Being Nepali I reckon it to be a matter of exultation to be a bi. Excuse me, I mean bi-national, bi-cultural and bi-lingual. The fact that I was born in a different country than the one I am living in comes with perks for sure. One of my absolute favorite part about it has to be being able to escape the stress that America slaps every person with, right smack on his face. Going back to Nepal becomes an event, prepared for with excitement and expectations. And if you go back with your parents, all your relatives will flock in to visit you, which in disguise ends up becoming an excuse to know about how your parents can possibly help them to “America cheerna”.  The people that I can’t decipher how I am related to, even after my mother’s numerous attempts at forcing the “jeri jasto” connections on me, come flocking in to “visit us”. And then there are others who don’t seem to find any topic to talk about except bringing up how “gori or kali” and “dubli or moti” you have become. When one of them didn’t find me “moti”, which was contrary to her expectation, she lost it completely and said ‘chya, jasta ko testai raicha bichara. America gaera ta tanna khanu pardaina?”. It took me a while to come to terms with her intentions concealed under those remarks. Even though I am aware of the fact that being called moti is not a bad thing in Nepal for it’s a sign of good health and prosperity, her remarks did not go too well with the otherwise scrumptiously delicious food she had brought for us. I had lost my appetite somewhere along those “chyaa” and “bichara” in her remarks. One thing I love about my family is that we are not afraid to laugh at ourselves. It definitely won’t be an exaggeration to claim that we all proudly inherit the humor gene. Even though my mother is the quietest one, she laughs at things that deserve to be laughed at.  One of the things that me and my brother enjoy riding on without pedaling the brakes is making jokes at our parents’ swell wedding pictures.  Our dad looks ridiculously skinny while mum could easily pass on as a model or an actress. We all laugh at how funny looking dad was and how it was a trap that our mum was set up with him. “Kura ta thikai garis timiharule. Tero mum le malai ramrari dekhekai theena bichara. Timiharuko mamaghar aako ek hapta mai engagement bhayo hamro”. My mum says that the night my dad came to “see” her at our mamaghar, there happened to be no electricity. Damn “bidhut pradhikaran” ! When my mum entered the living room with tea and snacks on a tray, she was bowed down the entire time. She looked up for a brief instant to check out how hot my dad was but to her utter disappointment, the candle flickering dimly on the background was not of much avail. She only saw his sparkly white teeth glowing in the dark. It is beyond comprehension how these two people who hadn’t even seen each other clearly have sustained 20 years of marital bliss and of course two beautiful kids. Ahem. Away from the clinginess of your relatives, America hurls at you a horde of Nepali people whom you might have otherwise never came across with in Nepal. Some of them become important part of your lives and your social circle. Some of them downgrade themselves from being confidantes to backstabbers. P Kaka, as I address him, is the coolest Nepali man ever. I have never met someone his age to be so darn cool. I wonder how he was as a young lad. Until I meet some other older Nepali fella’s, P Kaka holds my titles of “Most humorous” and “The coolest” person ever. When P Kaka’s wife, N Auntie threw up all over my mum’s freshly imported gorgeous Tibetan carpet on my 19th birthday, P Kaka cleaned the whole mess up. He, then proceeded onto dancing in his all time favorite Nepali song “ Aamaile bhanthin dhara ko paani” by holding onto a bottle of wine and drinking from it. N Auntie joined him in all the consciousness she had left of and the couple presented the best dance performance of the night- too bad that the carpet was chastised again when they had finished dancing.  P Kaka was the culprit this time and my mum wasn’t too happy.   Then there are confidantes-turned-backstabbers- the ones with only malicious bones all over their body. I find humor in anything and everything. In doing so, I find it less work on my brain to gauge why some people decided to act the way they did. When J Uncle went around saying bad things about my father for a reason that I don’t even care to remember at the moment, I could see how upset my father was. But J Uncle was also the same person who had ended up the relationship with his biggest well wisher, K Uncle, because his wife didn’t like K Uncle’s wife wearing the same sari at some party. “How can you take someone like that so seriously, Papa?” I had intentionally forced this incident upon my father’s recollection. He had laughed so hard at my comment. I had been successful at cheering him up because someone like J Uncle is not worth my family’s time. If he were to ever be diagnosed with Klinefelter's syndrome, I’d bet that one of the extra chromosomes would be for the vindictive nature of his. There is much more to being Nepali but it would be a sin if I wrap up my ramblings without alluding to one thing that signifies all and everything Nepali. It is a bundle of joy wrapped up with spicy meat and vegetables in flour of love and steamed up in heat of harmony. Momos, the ultimate super power, brings together all the Nepali people at times of joy and times of grief. My love for those cute little things knows no boundaries, for I have even planned on christening one of my kids as momo in the future. Even that J Uncle shamelessly showed up at our momo party after all that had transpired between him and my family. He slurped the achar, devoured dozens of them and even took home a dozen more. Maybe my intense dislike for that man doesn’t only root on his character as a person but also on the fact that he devoured my most favorite food in the world like a vulture over flesh and vanished without anyone’s notice. Last edited: 03-Nov-10 11:15 PM