The girl who taught me to masturbate

I guess I wasn't surprised when you passed away. The last few days of your life at the hospice had been excruciating and we knew it was only a matter of time. It felt like we were waiting for you to leave. And quietly, I might have hoped you passed away sooner than you did.

It's a year since your passing now. Almost, by the Gregorian calendar and already by the tithi count. And it has been an eventful year. There were birthdays, anniversaries, travels, nakhtyas. In most of them, no one really remembered to talk about you. We didn't even talk about you on your dakila to mark one year of your passing. It was as though we were all in a hurry to get past the rituals. 

Poonam di asked me to bring the khasali to Gurju four times, even though she could see I had already placed one before him. She asked the same questions multiple times--as though it was her way of not mentioning you. Kamla Maley just sat on the bench in the terrace watching Gurju perform the rituals, the midday sun shining bright over her, casting a halo formed by the smog of a polluted city sky in the background. She sat. Without saying a word. 

The rest of us chattered. About things of no consequence. About travel plans, about people abroad, about politics, the government securing monopoly of state adverts for Gorkhapatra Sansthan. It was a day like any other. It was not very different from when we did the pooja to mark 45 days of your passing. Except, people didn't weep this time. No one.

Before leaving, I went to the Dhukti room to say hi to your photograph. I stood there and teased you for a bit and then those tears came. I felt embarrassed. I didn't want to be the only person crying that day, so I went down the stairs quickly and out the house. I left.

Today, I was trying to masturbate. I had to stop because you showed up in my mind's eye. When we were pre-teenagers, you had told me: Have you ever tried rubbing your thighs together? It's so much pleasure. 

And just like that, you had taught me how to masturbate. 

But today, I had to stop because the 11-year-old you appeared in my head and tried to teach me how to do it and it was like I could no longer remember all the other times I'd known to pleasure myself. I sat on my bed and wept. 

girls standing on the lawn

The spine of the chair shadowing mine, my arms stretched across the desk, my feet dangling before me sometimes, sometimes perched on the floor-- I'm the happiest person when I'm seated at my desk. Nothing else matters while I get to be here.

Until last week, I still had Y's Sanepa desk. And it felt like a special gift. I think I might have walked from room to room admiring Y's apartment and her courage to set up her own place, the entire time I was there. 

I'm yet to find that for myself. But I've taken comfort in knowing it is possible for a Newa girl to step out of her sheltered life and live a life that's her own, even in Kathmandu. 

I read Y's books most nights. She has a really rare collection. None of them are books I've seen before. And most of them are poetry. Y is a poet and you can see it in how she lives. 

One evening, I took a book about girls standing on the lawn and placed it by her bedside because I felt she should wake up to it when she returns home. Then I put it back again where Y had placed it. 

Maybe she wanted the girls on the lawn to be sat on the shelf now.

 

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.

 

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.