I asked: Do heartbreaks hurt less as we age?
You said: I think as you get older - the current heartbreak is not as intense, but the collective weight of all your previous heartbreaks also add little bits of their frail selves.
And together maybe it gets a little heavier in weight. The pain is not as sharp but more blunt and more like it breaks your ribs. Or maybe we just like to feel sorry for ourselves more - so it never truly goes away…?
Today,
for some reason
I happened to think about ink.
Yesterday, I was talking to my friend about how special it used to be write with a fountain pen. At the time I was in school, there was something called Flame pen. They were thick pens, I suppose the size of a cigar, although I barely know what size a cigar is, and much less to hold one. Those pens didn't last too long for my generation as they were quickly replaced by Chinese fountain pens.
Flame, was an India product. They came in maroon, green, blue. Most of mine were maroon and blue. I never wanted a green one. I have no clue why.
The pen operated like a syringe. It had the nib, the body that extended into a barrel that had a piston one had to pull to refill the barrel with ink. You had to dip the tip into the ink bottle, just so the nib touched the surface, and then draw ink into the pen. If you pressed the piston quickly while the barrel was full, the ink would spray out and you would have blue (or whichever coloured) chaos right there. And so, it was also called a fountain pen, I like to think. Although I'm sure the person who designed the pen, Lewis Edson in 1883, had other thoughts about it at the time.
While refilling, you had to be accurate in what section of the nib you dipped in the bottle of ink. It was likely to smudge the pages, otherwise. And stain your fingers. During the time I fractured an arm, I used to use my teeth to draw ink. Lean down into the bottle with the back of the plunger, or the piston caught between the teeth, dip the nib in the bottle of ink, just enough, and then draw the plunger towards yourself with the teeth and focus half an eye on the barrel to watch it fill with ink.
The Flame pens were soon replaced by the Chinese fountain pens, which were easier to refill. You only had to dip them in ink and press the dropper that sucked the ink into the barrel. But they needed more frequent refilling. And that meant your friends had to sometimes lend you ink. A few drops. And you would return the favour the next day. The Chinese pens didn't leak as much and were slimer and easier to hold. I had earned a huge corn on my middle finger from holding the Flame pen, using the Chinese one might have eased that a little bit. But that didn't keep me from missing the Flame ones. There was great satisfaction in filling my maroon and my blue ones every night to place them in my pencil case for the next day's use. It meant I would not run out of ink the rest of the day.
The nibs would go awry sometimes as they became worn. And you could buy new ones. Unscrew the head of the pen, place the new nib behind the feeder that provides support to the nib and also supplies ink, and screw it back again.
(We eventually moved to Pilot pens, Japanese ones. I still missed Flame)
Punta is in class six this week and now he uses a pen to write his schoolwork now. Loons bought him pens and I was surprised to see they are no longer fountain pens that require refilling. The refill are cartriges one has to screw on to the body of the pen. No more ink bottles.
And so it makes me think of how much a bottle of ink meant in those days. I think a bottle of Chelpark ink cost Rs.35 in those days and lasted a month, or less. A pen was Rs.16, I think, or Rs.25. And every time you had to buy a new pen, you felt excited about what colour you would be able to buy. Sometimes, you could buy pretty floral ones, but they were never as good as the ones that looked modest. Sometimes, you made a small collection of pretty pens. But ink was still a luxury that I had to ask Baa to get it on his way back from work. He used to buy it from a stationery store in Chabel, I imagine. And I think my Baa was always very surprised by how often he had to buy me a new bottle of Chelpark (Chelpark, BTW, is what became when Parker collaborated with Chellaram in India to produce a local brand suitable for the sub-continent).
I used to love watching the ink flow out of the nib as I filled the pages with homework and classwork. I loved to see my own handwriting and to try and make it look neat.
But no ink bottles and fountain pens shenanigans for my Punta.
He will use blue pens with cartriges. All of them looking the same. And no need for him to reserve a space in his desk or on his bookshelf at home to store a bottle of ink, or to take it out every time his nib starts to stagger a little in the want of ink, so he can refill. And maybe no stained fingers and no stained pages and no stained shirts when you had to jerk the pen a little so the ink travelled to the tip of the nib.
P.S. I stole this image from Google as I don't as an image of Chelpark ink bottle.
I live in a battered body--battered by time, by illnesses, by accidents, by men I loved in the past. My body is mine, but sometimes, feels like a stranger, sometimes an enemy. Still, my best friend. I was thinking about how the closest someone else comes to knowing or cherishing your body are the following people (and in pecking order):
1. Your mother
2. Your lovers
3. Masseuse at different times
Children probably appear at the end of this pecking order. They depend on your body while young, but never really grow to know it, cherish it. As you age, they might even think of your body as something they owe filial piety to and not more.
Not sure why I was thinking about all this, but this morning, I felt like I was brimming with sadness and so decided to have some fun writing a vacancy announcement. It's the latest one on the next post. But here's a stray thought:
Today, I feel like I'm a line
broad, uneven
drifting through the noise
the chatter at teatime
the need to say, to say
I'm a line, that lands nowhere.
It's unbelievable, the number of times BabuBagh has had to go to the animal hospital. First to get all his teeth removed, save the four fangs. And today, for a small surgery for a massive abscess.
When he's sick, he's like a clingy child-- says Maamamamamaa and follows me around.
Dear Preeti Shakya,
Today is seven days since we laid you to rest.
The send off was magical-- your swan friends showed up, did their dance as you met the river and danced some more before flying away in a flock. It was so beautiful and a fitting tribute to you, the girl who loved nature.
Here's the eulogy I wrote that Tenzi kindly read out at the prayer service:
Today you passed through a crematorium
and we were given palu-baji to eat—
ginger and flattened rice,
a reminder that this is grief
and grief comes with a taste
that is both bland and potent
I spread out my palms
balancing my plate that held
a fistful of baji, a lump of ginger,
and vegetables cooked without
turmeric or spices.
no colour
grief has no colour—
food was served as grief today
as you passed through a machine
at a crematorium.
I could only stare at the plate
resting on my palms, spread out wide
Today,
a year and two months
since I held your face in sight
and just as long
since we took that walk together around
khastee
Let’s go, kora, I said
and you said you would
if I promised to hold your hand
all the way.
we walked very very slowly,
we managed only one kora
I asked if you would come home
and be with me forever.
we can grow old together, I said.
you said yes at first
and then you said,
maybe it’s too late
you said London was now your home and you had to go home
at that moment,
my mind must have been too dense
to fathom what you meant by home.
you meant
London was where you would go home
to yourself
Tomorrow,
you will be the dust that flies over
the surface of the ripples
at a certain bend along the Thames,
and then in many hours
find a new destination to rest forever
that's what you had meant
when you said that was your home.
London,
now your home forever.
and we, who grieve your absence,
we are the ones in transit.
So long, Preeti didi...
There really is no competition to that moment when I start my computer and sit at my desk every day. I think it is the single, most happy moment of the day for me. It fills my heart with gratitude knowing I have the luxury of a desk and the time to sit at a desk.
Maybe it needs to become the reason I wake up every morning!
It's Nepali naya barsha today and the new year's day is supposed to be an indicator of how the rest of the year will pan out. Today is going to be a busy working day for me. And I like it that way.
Except, I find that I am longing for some forest sounds and the smell of trees. If you happen to read this, I wish you those things and a storm to clear the polluted sky.
Wishing you trees and wild flowers!
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
