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. 

The night Asman dai saved my life. And his own.

 I've been thinking about this incident a lot recently. I don't quite know why.

It is from those early years at KTV, when I was in my 20s. I used to do quite a bit of night shifts because they had divided the English news team into morning and evening shift. Evening shift meant that you got done with your newscast at 11pm and then you had to wait for the Nepali bulletin and engineers friends at the MCR who had to wrap up duty and switch shifts with the night team to go home. Most nights, you left the office close to midnight. 

Apparently, I lived farthest from the office among the lot who had to be dropped off after the shift. It was always the case. And being the last person to be on the dropped off list, the night rides homes were never quite free of adventures. One time, Hira Dai and I helped a man driving a big jeep and his two year old child out of a ditch. A ditch about four feet deep. I'll leave that story for some other time.

But today...

The incident that has been on my mind a lot: Asman Dai and me. He had dropped everyone else off. The last colleague we had to drop off home was someone who lived in those plains near Gujeshwari, down Gaurighat. One had to take the road down towards Gujeshwari, just across the river and keep driving into the fields. This was in the early 2000s and that area was isolated, with just a few houses scattered across the fields. This was during the civil war.

That night after dropping off this colleague, we were going back and towards the road to Mitrapark. He would go up the main road and then take me to Ganeshbasti. It was a bit past midnight. As we moved, we saw five men walking slowly or standing in the middle of the road. I can't tell which, but they were there suddenly. They stopped the van. Asman dai stopped to ask what happened. And hose men didn't say much but tried to yank him out the car and one man opened the door in the back, the kind of door that slides, you know? And he tried to grab me. 

"Baini, dhoka banda garnu," Asman dai shouted. And I acted quickly, I suppose out of fear. I held on to the door, didn't quite manage to shut it. His door was still open, too. But what he did was, he pressed the gas and the van sped up, hit one of the men and went forward. The men shouted, swore at us. I'm not sure if the one who got hit was badly injured. I imagine they were only minor injuries. Asaman dai didn't look back. He kept driving. We shut the doors at some point. I was shaking with fear. He look frightened, too.

Who are those men, I asked later. He didn't know either. But he dropped me home safely and then went back to the office to do the rest of his night duty. 

That night, Asman Dai saved my life. And his own. We were asked the next day by colleagues about what had happened, but no one inquired or tried to take measures or introduce policies to protect the workers on night shifts. Things went on as they normally did. Or so we imagined.

Next time we were on the same route, Asman dai made sure to drive down Gaurighat with more people in the van. 

I don't know where Asman dai is now. His full name is As Man Tamang and we used to call him Asman dai. I remember his face and wonder about him sometimes. I don't even have a phone number for him. There were dozens of night shift drivers at KTV who took care of us through the civil war, the peace process, the emergencies, street protests and what not! But we barely remember their names. 

 

 

Gathering

I stole this image from NYT because I coveted that moment (I forget the name of the photographer, so in that sense, this makes it theft )--I wanted to be a woman standing in a random street, just after a storm, gathering fallen leaves. I found enormous comfort in that thought.

Lately, I've been unsure about everything. Everything. And yet so comfortable in becoming this woman who's a hermit, living everyday inside my parents' home, cooking, cleaning, eating, sleeping, reading, writing nothing worth reading. That's me. It's like all the awful things that happened to me in life were leading me to this moment of quietness. Maybe death is like that, too?

I often think about the horrible things that happened to me. I am probably not past the abuse in my marriage, the gaslighting in certain relationships, the sexual exploitation by men who claimed it was stemming from love. I haven't gotten over those things and I think sometimes that writing about them might help. Perhaps if I write about how frightened I was that afternoon when he parked his scooter outside Gyanedra's residence and called me a bahunphile and how I was coerced into going to his friend's house to have sex. It was the beginning of something horrible. How is it that even for women who are educated and wise and who know good from bad, it often ends up becoming just the physical fear of a man. How come?

 

Vacancy announcements: Husband

2018

2023

2024

2026

Mid-day blues

 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.

wastefulness

How does one expect to get any work done with a cat sitting on your chair, occupying over half the space and a dog sitting at your feet, tearing a random something to tatters? Yes, my space is heavily compromised as of now. 

I thought the perks (if any) not having children was that one would get to work in peace. But I must have been quite mistaken. Having pets is no different. My clock revolves around these two-- BabuBagh and LunaMoon--pet, feed, check on them between work and repeat every hour. 

Heigh ho!

I have been able to get very little done recently. I feel like my head is pooled in stories but none have been written. And in that sense, I wonder if I'm starting to become like my mother. Am I? 

Trapped somewhere far

Meera, like her name, belonged in only one place--to herself in a far flung idea of herself trapped somewhere.

When periods came, she would bundle up her mother's old sari and clutch it between her legs. For underwear, she had learned to cut her father's or brother's old trousers and alter it into something that fit her. No one offered to buy her any knickers. She was the invisible one in the family. After polio stuck her when she was four, she could no longer participate in the games her siblings played. And her parents didn't think it was necessary to send her to school.

And no one spoke to her about what she should be doing during periods or what they were about. Her elder sister, Laxmi showed her how to bundle up cloth, then tie a string around her waist and knot the ends of the cloth on to it so it stayed in place. But cloth was always scarce. If her mother discarded an old sari, she and her sisters had to compete for their share. And sometimes, when children in the extended family out grew their iicha cloth diapers, a tatter of pretty print from a frayed cotton sari would land in her hands. That served as period cloth.  

Meera liked to fold the period cloth neatly after they dried in the sun. They went into a corner of her trunk to wait until another month. And until then, she forgot about them, ran household chores, cooked for her family, fetched water in the ghaa, but before that she would polish it with ash until it shone like a gold pitcher. That was her job. To fix everything in the house, to take care of everything, to look out for the others. It sometimes included picking up her siblings' books and piling them neatly on the table. 

Meera, for everyone but not herself. Trapped. Far away.

 

No longer unmoored

The day was warm and blue, like the sky above us. Warmed by the sunshine and blue like calmness, trust and serenity Google talks about and not the kind that makes you sad. My heart felt so full of gratitude for the day and for you.  

I watched you walk into dappled light and look some pictures of you on my phone. It's how I want to think of us for the rest of my life. Walking with me towards open spaces, your big, soft hand holding mine in it. You cribbing about how I have no peripheral vision and how inattentive I am when walking on the road. And yet, and yet, smiling, holding my hand.

People often tell me I've been so unlucky in life. Then I think of the clarity you have brought me and I know they can't be correct. With you, I sit moored. 

The thing about hair

Mamu touched my hair the other day and said: This is not the hair of the girl I birthed. What did you do to your hair?

I touched my hair, imitating her and said: I don't know. I don't understand what's happening, either.

But deep inside, both she and I know what's happening. It is age catching up. 

During my trip to Manila this time, the first thing I noticed about other ACFJ alumnae was that they had all lost the lustre in their hair. Germie used to have thick black hair-- yes, a bit undisciplined and sometimes crowding her eyes, but it was thick, black, leaning all the way down to the small of her back.

Biapasha used to have similar, straight, long, dark brown hair. Now, both my friends have a stack of graying, wispy hair sitting on their heads. 

The women at our Manila meeting, all came back looking more or less the same as they looked two years ago, except their hair had changed texture. More grays. Less shine. More unruliness. One of them has been through a major surgery, which she thinks might be the reason for the change in the quality of her hair. And there's perimenopause and menopause, riddling all of us.

My hair was probably the worst in the room. 

Something started to change gradually after my surgery, too. In Goa, Rubina coloured my hair blue and I loved it while it lasted, but the chemical started to make my hair dry gradually. I'm that girl who does not thrive under the impact of hair colour. 

Now, I've developed permanent curls from tying my hair up all the time. Especially, while it is wet. My grays have grown even more prominent. But the curls...I'm completely unfamiliar with them. I've never had straight hair, but it was never curly either. 

As a kid, I always wore my hair short because it was the easiest way for my parents to deal with the morning ritual. Short hair was one thing less to tend to. When I went to work on TV, I learned to re-bond my hair for ease and look. Re-bonding meant I never had to worry about styling it for TV. After my TV life, I was happy to just let my hair be and it was peaceful not to have to sit through the re-bonding hours. But now, that freedom I had taken for granted has taken the form of a revolution. I'm quite a Medusa at the moment.

I suppose the change in hormone levels (estrogen and progesterone at play) always has something to do with our hair. I haven't had my period for two months. It looks like I'm menopausing-- early. And I think the change in hormones have something to do with the way my hair is now behaving.

As a kid who had a lot of hair on my head, I wasn't very attractive. Or as a teenager, who always had a boy's cut. That's what they called it then. Boy's cut, meaning hair ends at your nape. But in my 20s and 30s, when I let my hair grow long, people told me I had lovely hair. I was learning to take the compliments in my stride and now I'm unlearning, because my hair reality is now different. 

My hair is a bird's nest right now.

The bird's nest has a lot of grays that my aunts and sisters cannot stand the sight of. Colour your hair! Use hair dye! But I've come to find comfort in the grays. They remind me of who I have become over the years. And so I keep them, hoping to be loved and heard just the same, despite my hair. 

Painting by Nhooja Tuladhar

 

Life of a perimenopausal woman

The body is a sacred place. It is a place of love, joy, pleasure, rest, restlessness, anger, anxiety, sadness, pain...of heat, of cold.

My body has been in shambles recently. I had experienced hot flashes when they put me on hormonal therapy after my surgery in 2023, so I had a taste of what it feels like. But who knew the trailer was only the tip of the ice-berg and the real show is much intense? 

I have difficulty writing these days because I cannot remember spellings accurately. During a meeting two weeks ago, my mind shut down. I could not remember the names of my colleagues or of the programs were working on. For a moment, I wished I could just disappear rather than have to make a fool of myself. But the names didn't come back.

There are a dozen other things I currently feel. My skin crawls, my ears ring, I get itchy spots, and I get terrible hot flashes and I break into cold sweats. My body is either on fire or on spikes. And when it gets cold, the night feels freezing. One moment I'm on the verge of burning, another moment, I sweat profusely.

I finally know what was happening to other women my age, when I had seen women wiping themselves off with tissue until the eyeliner smudged and the lipstick smeared across one cheek, or fanning oneself with whatever she could lay her hands on. She was struggling like I struggle now. On some occasions, I feel like my system is shutting down.

Mamu has been talking of these experiences for years now and I didn't even realize how hard this must have been for her.

I missed two periods this year. Last year, I missed one. In a few years, I will be 50 and I hope that the missing of periods will at least be a gradual process until then, instead of being something like hitting the wall.

Perimenopause is lonely and scary. I keep wondering what's going on inside my body. But no one knows. The body is sacred and the body also keeps its own secrets. 

Here's what we need to know.

meltdowns get more frequent

it tends to build up slowly and then breaks into a million little things and then it cracks open and you feel like your brain is about to burst open and then you break into sweat and tears and of course it makes you look pathetic because you will cry and you will end up in distorted expressions, disheveled hair, snot jamming your nose and you wailing like a child and people will just stare at you and wonder why you're behaving as you are and will try to make excuses for you or tell you to shut up, but you don't know how to react to that because something just cracked open inside you and there's no way to shut it down this quickly because closing it takes time and energy, and energy just got spent in crying and sobbing and standing before everyone, making a fool of yourself and becoming the horrible, evil person who cries so easily and weeps over the rearrangement of things, things are just objects, item, non-living things, but things that are important because you have come to rest some comfort in those things being there and so when someone moves them, it stirs feelings of instability and all you can do is cry and know there's no hold over it, and then you come back to it later, feeling guilt and heaviness and shame, wonder if you should run away or stay or run away and never come back, your loved ones will understand or won't, or they will hurt and hate you and all you can do then is to think about them and stay, stay even when you don't want to, stay even when your mind cannot, and then you will Google, show then a link on what an autistic meltdown means, but they think you are being dramatic and besides, the article is too long to read, and so you pick yourself up one more time, like you've done for over fourty-five years of your memory, you carry on, a little less whole than last time, a little more brittle, a little more smaller than ever, the body imitating how the heart feels

Pokharaing

 The best things in life, are things that are here. And now. I felt like I just had an epiphany, but maybe this is something I read somewhere? 

The calmness of the lake has been my friend for years and years now. I can't even remember how long it has been since I started coming to Pokhara just to sit by myself and work and read and write and walk and bike.

And once in a while, I've had company. Friends and family have joined me. And still let me do my thing because Pokhara is been my thing since forever.

And now I have found a friend, who lets me be me in Pokhara, gives me enough space so I can sleep, wake, eat, walk, read, all on my own. But also punctuates my moments with some lolling and goofiness and stories from across time and space. 

We first hung out together in Pokhara in March 2021 and since, Pokhara has taken on an added meaning in my life.

I'm giving my thanks to the universe today for all the wonderful things that get sent my way. We are always so taken care of, we don't even see it unless we pause to listen and rest.

And eat a slow meal in solitude. The luxury of doing that! :)

A desk of my own

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!

 

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. 

Thank you 2024

2024 has been an eventful year, starting with walking on eggshells around someone I love deeply, to getting Covid again to flaring up into rosacea. It turns out I have had to measure my life based on medical events. But there's also been a fair share of good times in 2024.

I think this year has started me off on a new journey of self-discovery. It brought me closer to myself as I set off to India, trying to reconnect with myself again. And that is what has been the most important thing I did for myself this year. 

Each one of us owes that to ourselves. The time and the patience to be with ourselves so that we nourish ourselves. The person who understands us best is ourself and the most important relationship is right there too-- with the self. 

As the year ends, for me, it is a start as I embark on this journey of valuing myself. I set people in my life free to go find me when they are ready. Meanwhile, the focus is on me so that I find the happiness that is mine-- the one I bring myself.

Making our own homes

I've spent ten days at Pilerne village in Goa now and it has been nothing close to my expectations, but better. Rubina was right. She always is. 

The last week of November, as Bhavna and Rubina pulled out of the driveway in the rented car, I felt a tear roll down my right cheek. It felt as though all the good times we had had together in Goa was suddenly over with them leaving. But Rubina had repeatedly said, "It's going to be so good for you, this place". And so it has been!

It has been nothing close to my expectations. I've had some unpleasant incidents with men and one with a pack of dogs ganging up on me. Apart from those, it has been lovely to just focus on myself and learn to cook better, to eat alone with great patience, to do the dishes, clean up. It's taught me that I take Mamu for granted. Doing household work is a lot. Cooking is a lot. She cooks lunch for me everyday and I've rarely shown appreciation for her work. I've been sitting here in Shalini's kitchen, thinking about Mamu so much.

I'm also learning that I'm the kind of person who thrives in distance and loneliness. I've been so at peace with myself here. Apart from a few occasions of intense emotions, I haven't had particular upheavals. If they appear, they're like ripples, they pass gently.

Much of the day is spent cooking, eating, working, watching, reading, then sleeping. It's restful. I've fallen so easily into a routine. Also, the thing about places it, it doesn't take much for us to make it our own. Once you put your mind to it, the place you are at, is your home. And so G2 has been my home for ten days now.

And it has brought me good feelings. I don't feel the emptiness here, I felt in Chiang Mai. I had started to find happiness there in my third month, but the first two, were quite hard. A feeling of having removed myself to a great distance constantly gnawed at me. I haven't felt that way here. And I think it has a lot to do with Rubina. Watching how she's turned India into her home always amazes me and I'm full of admiration for how courageous and smart this girl is. Hanging out with her, Bhavna and Smriti has shown me how strong and wise women are and how they can turn cities they like into their home. Smriti has done the same with Mumbai. As has Bhavna with Kathmandu.

When we were teenagers, Smriti and I used to talk about building pretty homes. Smriti was always about pretty cushions and drapes. We dreamed of pretty things from our middle-class homes, with just a few hundred rupees in out pockets we made from writing newspaper articles. But the dreams were always there. And we've actually been able to live them now in our own ways. In different ways, but we have come to live them. 

That's the bit that makes me happiest about my girlfriends. Each one of us, independent in our own worlds, free to make our decisions. Free to pick our bags and hit the road when we want to and just go walk on the beach for long stretches. It's all the grace I always want for us all.

Goa home

Who would've thought I would find a home in Goa? But it seems I have. For now. I don't know how many days or weeks this might last, but I like it that this house doesn't make me anxious. There are logistic issues, but I'm going to eventually sort them out. 

For now, I cook my meals, eat alone, do my stuff alone and just focus on myself. And recreate myself in solitude.
 

I'm not this

I have had no epiphany. Except, I'm that person who likes sitting at her desk all day. Of late, my head has felt very very crowded and I'm constantly looking for a place to bury my anger. Anger, that's been building up over the years. Mostly from having done so little for myself.

I have started to feel like my life has no purpose. Can eating three meals a day, transitioned by a snack, walking two kilometres and doing a job be enough? I'm grateful for everything, but something doesn't add up. 

Every morning, I wake up to the rainbow on my walls, thrown in by the lights creeping past the curtain and I think it must mean something. There's got to be more to me.

boredom

 there are days when your head pools in blue, not the colour of the sky but navy blue, the colour of distance, nervousness, and a bit of anger. it doesn't take much for the mind to get in that territory. not these days. these days, the days stretch like a chorus-- the kinds that make our insides want to burst into something. but we hold on to a sliver of hope somewhere, the promise of quiet that is set to find us.

a house of my own

I love October skies. And walks around this time are the best. I haven't been able to walk much lately because I've been sick again. But the attempt is to do two kilometres a day. It's not much, but at least it is something.

Another favourite thing to do is to look out of my window at the trees and the sky.

Last week, I went towards Chunikhel. The roads are calm and not at all polluted. And the villagers all know each other so they give me stares or curious looks, which is all fine. I don't much mind it. But it also makes me think if they think of as an intruder. Families like ours who bought their land and changed things for them. We make things expensive and life more challenging for the locals. We're all colonizers when we can be.

There are temples everywhere this side. 

How much we need temples for survival, the Nepali people. We build them everywhere we go. 

And while I'm not into rituals, I do like looking at temples. I find them pretty. And it makes me wonder what someone was thinking when they were building them. And by that I don't mean the people who planned the construction, but the ones who employed hands and head to build them.

Anyway.

It's a Monday today and the best thing to do in life is to sit at my desk, tapdancing on the keyboard.

Stray but important thought:

In the months ahead, I hope to set up my own room where I will write my essays from. That's going to be the focus of my life hereon.