a letter to my sister, who is slipping away

My dearest Preeti,

I’ve spent the last seven days crying round the clock and wishing for your peaceful departure.

What kind of sister wishes for her sister to die? What does that make me? A monster. But it is true. For a week now, ever since I heard, I’ve been praying for you to slip away peacefully, quietly. It would be a reflection of your life in a way, you know?

 

I cry as I write this and crying seems to have become my coping mechanism to deal with your going away. I wanted to write to you while you’re still here so I can talk to you in my head, even if you are already slipping into a coma and can no longer read. So, here I am.

Maybe I will ask Pratish to read this to you while you sleep.

Yesterday, on the video call, I watched him pat your forehead, ask you if you want water, rub your legs. You lay there unaware of us. Or maybe you were listening. We will never know.

I put my lips to the image of you on my phone and kissed my phone several times, knowing it was my phone I was kissing and you were out there in the hospice, just waiting. I can never kiss or hold you again.

 

From across this great physical distance between us, I do not know what any of us can do to bring you comfort. But here we are, fighting among ourselves over what’s good for you and what isn’t. As if we know what you want. We talk about what should have been. As though that would change anything about your illness.

When you came home in 2023, I had told you to come back. I had said we would live our lives together as two old, single ladies and you had said you would, for a moment, and then said it was too late. You had built a world for yourself in London. You said London was home.

 

I wonder who is part of your London home. Who is in that world of yours, I will never know. All these years of sketchy conversations, I’ve wondered who your friends are. I can barely remember you talking about your friends. I remember your cats though. Five of them. Your babies.

It is only now that I know why you had to give them up. It wasn’t because you were moving. It was because cancer had started gnawing at you and you could no longer care for them. And yet, you loved them. Like you had loved Jimmy, all the way until it was time to put him down.

I know that pain, you know? Coz I had to put my Goose down too. Again, what kind of mothers put their babies down? I guess mothers who are left with no choice but to let go. Love is also letting go, my friend Priti says.

Ever since I found out you have been at the hospice, I’ve been playing scenes from our childhood in my head. I see you in your school uniform, mostly. Neatly ironed white shirt and the grey skirt wrapped around her thin waist. What a looker you have always been!

And your hair! You have the blackest, silkiest, shiniest hair I ever saw. It was your beauty! And then you came home to us in 2023 in a wig. Your head, like a mowed lawn. I asked what happened and you said you had been on radiation therapy for bone TB. You lied. You didn’t say it was cancer. You didn’t tell me you had undergone mastectomy when you opened your suitcase and showed me a bunch of 36D bras for me to take. They’re your size, I said, not mine.

How was I to know your bras no longer serve the same function for you? That they’re now a sign of something that has been lost.

You didn’t tell me you had been sick. I know now that you were trying to protect me from grief that was hurtling our way.

I know nothing about you, Preeti.

Poonamdi still tells me you have jaundice. How am I to make sense of anything?

Last night, after our call, I started hyperventilating. Seeing you lay there wan-looking , bleary-eyed, has been really hard. Every call, I see you grow more distant. And something has been breaking in me these days as I think of how you’re no longer going to be around. The sister who calls me baby, gypsy, darling, Pabhi. No one has such names for me in this world. No one.

With you, I’ve always felt unconditionally loved and understood, even if we didn’t talk so often. I don’t think anyone’s understood me like that, you know?

I sat up till 3am last night, reading our chats. Every time I asked you how you were doing, you said you had many challenges but you were coping well. And you always had nice things to say. You were proud of me.

I don’t know, this letter is incoherent too, like my emotions these days.

One moment, I’m crying, another moment, I’m thinking of the boys who crushed on you. I’m thinking of the poems you used to know by heart. Some of them, I still know from hearing you say them aloud.

The Yak by Hilaire Belloc.

The time you went to Pokhara, I was so envious and I hated you for not taking me with you. You were ten then and it was probably the only time you ever went to Pokhara. I wish now that I could share all my Pokhara lone trips with you-- over two dozen of them.

I’m thinking of the silly things you used to say. You’re the girl who first talked to me about masturbation. And yet, when we spoke in 2023, you said it was hard to believe life had passed you by without a lover. How is it, you asked me, that you had never had a lover? I still have no experience of sex, you said.

Preeti. 

 

I always thought you and I would grow old together. 

I saw you come and live here in KTM. I saw us grow old together. But those are images I was conjuring inside my head. I know you will never grow old now. You will always be 48. You turned 48 today. Happy Birthday, Preeti! I love you so much.

Yours,

Gypsy  

P.S. Had I been in London, I would have brought you some flowers. Here, I've stolen these online.
 

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. 

Ineedtogrowroots

It has started to dawn on me that I have no roots. Not even in Kathmandu, which has always been my home. The older I grow, the harder I find it, to associate with places and things and people. I have begun to feel like what I need to do in life is to let a place grow on me now, so that I can allow roots to grow under me and help me find stability. I haven't been able to grow roots, because all my life, I have run. Mostly from pain, but also from pleasure and love. I've been so afraid of love. I need to unlearn everything and learn. I need to learn to accept love. I need to grow roots.

Time warp

I feel like the Kathmandu in my memory is now imaginary. It is rife with the feelings I have attached to it, most of which is love for you all I left behind when I moved here. But when I see pictures of Kathmandu on the news, it is a bit jarring as I'm reminded again of how much anxiety I experienced because of everything around me. The stray dogs and cows and their suffering. The stress to get to work on time and not be late. The pressure from different people around me to do things or to deliver this and that. This and that. Literally. And I often feel that I was trying to cram so much into my days in Kathmandu, that felt limited. There never seemed to be enough time for anything. But here, I seem to have so much time and no one to meet or to do anything for. My days are usually spread wide across space and time. Space-- which is wide open spaces and pretty skies and beautiful trees. Time-- which is just about punctuating my day with things to do. Much of it is work and that is taken care of. Work has always had its way of taking care of me. I'm allowing it to do that for me right now. I'm working and teaching. And that keeps my mind on its toes. I feel that if this year is taken care of, the next year will find some direction as well. You know how ironic this sounds... people often try to save time, wait to do things within so little time. Here, I don't think of saving time. I have enough time to just sit and stare at the sky, at strangers, do whatever might help me pass my days. Have you ever known this kind of luxury? Have you ever know this kind of a trapping of time? It's like a time warp.

April fields

It spattered on the windshield
as your eyes focused on the road
and I mistook the raindrops
for something else you brew in me.

Dust rose in whirling mountains and Baneshwor looked uglier than ever. In the past seven years, I've watched this part of the city everyday, swiftly freezing into cement and rods and bricks. It's everywhere, taking away what used to be wild long grass, cat-tails and pussy willows.

Elevators are good business in Kathmandu, a voice said. Look at the concrete going up so high everywhere! The other voice said, maybe Otis has its hold here already.

I walked out the teastall. It had begun to drizzle after the churning up of dust, leaves and snapping off of branches. The raindrops came down like falling stars, shooting down at my face as I turned my head toward the sky to welcome the first April shower.

I asked Rabi dai if we would have more rain. He showed me the satellite pictures and said the clouds should move to Kathmandu from the west and head east towards Sikkim. But this drizzle is not enough. We need heavy rainfall. We haven't had water for days. We've been buying water every week.

Of course, we need more rain! Who could know that more than I do? Not just because Kathmandu people will have more water if it rains. But because when it rains, I'll finally be in my element again.