Thank you 2024

2024 has been an eventful year, starting with walking on eggshells around someone I love deeply, to getting Covid again to flaring up into rosacea. It turns out I have had to measure my life based on medical events. But there's also been a fair share of good times in 2024.

I think this year has started me off on a new journey of self-discovery. It brought me closer to myself as I set off to India, trying to reconnect with myself again. And that is what has been the most important thing I did for myself this year. 

Each one of us owes that to ourselves. The time and the patience to be with ourselves so that we nourish ourselves. The person who understands us best is ourself and the most important relationship is right there too-- with the self. 

As the year ends, for me, it is a start as I embark on this journey of valuing myself. I set people in my life free to go find me when they are ready. Meanwhile, the focus is on me so that I find the happiness that is mine-- the one I bring myself.

Making our own homes

I've spent ten days at Pilerne village in Goa now and it has been nothing close to my expectations, but better. Rubina was right. She always is. 

The last week of November, as Bhavna and Rubina pulled out of the driveway in the rented car, I felt a tear roll down my right cheek. It felt as though all the good times we had had together in Goa was suddenly over with them leaving. But Rubina had repeatedly said, "It's going to be so good for you, this place". And so it has been!

It has been nothing close to my expectations. I've had some unpleasant incidents with men and one with a pack of dogs ganging up on me. Apart from those, it has been lovely to just focus on myself and learn to cook better, to eat alone with great patience, to do the dishes, clean up. It's taught me that I take Mamu for granted. Doing household work is a lot. Cooking is a lot. She cooks lunch for me everyday and I've rarely shown appreciation for her work. I've been sitting here in Shalini's kitchen, thinking about Mamu so much.

I'm also learning that I'm the kind of person who thrives in distance and loneliness. I've been so at peace with myself here. Apart from a few occasions of intense emotions, I haven't had particular upheavals. If they appear, they're like ripples, they pass gently.

Much of the day is spent cooking, eating, working, watching, reading, then sleeping. It's restful. I've fallen so easily into a routine. Also, the thing about places it, it doesn't take much for us to make it our own. Once you put your mind to it, the place you are at, is your home. And so G2 has been my home for ten days now.

And it has brought me good feelings. I don't feel the emptiness here, I felt in Chiang Mai. I had started to find happiness there in my third month, but the first two, were quite hard. A feeling of having removed myself to a great distance constantly gnawed at me. I haven't felt that way here. And I think it has a lot to do with Rubina. Watching how she's turned India into her home always amazes me and I'm full of admiration for how courageous and smart this girl is. Hanging out with her, Bhavna and Smriti has shown me how strong and wise women are and how they can turn cities they like into their home. Smriti has done the same with Mumbai. As has Bhavna with Kathmandu.

When we were teenagers, Smriti and I used to talk about building pretty homes. Smriti was always about pretty cushions and drapes. We dreamed of pretty things from our middle-class homes, with just a few hundred rupees in out pockets we made from writing newspaper articles. But the dreams were always there. And we've actually been able to live them now in our own ways. In different ways, but we have come to live them. 

That's the bit that makes me happiest about my girlfriends. Each one of us, independent in our own worlds, free to make our decisions. Free to pick our bags and hit the road when we want to and just go walk on the beach for long stretches. It's all the grace I always want for us all.

Goa home

Who would've thought I would find a home in Goa? But it seems I have. For now. I don't know how many days or weeks this might last, but I like it that this house doesn't make me anxious. There are logistic issues, but I'm going to eventually sort them out. 

For now, I cook my meals, eat alone, do my stuff alone and just focus on myself. And recreate myself in solitude.
 

Sanepa daal-bhat forever

There's a boy who likes to feed people. 

He feeds those who are in need of nutrition, in need of learning to eat, in need of nourishment, in need of gentle loving and in that healing. He feeds anyone who shows up at his doorstep. There's always warm rice, hot daal, all kinds of vegetables. And mutton for those who like their meat.

For me, it's mostly daal-bhat and vegetables. And ever since I first stepped into the boy's kitchen, I have been going back for second helpings. Several. This is the daal-bhat I want to always get to eat. I don't even mind being put on this earth again if I get to eat the boy's cooking again. And again. 

And again.

 

I'm not this

I have had no epiphany. Except, I'm that person who likes sitting at her desk all day. Of late, my head has felt very very crowded and I'm constantly looking for a place to bury my anger. Anger, that's been building up over the years. Mostly from having done so little for myself.

I have started to feel like my life has no purpose. Can eating three meals a day, transitioned by a snack, walking two kilometres and doing a job be enough? I'm grateful for everything, but something doesn't add up. 

Every morning, I wake up to the rainbow on my walls, thrown in by the lights creeping past the curtain and I think it must mean something. There's got to be more to me.

boredom

 there are days when your head pools in blue, not the colour of the sky but navy blue, the colour of distance, nervousness, and a bit of anger. it doesn't take much for the mind to get in that territory. not these days. these days, the days stretch like a chorus-- the kinds that make our insides want to burst into something. but we hold on to a sliver of hope somewhere, the promise of quiet that is set to find us.

a house of my own

I love October skies. And walks around this time are the best. I haven't been able to walk much lately because I've been sick again. But the attempt is to do two kilometres a day. It's not much, but at least it is something.

Another favourite thing to do is to look out of my window at the trees and the sky.

Last week, I went towards Chunikhel. The roads are calm and not at all polluted. And the villagers all know each other so they give me stares or curious looks, which is all fine. I don't much mind it. But it also makes me think if they think of as an intruder. Families like ours who bought their land and changed things for them. We make things expensive and life more challenging for the locals. We're all colonizers when we can be.

There are temples everywhere this side. 

How much we need temples for survival, the Nepali people. We build them everywhere we go. 

And while I'm not into rituals, I do like looking at temples. I find them pretty. And it makes me wonder what someone was thinking when they were building them. And by that I don't mean the people who planned the construction, but the ones who employed hands and head to build them.

Anyway.

It's a Monday today and the best thing to do in life is to sit at my desk, tapdancing on the keyboard.

Stray but important thought:

In the months ahead, I hope to set up my own room where I will write my essays from. That's going to be the focus of my life hereon.

Yenyaa Punhi girl forever...

 I was watching Shantinin make her way through the Nanichayau crowd yesterday, and the thought that occurred to me was: you can take the girl away from the old city, but you can't take Yenyaa out of the girl. Even though she is no longer her agile self and has to walk slowly now on implant for knees, she isn't afraid to be in the crowd. She raises her arms to take pictures of the world before her, filling the canvas of her phone with images of people and deities and chariots, and when she does that, she's still the girl she used to be.

When I was a little girl, I would follow her, Baa, Mamu and others in the family to Laayku. It's what all residents of Thaaney and Kowney did-- as did the rest of of Kathmandu.

I've often though that I live from Yenyaa to Yenyaa.   

(Yaasin is the pole in the image above)

As of now, I don't even know if it should be Yenyaa or Yeinyaa. Growing up, we called it Yenyaa Punhi. As in, the full moon that celebrates Kathmandu. These days, it is popularly known as Yein-yaa Punhi, Kathmandu's full-moon. 

Seeing it indicated as Indra Jatra on Nepali calendars always surprised me as a kid. I understood as I grew older that there's the Indra element to it and there's the story of how Daagin, the mother, comes to fetch her son back and that's why we have Pulukishi too, the Erawat elephant. But all of these stories come spooled and entangled and I've hardly ever been able to make sense of them. Stories crossing into each others' boundaries, just like regimes did into people's lives, trying to reimagine and reorient them.

What remains of these stories are what got passed down in repeat in oral history. Rest is left to the imagination and to be read between missing lines.

And so, my favorite of all the Yenyaa stories has always been the one about Majipa Lakhey (the Redhair seen in this image). He seems to have become the most popular deity now and I noticed this time, he has a big fan-following. I suppose, social media, etc.. There's beauty in what's fierce. For me, Majipa tugs at my heart's strings just because. I think of how intensely he must have loved to have stayed back here in the Swoniga for the sake of the woman he loved. When in love, I hope I'm always like him, too-- devoted, loyal and fierce.

And every time I go to Laayku during Yenyaa, it's Majipa Lakhey I first run into! 

It always sets the stage for the rest of the festival. 

And.

And.

Not a good image, but here's our Aju (ancestor), Baka Dayaa, also known as Yalambar. If you speak to the keepers of Bakadyaa, they will tell you they're descendants of the Kirant people. Those who stayed back despite the numerous conquests of the Swoniga, mingled with many layers of conquerors and eventually became who are now, the Newah people-- bound together by one language.

The more I think of Indra Jatra/Yenyaa, the more intrigued I am. I wish I could spend years talking about it. I think of it as a festival that is forever been in motion. And so I see the need for this part of Yenyaa to evolve. 

Children must no longer be isolated for the sake of a festival. Yes, changes have happened over the years but they aren't enough. Their seating arrangements need to change, the chariots need an upgrade. And if we must take the children around the city, the crowd needs to be better-behaved and monitored so the procession can be wrapped-up within an hour. And perhaps we don't need the children to do the rounds several days during the week. If the festival could be redesigned for Nanicha, so should it be it for the sake of the children themselves, who step into the roles of Kumari, Bhairav and Ganesh, for the sake of the people of this valley. 

The children have to play the role just so that the Newah people are able to keep their sanity and have something to hold on to from year to year-- it's an important story of hope. And so it seems fair that life be made easier for the children, too, so they too can hope for a better future of the likes of them? If Newah people don't think of making these changes, who will?

 ...

This Yenyaa, I've also made a new friend, who's actually and old friend. So, during my visit to the UK in 2004-05, I was introduced to Ojesh Singh by someone. I no longer remember by who. And we would chat on MSN messenger. I was kind of lost and lonely then. He seemed to know a lot about things and so we would chat. Once, he invited me to London during Mhapuja. But I didn't go, of course. I had my Mhapuja with family, at 27 Fearnheard. 

Ojesh has a book called London Lakhey that just came out. I became a sad person when I read it, because I loved the illustrations and the fact that here's a story about an imagination so close to my heart, and in such beautiful fonts and good illustrations. Sadness can come from appreciation, as well as disappointment. I felt sad because I could not read the Newah text easily. I had to read the English first to get to the Newah. One should never have to read another language as an interpretation of one's mother tongue. And so I'm grateful to Ojesh for the awakening. 

randoms

I took a break from sitting in my room in Chapali to come to Sanepa to work. And I find that here, I get more done. I feel at peace here, like I don't have to worry about too many things. And while I've lost touch with the side of me that used to know how to write about these things, I still try to at least keep a journal. This is my journal. 

Back in Chapali, I still have the comfort of the clouds hovering over Tarebhir. 

That one tree on the cliff that always stands out when the clouds climb behind it. 

Can you spot it?

I've fallen in love with Hijjya river. Saddened by the growing encroachment. But no battles I could win here. I have tried while I could. Now, it's going to become a river of many bridges. I avoid the river most days because I fear it will break my heart.

I'm aiming at walking two kilometres every evening. It's not enough, but is something. And there's always the pipal tree.

 

Life on-campus

I've been meaning to post these Hangzhou, on-campus pictures. I love living on campus. And it makes me think I was always cut out for university life. Interactions with students always kicks me alive, like I am both a child and a mother at the same time. 

On-campus life also means walking to your department every morning, and on your way, running into stray cats. 

One time, there was a dead koi at the pool by the awnings under the orange structure.

But what really saved my heart was going back one morning to find the black swans 

had become reunited. They saved me. Like only they knew they would.

Like it is

Annie says I should be writing about myself for five minutes on the clock, daily.

I wonder what that would read like. It would probably be narcissistic or just insular. All my writing is both, anyway. And I feel like I don't know what else to write about at this point.

So, a friend pointed out the impact of mercury retrograde. It is expected to be pretty challenging in many ways, including travels. But I'm determined not to let it interfere with my travels. It won't be easy for sure because I have backaches that stall my breathing some moments, and the foot hasn't healed completely. But as long as flights are in order and minus turbulence, I will be alright. 

In fact, I'm sort of looking forward to being back in Hangzhou and experiencing the quiet. I think I have needed it. I haven't had time to myself at all, so it might actually be good for me. 

So, writing about myself is like writing my journal and maybe this is not the space to do it, even though I've always used my blog as my journal. 

There were years in my life, when I was so terrified about a certain man finding out about my blog, I had to hide it. And now, I don't really care. I can't believe I lived in such great fear of the men in my life in the past and there is no way I'm going to allow that to happen anymore. No more space here for men who do not love or care.

My friend M sent me something to that effect early today. Here it is!

men are mean things

What is it about me that makes men want to be mean towards me? In Amsterdam, Kevin lifted me off the terrace floor and tried to throw me down the building. I shut my eyes and screamed. I was petite then. Everyone stared in shock. My classmates. No one interfered. No one tried to protect me. I didn't care so much about the Mexicans but I was mad at Beaver and the Bangladeshis for not stepping in. Why do men think it is okay to hurt a woman for random reasons?

Rest today

There's this image that shows up to one of the You Tube videos-- it is of a person resting at the desk with a book in the lap and a cat up by the window. Here's the image: 

Image by Hyunhyun from Youtube

On my worst days, I've looked at it and listened to the loop and felt held. It's music that holdS you somedays, rather than people. And images of inanimate things. They are capable of stirring something in you. Sometimes, filling you with longing for the animate. 

But today,  have a terrible backache and even though I seem to be thinking about people I love, I want to just be and rest. By the window, at my desk...

Just some unfinished tea

 Dear Germie,

I'm sitting here in a cafe near my home, where I normally come to sit and work from and be alone. Sometimes, to meet friends. Today, to be the invisible companion of a film star (Rajesh Hamal)

I met a friend today, who had a warm conversation with me about the ways he thinks he's weird. And he gave me some examples of how he has small difficulties that can become major-- like drinking water. He has the fear of drinking water. Like I have the fear of crowded spaces.

My fears are abundant-- most of them are related to just being and loving. I've always felt deprived of love even when I was loved to death. But I'm learning now that much of how I feel comes from being neurodivergent. It's been such a revelation!

I wish I was sitting here writing you a nice letter. Instead, this is just me rambling and giving you life updates. I wish you would give me yours. I wish you would use your witch powers to manifest a meeting for us in Malaysia. I've never been to Malaysia. And I haven't seen you for fifteen years. It would be quite nice.

I imagine we would spend every day of our time there talking into the night and then fall asleep surrounded by books and things. That's how our dorm room was back in Katipunan. Books, biscuit and chocolate wrappers and us. Your sprawled on the bed reading. Me, gathered in my corner of the room, writing away on my new acer. You, speaking Taglish and sometimes Visayas on the phone, as early as 6am. Me, stuttering away in Newa once in a while when we got Skype to work. 

Small pleasures that made us whole.

I miss you, Germie. And I miss talking to you about things. About how I'm tired of seeking love. How I wish men came with a sense of loyalty and how I know I don't need men to love me and yet I seek so much. I wish I could tell you: I'm tired of having my heart broken and yet, I offer it to be broken every single time. Maybe it's time to find my own version of Ja.

For now, here's some unfinished tea for you. I miss you.

We are release

My days are a little out of shape again. I sit at my desk now, craning my neck once in a while to keep an eye on wisps of cloud hovering above Tarebhir. They change their forms so quickly, the clouds. Constantly morphing into shapes twisted beyond imagination.

Between sitting at my desk and ignoring the sounds around me, I try to hold myself. It's incredibly hard, but I might have learned slowly to let go of things. Of drifted friendships, of clothes my waist and my bust have outgrown, of caffeine, of spices, of loves that no longer come looking for me. I'm learning to let go.

Dear Germie,

I'm coming here after reading your blog. Yes, it's still a place I visit.

Since we always promise to make calls and don't, it has become a good way for me to get updates on your life. I like it that you're still on your blog instead of Instagram and other spaces. I want to take inspiration.

So, updates on my end:

1. I'm still recovering from ligament injury on my left foot. It's Day 12 today and I'm so restless. I miss walking. I've spent my time reading, working, lolling in bed. 

I'm finally able to sit at my desk today and I'm suddenly a happier person. Do you feel that way, too? Completely lit, the moment you sit on your desk, before your computer, the possibilities suddenly open before you and you feel like it's not so bad to be alive, after all?

2. We found Babubagh. It was Nhooja who spotted him, sitting on the 12 feet wall where he had first climbed the day he fled from the vet's, three days ago. Bandana and I rode on her scooter as soon as Nhooja called. I rode behind her, despite my leg injury. As we rode, she said the road from home to Chapali main has never felt so long to her. 

When we got there, Babu was on the wall, going Ma ma... and Nhooja was standing below, talking to him from the road. 

Nhooja, Bandana and Baa had been going back several times every day to search for Babu and had spoken to residents in the hood and requested that they call us if he appeared in sight. But the night he was found, Nhooja said he had a strange intuition that Babu would be there  at the wall and while returning home from an event, he went to the wall directly, instead of riding home.

The ginger cat, who we had asked during our search days to keep an eye on Babu was present, as though she had understood exactly what was asked of her. And I think she did. For, the whole time, she stayed with us following us around, cajoling Babu to climb down the wall. 

Getting him to climb down became impossible and he was probably famished from three days of being marooned on a high wall in torrential, incessant rain. He would not climb down. So, Bandana, my new superhero, used an unfinished column against the high wall to climb up to to rescue Babu. How she climbed it, is still beyond me. She's an almost 5ft tall woman. But when she climbed, she suddenly became tall, in spirit. Nhooja gave her foot backing and pushed her up and there she was standing precariously on a wall three times her height, coaxing Babu to come to her.

He refused at first, then came when she put some pellets before him. He was starving. She eventually grabbed him but he wailed and fought and scratched her all over her shoulders and it tore her jacket. But she would not give up. She picked him by the neck, pressed him to herself and eventually passed her down to me, during which time, she almost fell off the wall and I died for a second right there, worried she would be hurt.

I managed to grab Babu and now pressed him to myself. He protested first, scratched my arms. Then I talked to him, said it's okay and he relaxed and then we put him in his basket, while the ginger cat watched, concerned and now suddenly unsure if she might have led her fellow being from being stranded to being trapped. But we left her some treats and she talked to us in meows for a bit and seemed alright.

We rode home with Babu. It was 10:40ishPM when we got home. 

Babu ate, purred and purred and purred.

(My foot had started to hurt more than ever and was swollen quite a bit from dragging it around to help Babu.)

Babu, the moment he arrived home after the rescue.

I'm not a cat person, Germie. I connect with dogs and am in my element around them. I find cats clingy. Or at least Babu is. He can't stop touching me and calling out to me and I'm not used to that kind of attention. I guess I've always found show a affection a little bit cringe. My love language is taking care of practical needs of those I love. For instance, I would die if someone sent me flowers. But I'd be happy if someone helped clean up my phone. 

It's starting to rain as I type this note to you. It has rained the year, more than it did past monsoons. And while it's pretty, sitting at my desk and just watching the clouds morph into a thousand things, I am filled with a deep sadness over all the people who have died because of landslides and flooding brought on by rains. It's one of the reasons I no longer wanted to work as a reporter. I was writing about events I could not prevent. Does it make sense? I guess no. But it's true.

Talk to me soon. This is the year we shall meet. As witches in our own right, we have to manifest it.

Love,

Prateeish

Babu, come back home

 Babubagh has gone missing and I want him to be found. 

He ran away from the vet's. I hope he's there somewhere, waiting for us to come find him. 

Please be found. Please come home, Babubagh.

Caring for my foot

Today is Day Five of sitting on my bed, feeling the heat on my left foot, spreading like a sting. It's a familiar feeling, this. I've been through it before.

The first time I fractured my left foot was when I was 18 and had lied about my age to get on a research gig with Dr. Vegard Iversen. Somewhere along the slopes of Ilam, before we reached Jamuna, I slipped and hurt my left foot. I didn't have the right shoes. 

Dr. Iversen asked if I would cut short my trip and return to KTM to see a doctor. I said I would continue. I was an annoying teenager. Too stoic for my own good. And so I limped from village to village in Ilam, dragging a swollen foot, a crepe bandage woven around it, taking notes for the report I would eventually write.

It took several weeks after I was back in KTM for the foot to heal. 

And what has happened since is, it's become my Achilles' Heel. In a very literal sense. It's the first thing to give way on difficult paths. I trip easily and end up with a swollen ankle. Oh, so often! Injured tendons and torn ligaments.

But it's nice to have things to watch and beautiful words to read. I've been reading Prawin's manuscript and it just makes me cry endlessly so taking a break from it today.

I've been watching an eclectic collection of films-- Past Lives being the one I liked most.

And mostly, I've been dreaming of things I will do before this year is over. Write my essays. Travel to China and Malaysia and to Goa. And...

And go back and sit at that desk in Sanepa to write my essays.

Happiness has to come from things I do for myself.

(This image, by Sahina Shrestha. My June flat-mate, in our Sanepa apartment)

 

Pain

My therapist left me a couple of questions to answer: 

1. Have you ever noticed how feelings manifest in our bodies? Sometimes in form of sensations, sometimes vibrations and sometimes pain.

 2. When you feel discomfort in your body can you specify or identify the areas in your body.

I'm going to try and answer the first one:

I've always been very aware of how feelings manifest in our body in the form of pain. The tension accumulates in my neck when I'm deeply stressed. In fact, I think that's what it has been all these years, several years of tension and stress, all stored in my neck and shoulders in the form of knots. My physiotherapist says he hasn't seen anyone with my kind of knots and wonders how I live with them.

Stress, anxiety have also become backpain for me over the years. I've had years when I couldn't sit up straight because everything I felt had manifested itself as lower-back pain. 

My body has been through so many years of suffering-- all the emotional and physical trauma. I don't even know how I've survived everything. So much gratitude to my body for not giving up on me. 

Now, to answer the second question my therapist asked me:

When I feel discomfort, it's mostly my breathing. I get restless and my breathing becomes heavy. I also have backaches and a heaviness settles upon my shoulders and neck.

Lately, my belly feel bloated. My period hasn't come in 20 days and it looks like my body is starting to prepare for menopause.

When am gone

 When I'm gone, I hope someone's going to look me up on the internet and read all the random stuff I wrote and remember me. I hope I'm loved like that. One person would be enough.

Bhai

 

Bhai passed away two months ago. He had kidney and liver issues. I only found out yesterday. When I met his mother, Kanchi, she howled and put her head against my chest. 

Such short and hard lives street dogs have. No roof to call home. No one to call family. We all love them for a while and abandon them eventually. 

I hope Bhai is in peace now. Reunited with his sister, Mayalu. I hope he's hanging out with my Kanchu again.

May you children all be in peace.

Song of dying rivers

It was World Forests Day yesterday. 

 Today is World Water Day. 

Tomorrow is Earth Hour.

But every day, I see around me, dying rivers and falling trees. 

When we moved to Chapli, it was because there were trees here and rivers. Now, they're slowing disappearing-- the rivers are being covered by roads, the trees are being cut down. And I find myself muttering a curse at the men and women give orders for trees to be felled and rivers to be encroached on. 

I'll be okay

 I've been angry because I'm tired. I'm tired of the hundred and one things my body has had to endure.

Rosacea is the latest. It causes my skin to flare up. And it makes my eyes burn and they tear up. It's making it really hard for me to get anything done. And I'm wondering what might be a way to manage this condition, since I know there's no cure. 

Sometimes people get lucky and it doesn't get so bad. I'm going to sit here and imagine it's not going to get bad. I'm going to sit here and imagine it's going to subside and my face won't get red and stingy and my eyes won't burn and I'll be okay again. 

I'll be okay again. 

Bitter-sweet. Bitter-sweet

 

They say spring is beautiful. Not in Kathmandu. I find Kathmandu Spring dry, dreary. The wait for rain is never ending. 

And so the only thing that keeps me going in this season are the cherry blossoms that fling their arms open and welcome this city's crowd and pollution every year, when it's at the harshest. Even if there's no rain. No rain. 

And there was no snow on Shivapuri this winter. Or the last. The longing. I felt it. Looking up at the hills every time it rained but didn't know. Barely rained this winter anyway. 

It's been a strange, bitter-sweet season.

I feel like I'm changing. Becoming more stable inside myself. I find that I'm able to be calmer through storms. I also find that I want to respond to love, even though I'm so so afraid of what love will do to me. I'm afraid, because I've never really had love before. But this time, it feels different and so I am more patient. 

But this season also brings me pain-- my cousin came home after 21 years, wearing a wig. She says she's okay, but she slipped the word "radiation" in one of our conversations and I've been very scared since. I hurt so bad to think of the loneliness she's been through that drove her here. This girl, who wanted to be my big sister, even when she was only five and I was four. She's always been so brave and to think of it, makes me weep.

For now, I shall hold her hand and listen to her. Like we did as kids.

P.S. The image above are not peach blossoms. They're periwinkle.

Dog chase

 

One of the nicest things I saw last month was this dog who was sauntering though Nepal Literature Festival stalls in Pokhara. He would show up with his Papa and just walk around the place, sniffing, booping, sprinkling, sprinting and leave when his Pa was leaving, following him out just as he had followed him in. Dogs are all heart! Silliest people!

In the background, Suzana Thapa's exhibition on Gurkha Women at NLF

One more day

 Yesterday was that extra day in the leap year. We gained a day. 

Yesterday, during my walk to Hijjya, I met a little schoolgirl, who was carrying a bag half her own size. Heavy, Heavy. And so I offered to carry it for a while. And we were both happy. 

Happiness is so easy to find sometimes. 

I've been adopted by a cat

We have a cat in our lives now. I don't know how to treat him right or to take care of him. He showed up about a year ago and hasn't left. In fact, his mother, recced for a couple of weeks before leaving him here with us in April. He was tiny. He's a full-grown cat now. Goes Mmamamamama. Mamamamama. Sleeps on the divan, where Cookie used to sleep. Tries to rub himself against our legs, which I find annoying. But he is also cute. Tiny, feeble. Cute. Cute.

Cat sometimes goes by Babu Bagh.

The colour green

 

Some nights, I wake up dreaming about thick green foliage, teetering between longing and loss. I think of the warm Chiang Mai sunset, the shrieking of the cicadas, the shouting of the geckos. Some nights, I long to be back at Mitharsuu. 

My departure was premature. And even though I went back to say hello to Kiki, Tango and Gaga, I know they were not goodbyes. I know I have to go back at some point, like an insect burrowing the way home. 

Begnas

Look how gorgeous the sky, I said.

You brushed a stray strand away from my face.

I smiled.

 

a letter to Pradeep Lama (1977-2012)

 November 26, 2022

Chapali, Budanilkantha

 

 

 

Dear Pradeep,

I have written so many letters to you now…in the last two weeks…all I have done is think about you and write to you…and cry. 

 

You, would have wanted me to write you a song, but I would be no good at that, so I have been writing to you the whole time-- mostly inside my head, but also on this computer. A long letter in fragments. And I have written so many versions of that one letter I want to write to you. It is the first time I am writing to you, too. There is so much to say.

 

I have begun to feel like I am forming thoughts in my head all the time in a way of speaking to you. It is the only way to communicate with you now. Although, it is not even a way, really.

 

Well…here I am. 

 

You could say I have been living in the past, since the time I found the note you wrote me. I was eating lunch with Mamu around three weeks ago, when between eating I happened to reach out and pull out and old birthday book from the shelf. I found inside it, a note from friends. Yours is in the center, written in bold letters like you were yelling so that all of us in the room heard you:

 

PRATEEBHA IS A GREAT FRIEND.

SHE UNDERSTANDS ME EVERY TIME.

I WISH WE COULD BE LOVERS. I LOVE HER!

PRADEEP

 

All of it written in pencil. Why were you using a pencil? No one does that anymore. Even then, the letters have stayed here— still dark, shouting over the more conscious, carefully-framed compliments by the others. 

 

I read your note, remembered November is your birth month. And i was instantly gripped by an urge to find your number and wish you on your birthday. And that is how I started stalking you. But you were not on my phone in any form. I Google stalked you. Your father’s company. Nothing. And so I had to go through several channels and wait days before I found out. 

 

He has been inactive on FB since July 2012, Loons said. She would later explain the finality of that date to me. 

 

I met the announcement with some disbelief. I did not know how to feel about it. You had been absent from my life for like two decades anyway. Then, slowly, my head started to spin into a cycle of memories. So much I had deleted from my mind, started to ebb back, bunching up on a confused timeline. I could not make sense of it. 

 

Many nights, I woke up at like 3am and cried myself all the way to dawn, before falling asleep again. Some nights, I wondered what it might be to wake up to you in a dream and to not cry but to get to tell you, hey, let’s hang out again. But I am crying every day these days. I cannot help it. 

 

Also, I could not help look for other people in your life. I felt, that with so much sorrow I was experiencing, I needed to find someone to grieve with, people who had also shared their life with you. I have lost touch with everyone from our childhood, so I thought one way was to reach out to your wife, Ambika, or to go see your parents. But I wasn’t even sure if they had kept the old house in Chakrapath. Yet, I knew I needed a closure-- a farewell, even though a decade has passed.

 

I found Ambika on IG. And I found photos of her and chhora. He is the spitting image of you. So odd to use that term as it is a cliche. But it is true. He reminds me of you from when we first met. 

 

I cling to snatches of memory of you on a confused timeline, as I said, but I remember everything about that first meeting so clearly even now. It was our meet-cute, I guess. 

 

On Bhim’s terrace on a winter’s day, Sampoo and I went up the spiral stairs to find half a dozen Chakratown (that is what the boys called our town, remember?) boys sitting around drinking tea. Bhim introduced us and we shook hands. Bhim, told me to use Dai (elder brother) to address you since you were his Mit and I, his “made” bahini. I ignored him. I was dazzled by your beauty. I think everyone always was in your presence. Looking back, I realize your beauty was about how you were so calm, happy and kind to everyone and how you moved through the noise around us so quietly. You came across as a well-put-together person. The chaos in me was instantly attracted to it, I think.

 

I also have a clear memory of what we were wearing that day, which is so strange for someone like me who paid no attention to what I wore in those days.

 

I was wearing my favourite grey sweat shirt with a dolphin on the front, my faded jeans and old moccasins. Sampoo was wearing her faded jeans and cropped sweater top, her hair surrounding her face in curls held back a headband, and khol lining her eyes all the way to her temples. She was always this striking face anyone immediately noticed. Next to her pretty presence, my ugliness became even more exaggerated. 

 

You were sitting on the wall, your legs dangling. And I remember noticing they were long. You were wearing your converse, faded jeans and baseball jacket. When you held out your hand for Sampoo and me to shake, you tucked your guitar under your right arm and gave us your left hand. I remember because I think I was instantly conscious of how unattractive I was. And friends always made sure I did not forget it. I was the joke.

 

You played the intro riff of Sweet Child O’mine from where you were sat, humming to yourself. I said I wanted to learn and you showed me how. You also asked Sampoo if she wanted to learn, too. She held the guitar for a while but said it wasn’t really her thing.

 

We all noticed you were looking her way a lot. She did too, and was shy. And everyone on the terrace quickly decided you two should date. 

 

I practised the intro riff. It sounded all wrong. The boys laughed at me like they always did. And I felt a fire start near my forehead and burn a line all the way to my nape where my boy-short hair cut ended. 

 

You did not laugh. You told me a guitar looks good on me and that I should learn. I did eventually take guitar classes later, even if only briefly, but by that time we had lost touch. I do play a few chords on the ukulele now and can do a couple of songs. But you will never hear me, hai? I think it might have made you happy.

 

You were always rooting for me, you know? Whenever others made fun of me, you always focused on nothing in particular. You would raise your eye brow in silence and nod, as if to ask if I am okay. Your forehead would crease and I would look away. You were the only one in the group who did not laugh me. At that time though, I did not know I was being bullied. It just felt bad and eventually I tried to detach myself.

 

Anyway, that day on Bhim’s terrace is my memory of our first meeting. I was 14. You were 16. 

 

In the months that followed, Sampoo and you were a number. She and I always bought you and the others Archies and Hallmark cards. Sampoo and me, we were two girls around a dozen Chakratown boys. One girl, actually. I was always a boy. Or so everyone thought. 

 

On some of your dates with Sampoo, I third-wheeled. We just walked around Chakapath and talked and had sweetened Nescafe at the Honey Dew Restaurant. One time, when you had started working at your father’s office and owned a new bike, you gave me a ride home after your date with Sampoo. I was third-wheeling again.

 

Funny how I remember that bike ride and your brown jacket and your back as i rode behind you. We talked all the way. We were happy just talking. That was our friendship.

 

We had identified a couple of things that connected us. Our fathers were colleague-friends. We had both gone to school on the same education fund granted by the organization where they worked. We both liked reading. We had similar taste in music. You also liked philosophy.

 

When you started working full-time at your father’s office, we saw less and less of you. Most of us still sat by local cafes, drinking teas and coffees. I remember holding the feeling of your absence when you stopped showing up. But Sampoo was still dating you and so I got to hear about you from her.

 

Once, she told me things were not working out between you two. But she also said you guys had kissed. And she immediately said: maybe you should be with him. You like the guitar. And your fathers are friends. You two are perfect for each other! 

 

I couldn’t tell if she was talking out of anger or if she was just being funny. But you two broke up soon after and she left for Delhi. I guess life happened. She made new friends.

 

My other memory of you is from this one Winter when I was back from Darjeeling. I was interning at Gurung Uncle’s office for a few weeks. I was 21. You, 23. I used to leave my MSN chat open and sometimes you would show up and we would chat between work.

 

Our chats became more frequent. We were both sitting in our offices doing our first job in those days, but also pausing to speak to one another. We started hanging out again, meeting sometimes after work. All the boys had left town by then. All of them Gurkha soldiers. Some had slipped into Chakre Milan’s gang. Sampoo was back and working at a five star hotel and dating a guy she'd met in college. She said was serious about him. 

 

With everyone gone, hanging out had become different. It felt like you and I had been moved out of Chakratown into some other world. Our world had expanded and shrunk at the same time. You seemed content anyway with that world. You always seemed content with everything. Nothing seemed to agitate you. You would just do what you had to. I was the restless one.

 

Over chat one afternoon, you said we should date. I remember pausing at the keyboard a long time before saying no. I said I would not break girl code. You said I was being silly. I asked why a gorgeous boy with singing and strumming skills want to date someone as invisible as me? I would not look good on you. You said it was never about looks as much as it was about how you feel around someone.

 

 

I was stubborn.

You said I was being stupid and I would remember someday that you had tried and that our friendship was something good to hold on to.

Girl code. I repeated. 

Deep inside me, I did not understand why you wanted to go out with me. I did not trust it. I hadn’t changed much, except I had lost my baby fat and I had replaced my glasses with contact lens. I was still an unattractive 21-year-old, obsessed with my lack of beauty, which I had internalized from bullying I faced growing-up.

 

We argued about it for weeks.

Even in that disagreement, we quickly transitioned into talk about wanting to hold hands. We wondered what it might be to kiss. We were made up of such chaste things then-- we never kissed. I could not get over the fear of breaking girl code or becoming a traitor to the gang of the Ctown. What would the boys think? How would Sampoo feel? 

 

You and I became our little secret-- and like all things bittersweet, we became buried in our absences. I pushed you away until you were mad enough to not ask anymore. 

 

I went away to Thailand to begin my first stint as a development intern. When I came back, KTV happened. My life changed. And I think that seeing me on TV made my old friends think of me differently. They projected their idea of distance, at me. And I drifted into a new world of journalists, TV anchors, writers. I became selfish in my choice of friends. I was just beginning to find my thermal updraft.

 

One rainy winter afternoon, I ran into you in Chakrapath. We stood under the awnings of what used to be the Archies gift shop. It had closed down. Your face looked fuller and you had lost the sharpness around your jaw. You still wore a baseball cap. You said you had been working hard to help your father. Then you said you were getting married-- and something inside me dropped to the pit. Then something rose in anger. Why? I asked. What do you mean? You asked. 

 

I said, we are too young for that. We aren’t even 25!

You said, I am, you are not.

You asked if I knew Ambika.

 

She was from my school. You asked what I thought of her. I said she is nice, even though I barely knew her. But deep inside, I was angry and shocked that it was happening so quickly. You said you only wanted to settle down, work and have a calm life. 

 

Ambika, from my memory did no music or books. She had a perfectly chiseled face, and wore the quiet look of someone who wanted to be more but didn't really care. To me, she did not seem like someone for you. You two had nothing in common and that made me so mad. But I also realized that day that we had all moved so far way in our adult lives. All the Chakratown kids.

 

We parted. The road was muddy from the rain. I hate winter rain. You crossed the road and I watched you walk away, slightly hunched now. Then I headed home. It was the last time we met. 

 

I went to the UK soon after. I heard you were married but we never met on the MSN chat again. We disappeared from each other’s life completely until I found your note two weeks ago.

 

For days now, I have been trying to make sense of us and I can’t. Some of my memories come all jumbled up. And yet in all of them, I see your frown, the crease on your forehead, the tilt of your eyebrow and your smile and in my head is the sound of your voice singing, while your fingers press against the guitar fret. All of you.

 

I want to say you have found me again and this time in the form of a note. Perhaps you needed to say your goodbye to me, too?

 

I have been stalking you like you can only stalk the dead-- without the fear of being found out. When I found your page on FB, I was relieved to see you were a good husband and father all the way. I have wondered who you became as an adult, you know? I was nervous that I might find that you had turned out to be a regular Nepali patriarch with bad taste in politics. But it was a relief to see you serenading to Ambika on FB videos. 

 

I was wrong in my insipid jealousy. She was always perfect for you.

 

Lately, I am touched by the knowing of what you gave me without me even knowing that you had. You showed an invisible girl the possibility of being appreciated and by that the possibility of existing and doing. And I am glad we had love, even if only briefly. Sitting in Gurung Uncle’s office, talking to you, I always felt like the world was breaking open in shimmers around me. I felt happy.

 

I hope you were happy like that everyday of your life with Ambika. I hope you liked your job. I hope you liked where you lived in the US. I hope your new friends adored you like we did.

 

Part of me is relieved you did not have to live through the horrors of the earthquake or the pandemic, while part of thinks you might have enjoyed certain series on Netflix. There is also the part of me that wonders what you would have said about the woman I have become-- long hair and girly clothes. I wonder what it might have been like to chat with you on a smart phone. You, within reach all the time, no matter where in the world.

 

I hope you got to watch lots of good movies and heard plenty of good music. All of me hopes that you were loved dearly everyday and that you lived the calm, simple life you always said you wanted.

 

I hope you are in a good place, Pradeep Lama. 

 

I wish we meet again and this time for much longer. I hope to meet you again as anything-- your friend, your sister, your lover, your pet, your colleague or the tree in your garden.

 

 

I love you. Today, more than I ever have. 

 

 

Thank you, my friend. Be in peace-- you wore it around you like it was yours naturally.

 

Yours,

P