We never talk about tight chests

Grief can hold you captive for days and weeks and months, years. 

I feel as though Preeti's passing has now become stuck in my chest. It's always tight. I haven't looked up the phone to check our chats from the past. What is the point in doing that when I know she will no longer be looking? But there's a part of me that seems to think she's still in London. It's also like I'm trying to trick my mind into believing she's not quite gone. Like I had tricked myself into believing she would come back to Kathmandu for good and we would grow old together. But this was not the place she chose for herself.

Home, then, is probably where we're able to spread our wings, even if we don't always fly. Home isn't always where we were born. And so Preeti Didi chose her home-- so far away from us. And every detail about her life, so lost on us. I worry I will never be able to gather all the bits of her to make a full memory. 

Fragments will have to do.

a eulogy for Preeti Shakya

 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...

My dearest Preeti,

I wanted to write you a note while you’re still with us physically. You’re still here in body with us, but at 3pm today, you will be gone. You will be enveloped in flames and they will return you to earth, and the Thames will carry you home. You will be taken to the Thames on Friday.

Tomorrow, I will become a year older. For another year, you’re still a year older than me. And next year onward, I will keep getting older than you. You, forever, will remain 48.

Right now, I feel wounded by your absence. But I’m also grateful to you for all the love you have always given me. Thank you!

You are so beautiful and you will be beautiful and kind always. And wise.

Until 3pm today, I am still allowed to speak of you in present tense. So, yes, you are one of my best childhood gifts. Thank you for always looking out for me. I love you. I love you so much. Rest easy and rest peacefully always.  

And here are some stolen lillies for a May girl.

 

Bindu's curse

I haven't been able to stop thinking about the story Mamu told me about how Bindu Taama's curse might have killed a man.

When they were little girls, their home in Boudha had pigeons. Baajya had built a pigeon stand on the terrace and the birds lived in little house-like holes on that stand. The family fed the birds grains and talked to them. 

One time, a neighbour came over to ask if they could borrow two pigeons for a pooja. 

When they didn't bring back the pigeons for two days, someone from Mamu's family went over to enquire. And they were told they had sacrificed the pigeons during the ritual, because that was what it demanded. 

When they heard, the little girls-- Mamu and her sisters-- got very upset. They wept. And then Bindu Taama spat a curse. She said: Die! Sheema!

In the weeks that followed, they heard the man who had come to borrow the pigeons had hung himself.

Sometimes, I've done what my Taama did. Muttered a curse in anger and grief.

When my neighbours got together last week to cut down six trees in the hood, I went into a spiral of grief and I hoped the trees would become ghosts and haunt the men and women who had ordered the trees to be cut down. I hoped they would suffer from severe stomach pain and die mortifying deaths. 

The next time I ran into them, I was bowing my namastes to them-- muscle memory. And I wondered what had happened to the witch in me.