leaving behind May

from May to May
i leave you behind-
somewhere
in clogged pipelines
and incineration vaults
of a hospital
- on foreign beds.

from May to May
you no more fester
like an incurable wound.

Scars-
they do more to rip your conscience.

Trees

Trees never fail to fascinate me.

The first ones in my memory are the ones that grew in our neighbour's garden, in our ancestral home in Naradevi. It was the only house with a garden. They had trees and flowers. No weed. The garden had exactly three big trees. Two, that bore a fruit called Yomari in Newari. I'm not sure what it's Nepali or English equivalent is.
So, the tree bore fruits that were green, and if you pressed them between your palms, they cracked, offering you an inside that tasted something like Kiwi fruit, but sweeter.

I only got to taste the fruit once. Once.

But when I sat in our room in Naradevi house and looked out the window- where I always sat doing my home-work- the trees always gave me stories. Most of the time, it was the story about the Yomari tree that a girl climbed to run away from demons and later kept feeding them fruits, until they were all gone and they finally carried her off. So in my five year old head, the story underwent improvisations. The girl had to be rescued!

I don't know if the garden still exists, or the trees.

My other memory of trees are the ones that stood in front of our house in Mahankal. Two. They were at the edge of a patch of land that was lower than the level of the one where our house stood, so I could see nests on them at eye-level. There were always birds and berries on them. And thorns.

One day, Sita, who used to cook us meals and keep the house clean, climbed one of the trees and started chopping off it's branches. It made me angry. When the branches thinned, Ring Road was suddenly not so far and I hated the thought of being close to a Road. Sita made me angry that day. She was young, beautiful and full of some angry energy and I was just a child. When she came back into the house, her hands and legs were bleeding. That's when I realized the tree had thorns.

The branches grew themselves back. And although Sita went back to her village to get married, I always thought of her when I saw those trees.

My other favorite tree was the one near Kancha Jyapu's house in Boudha, where I so often went for walks with my cousins. This one we climbed. It had low hung branches, offering to be clung to. I don't know what tree that one was, either. But we did rope down a swing on it once, near Dashain. At other times, just climbed up and down it and pretended it was home.

Then, a flowering tree in my Ta Maa's garden comes to my mind. It was a good one to get into if you were playing hide and seek.

There were trees during my Darjeeling years, that became shelter. Their trunks were home when I felt home-sick. The orchids that fed on them, an object of attention. Those are trees of the Oval Garden, which have stood there, watching convent girls, nuns and other women of all ages and generations.

Smriti's home in Ganesh Basti had two very pretty peach trees. They blossomed every spring. And when the wind broke the petals, they scattered on the roof of the extended TV room, on which we would climb if we wanted to talk for hours without being discovered.

Then one afternoon, I walked into Smriti's yard to find that the twin trees had been scalped to the ground. Smriti's snow-flowers were gone.

Trees.

My favourite tree these days is the one near the town of Banepa. Every year, when we visit my in-laws, I look at the tree for as long as I can see it. It's a crazy tree, with its branches curving right down to touch the ground. You could run in and out of its archways. Paddy or some sort of green always grows at its base.

And every time I pass that tree, I say in a near whisper- "My favourite tree", as though I'm afraid people will hear me. Sometimes, it feels as though I go to Banepa every Dashain and Tihar, not to visit people and receive tika, but just so that I can drive past that tree again and whisper- My favourite tree!

Surreal

(Image by DJ Clark)


and there i am on the street again, making DJ, walk around in the Kathmandu heat, while he takes pictures tirelessly, something that seems to come to him naturally.

the tough side of "teacher" DJ has toned down and i've started seeing him in a friendlier light and it's what is most rewarding about working with him.

he's showing me how to take still pictures,lending me his camera for my story on the little girl, who's always sitting in her wheel-chair on the sidewalk.

when the shoot is done, i go off to get some food for my little girl, Sabina, and it's a long time before i'm back.

when i come back, i see DJ, sitting by the roadside, showing little Sabina her photos, which we took together- DJ's outstanding and mine, struggling for focus.

it's a surreal moment. also a moment of regret. makes me wish i had my camera with me, to take a shot of DJ and Sabina sitting on the road, talking to each other in two different languages. both smiling.

DJ transforms into a very strong image at that moment. something other than a journalist. and it makes me realize how i love observing people, just as much as Sabina does.

i don't know who DJ becomes at that moment. but it's the side of him that has taught me in three days to believe a little more in human energy and the possibility of doing the little that you can to make things better.

maybe i won't quit journalism, afterall. it's the only voice i've got.

Bangkok

do you remember Bangkok?

and how she came back to you
asking for a little love?
how you toiled, touched and twisted with need
and how she retched in your arms
unable to tell you
she only needed you a little more than ever?

do you remember
the sting you felt
while walking away
toward departure?

you still know the distance in her eyes.

i remember Bangkok.

i remember Bangkok as the ground that bled me to death

i remember Bangkok as faces of smiling strangers

yes, i remember Bangkok

that's where you and i left a part of us behind

Refuge

you're still

my place
to go to

only,
no one lives there
anymore

Five days of Maoist Jana-Andolan

My sister is a great cook. I come home to her innovate recipies like prawn biryani, pasta with home-made buff-sauce, mutton-stew, chopsuey with huge chunks of chicken and carrot slices dipped in butter, or spaghetti dripping with yak cheese. These, since the Maoist strike began. Since there’s nowhere to go during the Maoist called clousure, she spends her days practicing her culinary skills. Pehaps a preparation for married life, as she’s soon to be wed. Or perhaps, a way to keep her mind busy since she doesn’t even know how many times she’s going to have to reschedule her wedding to find a day there’s no hadtaal.

Of couse, I relish what she prepares. There’s nothing more delectable that a dish cooked by someone you love.

Am I supposed to be feeling lousy about eating these while the Maoist protestors are living on dalmoth and chiura and water supplied by tankers and sleeping on the cold cement floor?

I did feel sad for the Maoists walking in the rain today, some in their kasrat uniforms, some with red bandannas, some with flags- all of keeeping the pride of their party and the “noble” cause they are offering themselves to. They weren’t mounted on trippers like their leaders. But they walked just as far as the office van took me around the city, while the rain fell without any signs of ceasing. And the Maoist protestors kept walking, still cheering for reasons some of them don’t even understand. Some of them don't even know why they are there. But why would the leaders care?

I got off the office van for a while to feel the rain just like they did. But I had the option of getting back in it after my cameraperson colleague was done. The protestors didn't. Most of them looked worn-out. Thin.

Ironically, the one thing the closure has done for me is helped me gain weight. One, my sister doesn’t stop cooking. And plans her menu without guilt, when a mootha of pharsi ko moonta is selling for over fifty rupees.

Over half the population in Kathmandu is already running out of essential supplies. If you have stored stuff in your larder, you’re lucky (like my sister). Otherwise, either you have money but you can’t buy. Or, you can’t buy because you have no money. Some of us who do have some money, can't buy as they don’t have access to cash because the banks are closed.

The other reason that has helped my flabs is because I don’t walk anymore. I spend the day, waiting- sometimes for five hours- at home, for the office car to pick me. You have to be on stand-by because you don’t know how long or short it might take for the car to arrive. It could be anything between five minutes to five hours. You can’t walk, because the office needs you and you’re not supposed to get injured or too tired to work.

But I walked half-way today. The first walk in days.

So, the streets are filled with people, walking, chatting, listening to the FM, playing badminton, cricket, walking around with canes. The only vehicles that ply are ambulances, press vans and human rights defenders’ cars. So I walk and stare at people. And stare and walk. There are such sights to see on days like these. The same things or even more interesting things won’t even register in your mind on other days. But the silence of a bandh magnifies everything and everyone.

For instance, the elderly lady who was walking in my direction this afternoon, seemed highly attractive to me. Possibly in her 70s, her face shone against the blood-sari and the huge red tika on her forehead. It was the kind of tika that shone like a light. Her bangles shone too. And her bun sat almost atop her head like a Rishi’s. She looked stunning and I had to talk to her. It was her energy. She said she had walked from Budanilkantha to Om Hospital in Chabel and back to visit a sick relative.

So I walked and watched people and talked and walked again, until I came to the little girl in a wheel-chair who is always there at the Chakrapath tempo-stand, watching the world pass her by.

Poetry

if it can't be
on you

then

it will be
on nothing else