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
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