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The one thing I remember ever since I was a child was my dissimilarity to any children my age. Yes, I was young and impressionable and my mother called me �submissive� but I always thought I was different.

I played with my sisters and helped build their doll houses. Loved the frills and laces on my cousin�s 5th birthday dress and secretly desired the pink shoes she�d worn that day. Oh and my mother�s dressing table was a source of perpetual wonder. The lipstick, the mascara, eye-shadows, the silver plated mirror�..each of them intrigued me much more than the chocolate at the Lindt store. I would strut around my sister�s room with her red tote slung around my shoulder and envision myself as sleek as the Barbie that was displayed at Toys R Us. Occasionally, my mother would find me smeared with color all over my face. �Oh honey, this is not for you� she would say in extreme distress and express her scorn over a ruined $25 Lanc�me lipstick. Yet I was so drawn to these little �girlie� things that they were never quite out of my sight much less my mind.

School was a riot with the class bully always picking on me. As a result, I hung around mostly the less attractive girls who merely sulked at their thick glasses and envied Melissa who always had a candy or two from the boy sitting next to her. To add insult to injury, I wasn�t particularly academically inclined but neither was I detained for sub-standard performance. Oh yes I loved my singing and art classes and thought I�d someday visit if not the Musee du Louvre at least an art exhibit of aspiring artists from a neighboring city. I was elated when I landed the part, as one of Cinderella�s ugly sisters in the annual school play, even though Shirley with her golden curls would have suited the part much more than me.

As I grew older, I found myself browsing through piles of Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire�they became my bible of sorts. I would spend hours at the neighborhood bookstore admiring the lovely women who undoubtedly had the �haute couture� physique and looks to boot. �Someday�, I thought, I would buy me that velvet dress and get me those Minnelli shoes. Oh how the boys would swoon at me!!!

By the time I graduated from high school, there was not a feather of doubt in my mind I would major in fashion design. My father the academician could scarcely talk to me in a civilized manner. He thought it was an utter waste of time to invest 4 years to ultimately become a tailor. My mother was at the verge of tears but tried to find solace in the fame of Jean Paul Gaultier and Pierre Cardin. And my brother, we never quite connected�..not with his obsession for those head banging, marijuana maniacs who brutalized music and still called themselves musicians.

When I was 21, I finally moved away from my family. With the money I�d earned working 25 hours at Wal-mart I headed to San Francisco where I met Guy. He was in one word�.Adorable. The friend that I�d never had. He understood me like my own family had never had or tried to. He was so warm, so giving, soooo��.everything that I couldn�t quite explain and express. I wanted to tell the world about him.

My only hesitation---------I was born Tom D. Sherlock, Jr.

   [ posted by Janice Mukhia @ 02:03 PM ] | Viewed: 1944 times [ Feedback]

I couldn't believe what I read about her. How could such
ever smiling bubbly loving person committee suicide? Her life story is
similar to movies beside that "happily ever after marriage" didn't
come to her at all.

After marriage, Nisha was completely transformed. No one,
not even her close friends, and family knew her transformation was due
to extreme mental and physical harassment by none other that her own
husband. Most shocking was that she never expressed it and chose to
become victim of harassment till her death.

Nimesh, her husband, was too suspicious and possessive
about everything. He chose the dress she wore, the friends-circle, and
activity she was supposed to do. He controlled all her life. For
love's sake she did every possible thing to impress and make him
happy. She lived her life in his philosophy and limitation imposed by
him. In fear of loosing him she sacrificed everything, peace,
desperately wanted possessions and ultimately herself.

He blamed her for every wrong thing that happened in their
life. She forgave him with a hope that he would improve. But that
never happened. Sometimes he apologized for his actions. However, next
day he repeated act the same. He wanted undivided attention so never
let her be friendly with others. Few people who knew about their
relation only suggested adjusting and compromising calling it as her
fate.

I wish something had been done to stop the ill-fate to
materialize. However, it's not only the case of one Nisha. The most
tragic part is that still countless women through out the world are
leading terrible life like Nisha's. Yet no serious actions have been
taken against it. Women are victimized of domestic violence, marital
rape and abuses of some kind or the other. Society shows sympathetic
towards victims in most cases but they hardly provide the support or
lead them towards the right path towards boldness and independence. On
the contrary, women are discouraged to come out and fight for their
rights.

Seminars, discussions on the issue take place every other day in the
five-star hotels with millions of rupees manipulated. However, the
level, reality and the number of domestic violence is increasing day
by day. Why only women are expected to adapt and compromise? How long
are women going to misunderstand the control over life to be care and
accept the discrimination in name of fate or misfortune? Women suffer
more because they lack power, are dependent completely, vulnerable and
are in an insecure position. Society expect them to suffer in silence,
her voice is suppressed inside the four walls of the house. Thus, we
need to educate, empower and give equity rights to women and make them
independent emotionally, physically, and economically. It's essential
that every woman becomes conscious of her rights not be victims of
ruthless life in the future. Isn't it high time we silence the
violence?

   [ posted by Barsha Ghimire @ 06:13 AM ] | Viewed: 1646 times [ Feedback]

Happy Birthday Daddy

Swagat Raj Pandey



The hall looked beautiful with the dashing lights and the songs of
Coldplay playing in the background made the whole atmosphere great. A
group of girls forcefully pulled Ryan from the dais and took towards
the dance floor. He could be seen dancing with the lovely beauties
giving him the company.



Ryan looked very handsome today. He had to; after all, today was his
wedding. Yesterday, he had celebrated his last night as a bachelor;
the bachelor party his friends organized giving farewell to his
bachelorhood. Now he's no longer a bachelor. Now he's become a caged
bird; a bird that can no longer fly as it used to and would have to
comply with the rules of the life of a married man. He looked happy,
but somewhere he knew he'd miss hanging out with his friends,
attending wild parties and staying out late without having to bother
about anyone waiting for him for dinner. He knew his life would no
longer be the same and he'd no longer be the carefree Ryan anymore.



Jessica, his newly married wife, looked at him all the while smiling
before the same group dragged her alongside Ryan. The hall was full of
smiles. The DJ put on a slow number and the dancers joined in couples
for the dance. Jessica and Ryan held each other and started shaking
their legs. Ryan looked into Jessica's deep dark brown eyes that
nauseated him. Jessica blushed feeling shy and smiled as the dimple on
her right cheek accentuated her beauty spot that Ryan fell for; her
sweet dimple. The couple hugged each other and the scene stopped with
the couple exchanging a passionate kiss. A huge round of applause from
the audience marked the end of the movie.



The Eternity Hall was one of the oldest cinema halls of the town. It
had been closed for almost three years before Maharjan & Brothers took
over the management. The hall had been renovated thus giving a brand
new look with the A-1 sound system, good underground parking system,
great decoration and hygienic cum economic food stalls. Today was the
grand-opening of the newly renovated hall and the premier of the
Sophie Duncan's romantic comedy 'Life is beautiful'.



The projector switched off and the hall lit golden with the lights
letting the audiences find their way out without having to turn this
way and that way and annoy the co-audiences. People started moving out
through the two doors lighted with EXIT sign. One of the doors lay on
the north and the other on the south of the hall.



Grishma slowly rose from her seat that folded back immediately as soon
as she got up from it. With the black bag clutched on the right side
of her body she moved towards the Exit door, the one on the north of
the hall. The 12-3 show was over, now she had to move home. People
thronged the ice-cream stall right next to the main gate. She got one
for herself as well - her favourite one - vanilla with the Cadbury on
top.



Today she had taken a time out for herself. She had been feeling that
she needed a break. A break from everything. She was very happy when
Mrs. Khanal who lived next door volunteered to look after her
eight-year-old daughter Kanchana for today. She wanted to have a free
time, enjoy the life and feel relaxed.



She walked down the road of kalimati to Basantapur all the while
biting, licking and sucking the cone of ice cream. She passed through
the alleys of New Road, Asan and reached Jamal, took a tempo that
offered a vacant seat and headed towards the destination, baneshowr.



The man sitting next to her smelled of cigarette and the guy on the
opposite daringly stared at her breasts. After adjusting the bag over
her breast, she tried to ignore the irritation and unwanted attention
and tried window-shopping from the tempo itself.

"Wow.. What a beautiful kurta! I shall by it next month."

"That frock looks beautiful. I bet Kanchana would look like a fairy in it."

Mulling over various kinds of similar thoughts, she let the journey to
her home go on. The tempo stopped at Kamalpokhari and the man next to
her got off, much to her relief.



While reaching baneshowr, she pressed the button, which halted the
tempo. After handing over the five rupee note along with a two rupee
coin she walked towards her house, which was about two minutes walk
from the tempo stand. The road-side Romeos passed comment over her
singing the song from the movie murder, "Bhegey hoth tere…" Even at
the age of thirty-two she looked stunningly beautiful. No wonder her
ex-boss hit on her, the reason for quitting the previous job, which
offered more salary. But for her, her dignity valued much more.



She reached home and called Kanchana from Mrs. Khanal's. The evening
was quiet with the daughter sitting down to do her homework and the
mom cooking the dinner. After dinner they sat down to watch TV. But,
Grishma didn't have the mood to do so. She got up, put on her slippers
and moved towards terrace. Today was a full moon day. The full moon
was shining brightly and the cool breeze brought the aura of
rat-ki-rani to her. She was trying to enjoy it.



Today was her husband's birthday. Rohan worked as an electrical
engineer in NEA and was killed in an ambush on his field-visit to
Dang. It had been five years since. Their beautiful daughter, Kanchana
was three then. She remembered how hard it had been since he had left.
But, she is determined. She wants her daughter to get good education
and be able to sustain herself. The life of raising a child and that
too a daughter by a single mother wasn't easy. She had become used to
it; used to the hardships faced by a single mother in a society that
doesn't offer any kind of support.



"What's the problem mom?" exclaimed Kanchana

surprised by the sudden appearnce of her daughter she tries to hide
the tears that's flowing down her cheeks like river. "Nothing." She
replies.

"I know it mom. I've grown older. I can understand your feelings" she
said moving towards her mom.

"It's just that I miss your dad" explained Grishma.

"Me too, I love you mom."

"I love you too honey. Do you remember it's your dad's birthday today?"

"Yes, I do. For me you are both my dad and mom. Today is my dad's birthday."

Kanchana moved a step back, spread her arms wide and gave her mom a
huge hug. Then with traces of tears strolling down her cheeks her
voice whispered, "Happy birthday daddy!"

   [ posted by Swagat Raj Pandey @ 10:24 PM ] | Viewed: 1422 times [ Feedback]

How fiddly it is to hark back to your self "I'm everything! I am! and can't
be anything else. I can't trade who I am because I feel love in my heart. I
know God made me this way because I am part of his special plan and know
with all my heart that he (my love!) would never give me the boot off him.


The twinge of not having him is always fresh. They say, hearts heal and time
passes or soon this will all blow over.....but the storm is coming in full
force and I'm in the eye. Given a day to be with him!
I knew it is a cop out but I would be nervous, not of my love but of where I
get hit on by every crazy on the street I would have to pass through. I
would dress in perfection not one of my usuals that comes in but somewhat
different (may be!). Not that it should be an extraordinary selection of
accessories, lace collars, velvet capes, gowns, bejeweled jackets, handbags
and jewelry to rouse the dreams or something, just cool one where I will be
the Belle of the Ball easily. The high spirits! The cry! The amusement! and
would fancy everything he would do. I would quench the tingly feeling inside
me. How would I treat him? I would hand a glass of shot in the arm. Wouldn't
be drunk , just little sherry(?). I would just need help getting through
special occasions such as this one, a day with the most cherished one. A
mild dinner I would cook for him (he wanted to have me cook for him some
day). He would be my closer than close that day. I would pass on my heart,
tell him the creepy joke I have ever heeded, do the talking till I choke,
make him listen (all that I yearn for to tell all my life). Every little
drip drop wouldn't stop me crying waterfalls because I would know I would
lose him after that day and I would cross my fingers that one day soon I
pray! one day! I would see him yet again. Got to keep my head up and got to
stay strong for the days after that. "Oh my word, yes,"

I would take him around the backyard for little walk. As I would look at
him, memories would fall on my pillow. I guess he just had one of those
glimpse you know where you feel as though you've seen this person a thousand
times, say some of the things were tempting, so shot me. I'm only human! He
has dark hair and dark eyes with that rocker, disturbed, mysterious guy
thing going on and it was sexy if I do say so myself. I would lean on the
arm of his as we would stroll slowly along the fence. I would continue
looking few low, drifting clouds brilliantly orange-bottomed like the sky
above them had taken on the deep blue hue of dusk. Beautiful as it would be,
I would be saddened by the minutes before the night had settled in safely.
My one-day guest would move through the shadows now like ghosts, hardly
there, becoming memory. We would be laughing and joking like nothing then he
would be away from all a sudden.

What if I have on a white dress, and he ran into it with a chocolate
cupcake, would we two guffaw our heart out? What if that would make him took
me in a sudden hug? What if that would tell him to give me a kiss of a life
time, one of those kisses you crave and when you get it, it stays on your
lips for a life time, the kiss you tell your grandchildren and the day I
would once again fall frantically in love with an enthusiast?

"Sun's nearly gone," I would say. The truth. Stepping into the kitchen
with
my love, my look would get caught by the odds-and-ends clock, the night
going to get matured. I would watch the shadows shift from one side of the
ceiling to the other and back again whenever the occasional car drove by the
house. It would be contentful existence, no storms I couldn't handle
thereafter, few upheavals, the memories! Leaning back to him, I would hold
on a moment longer than maybe I should have. The last time I'd embraced a
towered bona fide lad over her. Like the well-bred child he'd always been,
he would wait for her to break away. We would have a great rendezvous. I
would dread leaving him for the night. I would wish he come back to drink up
all his sherry again and berate him for all her other slights and
wrongdoings. Hell, let accusations fly freely even. Let the name 'My Just
Precious' be thrown about, recklessly if need be, but often. He would
vanish! I would try to hide my tiny wobble; shady would be point in time to
come.

My plainest Plan sucks!

   [ posted by Ashley @ 05:37 AM ] | Viewed: 2081 times [ Feedback]

Wrong Number

By Biswas

As he ambles into a bus by the roadside at Gaushala, Aman notices a plump lady in cream salvars seated beside the door. He heads for an empty seat at the back after a brief glance at the woman.

"70 Maoists gunned down by the army!" a paperboy climbs abroad, shouting at the top of his voice. Aman peers at the reams of paper clasped in the boyâ??s dirty hands. The boy, in turn, looks at him expectantly, but Aman turns his eyes away.

As the bus sets into motion, he snaffles out a dog-eared, musty tome form his bag. He fingers it open, conveniently removes the bookmarker, and with a slight grimace, shoves the plastic marker into the latter pages. Through the narrow window slit, a zephyr swishes through his jet-black hair.

Presently, a hardy, middle-aged man with a well-manicured moustache takes the seat by him. The stranger is clad in spic white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his arms; gray pants, immaculately buckled up at the waist; in leather shoes, black and shining; a Citizen quartz of the same hue on his left-wrist: Amanâ??s eyes frequently shuttle between the straw coloured pages and the stranger. In time, the book lays unattended on his lap, his attention completely taken up by the stout man sitting by him.

Eventually, he bangs the book shut and turns his head towards the window. The fast receding rows of houses, derelict shops and dingy garages by the wayside divert his attention. The stranger has now engrossed himself in a popular Nepali tabloid.

When the bus reaches Koteswor, the man gets off, and nonchalantly crosses the road, not even bothering to check the traffic on either side. Aman gazes out of the window at the departing figure, until the man mingles in the crowd.

A sudden thrust brings his senses back.

As he reaches into his bag again, his eyes fall upon the scrawls on the white cover draping the seat immediately in front. The doodles are indecipherable for the most part, but on a closer look, Aman is able to make out a phone number and an e-mail address.

It is another 20 minutes before the bus reaches Lagankhel, its final stop. He hands his fare and alights. After a short walk, Aman enters a three-story cemented building, the last in the cul-de-sac. During the holidays, his office has had a fresh coat of paint. He sees that the fences are higher, and the main gate is now blacker and bigger. Keenly eyeing the developments around, he disappears into the complex.

After five hours, instead of the usual seven, he remerges. Aman scurries towards the station, and is soon onboard a bus, on his way back home. Nothing to divert his attention this time, he does away with another chapter en route, before hopping out at Gaushala.

Though the evening dusk is afar, he treads ahead, with his loping strides, homebound.

The front door is locked. The computer in his room, still onâ??the screensaver showing colourful underwater fish. But the keys are next door, with dear old aunt Rose whoâ??s always eager to lend a neighbourly hand. Sitting on the porch, he runs his fingers over the pages of the half-read book for a while and then puts it aside.

The garden up front is in full bloom. He smells the flowers â??purple, white, yellow, pink, crimson, and peacock blueâ??on each plant by turn. He does not know the names of most of these, Aman is suddenly aware! He pauses.

Though the main gate, he slinks out of the compound and greets his mother, who is rounding the last bend that leads upto the house.

"What a coincidence, mummy! We are home at the same time."

She unlocks the door with the keys from aunt Rose. Aman scampers up the steps to his room on the third floor, following a short mother-son tête-à-tête on the porch. Before long, he is pattering away at the keyboard with his modest typing speed. When the rattle ends, he palms his eyes, and heaves a sigh: â??Your message has been sent,â?? the screen reads.

He shuts the computer down and descends to the kitchen on the second floor, where a cup of tea and some biscuits await. Quickly doing away with the snack, he crosses over to the living room. Aman nestles himself in the settee by the phone.

He dials. The phone on the other side blares outâ??tring! trring!trrring! Once, twice, thrice...

"Hello!"

"Aman! Thatâ??s you, isnâ??t it? Is this a joke? Come down at once! Rose auntie is here."

"Ya, mom," he slams the receiver back.

Aman makes his way down with leaden steps, all the while shaking his head: How gruesome did aunt Rose look yesterday!


(Originally published in The Kathmandu Post on May 29,2005)

   [ posted by Biswas @ 11:16 AM ] | Viewed: 1928 times [ Feedback]

Homecoming
By Biswas



- It's been ten years since she left for the States. It's been such a long time, it seems. I hope she hasn't changed. I haven't - not for her, that is!
And now, that the day I've been waiting for over such a long time has arrived, I'm justifiably nervous. She'll be here, yet again!

She's said she would call me at the first opportunity she gets. But this wait is getting intolerably long. Each passing moment is draining me, sapping my vitality away. My adrenalin level has gone haywire. My heart is pounding and skipping beats for the love of my life.

This darn telephone! Why doesn't it ring now? A thousand wrong numbers yesterday, the constant whirrs driving me crazy. And today, like the lull before a storm, it's making my wait excruciating.

But what will I say when she calls? Will even a single word come out of my mouth? Or, will she blabber on endlessly, like she used to, and I solicitously listen? But surely, she must've changed after Mallika…

Those were the days! The days I eagerly waited for her calls. It seemed forever, before the phone rang, always startling me by its sudden, shrill buzz. I'm no less zealous as I await her call today. But how much has she changed?

Does she still love homemade chocolate-caramel ice cream? Does she twitch her nose when nervous, like she used to? Does she peal into laughter at the slightest prompting? More important, oh yes, it is all that matters: Does she still love me?

She can't blame me for all that went wrong, for sure! She's the most culpable, not even her parents. Where was her infallible resoluteness that I was such a big fan of when she needed it the most?

But, try as I might to believe otherwise, things have changed. Laxmi and little Sakshi are as much a part of my life now as she is. She must have similar feelings for Mridush and little Manav. The milieu of the French Quarters in Louisiana must have had some impact on her as well.

But why is she coming alone? Why is her family not accompanying her? Perhaps, Mallika…

She must be going through the customs. Any minute now! If only she had let me receive her outside the airport. Why would she not allow me to be the first one to see her on her homecoming?

But I couldn't question her—not many can. She has good reasons for everything she does, and amazingly, she is invariably right…

Finally! At last, she calls, ending my daylong anguish. Oh God, so excruciating! Never did I realize I would take it so badly. But now that she has arrived, I have no qualms whatsoever. I feel the same boyish verve that a teenager has on his first date. Life seems beautiful again. She's asked me to dine with her – Gee! Now that sounds exciting!

What more could I ask for? The stars twinkling tonight with their majestic radiance, just to welcome her home, it seems, under which two of us recline alongside on her lawn, celebrating together, after ages, with a bottle of champagne handy by the side.

Those piercing, seductive eyes, cutting through my senses! The flowing jet-black hair suddenly cut short at the nape, now entwined with the new-mown grass. That indomitable persona, well carried by her sylphlike figure! Her soft, chirpy drawl: I'm going numb.

She misses her family, she says: What must Mridush be doing? She has never left Mridush alone with Manav, a handful for both of them to manage.

I understand, I say, nodding my head now and again, like a sympathetic listener.

She takes her drinks well, she tells me. I admit she looks very calm for someone who has downed a bottle of champagne and a slew of whisky shots. But I'm drunk; I can feel it, down to my bones – blotto!

I got to head home, I tell her. Slinking out on the family during a weekend – Laxmi might find that very unusual. No chance of making it up to her today; too late.

I'm sorry about Mallika, I say. Such a lovely girl she must have been. And I am sorry, indeed! I feel for her. Too bad I can't stay. I wish I could…No…I got to go home.

She is overjoyed to be back, finally! She says so, now peacefully amidst the garden flowers. She wants to drive me home. How ironic…!

Her eyes look peaceful, and her face perfectly calm. A stream of blood trickles down her forehead into the warm, tarred surface. No, it doesn't hurt. Her endearing smile wipes away all pain; always does when I'm with her.

Didn't I tell you she's seldom wrong? She's taking me home, she says: Mallika's home.

(Originally published in The Kathmandu Post)

   [ posted by Biswas @ 11:45 PM ] | Viewed: 1690 times [ Feedback]

Save the last dance for me

Another rainy day, so much rain it made everyday seemed so on edge and dismal. Sabrina sat alone on her porch as the eastern wind blew, making her long hair dance around her. All-encompassing her back to a time in her life that she couldn't still to this day forget. Her heart still raced when she thought of him. "How could he not be alive?" she thought but she had lost contact with him over the few years.

Coping in everyday Manhattan life- only after midnight, despite the projections that Lower Manhattan will be bustling, the neighborhood is quieter than the fabled night before Christmas. Sabrina?s first day in the big city upon getting a cushy job! She walked to Times Square in the rainy day and was standing at the corner of 5th Avenue and 48th St looking at half a million people (or more) just as bright-eyed and bit nervous as she was. She was standing there alone, carrying her red umbrella. She appeared weak and delicate in the harsh rain, wearing not enough to keep her warm. Someone plucked up his courage and neared her, "Wanna have a drink and little dance at "The View" the rotating restaurant in Times Square" Excuse me!" she uttered and headed her way back as far as she could. Upon getting back to her apartment, she found the same guy living in the same apartment building, on the same floor. Poor thing, sighed and let it go. Meeting the same stranger became everyday story. Her idea of a nice guy meant clean-shaven, short hair, a button-down shirt, and denim jeans. This guy was the type of guy she categorized as a "skag"--long unkempt hair, unshaven, dressed in a muscle shirt, odd pair of khaki pants. She wanted to turn her car around and make out of there like a bat out of hell, but she said a prayer, swallowed hard. On second encounter, he introduced himself as Perry and her hatred was all he could get in return.

As Elizabeth Hardwick said "I am alone here in New York, no longer a we." time was flying , life started moving in fast lanes for her. One of those rainy days, her umbrella had a broken spoke, She looked like a wounded soldier, carrying her rusted rifle walking weakly. Suddenly she realized "Wait a minute, where is the skag Perry dude? It?s been how many? a month?" She could care less but turned out she saw him the very next morning- no more a skag- short hair, clean shaven and all those "it" factors. Came to find out he was not all that he showed himself to be. He was one of those people that take on the personality of another person or persons with whom he was around. Unwittingly she asked "what happened?" He answered with a stoned heart "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth till the last breathe- I lost my mom and learnt it hard way that life presents us with lesson". Got her thinking for a while.

Maybe it was the rain, all the trains were full of people with umbrellas, not caring about who just passed by. Sabrina found herself in front of changed-Perry. All he did was smile bluntly and headed to his destination. Quite shocked, she felt bad that night about her being mean to him all those days for he wasn?t what he appeared to be. Somebody was knocking at her door, and to her surprise, Perry stood there, "you left your umbrella outside, I fixed the broken spoke" and before she could thank him, he walked away quietly. Filking a few of her new experiences, the days went by. Consumed by him she stumbled upon more than just an average attraction towards him. She even surprised herself when she took in that she was falling for him blindly. Big city and a loner, she found herself longing to meet him and confer to him. However, like life, everything that is good has a bad to it. Another rainy stormy day, she saw him walking across the lower Manhattan. She did not open up her umbrella, she wanted to share his. "Hey, come close" he comforted her. "Broke your umbrella again?" hesitating, she didn?t answer anything. She asked "It?s a Friday, wanna go to ?The View? little drink and dance?" That night, he treated her perfect. Quietly she sneaked into the girl?s room to flatten her red top against her small waist, glossed her lips and brushed her long, middle-parted, streaked hair before getting to the dance floor. Her arms clasped behind his neck, his behind her waist, leaving no airspace between them. They shuffled side to side, hugging more than dancing (square dancing, dust off the shoulder move and what not), careful not to step on each other's bare feet. The vibe was so strong; they needn?t speak anything before they found the warm depth within them had instantly pulled towards each other. His dark, warm eyes and sweet plaid cap sitting with attitude on his proud head won her heart. The cryptic signals they understood, meaningless to the crowd around them, were deeper to her than the world would ever know. To her the rain always brought great adventure in some form whether real or just in her imagination. Like any romance caught between situations, this one was fragile and probably fleeting. He stole her purity away that night and she found it amazing.

To give it a second step, she decided to talk about it next day. Saturday, Sunday and whole week thereafter passed, she couldn?t get hold of him. Thinking he must be busy straightening up his priorities after the demise of his mom, she waited on him. It was again a rainy Friday when she was walking in the Time Square being bemused if he stopped his destiny because he is scared of what may be attached to love! Did we have just that one night stand? To her dismay, she saw Perry with his hand around a charming blonde stepping towards the dancing room. Carrying the most deceitful lie, she followed them to the hall. They were square dancing, with even and odd dancers rotating separately and in opposite directions; she watched them drooling, and a single tear rolled down her face and there she rested her head for a long silent while....

No matter what she did, he crept into her mind. She tried so hard to get over him and couldn?t. She couldn?t begin to express the love she had for him. They walked together, first as friends, than as kissing partners and finally hurt her feelings more than anyone ever could, after plucking the flower off her out in the rain. She never knew how he could do this to her but he did. She still treasured him but tried to move on under the busy Manhattan sky. She knew he didn't see her tears, because they were washed away by the rain.

Bringing to mind the remorseful past, Sabrina?s face faded into the gray winter light of the sitting room. She said to herself "Dance all your life Perry, Just save the last one for me", Love is not selfish.

Only God knows! Do you have faith? Cupid strikes again, Darn!

~By: Ashley

   [ posted by Ashley @ 07:51 AM ] | Viewed: 1916 times [ Feedback]

Crime & punishment
By Biswas

- As the morning sun streaks in through the dingy window and glows his face red, Dinesh stirs in his bed, throws a quick glance at the table clock with his red eyes, reluctantly pulls himself to feet, walks across the room, and digs in the pocket of the trouser hanging at the back of the door.

It is Thursday.

Having relieved a stick of Marlboro Lights out of his trouser pocket, Dinesh presently sits on the edge of his single bed, and lights the cigarette. As the smoke twirls into a shapeless existence overhead, he heaves a deep sigh.

Shama! Once he had loved her so much. He still does. Not much has changed.

How beautiful she looked yesterday--her dark brown beady eyes glowing, as always, with infallible certitude. The greeting card was as lovely, ending with "lots of love" and her characteristic signature, underlined abruptly and with a little star at the end. The t-shirt presented to him on his last birthday, maroon, a huge white star patched at the back; the mauve shirt, she had bought at New Road with twinkling stars dotting the night sky: Yes, she loved stars.

"Think optimistic, Dinesh. It shouldn?t be that hard," she would prod him. Forever encouraging, she would always come up with the right words at the wrong times, and make him feel better instantly. He was morose and prone to depression, she always calm and cheerful.

When he failed the B.Sc. second year exam last year, it was Shama who helped him get over the disappointment. "Look Dinesh, though you didn?t pass, you?ve secured 27. Twenty-seven! The two stands for you and I, and seven, why! It?s the lucky number. You?re sure to pass the next time." Often, even these uninspiring comments placated his turbulent thoughts.

And she could be devilish too, when needed. That loafer, no-good Sanjay, always bullying him around, got exactly what he deserved--a dollop of chewing gum stretching thin as he got up from his seat in the chemistry class. Sanjay had been at his wit?s end. Nobody suspected Shama.Or the time she came trundling down the stairs of the practical building on spotting his name in the byline.

"This is you, yes? Too good, yaar! Too good!" She made sure the article was pasted on the message board the next day. Most of his classmates had read it: Insomnia and my health.

These were unforgettable events, holding together their tenuous relationship.

Presently, he finishes his cigarette, and throws the stub out of the window, into the rose bed in the garden, well manicured by the finicky landlord, always particular about his flowers and vegetables. He loves red roses?such beautiful flowers!He wipes his forehead clean as he paces around the shabby room. Not even the end of Falgun in Kathmandu, and it is already so hot. If only there was a fan in the room! He had not been aware of its absence until yesterday. How curious!

Yesterday, Dinesh cleaned up his room after a month, wiped every nook and cranny spick and span. Never realizing his room could be so dirty, he could hardly believe his eyes when out of every corner materialized heaps after heaps of dirt.

At dusk on Wednesday, the festivities started: Two quarters of Royal Stag--the stupid shopkeeper didn?t have a half-liter bottle--the now addictive Marlboro Lights, two full packs for the special day, and a full chicken tandoori from his favorite restaurant called The Livewire. To his surprise, he had washed down the full Livewire tandoori with half-liter of Royal Stag--funny, how it sounded like Royal Stab!--and fagged out a pack-and-a-half of Lights.

That was then. Yesterday. Or was it today? The days had merged, the boundaries blurred. Staring at the ceiling the whole night--cursing the shopkeeper, that bastard!--he had been thinking...

A new day, his eyes pierce past the haze of smoke, riveted at the same ceiling, the absent fan, and the present tether, in place to garrote an animal today!

Dinesh gets up on the table, conveniently placed in the middle of the room yesterday; noose in hand, he can just see the red roses--and hear the gates open.He abruptly unties the knots, jumps off the table and swings open the door to find Shama, newspaper in hand, bustling with excitement: "Too good yaar, too good! Crime and Punishment. Ahem! As the morning sun streaks in...
The End

( Originally published in The Kathmandu Post)

   [ posted by Biswas @ 07:44 AM ] | Viewed: 1478 times [ Feedback]

The window is closed and yet the leaves are shivering. Must be the gust of chilled air coming from that vent, which is also turning the pages of “ Seto Bagh” real fast. I check the syringe and the medication and it looks up to the level. If you ask me, it is really easy to kill people. No sweat, at least when it is somebody you don’t know. You simply grab their left hand, find the nerve and pull the needle in. They can’t resist, as they are semi-dead already. That’s why I kill them, euthanasia, you know.

But tonight it is different. I am feeling like a refrigerated peace-of-water inside. The rays of light coming out of the 60Watts, feel like x-rays piercing a conscience mind.
It appears brighter than before, going to expose my deed. I have managed to stop my hands from trembling but the blood tide inside appears to have been affected by the full moon tonight.

My nursing home has seen 14 deaths so far. 12 of which were intentional. No, my patients don’t ask me to kill them. I make the decision based on their conditions. To be safe from the legal hassles I cover up the process. You see, that’s why I have chosen the pillow murder now a days. My 11th victim, well customer, had to go through autopsy and they did find the drug injected. We were able to wrap up the incident quickly, thanks to our legal department. It is a little cumbersome but worth it, you just have to hold the pillow above the patient’s face, put your knees over both of the patient’s legs and squeeze the pillow as hard as possible. You can see eyes popping out if you don’t cover the face completely, so make sure about that. With injections, it is pretty easy, obviously.

The 'seto bagh' is still flipping, my aunt Timila read it 9 times and still likes it. She laughs every time she goes to the Fistey Raja part. Who is aunt Timila? Well she is my aunt, a close relative to Anush. Despite her disapproval of our marriage (she thinks Anush and I are related because of her), I still love her. I gave her a rare “mayur pankh” bookmark, I bought from Rajasthan, in her last birthday which she kept on the Seto Bagh. I don’t see that bookmark in this 'Seto Bagh', so the patient who just checked in tonight can’t be aunt Timila. Siya, my assistant told me that this patient had a rare and terminal desease. But she did smile while leaving for the day, don’t know why.

Okay, I have to start my process now, have to concentrate. I make sure that the pillow cover is dry cleaned before it is 'used.' I do hope that Siya has turned the patient room’s lights off. You see, I don’t want to get attached with innocent face of my patients, on an euthanasia mission. Let me open the door silently, they shouldn’t be disturbed. The old bitch is sleeping soundly it seems. Almost the same heights and posture as my aunt Timila. Look how sound she is sleeping, poor lady. That periodic uprising of her belly is little annoying. Glad to put a rest to it now. The light, even though, is dim enough to shade her face, I should be able place the pillow correctly.

Now, I am stratring to tremble. It didn’t happen before, I was always able to control myself. My hands are shaking like I am driving a shift-stick in higher gear. My pillows are my wheels now, I am being dragged towards the old bitch's head. Anush, why am I remembering you now? Anush, no one can part you from me, but please leave for a while from my thoughts. I need to concentrate. Okay, I am about a foot away from the old lady's face. Let me stay next to her, it should be easier that way. Oh it is so warm here, why her feet are like my aunt's too. No she can’t be her, the 'Seto Bagh' has new covers on it and I didn’t see the book mark I gave her. Besides, Siya would inform me that it is my aunt.

Give me courage, oh God. It is afterall, for the old lady's sake. I want to rid her from all the pains she has infected upon herself (or others???). She has to go. I slowly extend my arms now. Look at those eyes, it is so clear now. I shouldn’t be looking at them, here I go. The old bitch realized so quickly, she is trying to free herself !! May be she wasn’t sleeping after all, just pretending to. But your time has come lady&you have to go. The wind gust has opened up the windows and the old lady is shaking really hard now. Look there!!! The mayur-pankh I gave to aunt Timila, the wind has blown it inside this room. I am sorry aunt, you have to go.

The work is done. Aunt Timmy will be finally parted with her 'Seto Bagh.' Suddenly I hear the telephone ringing. "I am not available, please leave a message. Beep" "Hey Simmy, it’s me Anush. You probably have already met aunt Timila&well she wanted to surprise you and checked in as a patient. She must have already told you that she has agreed to our marriage and is there to give you heartful of blessings. I will check you out later."

The seto bagh is still being flipped mercilessly. I think it has reached the part where JangaBahadur sees the seto bagh.

THE END

   [ posted by Lekhak @ 08:43 PM ] | Viewed: 1901 times [ Feedback]

It was Friday. I still lied there still awake...Homework to be finished. Homework never fascinated me, the only reason I did it was to escape from the punishments. Also I have to finish it now, tomorrow we were to shift apartment. With my father working as whole-timer in a Communist Party at that Panchayet era, there was frequent change of places for us and continuous change of friends. With homework finished, I went to bed� there was whole new day ahead.
Strange eyes were peering into us as we transferred our goodies into our new dwelling. We were used to it with so much of shifting places. But I still remember those hazel eyes watching me as if I were a prince from Caribbean. There was much more works to do rather than watching back to those eyes, rooms to be cleaned and set up.
She was our flat partner's daughter. We were in other words next door neighbors. I think she was 7-8 in those days, I exactly don't know, never asked. After she saw me the first thing she told her parents was that she would marry me someday. With her mother so much chit chatter, the marriage thing was now widespread all over the flat within 2 days. With myself being only 11 years at that time, I was so irked by the fact of marriage. My entire cousin soon knew about this and my marriage was gossip of the town, and I simply hated her for loving me. My cousins would tease me every time I meet them, which irritated me more.
She used to come to talk with me; I would irritate her with my gawky voice whenever she came near me. I was petrified of gossip of marriage. I would confine myself whole day in my room on holidays rather than to talk with her. She was only friend available within the community but I was rather reluctant to speak with her moreover to be friend.
It was raining that day, I was just watching the drops of rain falling on the ground, wanting to go and get wet in rain but afraid that mom would scold. I didn't notice her but next thing I knew was she was just sitting next to me.
"Rainy day, huh??" she started the conversation.
"No, a sunny one, with sunlight everywhere." I started my mission.
"Do you like to get wet on the rain??" She asked.
"But where is the rain?" same gawky voice.
"I always like to play in the rain, it is so much fun." She stood up, and walked toward the rain, without even being irritated with my replies.
"That is what I also want to do" my inner soul told me.
Without even caring of mom's tough rebuke, I also ran toward rain. Next thing I knew was we were playing in the rain, carefree and like flower children, the children of nature. We were all wet, all covered with the mud and all dirty, but who cared when one can have so much fun. That night I was thoroughly scolded by my mom. But that day, a friendship started, not to end I thought.

************************************

She was cute (I don't know if she was beautiful, but as a child she was cute), talkative, carefree, and yeah intelligent (She was first in her class), but above all her company was good enough for me. We used to play all sort of things Chor police (only one chor and only one police, and of course I always win), hide and seek, and those bhadakuti(that I didn't like a bit, but there was no option either, it was all give and take).
I still remember those hide and seeks. Once I hid into my room's almirah, where I knew she would never find me. But next thing I knew was I was locked inside. Dark and helpless, I didn't know what else to do. But I was rather reluctant to call for help; at least I didn't want to become the seeker. But after about half an hour I felt scared to death. Temperature growing and suffocating inside, I knocked hard on the almirah door. Moments later she came into the room.
"I got u", She shouted, without coming near being afraid of that dhyappa.
"HELL YA, but I' m locked inside", I cried frustratingly.
"Wait a moment, I'll open it" She tried unsuccessfully.
"I think I m gonna die here inside." I urged the urgency.
"No, you won't, who else gonna marry me??" She said innocently, starting sobbing.
She tried once again, but infuriated and frustrated with failure, she began crying. I myself was helpless inside, tears flowing down my cheeks, I didn't know the way out. I started weeping too. I just remember to that point.
May that be a sheer luck, but my mom returned from market as she has forgotten to take enough money. Seeing her crying outside the almirah, she at once opened the door. White and pale, I was there, unconscious. I was rushed immediately to the hospital, where I regained my consciousness. As the matter was not that serious, I was admitted for a night for observation and was back home next day.
She was sitting there on stairs, eyes red and swollen with all night crying, pale than when I was unconscious, waiting to see me back and alive. As soon as I reached the gate (I was walking, with zeal to show my parents how tough I am), she ran towards me and more than that she hugged me in front of everyone.
"Oh My GOD" Heart pounded blood into my head, numb and red faced with shame I stood there watching all around me laughing.
But she was still hugging caring less for laughter, she was so happy to not let me go away again. I tried to get free from her grip and as soon I succeeded, I ran toward my room, furious and embarrassed of her hugging.
I didn't spoke to her for next 10 or maybe 15 days.

************************************

There was a mandir near where we lived. Situated on top of a small hill, surrounded by forests, with a long staircase to get to the top, but the beauty, peace and serenity of that mandir was so much that the reward worth the hard work. I could see my school from there, see the Bishnumati flowing alongside (it wasn't that dirty those days); It was really fascinating and was one of my favorite hideouts. Hiking was one of my passions those days (still is but not to go to work with all those bandhs now a day), and instead of taking the stairs built for going up I had made my own way up through the jungle. I used to call it "adventure trekking" and would climb upwards through the bushes and the slippery route. I would fall and had scratches all over my hands and face but I was too adamant to take the main route.
I used to go there frequently when I wouldn't be playing with her. And to run away from her after such an embarrassing incident I went there whenever I was free.
It was Saturday, I think, not sure but it was holiday and I was free. With no friends I would like to hang out around, I went to my heaven on earth.
I used my usual way up, not taking the main trail.
With help of my previous practices and a little hard effort I was at top of the hill, and was proud of myself of victory over that little hill. As usual I went to the spot where I usually rest after my victory. There was a little sattal next to the mandir. A stair led to the rooftop of that sattal. I was lying over on the rooftop, tired of the climb.
She came out of nowhere, dirty as me, scratches on her hands and face. I knew at once she had been following me. I just ignored her even after she came to sit next to me.
I was there, silent, staring at the sky. She was silent too for moment just sitting next to me.
"Risayeko (angry)???" She opened conversation.
I remained silent.
"Maile k garen (what did I do)???" She asked as if she had done nothing.
I still remain adamant.
"Ma sanga zindagibhari katti ho??(Won't you ever talk with me???)" She looked sad.
"No, I am happy, ok, now shut up? And don't talk with me. And for god's sake leave me alone." I replied furiously.
All of sudden, there were tears in her eyes. I wouldn't have cared but she wasn't leaving the place, tears began flowing down her cheeks. She looked cute with those tears flowing from hazel eyes down her white cheeks. She stayed there afraid that I would leave her again.
I would have been adamant in talking to her but my heart told me to speak.
"Hatterika, kyaa royirakhchha bhane, ma risayeko chhaina k!( O my gosh, you are always crying, okay, I m not angry!!" I told her so she would stop crying.
A smile sparkled on her face. I would never forget that smile. Tears flowing down the cheek and still smiling, that face held a magical charm. But I confess I really liked her see crying. She was so cute.
And hence the spell of katti was broken. We were once again friends and she was only one who knew about my top secret hideouts.

************************************

Time passed, and before I knew the final exams of class 4 was there to hit me. "Study is a compulsion to you" My mom would say. I was lean and thin at that time (still am). And My mom would continue "Ahile padhena bhane paachi bhariya bannu parla, aani tan jasto dublo lai kasle patyanuchha?? (If you don't study now, You will have to become bhariya (porter) in future, and who would believe in thin person like you??" I was scared to death to become a bhariya, So I would study just to get a better future and a good job (Now it seems bhariya would have been better option�;-)). Anyways, I had to study for exams, and I did it just thinking not to become bhariya.
Soon the exam was over and there was two months winter vacation or min pachaas, my favorite time of the year when I would be free just to do anything I want. No tensions of mom scolding for not studying, no tensions of homework, carefree as I was head of all my schedules.
Times would pass playing with her, or going alone for my "adventure trekking", finding new and harder trails through jungle to the top, or lying still in garden staring at the stars in nights, or teasing her with the scariest pranks.
Also min pachaas would mean I would have chance to go to live at my cousin's home. Going for long bicycle ride with my cousins, playing table tennis on dining tables, making new flavors of ice-creams, discovering new games of cards, playing carom board all day long, playing ludo and being angry when defeated�(I can't remember more) would be our favorite pastime.( I still miss those precious moments).
She didn't have much cousins and once she asked me if she could come to mine, but I was embarrassed enough to take her there. And, when I would go to my cousin's, She wouldn't go anywhere from home just to wait for me to be back from my cousin's place.
Two months passed as if two moments and it was again time to get back to school before I knew.
I had passed my fourth grade with the aggregate marks above average. I was satisfied, but my mom was furious because she wanted me to get at least distinction. (Which I never got in my school life, my aggregates would always be below distinctions)
I was all set to start a new class. In the school I studied, we would have more than 10 sections in each class, the advantage or maybe disadvantage was that there would be new friends to be made every year.
I usually used to get two or three old friends in my new class but this time around all faces were new to me. I had to start from zero.
The seats of class were reserved in the first come first take basis. I was last to enter my class that very first day. And all I got was that forbidden last bench without any friends around.
At Tiffin time, with not a single new friend made, I remained in the class.
I was there at the last bench, with none around to recognize me.
I hadn't noticed him before. I think (don't remember exactly) he was sitting in the third row and reading something colorful.
Curious, I wanted to make friend with him immediately, but was reluctant to initiate. Instead I choose to pass by him so he would rather speak with me. I slowly passed in-front of him. But he was rather busy with his colorful book (which was first comic strip I ever saw). I was now too much impatient to start conversation.
"Hi" I played my shot.
"Hey" he replied.
"timro naam k ho??(what is your name??)", I asked.
"Call me Pee. anni tmro ni??(And yours)" He replied.
"Nirman." I gave my introduction.
"Can I see that??" I asked, curious to see that comics.
"Sure" He was ready to share his book with me.
"Thanks" I started seeing my first comic strip ever.
I don't remember it was Naagraaj comics or Super Commando Dhruva comics but that day a new friendship started, which would be one of my first long term and intimate friendship. (We still remain very good friends till date.)

************************************

I was returning back home alone from school that day.
"Hey" Someone called me from back.
I turned to see.
"Sandhai yehi baato jaane ho?? (Do you always take this route??)" There he was, Pee, asking me.
"Yeah" I replied.
"Ma pani (Me too)" He added.
I was very much happy to get companion while returning home. It was long was and a companionship would be advantage. His home was at about 15 minutes distance from where I lived.
"aagiko comics kaati parchha??(How much does your comic cost??)" I asked, keen to own my one.
"11 rupees" He replied
"11 rupees", I thought, with not much pocket allowances, something costing that much was faraway dream for me.
"Hey, if you want to see mine then you can take this home today, and return it to me tomorrow." He lent his comics to me.
I was happy to take that comic strip to my home, but at the same time I was too much eager to buy one of my own.
Back home, I was sitting alone in the garden, just sitting and thinking about the way to buy that comic beside me.
"Khelne ho?? (Wanna play??)", I hadn't noticed her coming near me.
"Nope" I replied.
"Why??" She wanted reasons.
"Simple, I don't want to." I said irritatingly with my gawky voice so she would go away.
"K bhayo?? (What happened??)" She wouldn't go away.
"Nothing" I didn't want to share.
"Tmi pani comic padhchhau?? (You also read comics??)"She saw the comic beside me.
Here was another one who knew about comics before I did.
"Yeah" I said bluntly.
"My dad also owns some." She told me.
"Really!!!" I exclaimed in disbelief "Malai dekhau na�(Show that to me�)" I added.
"Daddy le pitnu hunchha (Daddy will beat me)"She was scared of her dad.
I was sad that I won't be able to see another one. I didn't speak a word.
She stayed there alongside with me silent, without saying a word. We were there just silent for about half an hour.
She just stood, and went to her room. After some moments, she came back with two or maybe three (My memory is weak) comics. She hurried towards me.
"Kasailai nadekhaunu hai (Don't show it to anyone.)" She was afraid but she didn't care even if her father would beat her.
I sat pleased, with my smiling face. She smiled too.
I was touched, touched deep inside my heart.

************************************

Those were 'Tintin' comic strip. I really liked those over those Hindi comics. But later I found out that that would cost far lot more than Hindi ones, and those I couldn't even dream of�
Back at school, there was strange craze for Hindi comics. And my mind was set back in willingness to buy my own Hindi comic book.
"Mom, Can you give me 10 rupees?" I requested.
"What for??" She wanted reasons.
"Nothing, I just need it." I didn't want to say reasons.
"No money without reason." Topic was closed.
"Will you give it to me if I tell you reason??" I tried once again.
"Okay. If reason if validated." She replied.
"To buy comics." I explained.
"What??" She looked surprised. "Comics are not for you. Comics will fry your brain with worst imaginary things. And eats up your valuable time for study�and blah blah blah�."She made it clear for me.
Now with my only source of income closed, I had to find another way to buy comics.
I had noticed that bag when searching for something at cupboard. It was the bag where my dad used to put the donation he has collected for his party. I was afraid to touch that bag before, but now my need has become awesome, and I have to gather my guts to invade that bag. I had done small time theft of 2-3 rupees before from the drawers, below pillows and other places where money was put carelessly. But 20 rupees was big one for me and I didn't know other way to make money.
That day nobody was home. I made my plan and went to my parent's room for invasion. There it was, my target, I went ahead and took 20 rupees out of it in 2 rupees changes. I put the bag inside and closed the cupboard. Completing the mission I turned back.
"Abbuii�(Whoa)" I was scared to death.
Silly me I had forgotten to lock the door. She was standing right behind me.
"Why did you take money??" She asked.
"It's my dad's and I can take anything of his�" I didn't know what else to say.
"You are a thief." She caught me red handed.
"No, I am not." I tried to protect myself.
"I will tell your dad." She threatened me.
I was scared to death of being beaten. I didn't know what else to do.
"I will give you half." I tried to lure her.
"I won't take it, I am not thief." She rejected.
Scared to death I was of being beaten, I grabbed her and threatened.
"If you tell this to my mom and dad, I won't marry you and more than that if they beat me, I will be dead."
She looked vague and pale hearing my words.
(I sure owe heartfelt sorry of telling that to her�I am Sorry�if you are reading this somewhere out there)
I was bit relieved and sure that my secret will be buried forever. I was afraid at the same time.
I don't know about others but that day, in some way, communist party has given me equality. The money (although I have stolen that) from their donation helped me stand on equal foot with my classmates; I can own my own comic now.

************************************

With the enough money to buy two comics, I approached Pee for my first comics. Pee became my first vendor and I got two comics and one free comic in the deal. Now I was a proud owner of three comics. However, soon those three comics held no charm after some weeks and I couldn�t steal more money for buying new, I was dead scared of getting caught again.
As they say, � Where there is a will, there is a way�, there soon was a way to get me out of the problem. I found a new customer for my comics. He was only son of some rich fellow who was locked inside his home once he was in. He has no other way to buy comics rather than to depend on friends. I sold my three comics in price of four, and there I made my first profit ever. Now I was out again with Pee to buy the comics. This time we went together to the market for our shopping crusade for comics.
Pee and I were now together a team and would go up to Basantapur to fetch new comics. Soon enough we made wide circle of customers in our class and we were known comics baron at school. I was now independent for my comic expenses.
Pee and I were best team together. We learned too many things being together. Together we discovered our first porn magazine (We were heck unaware of what sex was though, but covered body shown open just lured us), together we started cheating on the comics shopkeepers (Pay for three comics and take home five comics), together we knew what keeping crush was (Pee had crush on a girl for more than five years, but he never ever spoke to her, For me I never needed one), together we were in never ending bond of friendship.
Maybe I was selfish that time, I totally forgot her and was immersing myself totally in my comics business. Holidays would pass going for comics hunt with Pee and time after school would pass reading comics inside course books. She would come and ask me to play with her, but I would simply refuse. With sad face, she would just go away.
Sometimes, when I would go out of room, she would be just sitting in the garden alone. I would often just go and sit beside her. Though we couldn�t speak a word, but there would be this cute smile sparkling on her face and we would just sit there silent.
When I wouldn�t be going for my comic hunts on holidays (which was mostly rare), I would play cards and ludos with her. I would cheat on ludos, but she would just tolerate it. Even in cards I would cheat, but she would just ignore and remain silent. Maybe she just loved the few moments spent with me and I would just take advantage of it.

************************************

It was now more than two years since I had met her and it was more than a year since I had met Pee. Pee and I were in different sections now, but we would go to school together and return back together. With us being in two different sections, now we had advantage of broader mass of customers. We had customers in most of the sections of out class and we were business genius even in that small age (now I think I should have taken business as my career).
With my business on the go and comics we had cheated on dealers, I had made myself a huge collection of Nagraaj and Super Commando Dhruva comics. Pee and I would always dream of being like those heroes. We would compete on drawing those characters, and Pee would always excel in arts. He was a born artist, I was always jealous of his abilities.
I was in my wonder years of teen now. Flamboyant, witty, wanting to be macho (which I never became), curios, and everything any teen would be. I had now also a finest ability to irritate anyone; I was one of most irritating person in world.
She and I were growing together and together we were developing strange intimacy. Even if we won�t say a word, we would understand what is in another�s mind. We didn�t share much time together now, but whatever we shared were passionate. We would find solace in each other�s company, even if we were sitting silent with each other.
Those days, her mother used to cut her hair short,� boy�s cut� they would call that. And irritating I was, I had found finest way to irritate her.
I would just have to say �boy, boy�
She would have tears in her eyes.
And I would add, �With look like that, no boys ever gonna love you, faraway be the marriage.�
She would burst into tears now.
I wouldn�t know the way to stop her from crying, but her mother would always come out of nowhere to scold me. I hated those scolds, but I wouldn�t stop my behavior also.
I still remember that day vividly.
That day, I was stacking up my collection of comics in my cupboard. She came in.
� Hey, what are you doing� she wanted to talk.
�Aankha chhaina ki k ho, aankha ho ki button?(Don�t you have eyes, Are they eyes or button? )� I started irritating.
�Hoina, I was just asking.� She said innocently.
I turned back stacking up my comics.
My god, she just had her hair cut, and she just looked like boy. Actually, I always loved her long hair, silky and long black. Long hair always held an attraction to me (may that be on man or woman), and I hated her hair cut like boys.
Now I had got to irritate her more.
�Boy, boy� I started.
She looked hurt, � Why do you always have to say that?�
�Because, satya tito hunchha (truth is bitter)�I fired once again.
Tears in her eyes, she went out of my room. And not before long, her mother was out to scold me.
�Man Pardaina bhane nabolnu ni mero chhori sanga, sandhai ruaaunu parchha ki k ho?? (If you don�t like don�t talk with my daughter, do you always have to make her cry??)� Her mother scolded.
With no elders in my home, I had no fear to reply back.
�Bolnu parekochhaina hamilai. (I don�t need to speak)�I fired arrogantly.
�Nabolnu ni.(Don�t talk then)� She sure was angry and wanted us to be apart.
� I won�t ever.� I made myself arrogantly a promise never to speak again.
From that day on, I stopped talking with her. We never spoke with each other again.

************************************

Time passed, Rivers flowed. Days, weeks and months were gone and I didn�t care anything. I was just busy with myself. I would ignore her passing in front of me, but I still remember those strange looks in her eyes, which I preferred to ignore more. I was too much stubborn or arrogant, whatever the word is I just ignored her.
I was in height of my teenage. With the love for comics as well, now I had developed love for music also. I had friends who would listen to hindi songs then and I was into strange craze of Kishor Da. The first ever cassette I bought was that consisting of songs of Kishore Da, but later I found out that even those songs were actually song by someone named Kumar Sanu. I was so disappointed that I broke that cassette. Later I bought originals of Kishore Da. Now along with comics I started making own collection of cassettes. Pee was also into music and it was he who made me available of those first Beatles songs. Later, I found myself in love with the music of The scorpions, Enigma, Lobo, Mr. Big, Metallica, Guns and Roses, Nirvana, many other I can�t remember and above all �The Doors�. Pee has now a new double decker stereo in his home and now we spent most of our times together in holidays, either creating our own collection of music or going for hunt of comics and cassettes.
Before I knew it was now more than a year, I had last spoken to her. We would pass in front of each other as complete strangers and I thought she had forgotten me too. Not much remarkable things happened so far between us in that time.
Time passed faster, and now I had passed my exams of class eight and was to get into class nine. We were entering our first or maybe second (Is 8 was first step???) step toward what they called Iron Gate.
I still remember that year vividly. Pee had stayed at mine place that day to go for admitting our self to our new class. Pee and I woke up before the rooster did and went to school so as to get our roll numbers lesser and together. Those days, our roll numbers would be given on the basis of admissions, and quicker the admission; the lower would be the roll number. However, we couldn�t get the roll numbers as low as we wanted but we were happy to get together again in our new class. This class would be the wonder year I would remember forever.
I don�t remember the first day of the class but I sure do remember most of days after that. We sure had strange fleet of good and bad teachers (some were worst). There was a teacher who was so skinny that we used to call him �Khopadi� sir. He used to teach us English and was one of best teacher, but he has this strange habit of putting �what the� in his sentences. We even used to count how many �what the� he would say (about 135 in a period as far as I remember). Pee used to draw his figure in the class with his finest skills. I had one of his arts of that sir, but later someone stole that piece of art. Then there was another teacher who used to teach us optional math, young and energetic, he was called � Kanya Rasi� for his obsession toward ladies. There was our assistant head master then called �CK Bam� as he was too short. Then there was another madam teaching us health science. I am sorry to say but she was worst of all. All the class simply had no respect for her. I still remember almost all of her classes distinctly as she would teach our last period and that would be our fun period.
Apart from strange teachers, this was the year, when we all class students (specially guys) were most united, when we used to fake of having crush on girls, when we used to read soft porn or comics inside our course books while class is going on, when we used to tease girls in our class for having boy friends in senior years (we even had fight with those guys following the matter), when I developed avid love for movies and books, when we started trading cassettes, when Pee and I would have first and last fight ever and wouldn�t speak with each other for about 4 months, and when I developed a deep love of spending time with her sitting silently with each other (I must have been too adamant to speak).

************************************

That class of nine was a transitional year for me. I was deep in my teenage now (I was fifteen) now and was turning into adult day by day. There were lots of changes happening within me, emotionally and physically, most of which I wouldn�t understand. Most of things Pee and I would sort out with each other, but still some things would remain unsolved and remain mystery till we grew older. We were growing fearless and would be boiled up even in smallest things. The most of class at school would be just like compulsion to us. Pee and I would always talk about being independent soon and make lots of money. We would dream of going together to college, being partners in business and building our home next to each other (None of which will come true later though).
The Tiffin time at school would start with rushing to that canteen to get in line to fetch Mo: Mo. And as soon as we finish our Mo: Mo (Pee would always be last to finish), we would hang out in school premise, sometimes looking around for Pee�s crush, sometimes waiting in line to play Table Tennis (Although sometimes we won�t even get a chance) and sometimes just gossiping around.
That year we kind of become rebellious also, we now learned to raise voice against the teachers we won�t prefer. Although we would never complain to administration, we started ragging the teachers we won�t like.
One of the teachers that suffered most was the health teacher. Some of the incidents in her classes, I still vividly remember.
Once she was hell lot of angry of getting ragged everyday and screamed at us.
�Yestai ho bhane Tmiharule Jaanch ma aalu khanchha (If this continues, you will get potatoes in exam)?�
Witty we were, Pee fired back.
�Rato ki seto??? (Red or white)?�
God!!! She was so much in fire and asked whole calls who said that. United we were, she never find out, although whole class had to stand up for whole period.
Another one was, once she caught one of our friend red-handed reading comics (Thank god!!! She didn�t find another one) keeping inside book. Later when class ended, our friend went to her and asked, �padhepaachi phirta lyaidinu hai M�am (Please return it after you read it!!!)?� Man!!! I still remember those looks in her eyes. She looked so hurt. Seeing that look, I tried for a week or so to be serious in her class but to no avail. After week or two, I was also the same bunch as class was. (We sure awe sorry for that madam, Thanks for bearing us!!! You sure were brave!!!)
Then came the day when Pee and I had fight. The fight was not that big, nor that small; But we didn�t talked with each other for about four months after that.
Those days, we used to have our strange ink splashing fights while classes would be going. We used to splash our inks from pen on our friends� shirts secretly.
That day was Sunday and I was in my whitest shirt crisp and clean.
After period or two, I spotted some ink spots in my shirt. Pee being only the next bench partner, I thought it was him and without even thinking for second, I splashed back ink into his shirt.
Damn!!! He caught me red-handed and more than that it was not him who had splashed ink on me.
Pee didn�t spoke to me that whole day and we didn�t even return home together that day.
Next day, pee changed bench.
And we were like strangers for next four months.

************************************

I thought it would resolve in few days, but instead Pee and I were finding each other with different bunch of people now. Initially I didn�t miss him much, but as soon as the weekend came, I surely missed hanging out with him. This weekend was first weekend in years when I was not hanging out with Pee (Unless I had to go to relatives). With no other friends around I found myself in solitude.
I just went to the rooftop of my home that day. All with my loneliness, I just sat there with my tons of comics, which soon I got bored of.
After an hour or so, she came to the rooftop, but acted as if she hadn�t noticed me, or maybe I didn�t notice her noticing me.
She went to another end of the roof and just stayed there looking to the other side.
I noticed her too but I tried my best to ignore.
At least I tried to act as if I was ignoring her.
Maybe for about 15 minutes I tried not to look at her side, and eventually failed.
As soon the desire grew more than my control, I slowly peered into her side afraid she would see me peering into her side.
GOD!!! There she was, with her long hair now, and for first time I noticed she had grown too.
I was bedazzled, even I hadn�t seen her face, was now kind of staring at her.
Sooner, she looked at my side and seeing me staring at her, she just smiled.
Embarrassed I was, I smiled back, not knowing what else to do.
I turned away and tried to ignore her again. But that innocent look has now hypnotized me. I never wanted to miss those looks again.
Once again, my heart throbbed to talk with her, but stubborn I was I didn�t talk with her. That day, though we were in opposite ends, we stayed there till late gazing the stars. (That was my favorite pastime in solitude, and maybe hers too)
Next day, after school, with nothing much to do, I went to rooftop. She was already there and impulsively I just went and stood next to her. She looked at my side, I sure still remember that twinkle on her hazel eyes, and she smiled the cutest smile I have ever seen. I smiled back too, but I had no guts to speak, and I didn�t. That day, we stayed together at one end of the roof till the star came out, and gazed to those twinkling stars, together after about one and half year.
Destined to be together, I think, we were there again beside each other, but this time without interchange of a single word.

************************************

The whole new chapter had started now. Although with no words exchanged, we would know what was inside another�s heart. We were as soul mates, destined to console each other�s souls whenever one was burning. And even to console not even a single word was needed, we just have to beside each other�s side.
In between those days a new and (maybe strange too) thing happened in her family.
Her parents had a great (I thought GREAT till that day) love story. They (Her mom and dad) used to be childhood friend and felt into love when they grew up. Her dad was a Christian and mom a Kshettri. And like all the hindi movies, her mom was married off to another Kshettri guy by her parents. After marriage, when her mother came back to her maiti for first time after marriage, she saw him at the stage like a Devdas. As they say �love is blind�, her mother and father ran away with each other after day or two. The story should have been a happily ever after if it was a hindi movie. But this was real life, and everyone who knew about their love story was surprised with mouth wide open after this incident.
Her (I mean her) father was having extra-marital affair.
Initially her father wouldn�t come home at nights saying that he has overtime at office and would give her mother some extra money too. But as overtime grew much more, her parents would have small fights. We as neighbors would think which couple hasn�t small fights. But soon after, these fights grew bigger.
With such fight going on in her family, she would just sneak out and would go to same old rooftop. I with an instinct, she would be there would just go and sit beside her. Maybe I should have spoken too, but often whenever I would go and sit just beside her, she would just smile to me with pain in her eyes. I would just smile back a consoling smile. Our looks would interchange words. Eyes would share what thousands word couldn�t. She would not forget the pain but at least she would just be little happy of someone being beside her. (I still repent of not speaking)
I wasn�t sure of speaking again to her then. Was I afraid of picking up fight with her again or was I too much arrogant??? But I simply didn�t spoke to her. After not speaking single words for about 2 years, it was hard to find the words that I should speak to her. But again, our eyes would speak whatever was in our hearts and maybe that was just enough.
Her mom was now growing suspicious of her father�s behaviors. And as truth couldn�t be hidden her mom somehow found out about the affair her dad was having. She even found out the area where her husband�s new partner was living. And with no other people to accompany her in her search for that place, she asked me for help. As a good neighbor I accepted, and went out for search for that den. Although we could not find that den, that day after her mom too was grateful to me.
Also soon after everybody in my family and her family found out about us being together in solitude at rooftops, and another gossip began. They would say �K ho yinihaaru hamro aagadi matra boldainaa, chhat maathi gayera matra k bolchha kunni??? K ho saanchi nai bhe garna laage ki k ho yinihaaru??? (Look!! They just don�t speak in front of us, but what they speak with each other at rooftop??? Are they really getting married??).� But this time I cared none, I had true and a friend forever with her this time. I didn�t want to loose that again for some gossip flowing through the town.

************************************

It was new revelations for me to have such feelings for someone else. I didn�t know what it was and didn�t even care to find out. But whatever those feelings were I loved those feelings, those feelings of belongingness, those feeling of togetherness, those feelings of caring and that solace I would find with her.
Back at school, I would like to get back with Pee and hang out together. But rather reluctant to initiate, I let the things as it was.
I had new set of friends and I would hang out with them. But those friendships were rather different, or rather distant to be exact.
It actually took 4 months and my absence from school for about a week to get back with Pee again.
During the childhood, it used to be fun acting like sick and staying at home just doing nothing. But this time when I got sick, and had to stay home, I got bored and lonesome the very first day. It was not that serious disease, but it sure made me stay in the bed for about a week.
That day, while returning home from school, I got drenched in rain. I still loved soaking in the rain. It was fun and it gave me enormous good feeling to walk soaking in rain.
When I got back home from school, there was nobody back at home. Usually, when our rooms would be locked, there would be someone at her place and I would stay at hers till my parents got home. But that day with nowhere else to stay, I remained outside all drained in rain.
Some moments later, she also came back from her school, all wet like fish (maybe she also still loved soaking in rain) and smiled at me. Now there we were, only two of us, all free too soak up in rain, like those good old days.
An hour or so later, my parents were back and as soon as they saw us wet, they scolded
�Yetro thulo bhaisakyo buddhi pani chhaina yinihaaruko, aali chahari layera basnu pardaina yesto bhijera baschha�Birami paryo bhane thaha paunchha aani. (You have grown so old, yet you have no common sense, you should have stayed in some shade, you will know if you become sick)�
But we were we, with intense love for soaking in rain and we just let the scolding pass through our ears.
My mom got us towels and helped us become dry. She stayed at our place till her mom got back home. (Her father was still busy with his EM affair)
Next day, the fun I had showed the results, and I caught cold.
As it was minor cold, I ignored it and went to school. But at school, after period or two, I felt dizzy and when I got back home, I was burning up with fever.
Next day, I was in full bed rest, as doctors would prescribe. I had throat infection or something like that and was boozed up with heavy doze of antibiotics.
That day, half of day I passed with good sleep. The fever was down with cetamols and I got pretty much bored as there was nobody around at home and I was sick enough to dwell into my treasure of comics. I went to my favorite place in the home, the rooftop, getting myself wrapped up well in blanket.
Some moments later, I felt someone was behind me. I turned to see, and there she was, looking sicker than I was. I didn�t know what else to do; I gave her my blanket, which she took with smile and thankful eyes. I went back to my room to get myself another blanket and went back to the rooftop and stayed there together for a while.
Later I took her to my room and let her rest in my bed, and I played some of soft numbers from my collection of music in my stereo. She stayed there at my room till our parents got home.
�K ho yinihaaru sansangai biraami hunparne?? Bujhnai nasaknu ho yiniharulai pani!! (What is matter with these, being sick together??? It is hard to understand these two!!)� It was their first comment when they got back home.
For me at least I was happy. At least there was someone around even when I m sick.

************************************

That whole week, I had to stay home and missed all the classes in between the time. When I got back to school, there were whole new chapters in every subject to cover. With the mid terms approaching and no one wanting to lend me the notes I had missed, I didn�t know the way to cover the topics I had missed. That day I missed a real friend who would be with me in my hard times (not getting notes was hard enough at that time). I felt alone and helpless.
Making plans to read the books and making notes for myself, I was returning home that day.
�Oyee� I heard familiar voice calling me from behind.
Pee was there behind me. I was surprised and more than that happy to talk with him after more than 4 months.
�Hijo asti Kina aainaas??(Why did you not come last week??)� He asked.
�Birami Thiyen.(I was sick)� I replied.
�Ma ta poila gais ki bhanthaneko.(I thought you eloped)� He started ragging me.
�nakara mu**, arkalai tension parirakheko bela. (Shut up, $#@, I m so tensed)� I acted as if I was angry.
�Hijo asti ko note paais??(Did u get notes of last week??)� He asked.
I don�t know if he knew I hadn�t got the notes or not.
�Chhaina. (No.)� I answered lamely.
�Mero laija (take mine)� He lent me the notes when nobody else has wanted to share.
I sure felt him as my guardian angel at the time. He just took away all my troubles just in the snap. I sure was happiest one to get a friend as such at the time. He sure was friend in need and a friend indeed, and I felt stupid enough not to step forward to speak with him.
We were once again friends, the friends at their best. The old days were back again and as soon as the mid terms were over, the hang outs began in the same old pace. The new obsession added to our hang outs; we were obsessed with the movies. We wouldn�t miss a single new hindi movie at the time. Subash Ghai would be our favorite director and we would be greatest fan of Shahrukh Khan and A R Rehman. We would hire the deck every month or so and watch the movies day and night just to cover up every movie released during the time. We would also watch all those Kung-Fu movies and there I started watching my first Hollywood movies. The �Evil Dead� was the first Hollywood movie I watched, but then after series of other movies followed. �Desperado� was the action movie I thought was heart stopping. I also became fan of Jim Carrey after watching �The Mask�. The talks we had would cover topics of who would be next happening hero and such. We would even collect the video cassettes of Shahrukh Khan (Video pasale sahuji ko pach parne�it sure was fun) and we wouldn�t miss a single music cassette released of AR Rehman. We would have hot debate on who was hot: Sushmita Sen or Aishwarya Roy. And traumatized with Aish�s beauty I would always debate on her side.
We even started going to talkies to watch movies. I still remember the Rangeela show at Viswajyoti.
Pee and I had gone there on Saturday, the worst day to choose for movie. And for that movie, the hall was packed with all the movie or Urmila lovers when we reached there. The Men�s line for ticket has reached outside the hall and there was not even small space to step foot at hall. But women must have been against Urmila or movie at the time, the women�s line was lot much shorter than men�s. There were black ticketers everywhere, charging up to 60 rupees for a ticket that would normally cost 25 rupees. Pee and I summed up the money we had altogether and found that we had only 70 rupees. We quickly made a plan to get one ticket and sneak in both of us with that. We bargained the one ticket and got it at 50 rupees. And we got into hall faking other two people nearby us as our parents. The ticket checker was busy enough to care for us. But when we got into the hall, all the seat were packed, and with only one ticket in hand, we had to stay on the stairs and watch the movie. But we sure loved the movie, and sure enjoyed it. Now our admiration was also directed towards Ram Gopal Verma.
And when we returned home from movie that day, I had whole new plan brewing up in my mind for next time.

************************************

The situation at her home was getting out of all boundaries. Her parents would have fight everyday and at nights whenever hr father would come home her father would bit her mom. At times, my parents would have to intervene. �As parents fight, the child suffers.� All those times her parents would be bitching each other, she would be just alone at the rooftop with tears in her eyes. Those tears I would not want to see and seeing those I would think of beating hell out of her father (must have been Hindi movies effect). Her father remained villain for me, whom I would want to beat becoming a �Hero�.
Most of time, I would just sit beside her whenever her parents would be fighting downstairs, and my parents trying to resolve their fight. I would desire to take her away from all those miseries; I would love to carry away all her pains. At least I would love to take her pain away for a moment, so she would smile, smile as a child, and smile in the same way as she would smile before.
Maybe it had been the weirdest ides, but movies always were the greatest fun or getaway for me at the time. And I thought of taking her out to movie; maybe she would love that, I thought and forget all those miseries her father had created. For a moment, maybe I can make her happy and see her smile as before. But for this there were obstacles: first of all I hadn�t spoken to her yet (yet not intended to) and I didn�t wanted anyone to think I was taking her out to movies just as that.
I had cousin about her age who lived in the locality where we lived. She (my cousin) would frequently visit us and was good friend of her. One problem was solved as I could ask my cousin to ask her out for movies. But another problem popped out, what reason I should give. And that day, seeing the women�s line at Viswajyoti lot shorter than men, reason also popped out in my mind, �to get tickets easily�. This reason I could validate with Pee and with other whoever would query. I did my simple calculations and went to get my cousin hooked up with my simple plan. But as they say �napatyaune Khola le bagaunchha� my cousin did drowned me. My cousin asked for ice-cream treat at Nirula�s, if she was to ask her for the movie. Without any choice, I had to drown.
Movie was alright, and I could cover its expenses with the savings I made. But treat, Pheew, I had too much to cover the cost that would come. To cover that, I had to sell three of cassettes from my favorite collection, which I did very heavy-heartedly.
The choice of movie was even weirder. It was newest flick released at Jai-Nepal (Old One with bora ko seats�J). I choose the movie as it was starring Shahrukh Khan and movie was �Ram Jaane�, a hard core action movie.
Well but we sure got the tickets easily, and moreover, we all enjoyed the movie (I think I did, for others I m not sure). And the treat, I am sure she loved that. She laughed on the chit chats, Pee, I and my cousin were having there. That smile of hers, made me want more of them.

************************************

Those days were surely amazing. Hanging out together even we were not speaking with each other, I still cherish the every moments of those hangouts as sweetest memories (although, numbers of hangouts I can county on fingers, four to be exact). With her feeling so free to laugh and feeling out of all those miseries at home, I sure was happy that at least I could make someone feel FREE. I never thought that was a feeling of love, as I must have been too much affected by the feeling of love shown in the hindi movies.
With me inviting my cousin and her every time going out for movies, Pee surely felt something different.
�Oyee, talai yeuta kura sodhaun hai?? (Hey, can I ask you something??)� He couldn�t keep his curiosity with himself that day.
�Bhan na (Tell me!!)�
�Talai tyo Christian man parchha ho??(Do you like that Christian??)�
Blushed I was, and I fired back, �Nakara mula, tero dimaag kharaab bhayo ki k ho?? (Shut up idiot; have your mind gone crazy??)�
�Hoina man parchha bhane kina naboleko naatak garchhas?? (Why do you act of not speaking if you like her??� He retaliated.
�Jhan m*$i, ticket lina sajilo huncha bhanera lyaayo, jhan k k bhando raichha..nakaraa Mula (I just bring her so that we can bring her so we get ticket easily, and you are trying to set me up for that??)� I tried to sound angry, but failed apparently.
�Hyaa m*$i, hoina talai man parchha bhane tellai bhan matra bhaneko. (Nope, I just wanted to say, tell her if you love her, that�s all.)� He concluded.
�Aafno man parya lai char barsa dekhi tulu tulu herya herai matra garchha, aajha malai sikaunchha sale (You haven�t even spoken to one you love for last 4 years, now you are teaching me.)� I shouldn�t have said all this, but words had come out and couldn�t be taken back.
I may have hurt Pee, he remained silent.
That day and for one or days after two, I felt little different about the feeling I have for her, but I was not sure if that was feeling of love or something else but it sure was feeling of coziness I had with her, and only with her those days, which I forgot to analyze on upcoming days.
I hadn�t any feelings about the cross cultural boundaries we had in our society, but after this incident I sure felt, it was an unnecessary propaganda set up by some people who want other people who are in minority in our society as outlaws.
My mom had invited her family to our mamaghar for the yearly festival (jatra to be exact). She sure was happy as she had no near cousin of herself whom she can hang out with, and feeling of going to a mamaghar must have overwhelmed her. I myself had been little uncomfortable at first as I was sure, my other cousin would make big fuss about it and will tease me, but I cared less for that She and her mother(her father was busy somewhere) visited my mamaghar with us that year, and they sure enjoyed every moment of it. The jatra itself had been a very new experience for her, with the coloured lakhes dancing around, people gathering at streets to catch the glimpse of dances, people fighting just to get chance to play the Dhime and Narsingh, jokers wanting people to laugh with their silly acts. She sure had felt good; she showed that with a spark in her eyes.
But after that visit they made, there was another big fuss at my mamaghar rather than fuss my cousin would have made.
It was fine until, somehow, my mamaghar family found out they were Christian after all, and they told my mom not to bring them another time around.
When I heard that, I felt a anguish in my mind, anger in my eyes, and I made promise to myself, I will never visit my mamaghar again, if they have such narrow thinking. Promise didn�t last forever, but I sure didn�t visit my mamaghar for another 7 or 8 months.

************************************

Time passed in snap, and before I knew the finals of the class nine was there to hit me hard. I was too busy with the movies and music to get time to study. And the mark sheet of that year showed its results. I was barely hanging on the first division marks. I knew the time I held my mark sheet on my hands that back home I am going to get a nice �treat� from my Mom. I was dead scared. And scared enough I rather stayed out at Pee�s till late. That was another mistake I made. When I got back home, mom had already got that negative vibes from my behaviors. Silently, she just asked for the mark sheets. Frightened, I handed it. I had no explanations to make and she had no ears to accept any even if I had. Without a hint, she slapped my face, and in quick reflex, I tried to avoid it. I could not avoid it, else it hit my nose, and blood dripped from my nose. Must have been �blood effect�, she silently went away from me. I went out from our room and silently went to rooftop with the blood dripping. I had failed this time and I felt as my mom hated me enough; she had never hit like that before. I felt like running away from home, away from my mom�s eyes, I couldn�t excuse myself. I hated myself for being such a fool. I sat there silently cursing myself.
After half an hour or so, �She� (don�t confuse this with my mom) came there. Red is color of love, but blood red must have negative effect in girls. Seeing the dry blood in my hands and traces of blood dripping from my nose, I saw a fearful look and anguish in her eyes. Sooner, tears were dripping from her eyes, and that was least thing I wanted. She went silently downstairs, with tears in her eyes.
Sooner, she came back to rooftop, and lent me a handkerchief soaked in water. I took it silently and cleaned up the bloods from my hands and face. I hadn�t noticed but there were stains of blood in my shirt too (that shirt remained a lesson learnt for me). I was thankful at least she was there for me, at my hardest time. Here she was whom I can lean on when nobody else was there to believe me.
I didn�t know what else I could do to get an excuse from mom. But I gathered enough courage and went to mom�s room.
�Ma�, She looked towards me and I saw tears in my mom�s eye. That made me feel even guiltier, and feeling myself as a culprit, I couldn�t stop myself and tears were dripping from my eyes too.
�I am sorry, Ma� I couldn�t find another word, �I will do better next time.�
Maybe she believed in my words and without saying another word, she hugged me. That was what I needed, and I thought I would study harder this time around, and show the world what I can do.
Although I didn�t studied that hard in all the subjects this year, but I excelled in the mathematics this time around which proved to be the turning point for the career I choose later on�Thanks mom for letting me know how important study is when u have no other assets�although that was hurting�.

************************************

The min pachaas this time was fun for me. My one cousin had bought a skating and I spent lot of time learning that skate and failed apparently. I would fall most of the time and had lots of scars and skin wounds, but learning experience was huge fun. We were still fan of the table tennis and my cousin had excelled in that, I would be beaten by him with his left hand. Pee and I would make a huge collection of the AR Rehman�s best song collection for ourselves. That time, I got the grip of the best records of Beatles and the doors and got to know what made them from common people to a Legend. We had controlled our obsession towards movies as Pee was also scolded by his parents. The FM stations were there to hit the town and there were craze for it everywhere. We would record the latest songs from the airplay as most of time we would be broke to buy every cassette we loved. The FM station was just as an angel�s gift to us as we could hear every song we wished to hear.
The class ten started with a surprise for Pee and me. We were there to admit ourselves together this time also. I had stayed at Pee�s this time and early in the morning we were there at school to admit ourselves together. There was huge crowd when we got there and with much hard effort we got ourselves admitted together. We were happy, but our fate had another destiny for us.
With our roll numbers as odd as 223 and 224, we were sure that we would be together in the same class. But there was strange rule in our school that time, the students securing more that 75% of marks were kept in the special section to excel their performance and that hit us hard as that was the reason we get separated in different sections. He was the last roll number in one section and I was first roll number in another. We were separated and that was a surprise start for us.
But this separation did a good thing for us. We had different notes to share in the SLC as we were in different sections and it helped us more in our Iron Gate journey.
This time around, I remember less of the mates of the class 10. In that class I was only to study as I made least friends there, most of time I would be hanging out with Pee and another friend, who had came into our so called group of two.
His name was Mohan and we would call him �Pyare Mohan� or �T-3� meaning taalu, tuiyaan and terminator. He was little bald and would be furious most of time to be called terminator. He was our friend and Pee and I loved his company anyways.
Now there were three of us in our journey toward the Iron Gate. We had ups and downs, we had fun and fury, we had thrills and chills in between the journey and we loved each part of it, the sweetest memories to cherish forever in life.

************************************

The journey had started, and I had fastened my seatbelts for my journey. And in between this journey, I was too busy to prove myself. I would almost forget about her in times, but whenever I remembered her, she would be just there for me (I must have taken her as granted to ignore her that much). We had very little time together this year as I would be too busy either practicing the mathematics with my FM stereo on with full sound (Math and music, Best blend of study cocktail..;-), or with tuitions or hang outs Pee and I had together; but each moments she and I had together had made a deep incisions in my heart, which I remember with vivid details.
That day, I had holiday at my school for some occasion, I don�t remember exactly what it was but it was free day for me. I stayed at home till mid afternoon listening to music and doing the mathematics most of times, recording the songs air played that I loved in between the time. That day must have been lucky day for me, as that day I had recorded two cassettes full of songs from FM station. The FM station only played till noon at that time, and after noon, being bored just staying at home I gathered the cassettes I had recorded and got ready to go to Pee�s place where I could edit the songs I want most and make another hit collection of ours.
With no one at home, I locked all the doors and went to her room to keep the key. There were no one at her place, I just left the key on table and left the room.
There was a small courtyard just behind my room. I never open window at that side as it was just next to the open soak pit and would give pungent smell most of time. As I was leaving the home, I spotted her there at courtyard writing something all over. I stopped for the moment and there I saw what made me stunned and blushed at the same time. She was writing N+I all over (her name started with I), and just then she noticed me. Our eyes met, and I could feel blush in her eyes. She was turning red from white, and without moment loosing she tried to erase all the N+I she had written, and she went away from there as quickly as she could. There was still one N+I remaining, and those N+Is had already made my mind disturbed, heart pounding and face blushing.
I didn�t remember anything in between the way, and before I knew I was at Pee�s place.
�Oyee, yeuta kura suun na (Hey, listen this yaar.).� I wanted to share all the things with Pee.
�Bhan (tell me)�
�Usle ta malai maan paraunchha jasto laagyo yaar (I think she loves me).�
� Ko?? Ko �usle�?? (Who?? Who does??)� he was confused.
�Taile aasti bhanekole k� haamisanga basne chha ni.(The one whom u said last time�the one who shares our apartment)� I tried to explain.
�Yehh!! Christian�Malai pahile thaha thiyo, tehi bhayera talai aasti bhaneko (oh!! that Christian, I knew it before, that�s why I told you all those before).� He had felt the spark lot before I did. �Talai mann pardaina??(Don�t you like her??)� He added.
�Khoi yaar, Malai thaha chhaina�(I don�t know!!!)� It was my turn to get confused now.
�Get yourself fixed yaar,thaha laaga, mula�� He tried to suggest me.
But I was too much confused, and I didn�t know if I was really in love with her or something. I felt a different kind of comfort whenever she would be around in my difficult times, I wanted to make her smile forever, I loved to see her happy, I loved each and every thing she did for me, I loved her company but I wasn�t sure if that was called love. I just stood there confused with turmoil of the illusion of love.

************************************

That confusion lasted for more than two months or so, it kept me disturbed most of the time, and more I tried to forget it, it would thump my minds even more. In between those times, maybe she was also embarrassed too much; I didn�t see her most of time and whenever I would see her, she would just run away. I missed her company though, I missed staring at those stars together, I missed seeing her smiles, I missed her company and I was foolish enough not even to speak with her even when I knew she loved me.
Soon enough, the first terminals were there to hit us, and this time I had zeal to prove something. But the course of the class nine was to be covered also and it was hard enough for me to cover all those subject of nine (remember, class nine was just fun for me� ;-). But I tried my best and result showed it. I had not reached the height my mom had expected for, but I scored one of the highest marks in the mathematics, other subject hold dashing marks too. Seeing the mark sheet that time, my mom had spark of belief in her eyes. She was not satisfied of the results though, but she believed I could do better than that and I was happy to get that belief from my mom.
In between the tough time I had during the exams, I almost forgot the emotional turmoil I was going through before. But as soon as I saw her after those exams, the turmoil gasped my mind once again and it was too hard for me to conclude my self. At times I would feel like, �God!!! I am in love� while at others I would be like �Am I in love???� I was confused and wasn�t that determined enough to find out the solution to my confusion. I even once bought a card to give it to her, but couldn�t find enough courage to give it to her, courage couldn�t be paid for. The card remained, inside one of my comics, just to gather dust.
As they say, �With time, it heals everything�, the confusion didn�t remain in my mind forever (It hit harder than before later on though). I tried to get suggestion from Pee.
�Oyee, malai tension paryo yaar. (hey, I m in tension�)�
�K bho?? (What happened??)�
�I am dead confused. Am I in love or not malai thaha chhaina yaar. Tension huna thalyo, yaar� I tried to explain.
�M*$i, maan dherai dulayera faaida chhaina, man parchha bhane khurukka gayera bhande, man pardaina bhane chupa laagera birside, bekaar ma tension liyera pheri mom ko kutai khaalas�� he said sarcastically, if I was going ruin my study with all this.
Determined after hearing his words to forget everything about love and confusion, I came back home that day.

************************************

For a month or two, I avoided her most of time, and maybe of all those embarrassments, she also had avoided me so far. I was concentrating on my studies now. The times would pass, listening to FM stations, recording the songs I like, practicing math (Geez!!! I loved math so much), and I avoided that roof top for more than month. I was scared to see her again, and I was not sure about myself too. I would rather confine myself in my room, or spend holidays at Pee�s place.
That night, I had returned home late at evening, spending the whole day at Pee�s place. When I reached home, mom was busy making dinner.
�K k gaaris ta Pee ko ma??� She inquired.
�Yeso combine study aani ekchhin ghumna gaayen.� I replied, although it was less combine study and more roaming around,
�Ye bhusukkai birseko, maathi baata kapada sukayeko uuthayera le ta, jhandai birseko.�
There was nobody else around to do the job, and I had to go anyway.
While I was collecting the clothes there, I saw her at the next end of the roof. She was busy with some writings. I totally i

   [ posted by Nirman @ 08:41 PM ] | Viewed: 3245 times [ Feedback]

Mero Sano Ghar

Story Content:
§ A dream is turning to the reality of a young father
§ His love “Prakriti” his inspiration of life
§ Prayas and Pratiksya,love buds, resulting from their love


[A SWEET LOVE CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER & SON]



[Para bata Prayas daudai aaucha…]

Baba baba ---Prayas
Ke bho bhote kina roko ta? –

[prayas mero kakha-ma aayera lupuka baschha]

Prayas: Budhi le kutisyo ni malai
Ma sodhchhu: ko budhile bhote?
Prayas: Hajurko budhi le nita…

[ma ra prakriti uslai bhote bhanera bolauchhau kahile kahi, mero chhoro prayas mero boli bolchha; ani pheri ma uslai sochhu…]

Mero budhi tero ke bho bhan ta?
Prayas: mummu nita…..

Ani mummu le kutisyo kina nabhaneko ta?

Mero mummy bhako bhaye kutisinthenanita, hajurko budhi bhayera malai kutiseko …Mero prashnako jawaf thiyo yo usko….!!

Aaa..teso po…ani mero chhoralai meri budhi-le kina kutiseko re ta…ma uslai sodhchhu..!

Prayas: Jhagada gareranita….
Kina jhagada gareko nita taile..Ma soddchhu uslai..!
Prayas: Mummu-le baini lai bhuja khuwaeedisiyo nita, ani malai affair kha bhansyo-ni ta ! ani ma jhagada gareko nita …!

[u aakai saas-ma sabai kura tungyauchha. Usle teti bhaninjel ma 2 choti saash pheri sakeko hunchhu

Mero chhoro pratek bakya ‘ni ta’ ma tungyauchha ! yo nai usko bolne ka-ee-da(style) bhayeko chha !]

Affaile khanu pardaina ta bhuja –ma sodhchhu uslai !
Prayas: mero haat polchha nita …!!
Cham-cha-le khayeko bhaye bhaihaltyo nita fataha….Samjhaune koshi garchhu..!
Prayas: Daat-ma TWANG TWANG lagchha nita cham-cha-le mero…!
Kasto paji chhoro raichha mero, bhuja pani affair khana nasakne, be-e-jaat garis taile mero..Ma bhanchhu !

He..he..he…! u hanschha (laughs) [lagchha ki usle tyo barta-laap jityo]
Hanschha ajha..Ma bhanchhu…!
Baba—baba …!
Ke ??
Baba mero aanshu puchhisidyosna..(Please wipe my tears), jhari rachha…: Prayas
aa—jhagada garne ta, rune ta, aashu puchhne ma, sakdina aanshu puchhana tero, affain puchh, aafno aanshu----Ma uslai bhanchhu !

[ yo ganthana (discussion) bhaienjel usko aankha-ma kunai aanshu baki thiyenan, bas u malai aanshu puchhidiyos bhanera jiddi gardai thiyo. Jeevan-ma aanshu bagaunu-ko aartha, Affai aanshu puchhnu ko aartha, sayad bhabisya-ma uslai runu paryo bhane bujhne chha. Samaya ra usko umer anusar ma uslai jindagi bachhna sikaune chhu, aaja ta maile uska aashu puchhidiyeko chhu, tara aak sarta-ma (condition)]

Uslai bhanchhu: la , babale aasshu puchhidinchhu aaja, tara aba-dhekhi runa-paeedaina, bujhish? Yedi roees bhane affno aanshu affai puchhnu parchha, bhujheko ho kura

[ u tauko halauchha (sakes his head) ra sart manjoor garchha….)

Ke tyo? Bujhe bhaneko ki bujhina bhaneko tauko hallayera….?? Ma mero kura daro parchhu !
Prayas: Bujhe ni ta…!!

Ke bujhis ?

Prayas: aba dekhi, roya bhane, affno aanshu affair puchhne nita …!! Babalai puchhidisyo nabhane.. nita…!!

Good…! Ma uska aanshu puchhi dinchhu…!!
Prayas: Thank you Baba..!!!

You are welcome chhora…!!

[ Prakriti ra ma bichha-ka kehi sabdha usle tipeko chha, momy-lai BUDHI bhanchha kahile kahi prayas. prakriti-lai ghar-ma kahile BUDHI kahile KALU bhanera bolauchhu ma, thank you ra welcome jasta sabdha, usle tipeko chha. Jaha ti sabdha ko prayog hunchha, usle uchit prayog garna janeko chha.

Ma uslai mommy lai KALI, BUDHI bhane hoina taile, maile matrai bhane ho bhanera jhamjhayeko pani chhu. Tara affni aama-sanga risayeko belama ‘KALI BUDHI’ bhanera samaya samayama bhane garchha ! prakriti pani uslai ‘CHOR, GADHA, KALE BHOTE’ bhanchhin. Prayas le yinai sabdha tipchchha kahile kahi. Prakriti-lai ti sabdha ko prayog chhora ko agadi nagarna bhana pani khoje, tara yinai sabdha-ma Prayas-le Prakriti-ko MATRI-BATSALYATA-ko Nyano-pan payeko chha, Prakriti ra Prayas bichhko tyo kahile kahi ko JHAGADA kebal AMA-CHHORA ko Sima bhitra parchha, tyaha aauti aama-le aak Mamata ko pyala affno chhora lai dinchhe. Prayas-ko ‘KALI CHOR—BUDHI’ ma Prakriti-le AAMA hunuko artha bujheki hunchha. U tesai-ma atti ramauchhe. Sayadai ma yi kura sabdha-ma BYAKTA (express) garna sakula…! Tyo mayako gahiraeema ma kahile pani pugna sakdina. Ma ta kebal BABU hu, AAMA hoina !

Tesaile baas ma uni haruko kura sunchhu matra. Ani Prakriti-lai unkai affno mamata-sanga chhodi dinchhu, kehi boldina ma. Aama sanga Jhagada-ma haar bhayo bhane PRAYAS yinai anshu lindai BABA—BABA bhandai ma-kaha aaee-pugachha. Ani pheri bhannchha, baba KALI CHOR le kutsyo malai, AANSHU puchhidisyona….!! ]

Conversation…continues…

Aba ghara hin…Prayalai bhanchhu !
Naee, hajur hindsyosna
Ta hin agadi ani ma hinchhu

[Prayas affno goda tira herchha…ani bhanchha]

Baba baba …Hersyosna !
Ker hersyosna aba..Ma sodchhu!
Hersyosna mero goda-ma Ghau chha, dukhi rachha nita…! Rato pani bhai rachha nita…!

[ Maile bujhi sakeko chhu usle ke chahanchha, bujh-pacha-udai ma bhanchhu---]

Aa ho..hin thik hunchha. Ghau sau..!

[ Khutta khumcyaudai mero mukh-tira herchha ani bhanchha]

Dukyo nita baba ! boksyo na malai hajur, ani hajur hinsyo…! Hajurlai bhok pani ta lagyo nit a….

Fataha—Natak garchha dherai….! Momy jastai DIPLOMATIC chhas ta …Ma bhanchhu, Pratiuktar ( reply) ma pheri hanschha u….HEEE…..!

[Ma usali bokchhu affno KANDHA-ma]

Prayas: Thank you baba
You are weolcome chhora…Ma bhanchhu !

!!!!!!!!!! Thorai samaya hami babu-chhorako ganthan banda hunchha…..ma bigat samjhanchhu………..!!!!!!!!


[ Thaha bhayena malai usle diplomatic sabdha ko ke aartha lagayo, bas hasi diyo u…!
Aaja bhanda 8 barsha aghi maile yehi sahar-ma PRAKRITI bhetetko thiye. Ring-road ko ghumti paar gardai NEPAL BISWOVIDYALAYA ko bus PRAKRITI-ko ghar najikai rokintyo.

Aak din jado-ko samaya, sandhai jhai baas tehi paal, BASUNDHARA-ma rokinchha, sandai( always) tehi chowk-ma dekha parne Prakriti tes din thieena. Aak-chin ko parkhaee-pachhi bus agadi badchha. Khai tyo din kina ho maile bus chalak (driver) Man Bahadur lai bhanchhu, DAI aak-chhin kurne ho ki aru…!
U muskurauchha…malai apthero lagchha….usko najar-bata ma affno Najar girauchhu..!

La timi bhanchhu bhane kina nakurnu ta..MAN B.
Kina ra dai ? maile bhandai ma kurnu nai parchha bhane pani ta chhaina ni….Sano prasna ani Jigyasa rakchhu.
Man B.: Khai bhai….( Man B. tehi bolchha).

Thorai nai samaya-ma Prakriti dekha parchhe para Khsitiz-ma. Tesdin pahilo patak kasailai doshi najar-le maile hereko thiye, MERI PRAKRITI-lai..
Tes-din maile prakriti ko anupam khajana, meri jeevan sathi meri PRAKRITI bheteko thiye !

Prakriti bus-ma chadchhe, THANK YOU man-dai, kuridinu bhayeko-ma.
Man dai: U R WELCOME prakriti. …dhanyabad ta maile paye, tara timro lagi yo parkhaeeko SAMAYA u bhai-le diyeko ho ! dhanyabad uslai deu…!

( Man B. hami sabai vidhartyi lai ‘timi’ sabdha prayog garthe. Uni hamro lagi aak aadaraniya byaktiyo ( respected one) thiye.)

Tyo din-ko Man B. ra Prakriti bich-ko chhoto kurakani, aaja mero pariwar ko hinsa (part) baneko chha; mero jeevan, mero sansar, mero aastha ra biswas, mero jeevan ko aak matra BHAROSA, meri PRAKRITI.

Tehi din, tesai paal Prakriti ma tarfa aaudai : ‘HI’
HI –bhanchu ma pratiyutar ma.

Thank you for waiting: Prakriti
You are most welcome: mero jawaf usko lagi tyo samaya ..yehi thiyo..!

Apthero mahasus bhayeko thiyo tes samaya. Prakriti musuka HANSI, ma jhan nervous bhaye…!

THANK YOU AGAIN…Pachhadi janchhu la..bhandai Prakriti janchhe affnai seat ma.

Tehi thank you ra wel-come sabdha, jun aaja bhanda 8 barsha pahile Basundhar-ma bheteki Prakriti-ka thiye, tinai sabdha, aaja mero Chhor-le prayog garchha.

Tes din pachhadi basna gaye-ki Prakriti kehi samaya pachhi ma sangai basna thalchhe. 2 mahina pachhi FEBRUARY ko mahina thiyo, 14 Feb, Valentines day. HI HELLO bata praya jaso, pratek hapta bhet huna thaleko tyo sambanda 14 FEB ko din gulab ko guccha, aadan pradan le majaboot banauchha. 15 FEB, bholi palta prakriti aauchhe,….mero seat ma kebal ma chhu, aarko side khali chha.

PRAKRITI: Yo seat kasai-ko lagi reserve ho ki, ? nabhaye ma basu bhanera sochheko…!
Ma bhanchhu: Hajur yo reserve chha, aba yahako jo ikshya.
Lau bhadhaee chha yahalai …( musuka hansdai …u pachhadi gaye jasto garchhe….)

Ma usko haat samaeedinchhu, halka tanaeepachhi, u ma sangai baschhe….!!

14 Feb, tyo barsa, jeevan ma pahilo patak, kuani keti ko haat samayeko thiye…joon aaja sama chhodiye-ka chaiana….!! Prakriti ko haat mathi mero haat bandhiyeka thiye………….!

Kasto KHASRO haat timro….Prakriti…!
Anaa (yaaa) : baas ma teti bole….!
Krim (cream) lagaudainau..u malai sodhchhe….!!
Kahile kahi lagauchhu..maile bhane….!

(tetikaima prakriti le NIVIYA nikaladai…mero haat-ma lagaeedinchhe ! Man B. dai pratikriya swarup (responds) AKHUMM…gardai khokdai hami tira herdai muskurauchha…! Bus CHAKRAPATH chowk ma aaepugeko chha…! Mayako upahar Prakriti-ko haat-ma Pahilo chumban dinchhu, ani Prakriti malai….! Aru vidyarthi bus-ma chadchhan. Hami normal position ma baschhau …..!! 6 mahina pachhi Asar mahina ma hami bibaha-ko pranaya sutra ma bhadinchhau……!!!!!! ]

[ Sunyata bhanga gardai prayas bolchh ]

Baba –baba….!

Ke…..!

Ma baba-ko chhora hai….Prayas…!

Hainas ta mero chhora hainas…, ta momy ko chhora…Ma bhanchhu..!

Haina ma baba-ko chhora nita ….! Aghi momu le bhanseko ni, jhagada garda…, tero bau aayepachhi bhuja kha..malai dukkha nade bhanera..ani ma babako chhora nita…!

[ I love you baba bhandai, mero tauko ma chumban garchha . Prayas jhan jod-le mera haat samatchha ! mero kandh mathi baseko mero chhoro, affna goda chapaka band-chha.(tightens). Uska ti sana goda-ko tyo samata-ee, ma mero chhati-ma anubhav gariraheko chhu ma…,ani ma uslai bhanchhu]


Ta babako pani chhora..ani mommy ko pani chhora bujhis…?

Bujhe…Prayas!

Ma prati-prashna garchhu…KE bujhis?

Ma baba-ko ani momu-ko chhora bhane bujhe nita….!
Good ..ma bhanchhu…!
Ghar-ma pugepachhi momulai..I LOVE YOU MOMU bhan-la? Ani gala-ma kiss de la?

HUS baba…! Dinchhu nita…!!
Ani pheri momule natak garchhas ta bhansichha nita…!

Bhandina…ulto talai pani kiss garchhe..bujhis…!!! mommy ko maya, taile ra maile bujhna sakdaianu, momu le talai atti maya garchhe…! Bujhis…..???

Bujhe baba….!
Ke bujhis….!!!

Taile ra maile momy ko maya bujdhai-nau, momy le talai atti maya garche…bhane bujhe nit a….u meri kura dohoryauchha !!

GADHA..Baulai ‘TA’ bhanchha..Ma uslai bhanchhu…!!

[ pheri u he..he..he gardai manda hanso hanschha…ghar aaesakeko chha. Prakriti mathi chhat(roof) ma gaeeraheki chha. Prayas lai ma pheri samjhauchhu]

Bhote…taile samjheko chhas mero kura ?
Chhu nit a baba…!!

Ke samjheko chhas?? Ma bhanchhu…!!
Momulai I love you momu bhane, ani tyo dine nita…!!!

Ke ho ni tyo bhaneko…ma uslai sodchhu…!

malai halka chumban dindai, yo dine nita momulai pani….Prayas..!!

good..batho chha mero chhoro..ma bhanchhu…!!
Chhu nita, ma babako chhora nita…

[he he…ma sanga jiskinchha u…hanshha pheri..]

Pheri babako chhora..gadha….ma bhanchhu…!!

Hajurle, kura saknai disina nita…ma babako ani momu ko chhora nita…Prayas..!

Fataha kura milauchha….ma bhanchhu…!!

[ prayaslai bhueema(floor) rakhdai, ma bhanchhu] la hin aba…!

Naee, ajhai boksyos na mathi sama baba…!
Pardaina, celing ma thokchha tero tauko…Ma bhanchhu.
Aba kakhama lisyos nata ani thokdaina nita..! please baba, please …! I love you baba !!

Prayas ta malai atti dukha dina thalis, bhaneko pani mandainas, ta fataha niskane bhaees, bujhis?

Bujhe baba…!..he ..hee…

Ajha, bujhe baba bhanchha…fataha…!!

[Ani ma pheri uslai kakha-ma linchhu, uska pratek mag-haru ma puryauchhu ! mero chhoralai ma atti maya garchhu. Thaha chaina, yo mero mayako roop kasto hune ho bholi bhabisyama ! Prayas lai kakh-ma bokdai, ma BHARYANG (Stairs) chadchhu….. Prayas mero dari chalauchha…]

Dukchha babalai natan, tero bauko dari….!
I love baba-ko dari nita….!

[ uslai bokdai mathi chhat-ma janchhu]

Ke gari ra kalu mathi, prakriti lai sodchhu…!

[ musuka hansdai] prakriti : timilai nai kureko ni, ke garnu ni.

Meri budhi chatta, ramri bhayera baseki chha ta, testo dukha garnu parne ta thiyena ni…aba. jastai bhaye ni maile chhodne hoina kyare…! …Parkhaeeko lagi DHANYABAD…(Hami buda budhi ko formal kurakani hunchha)

Maile chhodi diye bhane ni timilai…Prakriti.
Katti-na Maile KANDE-TAR le bhandera rakheko jasto….! DWAR haru khula chhan, kalu..anytime…!!

Sanchhi ho ta…

Ani maile jhutho boleko thaha chha timilai sanga aaja sama?

Sanchhi maile timilai chhodi de bhane ke garchhau, dear? - Prakriti

ee..4 tala ko ghar banako chhu, yehi yo chat-bata….khusruka huna katti time lagchha ra..? hee…!--> ma bhanchhu
Ani chora chori ni….!—prakriti
Aba janma dine aamalai ba BAL matlab chiana…ma ta bau…ke bho ra…!!

[ Prakriti ko much-mandal allik paribatan huncha, lagchha ki sanchhai nai tyo ghatna huna lageko chha, ma musuka hasi dinchuu]

Chor… [Prakriti Prem bhab le bolchhe. yehi sabdha ma maile meri premika, meri jeevan sathi PRAKRITI ko sampurna maya pauchhu, yesaima rameko chhu ma…! Yetikaima Prayas Prakriti ko kakha ma janchha..]

Mamu…I love you
[ u aak chumban garchha affni aamalai. Prakriti Pryas lai aangalo marchhe, aauta yesto maya, baas ma hereko here-e hunchhu! Ani maan-manai gamachhu, kaha AAMAKO MAYA, kaha babu ko maya ! maile prayas lai Prakriti ko jasto maya kahile pani dina sakdina, kina-ki ma usko babu hu, aama hoina. Ma ta kebal madhyam matra hu, prayas yo sansar ma aaune, mamata ta kebal Prakriti ho, jeevan ta kebal Prakriti le dina sakchhe ! ma bina Prayas ko astitwo chha, Prakriti bina Prayas astitow bihin hunchha ! Sayad tesaile pani hola ma Prayas ka hareka AKAN-SYA ko agadi haar manchhu, usle je bhanchha tyo puryauchhu ! ]

Sorry momu, aghi jhagada gare nita..maf garsyo la malai, I LOVE YOU MAMU.

I LOVE YOU TOO, MERO BHOTE, CHOR, MERO GADHA CHHORO ! Jhagad garne belama jhagada garchha, ahile sorry momu bhanchha, fatah kahiko, uhi bauko chhoro na ho….!

[ Prayas dagurdai ma tira aauchha]

Sunsyo ta baba momu-le malai babako chhora bhansincha nita jaile ni…!!

Ma pheri sodchhu uslai: ta kasko chhora bhanta malai…!!

[prayas Prakriti tira herchha, ani ma tara……usle lagayeko bhoto-ko tuna tokdai….]

Ma babako-ani momu-ko chhora nita….!!

Ma bhanchhu : momu babako chhora bhaye pachhi, chhora le ke garnu parchha re?

[Prayas malai halka maya dinchha, ani Prakriti tira janchha…! Aamako kakha-ma lupuka baschha, Prakriti uslai angalchhe, Prayas Prakritilai angalo marchha….!! Anfni aamako tyo lamo, kalo kapal bhitra aafolai chhekchha, ma suna sakchhu Prayas ko tyo tote boli…. “ I love you momu”. Prakriti chhoralai dhad(back) ma halka dhyap mardai bhanchhe]

Ani mero bhotelai bhok lagena ahile sama, jhagadako Rajkumar lai….!!

Prayas: Chha nita, pet Chhamsyo na, kuru-kuru gari rachha nita..!!

Prakriti: Gadha, khane belama mamulai dukkha dinchha, ahile kuru-kuru garya chha nita garchha, fataha…..!!!...............................!! khai ……khai tyo kuru kuru gareko pet chhamu…kaha nira kuru—kuru garya chha…..( Prakriti Chora ko pet chamidinchhe)

Kau-kuti lagyo mamu……….( Prayas ko nirdosh hanso ma sunna sakchhu).

[ Samayako lamo antaral pachi, aaja mero pariwar purna bhayeko chha, aak AAMA bihin TUHURO ma, affni aamako kakha-ma nidauna khojchhu. Sayad meri aama yo sansar ma bhai deko bhaye……………hhh….(lamo saas linchhu). Prakriti, Prayas, ani Pratiksya ko aankha-ma mero bala-pan pani banchhi-raheko chhu aaja. Prakriti-ko MATRI-BATSALAYA-ma ma meri aamalai samjhanu …ani maan mania bhanchhu “ I love you Aama, I love you a lot”…..mero aamako anuhar ta malai yaad chiana, tara wahako tasbira mero aankha wari pari ghumchha……………………………………..!! baas yehi bhanera chita buhauchhu kahile kahi, JEEVAN SOCHE JASTO KASALI BHAYE KO CHHA RA?
Mero bigat ra Ama-ko samjha nai lai Pratiksya ko ruwaee-le bhanga garaeee dinchha…]

Kalu, chhori uthi ….tala hina…!

[ Bahini uthi bhana-sath Prayas dagurdai tala janchha !! Prakriti-lai herdai ma muskurauchhu…..!!! ]

Ke herya ni malai….fataha?

Ke bhako kalu, jatti umer dalkyo teti maya, pheri tesmathi timi jhan-jhan CHAWK hundai aaki chhau….he..hee….!!! ani tehi bhayera DANGA parera hereko ni timilai….aru ke hernu ni [ Thatalu Bhab-ma Prakriti lai bhanchhu…..]

[ malai yo pani thaha bhai sakeko chha, Prakriti le usko ra mero pahile ko tyo Kura ma pratikriya janauchhe bhanera, maile usko tyo paribartit muhar ma, prasna china dekhi sakeko thiye. Malai thaha chha, meri Prakriti MAYA ko aak purna sansar ho. ani uttar-dayito ko kura aauda, u swayom (by oneself) UTTARDAEETYO (responsibility) ko SEEP (SKILL) ho…., Prakriti affaima Auta Kushal Kaligad (one with skills). Yo samaya-ma, mero affanta haruko bichha, aaja samma kasaile Prakritlai dos lagauna sakdaina…ki usle kasaila naramro gari…bhanera….! Maile manchhe haru-bata yo Pani Suneko chhu, Bhagban le TUHURA lai Naya jeevan diye….. “Prakriti” !!!
….Usko anuhar ta padi sakeko chhu maile…., usko JHAMATAEE khanu aghi naii..., PRAKITI najikai janhhu ani Sodchhu]

Budhi kina THUSA pareki ni ahile ko ahilyai?

Prakriti (bhabuk mudra-ma): ma jiskana pani nahune timi sanga kahile kahi, teti jabo kurama pani JAAN Jane kura garchhau timi….!! [ mero chhati ma affno tauko rakhdai Prakriti bolchhe]

Wau…mane timilai…Affo bhagne kura SANO re, maile CHHAT bata…sueeyann….bhanda timilai thulo bhayo tyo…! Huncha ni taal auta….fatai….!! [ma kura lai halka banaune prayas garchhu…]

Aru kura gare ni testo darlago kura nagara la ma sanga?.....................I love you. : Prakriti

I LOVE YOU TOO KALU…..THANK YOU FOR EVERY THING. THANK YOU FOR SUCH A WONDER FUL LIFE………….[ mero jeevan pura garaeedine, Devi, meri Prakriti lai ma bhanchhu]

Prakriti : Pheri aba mero buda senti bhayo…..[ u mali Halka chumban garchhe, ma pani usko maya-ma sahamati janaudai, mayako aak Kartabya nibhauchhu ]

[ chhat ko sano tin-ko dhoka (door) ughardai …hina kalu…..ma bhanchhu…! Timi hina-na, prakriti bhanchhe…! Doka maile khole nita, timi hina na..ma bhanchhu…Naee timi pahile….PRAKRIT…! Ma bhanchhu, aba timi pani chhora le jasto nabhanaki DEAR MALAI BOKA bhanera……!! U haschhe…ani bhanchhe sakdainau ta malai bokna, MERO BUDA-LE….! …..Kasam Kalu timro bani thyakai Chhorama sareko chha, JIDDI type ko kya….affno kura puryayerai chhodne….kya yaar…!!

Timile bokana ta malai hunna, ma PRAKRITI lai bhanchhu ….!!

Usle yes patak charko hanso hasi….ma prati pransa garchhhu…..maile testo ke joke mare ra testo haseki ni timi…?? Uttar sune usko…ma pani bhitra dekhi nai hase….sanchhi hase ma…prakriti ko ra mero haso HUNJAYA MAAN hundai thiyo…..

“TIMILAI TA SANDAI MAILE BOKEKO NAI CHHU NI TA” Mero prati-prasna ko jawaf thiyo yo meri Prakriti ko……………………………..!!

maya, ani youban ko tyo KSHYAN (moment), CHAT ko tyo dhoka band hunchha, BHARYANG andyaro (darknees) le daki dinchha….!! ANI MA USLAI USLE CHAHEKO MAYA DINCHHU, USKO OATH BHARI..ANI USKO GALA BHARI…..PRAKRITI MALAI TEHI SAMANUPATIK MAYA DINCHHE MERA CHATI BHARI………yo a-tri-pta maya…….ko pyas....kahile metine chaina……….!!

Hamro aak aarka prati ko maya jhan baddhai chha, aak aarka prati ko biswas ra aastha ani SAMAN badhai chha….!! Prayas ta Pratiksya , aba yini haruko lagi jeevan ko naya dhoka kholi dinu, Prakriti ra Mero Jimbebari hunechha, jaaba sama hamra chhora-chori le affno jeevan ko Goreto pakdidainan…..!!

Meri Prakriti mero SANSAR, jeevan ko bacchne aadhar. Mero jeevan jiune aak matra aasha. Meri Prakriti, mera chhora/chori. Yehi ho mero sano Ghar, sano perm-ko sansar……….!!

-Aak Babu


Katha Lekhan: Uttam “Apahelit”
Miti: Jan 17th
Esthan: St. Fransis Wisconsin, America.

   [ posted by Uttam "Apahelit" @ 11:45 AM ] | Viewed: 3417 times [ Feedback]

She gets off DuPont Circle metro station and walks South. A hot summer day in DC. Tourists; mostly white looking, with families, under the glare of yellow sun, are lazily lingering around in confusion, studying the maps and looking up at buildings or at the open space ahead of them. Wanting to ask some things to the Orangely dressed man standing by the crossroad. Children, all sweaty and exhausted, are looking for a place to sit. Aastha has worn a plain white t-shirt that says at the back ‘Bite Me’ in plain, big black letters. A faded blue jeans and cheap Gap slippers. A pony tail. Her lips are parched, and her forehead is sweaty. Tall buildings, with black glass windows; buildings arranged in a row, like a set of black teeth. But a lot of space in front of them, like you could sit there and sell baked corns, and make more money or no money, unlike the footpath seller waiting all day to make ‘some’ money in Ratnapark. In a corner of one of those buildings, a small hut has a neatly hanging wooden plate, which reads “Café Japon”; a sign right next to it says in bold letters that it requires a dress code. Her 45 yr old heartthrob Senator William Smith was waiting downstairs. It was embarrassing to have dressed so plainly, but Willy received her with great confidence and a beaming pride, Aastha felt prized.

A cozy restaurant with an expensive décor. The place was crowded with fat-looking middle aged men smoking cigars. A dim light, in shades of red, blue and green, a hazy feel of smoke drifting on air. Women loathed with expensive jewelry hanging down their wrinkled, thin and wary neck. People in a relaxed mood, as if there were no tomorrow; laughing, playing pool, cigars tipped at one corner of their mouths, letting smoke float freely across personal boundaries, that otherwise lay so tightly within the realm of professional lives. Randy Newman’s Sail Away passes through her mind; where his typical Americans sit in cushioned chairs, drink wine and talk about Jesus. Willy introduced Aastha to a group of people; Senator Morrison, Arizona, Mrs. Morrison, Congressman Richardson…

Back home dad swears. Saala. Ma jhyakne. Chor saala. (Assholes. Motherf******). He yells at the government for what it has done to his life, to an individual’s life in Nepal.

“Raajtantra murdabad! Ganatantra jindabad!” a crowd of people waving flags red and white march proudly across Ratna Park and stand still for a while. Someone wearing a traditional daura climbs the stage set up high, and starts speaking, slowly, with much thought and stuttering; and people, hundreds of them, with red scarf tied around their heads, stand in awe, listening, half confused, as if some slow poison is working ill on them. Aastha buys a Kulfi for Rs. 5, and stands somewhere near the crowd, biting it piece by piece, letting the freeze run down her spines. She then walks down the roads of Singhadurbar where women protestors are tearing their voices against the Miss Nepal contest to be held in a week. And later that night she sits by the fire watching the demons dance. Boiling rice. Reminiscing moments and missing them, like she missed the disappeared warts in her hands.

Reminiscence. The Asian Diaspora where she sat unnoticed, like a mice, watching, observing; as if it were really important, like a lecture on European History. And the video on some Pakistani models kept reeling, stupefying the audience expectant of some things much bigger, for the 5 dollars they had paid at the entrance. Abbaas and his song without music. “Kasto daami voice!” murmurs Kirti to herself and nods at Aastha “Hai, hai?...” “Tyhi ta!” smiles Aastha back but by then Kirti is in her own world already. Aastha gets up and walks out towards the entrance and stands still, watching the crowd. “Can I help you?” A middle aged man with dark hair and chubby cheeks runs his eyes over her, in semi-darkness. “Yes. Could you bring me a glass of water?” Aastha responds. The man is suddenly startled and angrily points out at a big water filter. “Well, thank you.” Aastha just leans at the wall and stares at the spotlight on stage, watching someone play out Love. Like it was some sports; you play to win. Like Politics.

“You’re pretty” says Hasim, forcefully, and beautifully, like He has declared it, and it is the ultimate truth. The beat of passion. I could have done better, Aastha thinks, and numerous other claims, with portfolios of members of the agitating parties cross her mind; like how they always whine they could do better than the rest. But then, this could do is a looser phrase. I did is more of a winner type. Aastha wants to swear like her dad, right there; ‘Ma jhyakne. Sala! Chor Sala!!’ She kicks the wall hard, her boots angrily banging in a loud thud; once, twice, numerous times.

“Mr. William Smith, Florida”.

“Aastha”. She had forwarded her hand when Willy had smiled, letting his eyes twinkle in happiness. “Aesta!” he had said, with his Southern accent. He had a great sense of humor; like how jobs require it these days. “I’ve this weakness for Asian women...”, she had been flattered by his audaciousness, his way of putting things simply out there, just like that. Willy was a Pink Floyd fan. Aastha had it etched in her memory; that Pink Floyd fans were Her type, and Hindi movie watchers weren’t. Etched in her memory, like a childhood ghost in the khopa of a dark room where she had been kept for 13 days after her first menstruation. It had struck her family; her menstruation had come winding down in their minds like a whirlpool of impossibilities, it was like someone suddenly get pregnant.

Voices had gathered long time back and sedimented around the vicinity of Nepali politics; that the Constitution needed change. Amidst agitations against the Raj Parishad Conventions, constitutional amendment had gotten little attention, but Dr. Ramanath Mahato, determined, had led a team of researchers. Fear was still there, but had been sheltered by the heat of the ongoing mass movements in the streets. Everyday, a large group of people, a procession, would start from Jamal and reach Ratnapark, or sometimes, the Supreme Court, with the front row of men in cotton pants and leather jackets, women in nicely imprinted Indian saris, and the rest of the troops in sweaty, unwashed clothes shouting slogans at the top of their lungs; most of them with plenty of time, wanting to experience the heat of a julus in a whim.

“Ma pani Amrika jaani, didi sanga…” 6 year old Amish had said, tugging the end of her kurta tight, crying; while Aastha was hurriedly looking for coins, to drop into two glasses of water somebody had set at the door. “Aastha euta photo liu na, la…” Bhuwanesh had looked at her from a distance, his lips dry and wanting to say something, holding a camera, in frustration. The kausi had been bright and sunny, with warmth emanating from everyone. Aastha had quietly lent her forehead, looking straight, trying to understand the unspoken words her mother was chanting in her mind, and the red red tika had stuck wet in her forehead; somewhere in between her confusion and confidence. A spoon of yogurt being put into her mouth, and her emotions had suddenly vanished with the sourness of the yogurt moving down her throat.

But things had changed. Amish’s Amrika had failed to entice her anymore. Aastha recalls the can of coke she had poured down Katie’s head. When things hadn’t been right, when past midnight the bar was still wide awake and roaring in laughter, when her mind had gone in a merry-go round. And she had quit loving Willy, and had started hating Katie all the more.

Back home Dad swears again. Biku is playing chungi downstairs. There is no water in the tank; Aastha has to go fetch water from the neighboring house; burrow a bucket of water may be. She was getting used to it. Like the deep rooted system of hierarchy, transfer of power not by popular consent but by birth; Aastha was getting too used to some things. And 10 yr old Amisha is getting late for school; white shirt and white skirt, dirty black shoes and uncombed hair. Tiger is lying on the ground, near by the tea stained floor that is swarmed by flies; sometimes jumping to chase flies in frenzy, as if dad’s anger has gotten into him.

“Pandhra rupaiya ho didi yo ta, naya ho ni” Harisaran from inside the little stove pasal rents out pirated DVDs. Harisaran from Birgunj, people allegedly call him Madhise, derogatorily; his skin standing out amidst the numerous little things he sells; kerosene stove burner, gas stove lighter, pressure cooker rubbers…sitting in the middle of greasy rubber and tin products, he strives to serve his customers the best; spicing conversations with his local-made jokes, unlike some lame, erudite jokes of her history professors. Yet the professors bag all the credit while Harisaran is just there; existent yet not visible. Her anger swells large over this aristocracy of education, this capitalized intelligentsia, this horrendously fake circle of elites; who live lavishly, in a circle, away and detached from the People, wanting to elevate the same People; egocentric intellectual ambitions to ‘liberate’ the ‘poor’. “Oh bhaiya! Katro ber lagako!” a soberly woman dressed in flowery maroon kurta asserts. There must be some reason, Aastha thinks, and quits.

Falling in love is so easy. So Aastha falls. Falls and falls. Like she has nothing else to do. While Bimal comes online and flaunts his skills like a new Salsa dancer and leaves the room in a whim, letting his furry coat sweep air at his back. How he whines he had been looking to get married and how hard it is to find a woman for an America-returnee in Nepal, like finding cactus in New York; amidst the twenty eight million living in Nepal. “Sulekha has three academic degrees, and no degree in a relationship, isn’t that good?” Aastha had asked him once. Aastha could fall in love with anyone, even the Harisaran sitting in the middle of nowhere. She always wondered why it was so hard for others.

Aastha had been observant. For many days a crowd had gathered in front of the Supreme Court, Thapathali, to get a glimpse of the constitutional amendment somebody had promised them. It was a crucial moment, and a very crucial decision. The result would have been obvious to many, but hope, that the ‘absolutism’ might spare some leniency and grant them concession in decision making powers over matters of their own; some hope, that this autocracy might actually feel pity over people’s strenuous efforts to guard democracy however little they have understood it; this hope of being able to wipe the picture of feudalism from their minds and experience the dawn of a democratic tomorrow, brought this mass kneeling in front of the Supreme Court; anxious.

While the crowd is waiting, sometimes boldly, sometimes timidly. After half an hour of waiting straight outside the Supreme Court, people are more anxious than ever to hear the decision for constitutional amendment. But alas, they hear some disruptions. There’s rattling of chairs and tables. They fathom someone must have swirled a chair in anger, like they did in a parliament meeting once. But no, they hear a gun shot. Two gun shots. Three gun shots. Someone is firing gun shots!! Rapid firing. People rush out from the Courtroom, some limping, some in tears, some shocked and freezing, turning pale, running amok in confusion. No one can really think, the crowd disperses in panic; but something keeps ransacking Aastha’s mind, that it was a grand plan. With the entire parliament and revolutionary factions present inside, when could it be better?

Another Kot Massacre. For the third time. History of bloodshed. The next day television stations play out the drama in a more sensible way; where ‘absolutism’ assumes itself the sole proprietor of the nation, formally, with a ceremony that grinds the hopes of millions, cultivated throughout hundred of years; grinds and grinds, until there is nothing left; this desire for freedom.

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 01:28 PM ] | Viewed: 2101 times [ Feedback]

It was love at first sight. Love at a glimpse, actually- the glimpse of the tight slacks up her skirt as she climbed up the stairs to her classroom. I barely saw her face but i was smitten. When I told my friend, Mr.P, he trained his diagnostic eys at me for a second and concluded gravely, "Yeah, you are a goner." So at the break time all my fellows gathered around me and we brain stormed. We agreed that I had to find out more about her. We would start with finding out where she lived and go from there. Mr.S suggested that I should buy a card and give it to her- nothing fancy, mind you- said he- just a simple declaration of my true emotions. As the Moral Science book says, friends in need are friends indeed.

After school Mr.P and I waited outside the school gate. I was not sure if I would recognize her. But he sure did. When she walked out we slunked behind her about fifteen feet away. She walked majestically away from me. She had her arms crossed and seemed to look down on the road as she walked, her black backpack slung carelessly down her left shoulder. But I was engrossed by her legs. She had pulled her socks right up to her knees. I could see a small patch of her skin on the back of her knee just below where the skirt ended. If I could see future I would have seen myself following her down the same road a million more times in the future. Her house was one story and was painted yellow. It looked cosy.

After seeing her home, Mr.P and I returned to the Status. Let me tell you about Status. There were these seedy joints around our school where we hung out smoking and having tea. They were named so and so hotel or such and such bhojanalaya but those are too grand the terms to describe them. So when we first frequented these places we were strangers to the Saaunis. After some familiarity we build some goodwill - status - at the place and we got smokes and stuff for credit. That's when the place became our Status. But the agony is that it does not last long. When debt accumulated and the Saauni started to nag, we simply switched to a different one and worked on a brand new Status. So the fellows at the Status were impressed that we now knew where she lived and apart from the glimpse of her slacks, I now had the memory of her lovely legs to see me through. Not only that, Mr.C had come to find out from his sources that her name started with a S. That was certainly a good sign, we decided. Mr.S reiterated about the urgency of the card. "Nothing fancy," he reminded. Mr.B was certain we would find her name by the next day.

I asked Mr.S to buy a card for me as he had an eye for the romatic. I also asked him to write something cute on it, that would make her knees weak because Mr.S knew how to write. He was always reading all these books about these Hardy boys and that one kid names Tom Sawyer who painted his aunt's picket fence white. As we left for home I was giddily in love- romance was in the muggy air inside the crowded bus as I rode home.

Mr C. had good news the next day. He had found out that she was either Sunita, Sarita or Sweta. Mr. B had gone a step further. From his pocket he produced two pages of the attendance sheet from class 9, section C. He had gone to the teachers' office and just tore out the pages from the attendance register. He had crossed out all the names of boys from the list. Since we were certain that she was a Brahmin we crossed out all the other castes. We had seven bahunis left on the list and sure enough there was a Sunita, a Sarita and a Sweta. I liked Sweta but anyway it felt good to officially narrow it down to three names.

I nearly broke down when Mr.S gave he the card that he had bought for me.A little girl on a pretty pink dress swinging on a swing, her eyes closed, bunny rabbits and piegons looking at her intently from the ground below as a heart-shaped sun from the left hand corner hued the sky in the colors of the rainbow while an arrow of cloud pierced the centre of the sun-heart. And inside Mr.S in his characteristic hand had written:

The God Almighty made you
But my eyes makes you
more beautiful than
He ever imagined.

It was perfect! Mr.C volunteered to deliver the good news to her. And during lunch he tip-toed into her class and slipped the card inside her bag. Sure enough after school when I along with Mr.P followed her home she had the card in her hand. Mr.P said it was a good sign. He patted me in the back and I let out a long breath and went to her. She turned to me and in a swift motion tore the card into pieces and yelled, "I hate you."

Stunned, I mumbled, "But you don't even know me."

Back at the Status the guys did not seem as discourgaged as I. "Atleast she acknowledged you," Mr.S said. Mr.C added,"They all start out that way, you know? Now you are in line for her friendship. And everyone knows friendship is just a launching pad for romance." That sounded right. Atleast she knew I existed and that I was interested on her. By the way Mr.B had made it official- her name was Sarita. Sarita said she hated me but everything was going to be fine.

So the days passed and I kept on following her home. She kept on ignoring me. I dreamed about her day and night. I saw her face on my morning tea. I read her thoughts on the class. I schemed and planned to wow her. I daydreamed of taking her to Pokhara and on the wide blue waters of the Phewa we would row our small boat as the water reflected the face of Machhapuchre intermingled with her bight face. Love at its best is love not attained.

One afternoon our school took us to the grounds of Kritipur University for sports meet. I was never a sportsman except khalbad (I had a bag full of marbles that I had won) and chungi. But ask me to run track and I did not see the point in all that exertion and the pounding of heart, gasping for air. I went because Sarita was going. You could say I followed her. As always Mr.P was at my side and when I say I followed her I mean I was stalking. But she seemed to run out of patience when I waited for her outside a ladiesroom. Later Mr.P and I were sitting on the hill discussing about the futility of it all when a group of girls marched towards us. It was Sarita and her friends. In no time they surrounded us. I had never faced so many angry women at once but Mr.P remained unflustered.

"What is your problem? Can't you leave her alone?" said one, pointing her accusing finger at me.

"But..."I could not complete the sentence.
"You are too much," thundered another.
"I said I hate you," said Sarita. That hurt.
"What is the problem?" Mr.P said in a gentle voice.
They looked at him as if they had been woken up from a nightmare. Now they aimed their wrath at him.
"It is not a freaking movie, you know, that you keep stalking her like a dog."
"Yeah, it is a movie," Mr.P replied.
"Oh,yeah. Movies end in time. When is this going to end?"
"This is a teleserial. It goes on till she loves him." Mr.P knew how to argue. He should have been on our school debate team.

I could not sleep that night. Life was futile. Everytime I closed my eyes those angry, accusing fingers pointed at me, threateningly close to poking my eyes out. So the next day I went to Rosie for advice. If ever there was a person who had a fitting name it was her- she was a rose blooming in spring. On her mid-twenties, she worked at the school library. At times all the fellows had had crushes on her but she was older than ys and sensing that she was unattainable we had all settled for being her friends. And she did treat us as equals, friends not mere pimply-cheeked schoolboys. She folded the book on a bookmarker and listened to me intently as I recounted my plight.
"What should I do, Rosie?" I asked.

"Bichara, she called you a dog and you are still in "love" with her?" she half-mocked.
"Yeah, I think so. Is that bad, Rosie?"

She seemed to think so. She explained me the difference between hormones and heart. But she would not tell me what to do. She told me that I had to pick my own poison and sure, I may stumble and fall but I should learn to pick myself up. Nobody but myself could teach me the lessons of life. Rosie was like that- she had all the answers but she wanted us to figure it out by ourselves.

Yeah I wanted to find out by myself. But there seemed to be no answer. Life was futile. My puppy love had reduced me to a dog and an insomniac. It was easy for Rosie to dismiss my feelings as lust but she was not the one who stayed up all night, unable to sleep and thousands of plans and schemes running my mind wild. Hers were not my sleepy eyes that searched a crowd for that familiar flicker of heaven. It was not her knees that went weak whenever I saw Sarita. If there were answers I did not have them, if there was a way to get over it I never found it. And now I agonized if my emotions were even genuine.

Genuine or not it was pointless. Guys said if you had feet, you could have shoes aplenty. But my Cindrella heart was stuck on these magic pairs. My heart was irrational, it did not understand logic. Moving on was the easy way out but ler go I could not. So I was right outside the school-gate nervously waiting on her. She walked out and heart stopped. There was this immense feeling of emptiness that engulfed me to my core. I approached her, with sweaty palms and racing heart and a strange sense of unreality.
"Listen,"I said. "I acted like a goofball." We walked on. She was at my side but I could not look at her. I knew "sorry" was said best when you looked at the person's eyes. Try as I might I could not face her. Looking at the passing cars, I mumbled, "I am sorry that I hurt you." She said nothing. I did not know what else I could say. Words were hard to come by. "I want to be your friend...talk with you..." She did not say a word. That night I could not sleep again. Once again, I promised myself that I would really, really forget her. But the next afternoon I was waiting for her agian more confused, more empty, more nervous, dogged in my aimless determination.
I said,"I cannot sleep." I told her I had gone about her in the wrong way and now I realized my mistake. I told her what Rosie said to me about life, the answerless big questions of life. We walked in silence. The cars and the motorbikes passed by. The afternoon was cool and it looked like it would rain in the night. The other students walking by stared at me in confused amusement. I felt like I was walking through vacuum.

"I just would like to talk to you," I said again.
"You are talking to me," I heard her reply and could not believe my ears. She was not cold-hearted, I could tell.
"I thought I was talking to myself. Great to know you were listening."
She did know how to talk but I did most of the yapping. I noticed that she had written S.W. on her knuckles. I asked, "Who is S.W.?"
"Someone," she said teasingly.
"Your boyfriend?" I asked, a little crestfallen.
"No, he is a cricket player. Do you watch cricket?"
"Not that much. You know what they say about people who have nothing better to do?"
"Yeah, I know all about how only fools watch cricket."
"It's fools who play cricket, the maha-fools watch it."
"Don't talk about something you don't know."

"So is it Shane Wayne, the Australian. I know more than you give me credit for."
She laughed. "Yeah, I can tell. His name is Shane Warne, not Wayne!"

So she watched the boring game of cricket - that was cool and all - but I was totally floored when I learned that she knew more than me about Nagraj comics. She said she had read all of them. I personnally was a fan of Super Commando Dhruba but anyone who knew Nagraj knew he was cool, shooting those snakes out of his hands and saving the world from those bad guys. It was surprising how similar Sarita and I were. She had high hopes of becoming a Fashion Designer. I for one was stuck on being a commercial photographer. We both had the same disdain for the strict discipline of the school and we liked to make fun of the teachers. Both of us felt strangled by the demands of academic excellence that our family and the teachers placed on us. We talked daily- during the lunch break we would go to the corridor in front of the library and we would look down on the playground and just talk. She liked Salman Khah who I despised but we both thought that "Khamoshi" was a great movie. Once talking about the songs from that movie I was so excited that I blurted out that Manisha looked so pretty on that movie and how "I wouldn't mind doing her." As soon as I said that I was real concerned that I had offended her. She just laughed and said, "You horny beast."

Girls were not so different after all and love was just a word. I did not have much close relationship with girls before I started talking with Sarita. My friends and I used to just dismiss them as mere objects of lust. We talked about how hot someone was and how the other one's breasts were so luscious and how we would all like to kiss a girl on the lips. We never thought that it would be cool just to talk with them, share ideas and talk about comics or sports. I could totally see myself sharing a smoke with Sarita in the Status and making naughty jokes. She was cool and she opened my eyes to a different way of looking at half the population. Though I did long for a chance to hold her and whisper tender words on her ears and touch her lips, I was just as happy to be her friend. We talked about our friends and when she passed by my group of friends she said "Hi" to them and made small talk. My fellows gave me all the hardtime for what they said was a lie to myself because I had claimed to them that I did not think about her in sexual terms. But guys would be guys.

I still walked with her to her home after school. One day we were ready to part just near her house when she said, "Listen, I like you. You are a great friend. We will always be."

"So?" I asked amused.

She produced a piece of paper from her bag and handing it to me said, "Would you give it to your friend?" It was folded into a rectangular shape and was stapled on the corner and it was addressed to Mr.P. I acted as if I did not know what it was.
"I cannot convince my heart so I want you to make the decision for me. I would not want you hurt," she said looking at me straight in the eye.

This was just great. Love a woman, bask on her friendship then be her messenger of love to your best friend. This really was great! Mr.P would need some convincing but I knew how to make him understand that it was all right by me. I knew the strange ways a heart worked.

"Will you do it?" Sarita asked.
I knew fully well that I would ache for her for the rest of my life. But I was young and life was not a hundred meters dash. I was in for a marathon.
"Sure, babe," I smiled. "Anything for you."

---
mG.(July 04)

   [ posted by mindGames @ 10:06 AM ] | Viewed: 1790 times [ Feedback]

VERMILLION

A short story

By Sitara

She stood in front of her full length mirror and scrutinized her face. She was poised with vermillion powder on the tip of her ring finger. The wedding ritual usually brought back memories.
***
"Himali!! Hiiiiiiiimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaali, Hiiiiiima......! Her mother called from the living room. "Do not wear the white dress, white kurtha, white anything! I can't understand your obsession with white and blue! Don�t you know white is inauspicious, it means widowhood in our Hindu culture. We are going to the temple, wear something red." At the time, Himali was 17 yrs old, a rebellious teenager. She could not understand why color mattered in rituals. "Mamoo, I will wear a white kurtha, a red dot on my forehead and red bangles on my hands, Is that alright?" "Himali, wear whatever you please;I am tired of arguing with you�and, please don't bring in your western-book-philosophy into our discussions. Himali, I don't care what the philosophers say. Just get dressed; we are late!" Himali put on her anklets as her finishing touch and skipped down the stairs.

"Mamoo, you named me Himali. I love the color of the Himalayas; the sky, and the clouds adrift above the peaks. Mamoo, what do you expect?� Himali argued. �And, anyways, you are wrong; I also love silver; not gold mind you. I want to get married in white and silver. You know mamoo, those silver Banarashi saris without red or gold." Her mother glared at her and answered in exasperation, "Listen to yourself! You are only 17 and talking about marriage!" "Why mamoo? Would you be shunned by your friends, if I married in silver instead of red and gold?�
***
Five years later, married to the love of her life, she continued to wear white. HE never minded, "White is not the color of widowhood. Not for me. You look good in white, wear it!" As a matter of fact, Himali had been wearing one of those short white summer dresses when he first saw her at his college picnic. The dark color of her hair contrasted attractively with her stark white dress. HE had playfully serenaded her with a modified Santana song, �Your eyes are the color of the muddy Bagmati....you look my way and the waves wash over me..." An impressionable Himali was swept off her feet.
***
"Mamoo, please don�t cut my hair! I promise, I will wear white! Please don�t wash the vermillion dot from my forehead! Just break my red bangles. Why don�t you leave me alone!" Himali pleaded inconsolably. Her mother had no strength to reason with her. Heart broken and incoherent with pain, Himali had refused to let anyone near the vermillion dot on her forehead; it was the only remaining token of her husband. "Mamoo, he never minded the way I dressed, when he was alive. He is dead now. He won't care if I don't wash away my vermillion or if I don�t cut my hair!" Defeated, her mother asked the family members attending the funeral to leave her alone. "Himali has been traumatized enough. Allow her, her grief. It does not matter if the holy scriptures instruct otherwise.� They all left her alone; she was a widow.
***
Two years later, poised in front of her mirror, she waited for the waves of emotions to wash over her. They did not come. She waited, bracing herself for the fresh onslaught of memories. Surprised, she opened her kohled eyes and stared at her reflection. The hurt in her eyes was gone. The wounded look of a startled deer was fading; it was replaced by something deeper. She had loved with an abandon; lived with a passion and experienced the depths of pain. Himali had known deep shadows and the play of blinding light. She looked at the vermillion powder on the tip of her ring finger which was poised at her forehead. Without a second thought, she wiped it off on her handkerchief. Deliberately, Himali picked up her black kohl pencil and placed a black dot where her vermillion one used to be. She was no longer a widow pushed into the well of personal grief and social exclusion. Himali was free. She stepped out in her blue dress; her hairs winging at her waist and the silver anklets melodious on her light-hearted feet.

The End

Originally published in Nepal Vision, 2004

   [ posted by Sitara @ 06:57 AM ] | Viewed: 2379 times [ Feedback]

If only things were beautiful; like a bunch of roses for sale in Wal-Mart, within reach and beautiful, that you can own, be manipulative. Manipulative at no cost. Sunita had it at the middle of nights when she’d wake up to find she’s playing with his dreams, maneuvering his innocence, that lay scattered on the road and she had gathered it all up, just to throw it out in a frenzy of emotional outburst one day…“Pranav, I will. Don’t you worry”, chill runs down her heart keeping her freezing and shivering, yet she doesn’t dare tell him the truth…self pity and disgust quells it all. His naiveness kills her the most. Change is like digging your own grave sometimes, or may be buying a coffin with a realization that you will die that particular moment and there will be no one around you to cremate your body. No one, not even the ones you have treasured all your life. Because they would have gone already, delved into their own little worlds, buying their own little coffins.

Sunita’s love for Pranav had taken an arranged twist, their parents agreeing to let them settle down together, and so the rituals followed in Bhadrakali with a priest who agreed to be there for Rs. 500 per day. When Pranav first brought her into his one-room residence in Baneswor, he had dragged the curtain with both hands to let some sunlight fall over neatly washed steel pots that shone in brightness. She had always loved sunlight spread over her bed as mornings awoken her. Some months later Sunita had sewn a blue flowery curtain replacing the dull white one, and moved the bed to the other corner, the lone chair standing by the door, bought a small shoe rack and had patched the holes in the carpet, hoping to replace it with a woolen one some day; but the income of a section officer guiltied her, or rather, that how Pranav worked hard all day to bring home some happiness made her the more guiltier. Because she knew how he used to come up to the kausi every foggy morning, to study, and stay there all afternoon, trying to memorize the whole of a book or two, not looking anywhere else. And Sunita used to look at him from a neighboring house, from a kausi higher than his. Sunita would spread a chatai in the kausi under the hot sun and her mother would peel bhogate and have Meera auntie, Kausiki auntie, and the veterinary doctor, their new neighbor, come over to devour its sour taste with the sun basking at their back, burning their bare waists. How she hid feelings from these women and sat by the edge of the kausi to peek down at the other kausi every once in a while. Sometimes when Sunita burst into laughter she’d unconsciously turn her head down there and someone will turn his head up and stare at her with a mild surprise. Once she laughed so much he never looked up; he kept his eyes glued to the bulk of papers he was holding, and after a while he just left. Passing section officer exams were tough, and Sunita just giggled it out with the acidic taste of bhogate.

After a year of staying together, Sunita got a chance to come to the US on a temporary visit, she had then insisted she’d stay here and make some money for a while. He hadn’t said much then. She worked. Like a machine. Puffing air out of her smoke-turned black lips, she rested her head on a brick wall by the shore, and stared at the sky…a group of sea gulls are quaking in cheeriness and chasing each other, often bouncing back into the sand. The waves of ocean swirl in length, all excited, quickly resorting to the command of gravity and spilling over the ground, unwittingly sweeping the sand along. Sunita recalls home in a frenzy of puffing out clouds once again; it has been quite a while, this loneliness without Pranav, she is getting quite accustomed to it, she thinks. But how she misses the small room, how they’d both come home tired of work and Pranav will soothe her gently and kiss her. She’d lie in bed, the soft pillow pressing against her chest, and stare at Pranav cook cauliflower, and she’d crack lame jokes, letting her legs swing freely on air. He’d grab her and punch her and punish her for making a fool out of him; bodies will pile together and she’d cover her face with the white bed sheet and he’d slowly drag the sheet out and kiss her, kiss her lips, her forehead, her neck...

But then the noise of pressure cooker squeaking in laziness, taking for ever to cook a handful of rice; the smell of kerosene numbing the nostrils; someone sitting in a pirka close by the stove cutting vegetables, nobody really to pay attention, yet that shadowy figure diligently working to get some things done. The rattling of plates; the little room too soon patched with spider webs here and there, the smoke rising from the stove, from the onions she fried in hot oil. Smoke, too much of smoke in her life.

Sunita walks out and sits close by the waves and watches it get angry and calm down in a lapse of few minutes. She wishes things could change that rapidly, so rapid that no one will really realize there ever was a change…The cigarette is out of fire, and her body stops emanating heat. She stands up and starts walking by the shore, very close to the teasing waves that take amusement in splashing water all over her, wetting her caprised legs…she looks back at the shapes her feet left behind, how they were beautiful, but then they would get washed away by waves like moments in your life…with just the traces of faint memories of them.

It first started with lies. Tons of lies. He’d be amused by little things, so it wasn’t really a crime to amuse someone with a little twist in reality, you know, especially when there is nothing to look forward to at that other end except for rattling plates early next morning. And walking long hours under the hot sun in search of a job. Without money, or with little money whatsoever. Hungry. Your lips chapping in want of a glass of water, or a bottle of coke, had it just been affordable. Carrying a torn leather bag that smelled like a frightened skunk. And people looking down on you like you were born to be their slaves, cars bleating with pride trying to chase you away like chickens. If only being skinny meant a matter of pride in poverty stricken countries like Nepal, life would have been a lot easier for Pranav, thinks Sunita; he had lost his job. Day by day the hollowness in his cheeks would get deeper and deeper, with thin lines in his forehead becoming more visible, arousing a shameful suspect amongst Sunita’s relatives, an embarrassing confession of nothingness…among the middle class that dazed hours into the fanatic, glittery prosperity. So lies, and hopes, lots of them, in bulks; it’d flow out and out and out of her, like she was in a dream spilling out her desires. And he believed some, disbelieved some. Why would she lie? He must have thought while pumping the kerosene stove and waiting for it to gleefully burst in flames…and a voice in the radio must have uninterestingly continued to bleat…making little sense, like this particular moment in his life. And she’d coax him into that and this, he’d laugh gleefully, and share his continued search for things that never seemed to stop his way… “I went there today, yes, may be they will hire me…they were excited to read my resume, and not that I don’t have experience, 7 years of experience I have” he would cheerfully be proud of his devout nature, but they both knew the bitterness of it all…you devote your life in a career more than a relationship could ever last, and the next day you know is you are on the streets, unemployed.

How she had been hypocritical, when all Pranav sought was a pocket full of happiness, even when abject poverty was grinning at him. His life had gone berserk, and it was her life gone berserk, in a sense, but for some reason she had been able to shift her life cleanly out of the mess he was falling into, amazingly cleanly, and standing away she watched it from a distance, like a dispassionate lover. His life was in the becoming, and may be even those little lies would have given it some strength. Even her memories would have given him some comfort, while she dauntingly flaunted her worthless potentials to grab his attention. Sometimes she would suddenly feel she’ll run out of ideas, run out of ostentations to amuse him, to blind him with her charms…But he had bypassed them all and had chosen to love her. He had never once failed to carefully listen to her blabbering, and had been persistent in liking her.

“Hajur ho, uni bahirai chin…America ma...”, he must have said proudly to the passers by who were ready to hand in a package of sympathy, always. But then here Sunita lies down on the bed, with this someone strange, bind by law yet looking white and alien, his belly turned the other way and the bald spot on his head shining in darkness, making him look like a china pot, a big china pot with whiskers in its mouth. She had first kissed Kelvin in a swimming pool, out of the human need to seek affection, like everybody else did, or so she thought. And then Kelvin had seen her again, drinking, sitting by herself, puffing out air, staring at the bodies shaking in lust, or confusion, or pity. He had lumped his stomach on a high, lean chair letting his legs dangle in amusement, like a small child’s. She had puffed air into his face then for once, and he had stared right into her eyes with hunger, unmoved, with an uncanny sense of expression. She hadn’t cared then, but Kelvin had been nice. Engineers are sexy, she had always thought, and Pranav’s eyes lightened with love had suddenly phased out in dullness. Hectic, work had been hectic. Only one word she had defined for Kelvin when he’d asked about her life. And you know things had slowly started to change that night, from tearing conscience and guilt that lurked around her always, Kelvin had been able to define some things new for her, things that she had long beheaded…he had made a dramatic shift of power, from the omnipotent her that sheltered Pranav to the needy her, needy of love…guilt hurt her once, it ached up there, and tears gathered within the socket, ready to spill… “You know I celebrated my birthday with some friends, after long years…after you told me to…”, even his emails would come storming into her brain unfolding painful truths, of haplessness, the chunk of love that he had misplaced somewhere and she had picked it up for him.

She had thought of calling him and saying sorry. But then eyes didn’t even water. They just stared into the vastness of the ocean and once in a while tried to peek into the thinness of air she was puffing…air that had camouflaged her own mind.

His child-like eyes…if only love was cheap...she’d lie on the bed next to Kelvin and think about Pranav. How he would be delighted on the phone in wanting to be together again, bitterly hiding away his frustrations of countless failures…not that she hadn’t failed, but it didn’t matter, not any more. And time had changed, in a dramatic twist of events, Pranav had come to realize of the numerous lies she had built around his vicinity, that this relationship had given him all the while, the lies she had packed in a bundle for him. Truth must have come crashing down on him making him weak all of a sudden; he must have stood stiff jiggling coins in his pocket, his heart getting cold…lump of saliva stuck in his throat. He would have wanted to sit down for a while- how he wished there be someone around to talk about it... “Sunita?” must have crossed his mind for once… His heart must have ached, continually. He then would have lifted her picture from the table, wiped it and stared at it for a while, not even wanting to shed tears, nevertheless tears must have made their ways out from the corners of his eyes, dampening the sides of his lips. He must have promised himself never to look at the picture again, but patches of memories of her smiles, her caresses would have come flooding his mind as he walked down the road with a leather bag hanging down his shoulder, in search of some things that didn’t make any sense anymore…

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 10:59 AM ] | Viewed: 2301 times [ Feedback]

Somesh called me to his birthday, he is ten years old his mother said and I went home and asked my mother how old am I and she said you are turning seven and I said I want to grow big too, like Somesh and have a birthday party. One day he takes me to a big festival and I hold his hand but I could lose him anytime. It is so big and full of people all I see is faces everywhere, big and black and yellow faces cropped with black hair or no hair. There is a fish market and it smells like burnt hair and there is a bangle market, I tug the end of his shirt and ask him to get me some but he says they are for married women and that I was a kid. So if I marry you will you buy me those, I ask him and he looks at me and smiles. There is another little girl like me and she follows another little guy like him and they go together to the shop and buy a red dhago and he breads her hair with it and she smiles and he giggles and they point at us and run away. I tell him lets go she can wear it why cant I and he tells me she is married and I tell him lets get married too why cant we get married? And he says you are so stupid we can’t get married if we did we will have to sleep together. And I smile at him and say I have slept alongside my brothers I have slept by my mother and I have slept by my girl friends and I will sleep with you too, we can sleep together tonight because you are so nice. I am not saying that sleeping together if you sleep together like I am saying you will have babies, says he. I know what you mean I say looking down. You are just a little older than me and I understand what you mean I say. He doesn’t say anything and I keep looking at people with red faces, bald head, will I look ugly like that guy if I am bald I ask him but he just laughs and I grow red. I like teasing you I say and he is just quiet. There is an old man buying puchki, usually it is we who eat them a lot but this guy was just standing there by the sun-baked seller and gobbling it like he hadn’t eaten yesterday. I want to eat puchki but I wonder whether he has money to buy it for me, I don’t care so I ask him to buy it anyway. And we both sit on one corner and lick the juice running down our hands. Nachana maichyang nachana shouts one guy from the middle of nowhere, only that we hear is his voice and a large crowd cheer up and start dancing in a circle and people join it one by one making it itself a big market with a hole in the middle, like my daddy says he has a hole in his heart. One time I asked Somesh if his parents fight too and if his sister goes under the table and he said his father was not a drunkard and I felt sorry for my daddy because he is a nice guy. I once went to his house and his mother gave me candy and a lot of candy to Somesh and there were a lot of airplanes and helicopters in his room and there were no dolls and he said he likes to fight with fighter planes and only girls play with dolls. And I said I want to fight with fighter planes too and we played, he won and I again said I wanted to become like him and he said he will teach me. We go to another shopkeeper where a fat faced woman is selling ghurra, that you take it by the end of the thread and spin it fast, spin and spin it until you cannot really see it, and that is fun. Somesh wants to buy some marbles but he says they were not smooth enough and I said I play marbles too but he said other girls never do but I was different and he likes it, he will play with me sometimes.
He takes my hand and we dance in the circle but a thin bony man with a dirty beard and uncombed hair pulls us to the middle we bend our waist and shake our butt and this guy says I dance like a sexy woman even though I am a little kid and they all laugh and I laugh too but Somesh just stops dancing. ‘Hey kido what’s wrong with you is that your wife?’ a guy asks and Somesh says no but that he likes me and not to tease me. Everyone laughs and a woman who was fat and dancing with this lean guy said ‘this kid is a red hot chilly, will kick your ass one day’, Somesh turned red and I know what he means when he is red, he pulled me out of the circle and left, and we could hear them laugh like devils. I wanted to dance more. I was insistent but he said if I wanted to be with him I will have to follow him. There is a hill, a brown barren hill where some dogs are napping so that they get to eat fish when the market ends and we both jump and dance and fight and walk across and hear the loud music that is saying ‘common lets get drunk and let’s dance for one night and your pains will be over.’

I keep telling my mama I want to go play when we don’t have nothing to eat but she just looks at me with swollen eyes and hands me our younger brother to stop him from crying while she goes to the stove trying to cook something, unable to decide. Somesh, I want to go to school that you are going to I say but he says my mother will not be able to pay and the school I go to does not ask for money. He says that is for rich people poor can’t go there. I just remember my brothers who must be sitting at home and hiding under the table because daddy will come home and mommy and daddy will fight. They get so scared I have to cuddle them close though I hide under the table too but they start crying and I tell them to keep quiet. But in a while I start crying too and dad will pull me out and place me on the table and ask what his mistake was and why he has to suffer so much; why he is poor and why mother hates him. I just sit there and cry he tells me to shut up and that he loves me. In a while he takes all three children out, seats all on the table, says, you three kids are the light of my mind if you cry I will get blind. Amrit then stops crying and so do we all. Daddy I am hungry says he and daddy shouts at mother to get something and mother at the other corner of the room is lying on the bed her head turned to the ceiling still crying, says she has no food to give. Daddy curses her, swears and says if it had not been only for three of us he would have left her already and mom cries even harder and our eyes start watering again. I go to mom sit by her and my two brothers are watery, their mouth swell all ready to cry but daddy says stop, I love you. He takes the youngest in his arms, swings to and fro, dances with a lorry and he smiles and Amrit smiles too and mother just keeps staring at the ceiling.

Somesh I want to play Ping I say and he takes me to the bamboo swing, I sit he pushes it first slowly, then harder and I say I am scared, he stops, I get down and hug him because I had fallen once before when some other guys had pushed the ping too high and it hurt so bad that I fell on the ground and still have a scar on my neck. That is why may be so many other pale kids in school tease me that a bitch bit me because the scar is so green on white skin, it turns red when rubbed. I hug Somesh again he says lets go buy some dolls. I say if I am lost in this market will you find me because my daddy will kill me and my mother will sit there crying by the stove and they will fight again and my brothers will hide under the table but I will not be there with them. Somesh says don’t worry I will hold your hand when we walk and says he will protect me from those drunkards and I say they will not kill me will they? As we walk we meet an old beggar and he talks about how beautiful we kids are and gives us blessings. Somesh drops a coin on his empty bowl and his wrinkled face suddenly lights up with joy, he says may god bless you with love, may you kids grow up together. He then talks to himself or talks to others I don’t get it but goes on saying that god has blessed us with life and that we should learn to be content with all the happiness people we love have brought to us. I remember my parents, and ask myself why can’t they think like this beggar and be happy, may be I should take him to them and he will give an answer to my dad when he asks me why mother hates him or why is he so poor? We both keep walking under the hot sun and suddenly I see a woman all surrounded with dolls with beautiful clothes and ornaments, with red saris and golden scarf, boys with daura suruwal and topi, there are boys and girls who are getting married, kids playing on the street and I again think these kids must be bad because my mother told me not to go play with them. He picks up a beautiful girl dressed in colorful faria spotted with flowers blue and red and white and asks how much it costs. I tell him I want to get children playing and a bride dressed in red with her rosy cheeks and breaded hair with black dhago and because she looks so beautiful and clean I want to look like her. But he says he is buying that for me and I can choose to buy anything I like but I say I don’t have money he says he will get it for me and that I do not have to pay him back, because I don’t have money never and that he loves me. I am so happy I just want to hug him but I just say you are so much like my pa when he is not fighting with ma he likes me, he says I am his only daughter and I remind him of spring blossoming with flower and greenery and he gets me lots of candy which I later share with my brothers because he doesn’t get them anything; I love them so much, may be more than I love pa. But Somesh says he doesn’t want to be like my father and I feel sorry for my daddy again but I tell him I love him only sometimes, he slaps mother when he drinks and I hate him then. And I hate him when he looks at mother, looks at the pickle she made that tastes so good and looks back at her, slams the pickle on the plate, gets up without eating and says mother doesn’t even know how to make tomato pickles and it smells kerosene in rice, when we fold our legs sit down on a pirka to eat at night. But when he dresses up and mother finds socks that are clean and soft next morning he smiles and says mother is an angel and I and Amrit smile and sit there and watch them, licking dal run down our hands while the youngest one is sitting there peeing, wetting his little pants and crying.

Wet and stinky rugged jute carpet is spread all over the room where we sleep, eat and stay there whole day while ma goes out to seek petty jobs and daddy is working in the coal factory. Somesh says it is hard to work with coals that his daddy works on the table and I say it is boring to sit on a chair whole day whereas my daddy gets to see out and play with friends. I have seen him joke around with his friends when he brings some of them home when he gets money and they all sit down and drink while ma takes us all to the other room to feed us.

They are having a monkey dance and snake dance at the market, I don’t get scared this time, and I say I want to touch that snake. Somesh says it will bite you so I just watch others touch and the way it hisses back at them, like dad does to mom all the time. The monkey there dances, acts and does what the tall guy in a dhoti tells him to do. We just stand there for a while staring at the tricks its master tells to do and Somesh wants to let it sit on his shoulders. Nice dolls says a girl like me but she is not like me because she doesn’t have those dolls and she doesn’t have Somesh either, I just smile she looks like she wants to snatch the dolls from me so I tell him lets go I want to go, we leave. Smell of raw fish and fried fish, crowd of people colored red white black yellow green, cows and dogs alike, dolls and helicopters, kids all around and people drunk and dancing. All of a sudden there is a firing, we thought that was announcement of prizes and people should have gathered but they started running away in panic. I asked Somesh what was wrong and he said run or else you will be killed these are the Maoists they will end the world they will kill you they don’t care children women men animals they kill who they get so run. I know that has happened to us so many times and so many get killed no one can do nothing about it because powerful always rule and these people hate us all, so they come kill everyone they don’t like, he says. I start crying and seeing everyone run everywhere, stumble and fall down, run and stumble again I see a man shot dead and blood, blood in his body I cry, ask Somesh to take me away…he is running already, far away, I just sit there with nervousness. I cant run I cant see anything because my eyes are watering I cant think anything because there are people and there is firing and there is blood, so I just hide under a big cement pipe that is sitting there from ages. I see Somesh run at a distance but then he suddenly stops rather something stops him like so many people he stumbles and falls on the ground I see blood flowing out of his body I just sit there shivering, my Somesh is dying… and for everyone else it is so common, something that happens, just happens, and people just gather at feasts and run at firings. Only I know how uncommon it is for me, he is dying, my Somesh is dying…

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 01:36 PM ] | Viewed: 2368 times [ Feedback]

She lived there. I saw her flee from the 23rd floor, Golden Sands Club, Atlantic City. She let go of her arms and legs and made a gesture like her savior Jesus and let herself fall freely from the 23rd floor, hitting the ground with a loud ‘thud’, dampening it with redness. Cabs came and left, picked up, dropped off; like in a vicious circle, they kept rotating, back and forth, back and forth. Like her life, like those memories in her life. Bitter. Sweet. Tasteless.

She was beautiful. Prerana. And even for her daunting personality, had been gracious throughout her life. But sometimes her fingers froze as she kept tapping on the keyboard and words would refuse to show up on the screen. There was no expression in her sentences that sprouted like beans on the monitor; may be it was too much of an expression. Her face stood on her neck like a frozen carcass. Busses passed, cabs came again, this time with passengers, dropped them off, and left, like in a monotony. She raised her head and wondered; for once she let nothingness shape the holistics of her life. Everyone was running, running towards nothingness. Towards eternity they’d never reach; the thirst for something they’d never discover, the unleashing of desires that don’t have an end. Prerana was seeking a purpose meaningful, a craving to averse delusion, a desire that was in itself flawed but sought that vision which Buddha himself opined for...

‘Why am I doing this?’ Answers exploded yet this haunting was so staggering she lost sense almost, and so she would gather herself and jump into the water-- letting feelings dissolve in water molecules; or sometimes she’d just sit there shaking in horror, quiet, letting emotions rot within her. Think. Think! Her mind would say, again and again, and she’d dig her face into the pillow and try to forget how to think, for once. But then it wouldn’t stop, thoughts…whatever has happened to me, she’d start musing and then…Reality came limping like a looser, always unwelcome.

Munindra dai was her savior. “Haina Nepal bata thuprai koseli lyayeu jasto cha ni…” Munindra dai heaves a sigh of relief with the suitcase escorted to one of the rooms after an exhausting ride from the airport. The place she was being ensconced into looked like an underground compartment; damp, dark, baby cockroaches crawling the walls by the kitchen stove. He quickly brought out a room freshener and squeezed it in the air letting it roam freely, numbing their nostrils. The statue of liberty standing tall and proud watching their mundane efforts must have smiled, for once.

Kentucky Chicken was for dinner, and Jerry joined with a few cans of Budweiser spread around the table, not to mention the cockroaches. The three shared lives; with eyes stuck on the nearby T.V screening an African movie. The storyline was plain, without twists; like Prerana’s own life. Munindra dai apparently had bagged the reputation of a renowned Yogi in Nepal, where respect bestowed a fine livelihood and an easy comfort. But his decision to settle in this barren land without the notice to the concerned had brought out a dramatic twist in his coveted lifestyle. “Faith is also an amazing term”, he stared on the screen in search of words to show where faith had dislocated his reality. With a bitter gulp of beer, Prerana just listened. “Five years…you know, five years is a lot of time…” Munindra dai tweaked his lips and chose to let his eyes run randomly over her face. She quickly moved her eyes away from him and smiled at Jerry “Is the food good?” Jerry just shrugged. Prerana wanted to say sometimes time fails creation itself, let alone the sustainers of it. “I understand Munindra dai. Why don’t you want to go back to Nepal?” Prerana realized that was an offensive and a stupid question at the most, but there wasn’t a handy solution she could prescribe to her patients. His duly earned respect back home paid homage to the counters of McDonalds and Subways here. 18 hours a day, he worked; sometimes in a gas station, lifting ice, or in Subways rolling breads. His hands had hardened, looking rough with scratches and blotches of blood here and there. He would come back from work, open a can of beer and take out a burger from his bag, or sometimes rummage through the refrigerator to find a chunk of frozen meat passively sitting there unattended for days. Good food was occasional, like when Prerana and the likes would clear up the counter to cut vegetables once in a while.

“He needs a girl” Jerry said, his mouth tearing the skin off the Kentucky chicken. Prerana laughed “Hmmm…no 1 solution to everything! A girl”. At first Munindra dai, in his late thirties, just laughed, letting his thick, yellowish-white skin blush red, his neatly arranged teeth spread into a beautiful set of pearls. His black hair cropped up like cotton balls on top of his head, leaving the corners of his ears naked, giving him a young look. He was chubby, seemingly fat, with chunks of flesh looming heavy around his chest. After Jerry had insisted in his hallucination that it’s time Munindra dai got married, the latter nodded. Jerry’s whining opened secrets. “Yes, her family has helped me process a green card and all that, I’m very grateful, but how do I marry a ‘bhaisi’ like her? Timi nai bhana na” Munindra dai confessed in his drunkenness that the girl who liked him was white, bland, and fat.

Days passed. Prerana had been around the US for quite a while but New York was truly New for her. Work was hectic and commuting between Manhattan and Queens only made her the more lonelier. “Hello! Oh hi! Yes! It was me who called…do you still have that apartment available for rent?” It wasn’t the inadequacies in the building or the cockroaches drooling around the cooking utensils, that created an urgency to evacuate the place, but a weird feeling, a form of suffocation of going back there and sitting and watching an African movie with Jerry and Munindra dai with Budweiser cans spread all over, was more pressing.

“I think he should get married, right Jerry?” Prerana announced while at dinner one night. “Here, drink some of this, its good stuff” Munindra dai brought out some bottles of Corona and spread them on the table. “I don’t feel like drinking” Prerana’s humbleness was rebuked with insistence. But then she changed the topic again. “I will find someone for Munindra dai” said she with confidence.

“You know what? I think you should go out with him. Why...He’s a nice man…” said Jerry shifting coriander out of the chicken curry and rice he was eating. “Jerry! He’s like my brother…” Prerana threw back a defenseless statement on air to be evaluated.

All the way to work and back Prerana kept ransacking through the newspaper advertisements for roommates wanted and thinking about Sishir from Boston who she’d talk for hours; Vikram from India now living in Kansas, who had told her that the stone Shiva lingam stands on is the symbol of vagina; Amrit from California who had sweared to god that he liked her and had stopped calling after they had finally met; Nick who just knocked on the door unannounced and insisted they go to bar sometime, or hang out with him on weekends, usually every other Friday when he would’ve nothing to do. Life was normal, and busy. Sometimes too busy to speculate what it was leading her into.

“Yes aama, I’ll take care of her. She’s like my sister, don’t worry”, Munindra dai had assured her mother. Prerana was grateful to Munindra dai. She had almost swallowed a ball of saliva stuck in her throat that slowly moved down with an ache in her heart. Trying to hide her watering eyes, she smiled; she had never felt so stranded and alone.

New York was in fact beautiful. She was fascinated by the colors of beauty the Statue of Liberty radiated around it. Standing atop, alone and serene, it instilled new desires of freedom that worked like an elixir for her life.

“Yeah I’ll be there in five minutes” The China Town in New York, walking shoulder to shoulder with Srijana reminded her of home. Or inviting a few non-Nepalese co-workers for dinner in a Nepali restaurant never seized to amuse her. The idea of moving out from Munindra dai’s place started to fade away, leaving dampening shades of worries that triggered back with some instances. Like for example one night she came home to find Munindra dai completely drunk, staring at the T.V screen and weeping. In absence of Jerry, Prerana was perplexed for a while on what to say. Things happened, and sometimes reality came limping like a looser, unwelcome…

“Hmm…I need a lot of love” Past midnight, Prerana murmured onto the phone. On the other end, Sishir was teasing the way she said the word ‘stewpid’ and how she sometimes eats chicken nuggets for lunch.

A couple of mornings later while walking back from work she was relaying bits and pieces of what had happened last night at Munindra dai’s place. “It wasn’t pleasant to hear that. I don’t love him Vikram, but he…he sometimes behaves weird. I want to get out of there!” Prerana gasps for fresh air. “Yes! I’m listening”.

“You need to get laid” Vikram says it out with authority.

“What?”

“Yes. You need to get laid”.

While Prerana crosses the road a car screeches right in front of her with a slam in the brake. She waives her hand in an apologetic gesture, and rushes forward.

“Yes, I think so too” she just keeps walking looking back and trying to comprehend what just happened.

“So when do I come there?”

“What?”

“So when do I come there to get laid?”

Prerana slams the phone. Asshole.

The cellular suddenly starts beeping. Ignorance is the best refuge sometimes; Prerana comes clean out of the hustle bustle of downtown Manhattan while the phone indicates a new voicemail. “Prerana baini, khoi tapai lai din bhari phone gareko, yaha nurse haru kuri rachan…” Dewang dai’s voice echoes in urgency.

“Shit!” Prerana nervously flips open the phone. She was supposed to be in the hospital to help translate Dewang dai’s questions into English and help him sign the papers, before the nurses could do anything to cure the newborn baby’s asthma symptoms. She had missed all calls when he had strenuously tried to reach her.

“Dai! Ma aai haale…” Faster, bigger steps, she keeps walking…

A few days later, some people who knew Prerana ‘closely’ knew she had started disliking Munindra dai for some reason and had moved out. But life was busy. Work, friends, acquaintances, Munindra dai…something within her was wanting to break free. Sometimes she wouldn’t speak much; she’d just sit there quiet and smile at people. At other times she’d come back from work to her apartment and sit on a dark corner and stare at something, for hours. Sushil never called her anymore. Yet life moved on.
A month later Munindra dai gets the news that Prerana jumped off a building in Atlantic City; he is relieved.

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 01:45 PM ] | Viewed: 2001 times [ Feedback]

It’s raining like cats and dogs. Big bits and pieces of water-drops hit the ground like they were in a rush to empty the sky. Cars run through the wind like bullets flying for a millisecond and disappearing, a crowd of people with surfing boards and towels hanging out of their shoulders are lazily waiting for the lights to turn red, phones keep ringing, there is an ambulance trying to pick a child in seizure. Ameena is standing there looking outside, pale and skinny, her long skirt clinging to her legs…

He ran his hands down her neck towards the shoulder, slowly massaging back and forth. It was feeling warm and soft, his hands pressing against the flatness of her shoulders. She was therefore irked to rule out any further possibility. Nevertheless, the nature of hands, their flexibility to reach anywhere and everywhere…what if? She kept thinking, she kept waiting for that moment to come, where his hands would suddenly declare themselves the omnipotent and rule over her.

"Alright Rupendra, thank you. I’m good” said she, destroying the weaves of dreams his hands must have woven in this short period of time.

"What? Comon, here I can do better, hold on a little more" wielding his hands softer and pressing tight against her shoulders and down towards her back, his hands suddenly run at the back of the body like a virus rummaging through computer files setting them ablaze! Down below her shoulder towards the back, slowly on to the head, fingers fiddling with the long black hair; she could feel the heat emanating from within her. She just laid on the couch with her head on the edge, letting the cascade of thick wavy hair touch the ground. He used both his hands, now softly, now vigorously, touching the roots of her hair, bringing it down slowly in a dramatic way, which both sensitized and scared Ameena.

"Rupendra, I have to go". She stood up, stiff and blushing. At the back of her mind, confusions paraded all along, that had it been for someone else, she would have loved some more of the massage…

"A…how can you just leave like that? Now it’s my turn" Rupendra slouches his short, plump body on the couch, his legs intertwined on the edge. He folds his arms and waits, looking at the other direction, tilting his head to be taken care of, his fat black lips twitching like a curled leech.

Ameena just wanted to walk out; she didn’t want to witness any further the melodrama that could lead to something much unintended- the plethora of events that convoluted the already complicated feeling of senselessness. A tinge of sadness that was looming large above the ceilings, a sequence of his gigglings and insistence that she remotely refuted; she suddenly dragged the edges of her fingers across the edge of the couch that ran a meter long, generating a sensation so erotic she wanted to drift away from it, immediately. Rupendra was unaware of it all, his head still tilted and his eyes half closed readying themselves to be soothed. But she didn’t love him, he wasn’t anybody to her. She had just met him while she’d been to eat at Mcdonalds and he’d served her some crispy French fries and a large Diet Coke. “Are you from Nepal?” he had asked with a generous curiosity, his mouth half open. “Oh Hi! Tapai pani Nepali ho?” Ameena wasn’t taken aback at all; instead she was amused that someone would have been so observant and enthusiastic to know her. And so the conversation had begun.

Her fingers slithered over his scalp and she was messing with his hair for a while. She could see he was trying hard to get the feel of hands. He must have imagined the duet slip through the shoulders and glide forward.

Rupendra was the only other person she thought she ‘trusted’ when she transferred to this university in Kansas. Ameena shared a little apartment with an orthodox, sickly religious Indian girl. Her ‘home’ looked like a dark hallway of the hotel she had worked in earlier, or more like a gully in New York, with its smell of rusty sinks in the bathroom and kitchen. The room was clamored with sleeping bags and towels and clothes and books; the greenish-yellow couch picked up from the trash lied in a corner, stiff and observant of the dull activities that went on in the room throughout the day. The vermillion red carpet just sat there like the king of all, looking bright and new, so much at odds with the rest of the sensations that ran around the room.

"Do you have a mouth freshener?" asked Rupendra once puffing air out and smelling what little the hand that stood in front refracted back. The bus kept pacing on its own, but somehow Ameena felt it was taking longer than usual to reach there.

"Oh I don’t”.

"I think I have a bad constipation" Rupendra uttered out the ultimate truth, with the same nervous laugh, cough-like laugh that he pulled back before he let it end; and she was always uncomfortable with the feeling that the remaining laughter must have stuck inside his throat, for no apparent reason. She also noticed Rupendra took his hand all the way back and kept swiping his hair, and they suddenly swung in front of him, half folded and close to the chest, like a chandelier, and they moved up and down to squeeze his chest. Greasily oiled and combed, his hair parted in the middle leaving a few strands hanging on the sides. The aroma he carried reminded Ameena of the air in Sundhara that spread across Khichapokhari and Ratnapark, not quite that of a Sekuwa being baked…His skin was mildly tanned, high cheekbones stood on each side and the rest of the hollow part of the cheeks filled with meat; it wasn’t plump, only when he laughed the two little cheeks would cuddle up to form a ball of meat and shine in redness, leaving his eyes look like neatly penciled lines below his messy eyebrows. Nevertheless, he is a nice man, she assured herself.

In the course of events that followed, Ameena had known quite a few people around campus; Rupendra was no more her primary ‘hangout buddy’. But the relationship or the so called relationshiplessness among the two was still intact. Neither tried harder to refrain from relationship nor from gaining one. It didn’t matter. Yet, when Ameena occasionally saw him, Rupendra would point at the skirt she wore and throw his head up on the air and laugh his cough-like laugh.

Ameena wouldn’t be shocked, but a mild disgust would overtake her and she’d walk down the hall like a model, twisting her hips, and come back to pay for his laughters.

The massage. Ameena’s hands lost that chilliness that first jolted her when she had touched him. Rupendra wouldn’t say a word; he swirled back a cushion and slided down onto the couch, now almost lying flat, flipped his body back, his face grinning at the stained carpet. "On the back" he said.

"I'm done. I have to go" Ameena walked out the door. "Oh Ameena!..." A voice hardened. She ran out the door onto the open parking space and stood still for a handful of fresh air. And then she kept walking, looking around the baseball field, the green trees, the open space spread around afar…she had never disliked anyone so much in her life.

She met Anil on her way, a stout, tall, dark guy with tight jeans- it almost stuck down at his ankles with the black socks he wore. At the back of her mind she already knew he was from India. She saw Dr Black and felt nearer to her dreams and farther and farther away from the ditch she was sinking into.

"What would you do if you were the president of the United States instead?" Dr. Black had asked the class, almost uncertain and helpless about the war to come, war on Iraq; suggestions were umpteen but solution was always a problem.

Ameena went to play pool with some friends and went back to MacDonald’s for dinner. Kansas wasn’t a city, at least where she lived wasn’t. And things weren’t like where she came from. Not knowing anyone in the college was worse than being poor, she had realized. Rupendra was there, always, but it didn’t make any sense. Rather, something of him was starting to repel her. And he came there every day, sometimes almost after every class. He didn’t make any effort to hide anything, the lamest or the most personal of things; that his underpants were coffee stained when it lay on the couch last night, or that he cheated on all of his ex-girlfriends. Ameena knew the ins and outs of his history, for no reason. His girlfriend back in Nepal was getting married to another guy, who had lived in Australia for 7 years. Ameena had asked him if he loved her, he had said yes he did, more than himself, yet he didn’t go get her. "I don’t want to stay in Nepal" he had confided to her that they had broken up after 10yrs of being together. A chill had run down her spines. She hated it, hated his guts; to let go of someone you have treasured all your life and still be normal, like nothing has happened. And she pitied the girl.

"I heard she is really depressed" Rupendra again said with an air of authority. "She cries on the phone every night with me, what can I do? You tell me, what can I do?" I didn’t want to tell him what to do, there was nothing to tell, and besides, what he was doing was self-explanatory.

It was pouring. She didn’t want to go to Rupendra’s. His house stood there by itself, it was near, but he seemed too distant and fading, she refused to ache her mind to get the memories attached with him. There wasn’t much to look forward to, but the peanut butter he spread around the bread, lots of it, and put into his mouth, plucking the remains in his mouth with his fingers, or the way he panted, like a dog, all sweaty after jumping a while in the basketball court, his short stature, tanned tight skin turning bluish red, his cough-like laugh, his forehead shrunk at a place at the smallest misfit of a matter, as if there is no more pleasure in living life and that this misfit is the sole cause of it…she didn’t like the feel of it, she suffocated.

But then it was raining hard, and days weren’t always pleasant. And she needed enough attention to keep living. "I’m a social being, with cravings, desires, I cannot be another Lord Budhha” her dismays utter out on their own and disappear in thin air. It strikes Ameena that even Buddha had a social life once! She hurriedly strolls down the road towards the narrow gully. Drenched in water with translucent white cloth sticking to her body, Ameena knocks on the door.

“Oh!” Rupendra is a little appalled. “Comon in”

“Is anyone home?” Ameena moves towards the center of the room, and pulls the blinders down.

“No, just me”

“Well, I’m wet, do you have a towel?” She starts taking her clothes off, one by one.

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 12:16 PM ] | Viewed: 2001 times [ Feedback]