the shadow was larger than the shadow of one, it roughly sketched the silhouette of a human being but still they were human being. They had embraced each other ignoring me who was standing just about twenty or thirty meters apart. I wondered if they would make love right there on the cold footpath. The hunger of the body can make one forget the cold. The girl laughs again, she was laughing because the man had said something. She was laughing not because she understood anything, she was laughing not because the man told her anything funny. She was laughing on herself. It was the laughter that mocked on what she was. I remembered her face when she had stood in front of me staring at me top to bottom. The air that carried the smell of her breath said she was drunk but still she knew her business. If she was beautiful or not that is something I don’t care. The strong smell of her perfume had my stomach churn, fifteen hundred for the night she said. I didn’t say anything. Seeing neither approval nor rejection she said five hundred. Probably she would have said thousand but my appearance made her guess my caliber. I didn’t say anything again. She brought her face close to mine, I could smell her lipstick and I moved my head in other direction. She asked for a cigarette, I gave her one. She yelled at me, smiled and moved away. I could have slept with her for free but money is not a problem, had I allowed myself even a little pleasure, I would have paid her ten times what she wanted. My hatred for myself had been so much that I had not allowed any pleasure for myself. When life had become burden of responsibilities rather than wish to live, how could I allow myself bodily pleasure no matter even for few minutes?
My cell had been ringing in desperation. I once see who is calling me though I knew it was from home. Its eleven thirty and more than half of the city around me is asleep. My cell says I had missed fourteen calls and twelve are from home. Two are new numbers I don’t recognize. I get angry on my people at home because they love me, they worry for me and I get angry on rest of the world because it ignores me. It ignores me, it ignores the whore who has just slipped into the darkness. Anyone can drive his/her car over me, anyone can come and rape that women.
Why am I wandering in the street, I have no answer? I have lost nothing that I need to seek. Even if I had lost anything, I didn’t want to seek it. A van passes so close by me that it misses me by an inch of a hair, the driver slows down and yells at me. I borrow the laughter from that prostitute, I feel with my laughter the whole city has been disturbed, all the dwellers are in panic, I feel a grandeur in me. The driver gets scared and vanish soon. My mobile rings again, it says ‘Wifey calling’, ‘wifey ‘ how lovingly I had replaced the name of my wife with this term. I know how much I loved her when I had just married her, in the years that followed, what ate me I don’t know. My feelings for her is more ‘sorry’ than ‘love’. I dislike her because she seeks her happiness in me, I am angry with her because she is sad since I am sad, I have lost myself. Just yesterday, I fought with sleeplessness. I had just fallen asleep when I woke up, I lighted the lamp, my wife slept so silently beside me. Her face still as pretty and innocent. The hair that spread on the pillow as soft as they had been when I had first touched them. My life has halted there, entangled on the string of her hair. If there is one thing that has made me drag my body through days and night in this earth its only that face, its only that life. The life that peacefully slept by my side. I had slowly put my lips on those beautiful cheek. If she were awake I could have never shown that gesture. She is not like other women I have seen, who enjoys independent identity, she is a poor creature who had submitted herself to me. I switch off my cell. I realize that would make her more desperate. If my deeds made her hate me, that would be the only happiness I could grant myself but she doesn’t. she will never leave me no matter what I become, what I do. The prostitute appear from the darkness making her clothes, she wraps the neckerchief and walks along the light. There is no man beside her. She fears no darkness because she has nothing to loose. Far away a dim light is still simmering, that is not my home but somewhere beside all these houses the lights in my house are also lit. Somewhere a woman with the most beautiful eyes in the whole world is worried. I switch on my cell and it rings abruptly. I pick it up, “Where are you?”, its her. “I am coming”, I reply. I too follow the light. Further I move from the street lamp my shadow elongates, as soon as I reach the other lamp post my shadow becomes a dwarf. Soon I am in the road that ends at the gate of my house, yes the light is still on. When I open the entrance gate, those very two eyes peep from the windows wiping the dew deposited by night. She rushes to open the gate. My parents are already asleep, the tears have dried in her face but she still looks beautiful. She says nothing and I hate her for it, she does not quarrel. I know I have to live the other day as well because by saying nothing she has given me a verdict to hate myself the other day as well.

Golden tooth, brown hair, fair face and gap between the teeth

2008-11-09T17:42:00.002+05:30

From a distant I could see the dying rays of Sun brightened only my house. The evening sun looked warm and charming as if it were smiling at me. My home seemed to smile back at me. On the courtyard of the house close to the road, a smiling grandfather had stretched his both hands; his body little bent luring a toddler who seemed to have just learnt to walk to come to him. I wanted to believe the sun would have a similar face if it were to take the look of a man. On the corner where the main road bade bye to a small path leading to my home, the wall read ‘Punk is not dead’. I do not know exactly what does that mean, but I like it somewhere, I like the way ‘Punk’ is written, the way ‘P’ is bulged. If Punk is not dead he/it/she is being lived by somebody else. I read that line whenever I realize there it is written, I take ‘is not dead’ to inspire myself. ‘Long live death metal’, a line that comes attached to signature in every mail from a friend comes in my mind. I like that passion, his passion in spite of the fact I run away from heavy metal etc.
At home the living room with books spread on the floor welcomes me. The unfinished homeworks of Sarita stares back at me and I take it for granted that she has sneaked into the other room to watch tv programs. I do not know which book is that but the image looks familiar, not even the image but the color, light pink. The image of the book vanishes and there gets stuck the image of cave-men roasting meat inside the cave. Their monkey looking face, wire like beard and their eyes focused on the fire brings before me the bare nature of the man, his greed. That is the image from ‘Social Studies’ book I studied when I was in grade 3, almost 16-17 years back. I am there in the living room bent, my body resting on my bent knees, pencil moving in my hand. I remember the golden tooth, the brown hair of my teacher, the gap between the teeth. She smiles back at me, soon I am in my 3rd grade classroom. Soon the noise fills in, few known faces few forgotten faces brighten up the whole environment. ‘Tukk Tukk’ a thin stick pats the blackboard. The golden tooth, the gap, the brown hair, the fair face and the stick have become inseparable in my memories. Once my brother told me a woman had recognized him, asked him what I was doing telling she had taught both of us. He didn’t remember her name, I asked him if she had golden tooth, fair face, brown hair, gap in the teeth. I must have been silly she might be looking completely different now but deep down I thought it was her. The next day I went to the shop described by him but didn’t find her, no one knew someone like her, someone with name ‘Ambika Shrestha’, I must have gone to wrong place or I must have guessed wrong. She looked so different from my mother except that she shared her first name with my mother I found her similar to my mummy. Why are few pictures, few people, few events get permanently written in our memory. The squatting cave men, the cave with faint carvings I cannot identify, the fire, the pink color and a steel lunch box of a friend whose name was carved in it (I don’t remember the name) they wag before me. I remember few faces and remember few names. Has time treasured these things inside its embrace, I wonder. My dog who had been taken out for a walk runs toward me after smelling my presence. Slowly the noise become silent, the image of the cavemen and their cave gets wiped away, the same image that was in Sarita’s book is there again. The golden teeth, grey hair, thin stick and the gap everything vanishes. Sarita comes gathers her things and I sit alone in the empty room refreshed, rejoiced but still missing things.

Thoughts, thoughts and thoughts

2008-11-06T06:52:00.001+05:30

While returning home, my eyes caught the sight of the tiny grasses whose blades bent as if someone was crouching to warm himself. Had it been bigger its silhouette would have confused me as if it were a real human. Just a little later the autistic girl wrapped in thick jackets. With evening already veiling the sky from the earth and moon somewhere in the backstage preparing to take its position people were seen little bent their jackets pulled. The autistic girl looked at everything with an expression of surprise. She moved her fingers which were meaningless to me which she must have some meaning for herself. She smiled at the dog, I don’t know if she was teasing the poor animal that it had nothing for the winter. Her mouth continuously dribbled, but the smile never left her face. I do not know if God had punished her or had spared her from witnessing and understanding the trickery, intricacies, and the false world. I have always seen her mother worrying about her at least what the girl is, is obviously a punishment for her parents. I have seen the other kids play with the girl, they make her dance and she moves, twists and turns leaving the other kids laugh. She is elated for having others laugh without understanding that the laughter is a mockery of her innocence. They do not laugh at what she does but they laugh at what she is. My feet take wider paces not to escape anything neither with expectation of any other thing. What is there in home? I will go drop my things and watch TV or talk with my parents. New things do not happen everyday but I have realized new things haven’t happened for quite some time. Its time for change even the weather is in transit. The moon has appeared. Its silver color has made it look solemn but not sad. I have already forgotten the autistic girl, where I am is what my world is. They say Obama defeated McCain in the country called United States, who knows if there is such country. Who knows I will wake up all of a sudden to realize what ever I had heard, learnt or experienced was just a dream. What if no McCain and Obama exist where I wake up, what if there is no country called America, what if there is no autism; what if I do not look the way my mirror shows me. The small lumps of white clouds are scattered in the sky, an object shines by the side of moon. I do not see it twinkle, may be its Venus. I wonder if they see me and think so many things just the way I do while watching them. Are they the spies left to track me? They look innocent. The smell of green vegetables being fried jolts me to a new world. I had just few pieces of ‘paratha’ in the day, the smell makes me realize I am hungry but I do not hurry, the hunger is under control. At a corner, a girl in her early twenties runs a cosmetic shop. I have observed her looking at me, I don’t know if she finds me weird or she thinks something else when I pass by. I like her simplicity but I have never thought about her when I don’t see her. I like so many girls, women, ladies for so many different reasons. Few I see regularly just like this cosmetic shop’s girl and few I see on the road.
Tomorrow I have lots of work in office and that thrills me. To be busy is so good, it’s a kind of meditation. To realize its time for lunch when one is expecting its time for early tea gives a satisfaction for which I find no words but I feel good that tomorrow will be a busy day. That excites me and I walk faster just to ponder why tomorrow’s schedule is making me walk faster, why don’t we walk slower when we are excited. A little boy collides with me, his friends were chasing him in a game. The boy mustn’t have been more than seven years, when he recollects himself and resumes his run he looks at me with his dark eyes, dark complexion and curly hair. He does not move his lip but I know he must have told me something, I cannot read his eyes. The autistic girl has never ran thus, she has never given me those looks, she has never seen me, I take the same route to office and back home and I always see her there dribbling, drawing things in the ground, running as if she had tripped on a stone but I do not exist for her. The horn of a motor-cycle disturbs me, the boy is nowhere in the sight, I must have stood there for almost a minute. The street lights looks at my tiny size with scanty brightness. I can see my home and the dome in the upper verandah is also lighted. I can see the wind bell, I want to know if the wind has told it I was coming and if it had sang to tell my people that I was on my way.