Remembering Peter Dai

Late Peter J Karthak (Photo credit: Google)

Hello, J Lo

Peter Dai would smile after saying those words. Always. Saying it in half-jest, half-seriousness. I don’t look like her, I would say. And he would say he thinks I do. And even though we both knew that I don’t, I felt flattered every time he said that. It made us laugh, even if we were only walking past each other. He would say it every time we crossed path. In the canteen, in the car park, reception. That was how I mostly met Peter Dai. In passing.

But we also had some long conversations. Most of them in the Kantipur Publications canteen, where the couple of hundred staff ate every day and ran into one another to share smiles, handshakes, teas, coffees, chiura sets, noodles, momos, fried rice, roti. We didn’t always share the meals of course. But chat was abundant. Journalists often took breaks to go down for chiya. The canteen was a meeting point for staff from KTV, TKP, Kantipur. Saptahik, Nari, Nepal, and all the admin staff and the corporate office staff. All of that was lost when one of the buildings had to be dismantled to the ground after the April 2015 earthquake. 

Anyway. 

It was in one of those swift, brief meetings that I first met Peter Dai. I can’t remember what we talked about. But from the way I delivered the newscasts, he had surmised I might have been to school in Darjeeling. And that gave us a common ground for conversations. In the meetings that followed, we talked about books, memory, mostly of Darjeeling. 

Then his English edition of Every Place; Every Person was published and he gave me a copy. 

The book was set in Darjeeling and was linked to a real incident, I happened to be familiar with. The story was about the gang rape of a college girl. 

Every girl who went to Loreto had heard of her. After the rape, she had come and thrown herself on the floor of the long, upstairs corridor of Loreto Hall with her head down and stayed like that for hours. But this was in the 70s and the horror was passed down to us as a warning. Her boyfriend had not been able to protect her from the rapists. And so, the girls were often warned not to meet their boyfriend in isolated places like the Mall Road. All meetings had to take place in the certified, pricey, six specific restaurants. Most of the students had holey pockets and so they were always going to illegal joints, as rest of the restaurants were known. 

So, when I read Peter Dai’s book about this incident and the girl, whose unfortunate experience had managed to change the way the Loreto Hall functioned, I became interested in writing a review. And I wrote one. I think that sealed our friendship.

We talked more frequently after that. I liked talking to him because he didn’t treat me like an idiot who knew nothing about Nepali politics, the way some senior journalists seemed to. He always spent enough time talking if he wasn’t pressed for time. If he was busy, he just didn’t have time. He would say that to my face, never making an effort to coat his words in politeness. It was always what it was. He would use only straightforward speech and he would never compromise his commitment to work. 

Once, I ran into Peter Dai as I was going into work. He asked why I looked so happy. I told him I had spent my morning reading in the Garden of Dreams and I loved it. At this point, the garden had newly opened and was still a novelty and a getaway for people who seemed to need an oasis in Kathmandu. So, the moment I mentioned the garden, Peter Dai had an outburst. “I would never go to a place like that where Kaiser Shamsher groped the breasts of young women and exploited them. It’s the remnants of an autocratic, slave-driving regime!”

I was too taken aback to react. So, I just listened to him until he stopped and then he walked away. I didn’t know what to make of it at that moment. In my early 20s, I was an idiot. But years later, when I heard about his demise, that moment came back to me, to remind me of what a rebel Peter Dai was. He never made compromises against his beliefs. He was who he was and I think that’s what made him good.

We would talk shop sometimes. He would tell me about how he was part of a “formidable editorial team” with the likes of Kamal Tuladhar. He would talk about music sometimes; about the time when he was a rockstar. I listened because I’m a sucker for such stories. I enjoyed listening, even though much of my memory now fails me. But you know how it is, often when you have good conversations, the words evaporate, but the essence of the hygge remains. Conversations with Peter Dai were like that.

When Peter Dai left TKP, we didn’t keep in touch. But months after the Gorkha earthquake, he phoned me and we had a long chat. He said he had been injured during the disaster and had taken leave from work to go live with his son in America. When he returned, he was told his leave wasn’t valid and he had been let go of. He told me he had filed a case against his employer. In the same breath, he also asked me if I knew of any writer’s residency. I didn’t, and even though I wanted to help him find something, I never called him back. 

That was the last time we talked. But I did think of him now and then. I wondered if he won the case and was reinstated to his job. I also wondered what made him as full of enthusiasm as he was. I for one, had never thought of applying to anything. I was in my mid-30s at that time. But Peter Dai, in his 60s, had still not given up on anything. It made me guilty for myself and for him because I had done nothing to help him. And so, it was easy to get on with life and forget about Peter Dai. And being the gentleman that he was, he never called me back to ask me. Maybe he thought he didn’t want to be a bother or that I would call if I found something.

I thought of that conversation yesterday when I heard about his demise. We don’t push hard enough sometimes. We let go and then things that have been let go of, find a way to leave. And now, what I have of Peter Dai, is what others have to say in his memory. “He was a hardworking, straightforward and extremely talented person. He minded his own business, but was also full of enthusiasm,” my father said about him this morning.  And as we talked about him, my ears seemed to fill with Peter Dai’s sonorous, but slightly nasal, very Darjeeling accented voice. And I couldn’t tell if I missed him more or the memory of Darjeeling that has now become the residue of conversations with him.

Rest in peace, Peter Dai. 

--