Sajha.com

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: 2109 times [ Feedback]

Its 3am and I am still wide awake.
My mind running amok
Through the piles of possibilities,
to justify what you have said today.


Emotions frozen
it would be lame to dig my face under my arms and cry.
So I sit like a man
watching a corpse being cremated,
The cloud thickening into an integration of melancholies.


I sit here…
Empty
like my senses have been numbed
Bitter
like something must have gone wrong.


I have liked you, since the last ten years
it doesn’t matter.
If you know now,
you might say I’m insane
That doesn’t make you like me back.


I tried to express it
love
By drawing a circle
by referring to my emptiness
In a blinded hope that you will fill that vacuum
since someone had told me
Love doesn’t have a shape.


You try to form words
I never knew you were in a constant effort to form words
For me.
I contradicted myself
In loving you
And saying that love has no identity of its own.



My reality was never your reality.
Many times
You must have let love slip through your fingers,
gauged it,
Felt it inside out
and trashed it.


It was too late to realize
that love,
Came in bundles
Of beauty
Class
Color.


But I let it flow…
you know,
Let it metamorphose into abstractness
let it steal reality
Turn rose petals into a morbid artifact sometimes…
let it roam illegal.


I therefore still sit here
struggling to comprehend
Find a correlation may be,
between the cheap love songs
And the delirium of having loved someone…

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 07:48 AM ] | Viewed: 2034 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: 2311 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: 2374 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: 2007 times [ Feedback]