War and peace

Wow I have finished reading the epic War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy after putting it off twice earlier in my life. The first time I denied myself the treat of reading the book was when I was in class 12, I had brought it home from library but those days the studies used to be so tough that I just gave up the idea. Then I tried again three years back but the names were so confusing to me at that time that I again gave it up for the second time though it was always in the list of ‘books I want to read’ and I am so glad that I finished it. The book is simply amazing. In spite of being a canvass of almost five hundred characters, one is never entangled in conflicts or looses the track of the character. There is love, patriotism, hatred, war, self-conflicts, politics. It portraits the human life so well and one feels so much for the characters. To a wonder one does not loathe any of the characters; the enemies are given the due credits for the bravery.
Surprisingly I finished the epic of 1315 pages in mere six days thanks to no works at office and enough free time at home as well. Luckily no work has been pending because of the book. The epilogue is too beautiful the way it tries to deal with life, happiness, destiny, and rise and fall and so on. What a book?

Morning walk along the banks of Bagmati

I woke up lazily without any mood to go for a walk. This is always a case with me, I never set foot on the road by choice but once I am in the road, the feel is so pretty. I was lulled to sleep by cool breeze yesterday. Many times it feels so good, rejuvenating to be awoke for some time with lights switched off listening the fluttering leaves, a soothing music being swept by the breeze from a distant house. So many times I feel our chase for the bigger happiness and achievements conspires to keep us aloof from the smaller happy moments. Among so many other things I love doing in night one is to see the shimmering light in the hills, I feel as if they are telling a story to me. It is such a blissful experience unfortunately it is not possible to talk with those lights from the busy Kathmandu. Before the formal bowing of heads and recognition of each other begins, the lights from the ostentatious houses dazzle ones eyes and it does not allow the concentration to be build.
I don’t know when did I fell asleep but I was awake around 4:00PM though I was reluctant to get out of bed, I had this mild headache. Yesterday I got a hint that the abominable depression is back to haunt my life and soon everything will start to appear filthy and ugly. May be that was the reason today I was lethargic, lazier than any other mornings recently. Luckily after dragging myself to the road, I had some relief and soon I was walking along the banks of Bagmati River. The river is muddy and silent. Just few years back it roared on its path during monsoon but now it appears it is just tiptoeing to avoid the eyes of passersby. It has come a long way from the point of its origin flowing like snake and soon the drops of water get polluted as they come across human habitation. I wonder why this river had to take the snaky path. I know it has no strength to cut a new path today but once it had. Why it had to follow a rather difficult path of twist and turns. May be it is its generosity that it wanted to avail its water to every part of the terrain. Unfortunately the people for whom it exhibited such generosity so that they can raise farm, produce foods etc., are polluting it and it is loosing its identity. After draining a huge budget in the name of cleaning the river, many people got richer but the face of poor river has not changed. It will only be a narrow sewage as soon as this monsoon comes to end. Generation after generation, years after years it has been washing the holy Pashupatinath and the Guheshwori temple but even the almighty god has not listened to its woes.
Upset by the litters it tries to clean them on its own depositing the plastic bags, carcasses, jute sacks on the banks but it seems helpless. Its attempt to clean itself is futile, I fear in few years there will be no Bagmati. After a little walk along the bank I notice a small boy getting his smaller birdie out to eject the stream of his own into the revered river. Soon he was peeing and he moved from left to right and back as if he was watering the garden. I felt pity for the river. A little farther the monkeys were sipping the water from the river. I felt pity for them as well.
Now as I write this I remembered something. While returning back home, a truck honked its way toward some place flying the dust all over the area. Something got into my mouth and I was coughing and wheezing. I had a gob of cough in my mouth and spat it into the river. The river seemed to give me a mocking smile. I do not think I even have the right to feel pity for the river.

Just another morning

A beam of moonlight had brightened my room when I opened my eyes. It seemed as if the fairies had descended through that light into my room. It looked so beautiful early in the morning while my room still smelled of sleep. I looked into the sky through the window where the full moon seemed to be smiling back to me as if it were saying its not yet time to get up and I can slid into my blanket. The small piece of cloud which had cushioned the moon seemed to be glistening in gold. The moon really looked beautiful. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep or at least try to sleep though I knew it will be futile. At 5:00AM, I heard the fluttering of leaves and the sound like when someone sprinkles water into fried oil. I knew it was raining, may be the last rain of the season. The rain was not fierce rather gentle as if it were bidding goodbye to the earth to the flora promising them that it will be back next year. I pulled the curtain to look into the sky, the moon was not to be seen but the piece of cloud in the sky looked golden, it seemed to be emitting golden light and I knew the moon was inside this very cloud. May be it was letting the rain engage in farewell.
I could hear the movements of people on the road though the road is more than hundred meters away from the home. Early in the morning when the world is still sleeping sounds are clearer. I guessed the students must be hurrying to their morning colleges and other people marching on the road as their morning walk routine. It’s too early for the rain to bid goodbye but may be it was consoling the earth that its time for it to go and after a week or two it will be gone. May be it was pouring the water on the pores of soil so that the plants will be able to live on it. This is the motherly love of nature, I suppose. I expected a cooler day today. The fluttering of the leaves reminded me of mothers tucking their children to sleep lovingly patting their back over a lullaby while the leaves sounded like stubborn child wanting to hear more, the lullaby has ended and now they want to listen a story. The earth looks to me like a child clutching the end of his/her mother’s sari when she wants to go to work, to kitchen or for other homely choirs.
This ritual must have been there from the time the plants and lives sprang from the heart of earth and till today after thousands of years it looks equally blissful. A pigeon is sitting on the railing of my balcony. It must have set out to find food, bring the food back to its nest to feed its children. Unusually the pigeon looks calm just like the hostel warden who allows brief loving chat between the mother and the child even after the time to meet has expired. I hope soon it will warn cooing the rain and the leaves that the time is already over. I love this harmony. I want to see the world standing on my balcony but I don’t want to disturb the pigeon. I am equally pleased to watch its patience. Though except for houses I can see nothing from my balcony, I love greeting the morning from the very balcony and feel the whiff of air push my cheeks as if blessing from heaven. I could see the smooth feathers of the pigeon being drifted by the breeze, I envied it but still let it enjoy the morning glory. The atmosphere is sweet neither it is dark not its bright. The darkness and brightness have mixed with each other to create the color that is very difficult to describe albeit they will separate soon, very soon. The rain is already slowing down and the pigeon is moving its head cautious, may be its judging whether it can fly on or not and soon I see it hovering in the sky. It is no longer visible in a matter of seconds.

Happiness or money; a dilemma

I stepped out of office a little late than usual, not because I had work but just like that as if I wanted to see how it feels to stay a little late, when the rooms are empty, the counters silent, machines in sleep. I wore a T-shirt inside my shirt for no obvious reason and walking on the street I realized that it was a wrong decision. After shining throughout the day in its full glory the sun seemed reluctant to take a leave. The road as busy as always, and the dogs that slept in the pavement were no where to be seen as if they made room for people. The street children busy nagging people especially girls for alms.
On the other side of the road a boy was kicking a pebble; his hands inside the pockets of his rugged jeans. I thought he looked cool; what I liked however is his indifference to rest of the world. I came across a pebble as well and wanted to imitate him but thinking I might hit somebody I dropped the idea. Suddenly I realized the in spite of footpaths that run along same road but just on opposite side, my side hosted a huge crowd while the other side looked drowsy with few people strolling on it. My side would give an impression of some kind of public demonstration while the other side gave the hint of placidity. I found that funny and may be I gave a cynical smile as well.
Soon I found myself on the other side of the road, just before the door of a book shop. I crept into the book shop and the smell of the book liberated my soul when I left the shop my bag was heavier; I had bought three books. My mood was all of a sudden elated with the weight of the books.
Before me, a couple was walking who were talking about their young niece. From their talk I could know that there niece had gone abroad and missed home bitterly. That reminded me of my cousin who is in Australia and who I called this morning. Her ‘hello’ had sounded clumsy but when she heard me saying ‘Didi’ (sister) she was exhilarated. We do have warm relation still there have been never any occasion I had pleased her just by calling. I remembered her thanking me three times and I had phoned her casually, just to inquire how she was. I could read her excitement throughout the conversation. She talked to me without any punctuation inquiring about family; people we both know and about recent festivals, how we planned to celebrate the upcoming festivals etc. It was clear she missed home; I also know eventually she would adapt her new environment albeit she will have regrets for being on another country far away from her people. Just today I had commented on a blog where the writer said people held her as a traitor just because she chose to live her life in another country. I had told her how wrong the people were in her case because according to her she was doing better outside her country. In many other cases like in the case of my cousin; they are only tempted by higher payment abroad. Just for the sake of money they leave behind a good job, reputation to fly into another country where they have no identity and are doing jobs they didn’t even do at their home.
One of my colleagues who had a good job and a reputed life here in Nepal went to US where he is working at a restaurant cleaning dishes and doing other things. He was an executive in a government office here. He said he earns more than in Nepal but cannot enjoy what he earns, even his wife earns and because they work in different shifts they get to talk only in the weekend; even that if they do not have another engagement on the weekend. He has justification and has forced himself to believe whatever he did was the right move. He says his children are getting better education and their needs are being met. Many of my friends who went abroad for further studies are hanging there even after finishing their studies. Looking for opportunities is never a fault and one should grab it when it comes where it comes. But, completing a Master’s degree just to scrub floor, wash dish is something that is not justifiable. Had they been only a clerk in office that fitted their qualification would have been good. If they are enjoying whatever they are doing and content with it then its fine but if they are ignoring reputable jobs (though salary much much lesser than that of a janitor still enough to maintain reputable life ) in their own land, better to return home. Some people say its their struggle; what if the struggle has no prospect; even after struggling he/she will always remain in the similar job. Unfortunately many of them live illegally amid uncertainties.
My cousin sounded happier than last time, but she missed sitting in her cabin of her office assigning responsibilities to other being addressed with respect. Where ever a tree might move with its creepers it will always be fed from the place where it is rooted. Money is the most important thing; it’s the almighty but man yearns for other things as well. I do not say that just because one misses home and his/her people he/she should leave behind everything and return; I just want to say killing oneself just for money (and it gives no happiness) is not justified; at least not justified to me.

Human relations

The world simmered as Madan looked through the smoke rising from the fire that cremated his mother. After being bed-ridden for illness the doctored called old age for more than a month, she passed away silently god knows at what time. Shweta, her daughter had slept in the same room to be at her service if she wanted anything in the night or if she wanted to go to toilet. When she woke up, her mother’s face was brighter than it had been the other day. She had been brightening every day since last week and could speak. They thought she was recovering. She also recognized everyone then on but still refused to see her husband to whom she had been married for fifty five years. She didn’t allow him to enter the room they have shared for all those years since she got to bed, helpless and pale. No one understood what had happened to her that she denied her husband by whose side she had stood all her life. Hari, her husband had shifted himself to his grandson’s room who had been to hostel and wouldn’t come home for next three months.
It was something no-one understood why Uma behaved so mysteriously yet very cruelly to her husband. If he sneaked into a room when she was being sipped the soup, she would stop the next feed. If he came in her sight she would turn away and just shout ‘Go, Go, I don’t want to see you’. They tried to calm her but nothing would soothe her unless he was out of her sight. When she was in sleep or out of her conscious she would babble about the year of her marriage, how her in-laws treated her and how she could never satisfy her implacable mother-in-law, how she cried before her husband. She would remember the hard times when they suffered a huge loss when their grocery store turned to ashes in fire and how her husband consoled her saying everything will be fine soon. She remembered how once her only son had nearly died of pneumonia and how the witch doctor had advised her that the case was to be seen by doctor. She said how much she was indebted to the witch doctor for saving her son. She would often remember the time Shweta was born and how she loved to dance in the courtyard.
Shweta had been with her since her mother was bed-ridden. She nursed her, ensured that her bed was clean and to be there during her natural urges. More than love for her mother, it was the greed for heaven whose comfort and luxury will be bestowed upon if she cared for her ailing parents, she had dedicated herself entirely to her mother’s service. She has been a devoted protégé of a saint who told stories from holy books and who said he can guide people abode heaven if they listened to him and practiced his preaching. He always told the greatest route to heaven was through the selfless service to one’s parents and there she was on her selfless service. But as she dedicated herself entirely to her mother’s service she had forgotten her Guru, the holy saint. The incoherent monologue of her mother had made her feel that whether she gets heaven or not she ought to take care of her mother because she had undertaken so much pain to raise her and her brother. In this one month she had really fell in love with her mother and only she knows how much she had wished to see her mother back to her normal life. The monologues also made her clear that her mother was not ignoring her father out of hatred, she had learnt her mother still loved her father probably more than she ever did. But she could never know why she was despising him, ignoring him, resenting him.
At the age seventy-three, Hari never resented the wishes of his wife he was married to at the age of 18. He abided by whatever she wanted like a child. He seemed to know the reason behind the changed behavior of his wife. He would watch her hiding behind the windows but his concealment was more from the world than from his wife. If he found her alone asleep he would go near her, moved his wrinkled hand over her forehead as if he were trying to soothe her, as if he were trying to share the agony his ailing wife was going through. If someone came he would just walk away as if he had come to the room casually to pick something. He talked lesser and one would rarely see him without holding cigarette in his hand. He avoided eye contacts with everyone. He would always stay at home not even go out for a walk in evening to meet his old friends to chat about anything. However he continued his morning walk but he returned soon. He was worried but somber. He rarely exchanged words with his son, daughter, daughter-in-law and the house maid.
The day before Mira died, Hari had stolen a look of her but she caught him. This time she didn’t resent, she looked at him with her frail eyes and dropped a tear. He saw it, Shweta saw it and so did Madan his son. May be Mira wouldn’t have resented if he had gone to her, sat by her and held her hand which he had so much wanted all this month but he didn’t. The drop of tear barred him from approaching her. He didn’t sleep that night but he didn’t even go to the room where his wife was. The next day she was dead, he behaved as if he knew it and was actually waiting for it. He had lost his soul the time he knew what was coming.
Shweta was wailing he stood before her and moved his hand over her head where the hair had already turned gray. He didn’t say a word. Madan was sitting by the body of his mother, looking at her holding the cold hand.
Now they were on the bank of the river. Mira’s existence was slowly vanishing with the smoke and the world simmered. Madan stood by the fire. He remembered the days in his childhood when his leg was broken after falling in a ditch. When he was alone in the room while his mother was busy in the kitchen, his sister assisting the mother and his father still in the grocery, he used to think what if his parents died. He used to get emotional and would shed tears. He used to feel terrified and orphaned. Throughout his childhood he feared the fact that his parents would die one day. He felt really bad to see his mother’s body turn to ashes but this was less easier than the burden of thought of this moment in his childhood. He thought the importance of his parents had dropped after he got married and especially after his son born. His father sat over a small carpet of straw cross legged. His eyes were focused on the burning body but Madan knew he was seeing something else.
The funeral was finished, the world was same. Hari had shifted to his room voluntarily. He had given up smoking the same day his wife was burnt. He rarely came out of the room. He ate little. He needed tea every next hour earlier but now he behaved as if he didn’t know as if there was something like tea existed in the world. The newspaper lay unopened in his table and his bed looked as if no one had slept in it for a long time.
During his childhood, Madan had watched movies where mother protected their child when they did something wrong from the wrath of their father. Madan thought why showed opposite things. In his life he was more afraid of his mother than his father. His father always protected him and even if Mira chided at the children he shouted back at her. Mira always complained that Hari had spoilt the children. When he returned from school he would go to the grocery store and sit on the lap of his father telling him how was his day at school, telling him the colors of news bags of his friends, how his teachers appreciated his sincerity, how his handwriting was better than that of his friends etc. With the passage of time he became closer to his mother than his father. It was not any intentional decision but it just happened. When he used to come to home from his hostel in city he talked less with his father. If his father came to the room where he was talking with his mother he would just stop talking. He never resented his father but was getting awkward before him, till date he does not know the reason. They did talk about so many things but Madan knew something had changed for ever.
Lately they talked still lesser as if they were neighbors. Sometime they talked about politics, business but there was always uneasiness between them. When his mother resented his father he had wanted to sit by his father consoling him, supporting him but he never did. Hari talked with his daughter-in-law, his wife about almost everything but not with Madan as if he didn’t want to embarrass his son who used to feel awkward before his father.
After the death of his mother, Madan would enquire about his father. He liked to know what his father did in the day, what did he eat and if he liked it or not. He once went to his room but found him lying in bed his face turned to other side. He walked out pulling the door slowly behind him. He knew his father was not asleep but wanted to be alone and he felt more awkward. Once while returning home he saw his father on the rooftop looking at the sky as if he were forming some image probably that of his mother. He had learnt by then why his mother resented his father on her last days. She knew she would die and she wanted to disconnect herself from the world. Had her husband been around dying wouldn’t have been easier, she didn’t want to die with a burden. She wanted to believe that she loved no-one, she didn’t want to care for anyone when she died. He thought his father knew this and that is why he had become a different man.
All his life he remembered his mother asking his father to give up cigarette. She always complained about his cigarette and he listened to her smiling but never gave up. He hadn’t seen a cigarette in his hand from the day his mother had died. Now he believed that his father smoked just to irritate his mother, just to listen to her complaints and just to smile.
Madan’s relationship with his wife had just been fine. They took each other for granted. He always came home tired and they talked little. He had altogether forgotten to notice the color of her saree, the new hair style of hers or her makeup. The frequency of their making love had been dwindling. They made love hardly once or twice and this was just a ritual for them. He didn’t resent her either, he thought its in his nature to get tired of relationships fast. His relationship with his wife was similar to his relationship with his father. Many times he fell to sleep long before his wife came to their room after finishing her choirs and the daily TV programs which she was fond of. When he woke up she would have usually busy in the kitchen. Still they talked almost like any other husband wife, knew each other’s preferences and may be loved each other as well.
He remembered his mother complaining her father failing to take care of himself. She would say ‘only after I die, you will know my value’. She had died and may be his father had come to know her value. Once he saw the door of his father not completely closed, one could peep into the room. He looked into the room, his father stood before a big picture of his wife inside a wooden frame. He was looking into the picture without blinking. Drops of tears rolled down his cheek. Madan wanted to rush to his father embrace him saying ‘Papa, do not feel lonely I am here. Tell me what you want. Tell me what I can do to make you feel better’ but he didn’t.
His parents’ happiness knew no bounds when his son was born. He would never forget how their eyes had shed tears of happiness in the passage of hospital. They said that was the happiest day of their lives. His son Mohit grew in the lap of his grandparents. They got him everything he wanted. They protected him when he committed mistakes and Madan and his wife reproached him. He thought his son was being spoilt by too much love and he had decided to send him to the boarding school. He resented going to boarding school. He hated to stay away from his grandparents. His mother cried all the day when Mohit was sent to boarding school, his father had lost the color of his face. He had taken away the happiness from their life and he felt guilty for it. He however was ready to live with guilt than to see his son being spoilt.
Today after seeing his father standing helpless before the photo of his mother he had made a decision. Next day he rang to the boarding school asking if he can withdraw his son from the hostel and dropped him to school everyday. It could have been difficult but the Principal had been his childhood friend who agreed. He just wanted to give life to his father who was already broken. Next evening he brought Mohit back from his hostel, Mohit ran to his grandfather who embraced him as if a falling man holds the only twig as a support. He cried for the first time after the death of his wife. It took a lot of effort for Madan to hold his own tear. That night he made love to his wife without thinking when did he made love last time. This was no ritual, he reclaimed his lost love.

A walk to my office

I looked at the sky with a thankful face for not being very hot. I watched my steps as I walked on the pavement. It is no longer a new path after passing a year in this office, it’s among things I have known still cannot tag it as ‘my’. I have no intimacy with this path and I don’t think it has any towards me. I am just one of the thousands of people who hammer their foot into it. In this one year, this path has been same not even a small change. I have never strolled upon it just to check how it is. I didn’t know how does it look till today though I have walked on it innumerable times. Even today I had no intention of watching it but I did. I couldn’t ignore the stones carved into it as I watched my foot nimble to my office. The stones were cut to create a special pattern. The gaps which couldn’t have been greater than half inch gave impression as if it were the lines cut by a fish as it swam in the water. It had a rhythm though very oblivious. The blue lines about 4 inches thick cut across at places looked like some kind of scars. Had there been some other lines with different colors I would have thought the street looked like the painted face of a football spectator in some kind of tournament. It is possibly one of the cleanest paths in the city as it enjoys to be positioned in front of the palace. It is also one of the least busy paths in the city as it does not host any offices, restaurants, molls etc. But it does have beggars and their family. The beggars are either women with children or elderly people. The women have their toddlers held in their lap or are unleashed to crawl around on their own. When there are children people tend to stop by and offer at least something. I wonder what does the future hold for these children, may be they are destined to be beggars themselves or the rag pickers. When vehicles stop on the signals the older children rushes to knock the windows of the vehicles, get their hands inside the vehicles asking for alms which can be food or money. If you give them some cash they will slip it in their pockets and if you give them coins they will allow them to remain in their bowls. I feel as if the street watches them in silence, it watches them when they take nap under their umbrellas, when they eat from a single plate and when their mothers reproaches them for not being able to get something from the passersby. They come to the road just like I come to my office. I don’t know where they live but I can say for certain they do not spend their night on that road.
I noticed something more, this road, this pavement is always clean, cleaner than any other pavements in the city except for some dogs’ droppings and the excreta of these beggars. On the other side of the road trees droop through the once royal fence. They look like old tall men bent to pick something from the ground. The shades of these trees make the other side cooler but the foul smell of birds’ droppings make the walk on that side really painful. I can see the faces that have been voluntarily wrinkled by the passers by to avoid the smell on the other side. While most of the men use their hand to put over their nose, women and girls have their handkerchiefs. I cannot say by this sight if men use handkerchiefs lesser than women or if few men carry handkerchiefs as compared to their female counterparts.
On my side of the road, there are guards with machine guns on the gate of American Embassy. This is just a wing, the main office is not here. I look at them, there have been no problems in this area, no terror threats, no nothing so they are less alert. However when the door opens they stand firm and rigid. I do not know if these same guards stand their and even now as I write this I do not remember their faces. They are joking with each other. Now I am at the cross-road and I have to move into another street, my office is just a minute walk from here. I won’t be back to this street until tomorrow as I use another route while returning.

Contradiction

Sirish held the book that had been lying there for more than a week, lying on his dusty table one of which leg was broken and was supported with bricks. When he held the book in his hand, the ashes of cigarette fell to his foot. He didn’t remember who had brought the book in his small shack. He had not read anything for a long time but he didn’t like the smell of the book and dropped it as if he had caught something filthy and abominable. He realized what he had done just now and smiled, it was a smile of self contempt because he had realized he had been in the same trousers for more than a week, his shirt stink. His smile said the book was far better than his body, its smell was a fragrance before the odor of his body.
He had been an unsuccessful writer, then a successful writer, then a lost writer and finally the discovered writer. He had been introvert since he can remember himself. He does not remember having any friends since thirty years, now he was thirty eight years of age. He had a friend in his primary school and Gaurav was his name. He was really very fond of Gaurav. Once when he was eight he woke up scared and shivering. He had a nightmare. He saw two tall men with long white hair clad in long white gown. Their face was expressionless but scary. They were dragging a child by his arm and the child was crying, get him out of the men’s hold. Sirish couldn’t identify who the child was but he knew he knows the child. They were now very far and the child turned to Sirish, his tears had dried in his face but it was very bright face. It was Gaurav. Sirish woke up scared. Next day Gaurav didn’t come to school, the other day the school was closed because Gaurav had died the day before. He had died in his bed and no one knew what had happened to him. Since then Sirish has no friends. Even after thirty years he remembers the dream clearly, he still fears it. He can see that bright face with tears dried on the cheek.
He loved writing, he had been writing for a long time. He didn’t know in his writings he talked to Gaurav, his only friend who was still alive in his thoughts in his sub-conscious. The dream and the event that followed had brought permanent changes in his life. He grew up without any interest, without affection for anyone and indifferent to everything. He had a brother who was two years older than himself and who was too good in everything. He spent all his childhood scribbling things and tearing them fearing someone will read them. He loved reading, books brought before him the world he wanted to see but he feared. He grew up writing stories that always had tragic end, that spoke of loneliness, of vagaries of life, of sadness etc. His parents thought he had no future and were really worried. Once his parents thought about talking to him seriously about his intentions, his objectives and opinions, obviously he won’t speak. He was sixteen then. His father got irritated and yelled ‘you will be able to do nothing, always be a burden, you are sickeningly hopeless’. The next day he left his home without saying a word to anyone.
He wandered around the heartless city of Kathmandu hungry and tired. He worked in a small tavern as a call boy. The owner was a strongly built man and a gay. One day the owner tried to seduce him and he ran away. He worked as a newspaper boy, running with newspaper. Once he showed his stories to the man from whom he bought his newspaper. The man liked it and said he would talk with the publishers if his stories could be posted. His story was published next week and since then he has been writing stories, articles, poems for different papers. Whatever he got was enough to pay for his food, rent, ink and papers after all he never wanted to live a lavish life. He never made any opinion about lavishness, it simply didn’t exist for him. He hated writing in newspapers, magazines, he hated his readers if they ever existed but he had to live.
At the age of twenty-six he thought he had a story that could be converted into a novel. The plot could not be a story, it had to be a novel as there were so many incidents and required so much detail. It took him two years to complete his three-hundred and fifty eight paged novel. When he ended it, he had a feeling of triumph, he didn’t know what had he earned but he knew it was the most wonderful day of his life. He had fallen in love with what he had written, he had fallen in love with the character. It was a story of a revolutionary, who believed in what he fought, for whom he fought. He believed whatever his mentor was doing was for the global cause for the entire man kind unless he discovers how his mentor had misguided him to rise to power. He thought he had presented his character better than anyone had did in the books he had read. He thought it was his revolution. He wanted to show it to the world, for the first time he wanted to get atop a hill and yell at the world about his triumph. He took the manuscript to a publisher who he knew for a long time now and who seemed to have appreciation for his work.
Everyday he would plan how he would make his meeting with the publisher an accident and where should he find him. For over a month he met the publisher more than fifteen times yearning to hear something from him. He always had this stern look and cold smile in his face. He was let down. He had given up hopes. One evening he was sitting on his bed watching a spider knitting its web when a young boy came telling him the publisher wanted to see him. His work was published. 500 copies were printed. A year later they said the book couldn’t be popular. A newspaper had a rave review saying the author was naïve and the plot was too weak. His hatred to the world against the people only grew up. He sought support in alcohol.
Three years after the book was published, it had only sold 200 copies. Four years back, an interview came in a newspaper. The title was hearty tete-a-tete with the national litterateur Mr…. One of the questions asked ‘what do you do in your spare time?’, his reply was ‘I prefer reading books among other things’.
‘What are you reading these days?’
‘Diary of a Professor’
‘Can you name few books you have really appreciated?’
The answer to that question changed Sirish life. The national litterateur mentioned Sirish’s book as one of his favorite. Next week the publisher printed thousand more copies which was sold within three days. The newspaper carried reviews according to which the book was the jewel in contemporary literature; it was simple yet very touching. People wanted to meet him. Press wanted interview, they wanted to know about his background, his source of inspiration. He ran from one place to another before slipping into Indian border. He stayed there for two years, his books were creating waves. It was already awarded few prizes and had become a best seller. They now had the book in university syllabus. He was again a waiter in an Indian hotel, cleaning dishes, scrubbing floor. They found him few months later after his picture was published in a magazine.
Corporate people who produced films came to see him when he refused to see them in posh hotels and restaurants. He was back in Kathmandu in his shack. He didn’t want to write, he had forgotten to hold a pen. Alcohol had weaken him. No-one gave filthy job to a celebrity writer and he was fighting with hunger. Corporate people were pressing him to give them the copyright. They wanted to bring some changes, fit a woman in the character’s life, add some love making scenes. He knew his character will die if film was made the way they wanted it. The novel was the only earning of his life, only thing that made him feel like a human not a filthy insect. He couldn’t see his work being raped but hunger bit him hard and he succumbed. The day he signed the agreement he lost sleep, the dream he had seen at the age of eight was back if he closed his eyes. They gave him less than half of the money they had agreed to pay. He didn’t care, he thought whatever he had could keep him alive for two years and he didn’t expect to live after that. The dreams haunted him again and again but the child didn’t turn his face toward him the way he had done thirty years back. The film released. The character he had portrayed as strong, confident was converted into a chocolate looking young man, who sang songs with his lover. The lover didn’t exist in the novel. He felt his stomach shrink when he saw the hero giggling with his friends, talking about girls, making love. He didn’t watch the complete movie. After a long struggle he fell asleep, there was the same dream. There were fringes in his face, he was scared. This time the boy turned his face, it was the face of eight year’s Sirish. He woke up shivering, drank a glass of water. He feared to go back to sleep but he hated to remember the film. A week later the neighbors complained foul smell coming from his shack, they broke in and the dangling body of Sirish greeted them. It was pale, the eyes protruded and his tongue drooped.

Titleless

A thick white cloud rests on the foot of the hill as if it were a muffler the hill had wrapped around it to avoid cold. Its not a clear evening, the sky the kites wanted to touch a while ago now seems serene and somber. The kids are playing in groups, a group playing football, another doing gymnastic on the heap of sand while others are chasing each other. I sit on my balcony in the second floor feeling lethargic, following the trail of the day slipping into the night. My old neighbor is sitting in his verandah listening the radio, listening to some music I do not recognize.
Weekend is just a part of routine though different from the weekdays. I have finished all money and there is still a whole week to go before I get my salary. I had enough money until something took me into the bookshop. It looked so full of life, so energetic, in its best seller’s rack more books had arrived. Before I could say anything the seller made a call, spoke to someone and they hung up. He smilingly said he had asked someone to get the book I had been asking for last few weeks, from the go down. I worried if I had sufficient money for the book. I looked at all the books carefully, I wanted to have few of them but I had no money. In situation like these I feel so irritated, I feel so worthless that I cannot even afford cheaper interests of mine. I will have few of them next month. But I already have two books waiting to be read. I usually do not postpone reading but for unknown reasons, I have pushed the book inside the drawer. After reading first few pages I learnt the book would not be a smooth reading, I could not have the flow. I need to do analysis with almost every sentences, may be re-read many paragraphs still wondering what it wanted to say. I usually do not read books like these, but then I have paid for it so cannot avoid either.
I had read the book and found it interesting thought it was what I had expected it to be, almost a difficult read. I know I won’t finish this book soon so it will suffice for this month. I was sitting in the balcony with this book but then closed it to look at the silhouette of the hills and the games of the children. The huge tree that stands behind the small house by the street looks melancholy. Just before it another bushy tree stands. It almost looks like a picture of two brothers with a huge age difference between them. The house is sparsely visible, as if it were eyes of some animal behind the bush.
I won’t say my mood has been somber today because just a while ago I was chattering with a friend. It was the usual non-sense stuffs like that of teen agers. I do not know how the mood of the tree had been if it has any. I do not remember how it looked when I was standing in the balcony some time earlier; I had only noticed the kites flying under the white clouds which looked like the beard of Santa Claus. Darkness is already making its presence felt and soon it will be dark. I believe there won’t be moon tonight, it will be veiled behind the clouds. I do not remember seeing stars for a long time, I do not know if I missed them.
The streets are less crowded as being a weekend most people are inside their home. The tree is slowly fluttering as if it were some servant fanning the master to keep him cool or to chase the flies away.

Love

Her body still rested against mine when I woke up. I found her touch irritatingly hot. The same body I had yearned to hold, squeeze and play yesterday was detestable now. I had a mild headache but could not tell which part of my head was aching. It was bright outside the window and without switching the lights on I could see it was 7:00. More than the headache I was conscious about the irritation. Not always I get this kind of irritation after I wake up to remember I had made love to someone. But for yesterday ‘making love’ will be inappropriate as there were no smallest tints of love, I had slept with her, moved over her up and down. I didn’t enjoy it, I did it just like a cadet salutes his commander, he does not enjoy the process of saluting, hitting his boots forcefully on the earth, raising his chest high, see straight but not on the face but behind it, I felt like the cadet. I did it as if it was my duty and if I don’t do it, I won’t get paid.
I had met her in the pub but I had known her since she was a small girl. When she was born I must have been twenty-five or twenty eight and now I am forty eight. She is the daughter of my friend, a casual friend not a good one. I think he doesn’t like me, after all he is a family man not a women hound, a philander like me. I could see fringes in his face whenever his daughter talked to me though we never had a formal two way communication. Since we live in the same neighborhood I pass by his house every time I have to go some where and whenever I see them I greet them but most of the time its smile. Even when he greets back to me, I see contempt in his face, his eyes look scornful. I did recognize his daughter but I never thought about her, I didn’t know the shape of her nose, size of her breasts, posture of her body, color of her eyes etc.
In the pub she had come with some friends of her and when our eyes met she had smiled. It was just a formality; she would have smiled the same way if there was a milkman whom she knew, at my place. An hour later, she was tipsy and so were her friends. They were making lot of noise. They came towards the door where I was leaning against a pillar like a statue, I thought they were leaving. She was unable to hold herself and when she came toward me, she told her friends “He will leave me home, he is my uncle, my father’s friend and my neighbor”. Her friends left her without saying anything. I would have stayed for some time but now I had this responsibility so I put her in a taxi and sat by her. The taxi driver drove towards our home. Her hands were around my neck and she was talking something in random, it was about her father, her boyfriend who had left her a year back and her new boyfriend who was a coward. She said she wanted to enjoy life and her father was a tyrant who wouldn’t let her do so. I didn’t care just took out a cigarette and was smoking inside the cab. I must have puffed the smoke twice or thrice she looked at my face and said she hated cigarette, she took it from my lips and threw it. She had thrown cigarette without looking towards the window and instead of throwing it through the window on my side, she threw it towards the other window and it landed on the seat. I got it and threw it. She was still clinging by my neck. The taxi driver looked through the mirror and asked me if she was my niece. I said yes nonchalantly. We were at her house and I told her, her home had come but she won’t get out. She said her father will be very angry. I said even then she had to go upon which she said she wanted to go to my house. I said I couldn’t take her, she almost slapped me and gave a sardonic smile. She said “you can take so many of those bitches to your home, why not me”, I wanted to tell her she was not one of those bitches yet I asked the driver to roll on and we were in my home. I gave her a glass of lime water and sat her on the sofa. She didn’t speak a word for half an hour and kept sitting on the sofa with her eyes closed. She sat straight as if she were meditating. When she spoke after half an hour she sounded much better. She wanted to go to bathroom where she puked, washed herself and came to me. She looked sober but her tone was still unclear, she asked me to show her my bedroom. I took her to my bedroom like a servant escorting his master to his room. Without saying anything she fell into my bed. I bent to see if she was alright, she had me in her embrace and I couldn’t hold myself and fell onto her. I wanted to get rid of her embrace but she won’t leave me. There was lightening in the sky and the brightness fell into her face, she looked innocent. Her eyes were big. She gave me a scared look when the light fell into her face. She was all sober I wanted to believe though I knew I was wrong now but wouldn’t let me go. She asked me why don’t I make love to her. She slipped her hands into my shirt. I have no idea why I had been avoiding her but now I knew there would be no denial. I started working on her and there she was naked before me, I could see her like a shadow. I might have wanted to see her in light but I didn’t care, more than that it was all an accident and I was unprepared. I was over her and our body lay stretched against each other. All of a sudden she pushed me and I was in the bed yet I could feel the soft arm touching my arms. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t think what was happening. She asked if its sane. I didn’t know if she was mocking me or talking to herself. Now I rolled over her, caressing her, squeezing her breasts feeling her whole body like a blind man feeling something strange to learn about its structure. I touched her lips and looked at her, she looked pretty. I thought every woman looks pretty when one is making love. She held me hard, her hand clasped my back. She asked me if I love her. I have hated that word ‘love’. It is so disturbing. I don’t know when I am giving everything I have to her, I have submitted myself to her woman still wants more. When I have not loved women I have known for a long time, slept with so many times. How can I love her, who didn’t even exist for me just an hour ago. How can she even think I might love her? My all excitement was gone, my brutality had ceased. I felt filth engrossing me. I hated her and wanted to throw her out. She must have seen that filth in my face as her hands freed me, I felt she was watching me. Now her hands were raised above her head as if it was a sign of submission, as if I were holding revolver against her. My body did what it had learnt to do against a naked woman, I took no pleasure. I didn’t even feel tired. It was like drinking pegs after pegs expecting the next peg will inebriate me and every peg let me down. I don’t recall when I fell asleep. When I woke up she was still asleep, when I tried to get out of the blanket I saw her bare buttocks. She didn’t get up, I thought she might be dreaming about being at home bearing the tyranny of her father. I didn’t wake her up, I had to go out. I left the room but as I pulled the knob of the door I looked at her, she seemed to smile in sleep. I wondered if she really enjoyed whatever happened last night. I left her like one leaves a whore in the whorehouse after sleeping with her whole night. I felt a little guilt when I put her in the position of a whore and I was surprised at this guilt. I left her and when I returned home in the evening a paper was stuck on the door which said the keys are under the door mat. It was such a humorous moment, if she had locked my house thinking the thieves might break in how could she put that pamphlet which everyone could see. She was so naïve and that was the first time I felt the real guilt, this guilt didn’t surprise me however.

A conversation

“That is not what I meant”, it was almost a desperate plea. I have never liked this tone of him especially when he talks with me. To be true I have never heard him making pleas like these before others so may be I won’t like it even if he spoke in that way to other.
Since he came, I sat on the sofa just under the window. It was a hot day and I had wished to have a bath more than twice. I was so much busy in my work that I didn’t notice some silly guest had pulled the curtains off and the rays of sun descended directly into the sofa. Now as he took a position in the sofa, the rays of sun seemed to stab him like a dagger. I had asked him to pull the curtains but he said he was alright. Streams of sweat ran behind my ears while his nose had tiny beads of sweat and his forehead seemed to have been washed.
I have always liked to talk to him, I talk to him as if he were my alter-ego. He thought I mocked him but I never intended to do so. We have been having discussions like these from almost the same day we first met and from the first day he had the impression that I mocked him and despised him. He thought I talked illogical but he lacked logics to prove I was illogical. He thought I always defeated him and I always felt miserable that I had him more confused. Many times I believed in what he believed but still I wanted to know why he believed that way and we ran into incessant discussion. He used to get annoyed, I believe had we been some teen-agers he would have fell few teeth of mine as he was stronger than me. He thought I despised him and always looked for chances to insult him, hurt him even then he kept coming to me for no reasons. I thought it had now become some kind of game we had learnt to enjoy, he was adamant that one day he will beat me. I sounded confident to him but I knew my confidence was ostentatious, in fact I wanted to find logics through him to approve what I felt was correct but rarely he made me happy.
From the time I knew him, he was attracted to communist ideologies. That time he only believed in it but never worked to enroll others in his belief or worked like a political volunteer. These days he is charmed by the Maoists. He said he always wanted to see a class-less society, where workers the real movers ruled the country. I doubted his term ‘workers’ only involved those who does manual labor. His workers seemed to fail to cover the planners or the brains that thought manual labor can actually bring out product. He feels their target of achieving a class-less society was possible, he thought capitalism prohibits development and in ten years we can actually change the face of the country. I knew even his so called beliefs were entangled in confusions. Slowly he had started despising those who earned good fortune. He was starting to hate those who had huge buildings, who had cars, whose children studied in expensive schools. I argued man has always right to earn for himself, to enhance his life style, to earn luxury for himself and for those he cared. Now he said, the first concern of a man should be his society, those who live around him. He said we are human because we can think, we have the power to make things better so we should channel our energy and capabilities in a common cause.
I said with a smile that he was sounding like an idealist and the world has now come to believe ideals do not lead to an ideal society. I knew more than my words he scorns my smile. He finds my smile mocking. He hates me when I put my counter point with smile.
I added that to think for himself first is the nature of every human being and those who are denying it are hypocrites. Everyone who has amassed enough wealth is not criminal, most of them worked hard and their work paid them enough.
The country was in the most crucial stage of civil war and the warlords had fed most of their frontiers with unscrupulous ideologies. They had made them believe that utopian society was possible. They filled the brains of youth with rebellious ideas and contempt for those who were well off. They had poured hatred inside their ignorant brains. My friend was not ignorant; he was only confused and easily convincible unless the one who is convincing was not me.
He had gone to some rural areas of country and the condition of people left an impression in him that he left his government job saying he is fed up with this feudal system and will now join hands to bring down the feudal system ran by the corrupts, richs and oppressor.
I do not remember how I instigated him that he said, had it been possible he would wipe out all the rich people and distribute their wealth to the poor ones. I asked him what will that do upon which he said there will be equality. I said then why doesn’t he wipe out the poor ones instead. He said the destitute had done no wrong to which I said earning wealth is not a crime either. I added one cannot kill someone because he works hard. This was the reason behind his desperate plea in the first line.
Collectivism and common benefit are only fancy terms, I said. The developed countries are richer because they do not indulge in these silly hypothesis and ideologies, they believe in results. Communism has utterly failed and even those countries with the strong holds of communists are adopting capitalist principles. He said that was not true, communism will never fail. It was unsuccessful in some countries because the capitalists and imperialists kept strangling it. I said anything that is stronger in itself won’t fall down just because other forces stood on its way. He should admit the failure in a good spirit.
He shrugged out of irritation whatever I told him only ascertained him further that I was a implacable nerd, a hideous representative of the feudal system.

The question of identity

The streets bore the same rush, the season’s Sun was high above the head of the passers by and at distant heavy clouds seemed to be looking for a proper time to veil the Sun. There was no hint the clouds will succeed soon, but then there were sounds in the sky, back in our childhood days when the sky roared we said God’s stomach was upset. This thought left a smile with tints of embarrassment. But these innocent things are what make our childhood so special. There was more traffic in the road which suggested the fuels may have been available more easily. In a police truck the Tibetan refugees chanted the slogans of free Tibet waving the flag of free Tibet. I am not a stern believer in patriotism; to me it sounds just propaganda. But for the Tibetans the fight was more for the identity than the voice for patriotism. To being swept away from one’s culture, to be cut from one’s root is unbearable. During the days of conflict here in my own country, there was a man who lived in our neighborhood who earned his livelihood selling fruits in push cart while his wife roasted maize under the scorching sun. I felt pity for them not only for them for every other person who had to engage is such a tiring and painstaking manual labor. World is not just for everyone. Later this man came to work as a laborer when we were building the fence wall. One evening I overheard him talking with my father, he was from remote district of the country where he had plenty of land, a house of his own and herds of cattle. He was well off with the paddy, wheat and milk he sold but then he was exiled by the Maoists. He said his only fault was he worked hard and even his luck favored and he managed to earn a good fortune. He said the local rebels held every well off men as the oppressor and they claimed their property as the property of the people. He had three children, a daughter and two sons. When he fled into the city he stayed at his relatives’ place but he could not stay at somebody else’s home so moved from there. He said he had three servants including a shepherd and two domestic help but there he was working as a wage earner himself. It was terrible for me. The victims of wars are not the ones who are directly involved but those who come between the warring factions. His two sons were enrolled in a government school while he could not afford to send his daughter to school. Whatever be the situations the first victims are always the women. I wondered why didn’t he send one son and daughter to school. More than that I believe government schools are cheap and till some grade they do not even take fees. The daughter was deprived from education because she had to assist her mother in roasting the maize. He had lost his identity. He said back in his village they called him ‘Thula ghare karki dai’ (Karki brother with the big house) but here every body called him ‘Mote Ram’ (Fat Ram). He said in his village no body dared to take his name and here he had to bear with the insults, reproach and hatred. He said his heart wreak when he remembered his village, his home, his cattle, however far he was from his home and his village he had left his heart back there. To leave a place by choice is different from being exiled from that place. Usually a place where one lives is not a cluster of few buildings, trees, fields etc. it’s a place which has given him/her the identity. At Kathmandu, I always felt the place was worse, it is crowded, it stinks, its noisy and heartless. When I went to Trishuli which was peaceful, in the lap of green hills with the mighty Trishuli river snaking its way to the sea hundreds of miles away I missed Kathmandu. This is the place I was born, this is the place where my parents lived, this is the place where I went to school, this is the place where I learnt to speak. I complained about Kathmandu all the time when I was here but when I was away from the place and anyone spoke ill about the Kathmandu I used to get defensive. Yet Trishuli and Kathmandu belongs to same country. Even when I was in Kathmandu I was in Nepal and when I was in Trishuli I was still in Nepal. I wondered how would the refugees feel when they are living on the mercy of another country, where no one knows there identity, wherever they go they encounter strange faces, people with strange culture, who speak strange language and who treat you like a stranger. Mind it they are not on vacation but it’s rather a kind of arrest. They do not know where their folks are, what has happened to the home where they had imprinted their first footsteps, where they had started witnessing the world, where the sun woke them up every morning, where the moon tucked them to bed. They couldn’t measure their land in their feet back at home and here they are confined to handful of earth. Somewhere someone is crushing their culture, their identity, their home.

Think,think, think

To think is not our need but thinking is most of us are doing most of the time. My ‘us’ implicates those who have free time, who can stare at the ceiling lying at the bed and wonder the nothingness, the vacuum, may be the confused ones. Then why are we confused probably because we think too much too unnecessarily. When there are many options one has to evaluate them, evaluate them under so many conditions real conditions and hypothetical ones, and that is where we think again. My thoughts are usually futile but it does not mean I cannot think anything fruitful. It only means I cannot make myself think fruitful things most of the time. Now what are fruitful things, again one has to think about it. Go to your boss asking if something has been decided he says he is thinking, ask your friend if he is willing to go for a movie this weekend and the reply will be ‘let me think’. But if we didn’t think why would we have this thing called head the most protective part of human body. If we didn’t need to think why the Mother Nature would put head above our neck. The head is again the most important and complex structure, every thing we do consciously and unconsciously is there in the head. It’s the thought center.
So many things provoke us and we are thinking. Crowd makes us think why there are so many us and loneliness makes us think why are we alone? Think, think and think. If it rained I will think why did it rain and if it’s a sunny day I will think why it didn’t rain. Do we think because there are too many options, too many possibilities, or we think just because we have a head? We pain ourselves thinking what is love, what is life, how will the world be if this had been thus and so on. When we start thinking little too much that is the process of growing up. When we see the confusions too much that it should have been we become matured. Most of us think so that we could affect the outcome influence it to be better or worse. If there is something called destiny like every thing is planned kind of thing does our preferring one way over other influence what we get.
I ran into this thought while I was thinking. I thought why did we think? Just for no reason or just because I had time to be silly, time to think. Many times I am engrossed in thoughts till I have a headache and that is not what I expect. I already think I have thought too much for this day. I think I should stop here.

"A Thousand Splendid Suns", a wonderful story

The last book of Khaled Hosseini ‘The kite runner’ had brought lumps on my throat while his ‘A thousand splendid suns’ gave the final stroke. Last evening sitting in my low bed with one hand holding the book, I saw the papers wet, it had brought tears. I had felt the pain a little earlier but when I finally couldn’t stop I didn’t know. I didn’t know when did the tears roll but there they were in the book. I realized the cup of tea which had been brought earlier had become cold, it had entered my room an hour earlier. I do not remember who had brought it, I only remembered I had asked him/her to put the tea in the table near by. I had been reading the book from Wednesday morning and couldn’t postpone the pages to be turned; I had finished it in two days.
I hadn’t picked the book intentionally. I had in fact gone in search of another book and when the seller said he didn’t have that book, I just took a walk in the store to fall upon something interesting where I picked Khaled Hosseini. I read the reviews and it was probably the book I had yearned to read.
The book is about an Afgani child Mariam, who grows into a girl and a woman, its story of her struggle, of her hardships. She establishes a special relationship with another girl Laila. The story is also about Laila and her hardships. It shows the picture of a country battered in war against the monarch, then against the Russians, against the Mujahiddins and finally against the Taliban. It tells a story of country where the life has no value, right has no value and where women are cursed and loathed. How in the name of religion, the Sharia law forbids women to get education, to walk freely, to get a job even to speak in public and to talk with strangers.
Had I been a woman I might have cried lot earlier but it was towards the end I broke. The exploitation of women, her treatment like an animal is painful. When one thinks it might be the last incident where the heart moans and pains, the incidents that come later become harder and more painful. The sacrifices a woman makes will leave the reader appreciating the greatness of woman being. “How much can she tolerate?” we keep on asking. “How low can a man go?” to worsen the life of his wife or any other female part leaves us torn apart.
After reading the book, the face of Mariam, her sacrifices denied to leave me. I sat almost an hour, staring the ceiling of my room as I lied on my back in my bed. I believe the women still live in situations worse than described in the novel, her greatness is more than shown in the book. Mariam will be with me for a real long time with me. I wouldn’t have regretted if this book had cost me more than thousand. A thousand splendid suns is a splendid story. Those who like reading will love this and for those who do not like reading it will spring love for books and to read more.

Why did it rain?

I came out of the office in hurry. Hurrying for nothing other than avoiding rain. When I was in the courtyard a woman was smiling to a colleague. When she smiles her face shrinks as if someone had pulled her facial skin at nose. All of a sudden uncountable folds appear in her face, first time I saw her I thought she was crying.
The sky was almost expressionless, the clouds were heavy as if they were theatre artists behind the curtain whose turn was next and the act before theirs had just ended. I only said heavy, they were not black. It looked as if it was a face of a child who had stopped crying a little earlier and the tears had dried on her cheek. Everyone was hurrying in the streets except for the street children who didn’t even care if it was already raining.
I saw a small ripple disturbing the sleeping puddle. It was raining but then there were no further drops. In a matter of minutes I was inside a bus holding the novel I am reading these days. Soon the bus was crowded and a woman stood behind me holding the longitudinal bar on the ceiling. She kept pushing her handbag behind me i.e. between my back and the seat. I thought she was having problem holding the bag while holding the bar as well yet I wondered why didn’t she slid its ears through her arm. It would have been much easier but for some reasons she didn’t. I was feeling awkward and uncomfortable with her bag cushioning me. Then again she kept working on her bags, sometime she kept something inside it and sometime she was taking something out. I didn’t know what she was doing but didn’t like it either, she was disturbing me. I wanted to look at her but I was so involved in the book that I didn’t want to take my eyes off it. Then I remembered something rather silly. When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me and my brother story of a witch who used to poke young men from behind so that they would turn around and see into her eyes. The witch will then hypnotize the young men and killed them. It was so funny that I remembered this story there at that situation and coincidentally I didn’t turn around to look at her, though I was so irritated. The rain had already started but I thought I could still get home without opening the umbrella until I actually got down at my station.
When it rains I spoil my clothes like a child. I always end up painting my trousers with tiny dots of mud. My friends say I walk fast and I raise my foot too high which make my trousers suffer during rain and ultimately mummy has to suffer cleaning them.
An old man was walking on his bare foot in the disgusting street which looked like a field being prepared for planting the paddy saplings. The old man was completely wet from top to bottom. The old man stooped and he supported himself from falling face first with a stick. The stick was made up of fir wood and had a handle tilted against its length so that it was easy to hold. The old man was mumbling something, talking to himself. I wanted to over take him but I wanted to listen what he was talking. He was saying God must have been angry with him for it rained only when he was in the street and had forgotten the umbrella. He said he was sure of this and believed someday gods will be happy with him again but he worried by the time god becomes happy he might die. He stopped at a point and looked at the sky which was clear now. He said “Are you satisfied now? See I am completely wet and I have also lost my slippers”. He complained to himself that it rains once he is out on the street and stops soon after he is completely wet. He wondered what had he done to displease the rain god. At one corner we parted ways. I thought I had an expression of a dim smile without any change in my lips but only a little brightness in my eyes. I wondered how many people would have thought that it rained just to drench them.

A promise to my daughter

The rain has stopped drumming the roof. The cacophony is back in the street. The day was just regular, boring and hot. I mother of two watches the street with indifference. The street has been same except there are new shops, new buildings and new structures on its side. The sun is same, it still rises in the east completes a semi-circle every day and vanishes to the west. The sky has been same, the drops of rain are same in all these years but still they appear so different. I have come to terms with a life of a housewife now. When I see my daughter cackle and recite her little innocent dreams I feel pity, my childhood has passed to my daughter. I see her living my childhood, the experience of living a life and being a mere spectator to it is a different experience altogether. I have long forgotten the excitement, the curiosity, the dreams of a girl in her early teens but I know they exist. I cannot feel them but I can identify them. My ambition was never expensive in the shallow life of my village. I just wanted to be a teacher, a school teacher because when I was growing up that was the only thing an educated human could do. They said there are doctors and engineers but by the time I saw one the dream of becoming a teacher had grown its root deep and wide. Every day when Sabitri miss came to our class I would place myself in her position, scribbling words in the blackboard, walking across the classroom holding books in hand, telling stories and explaining poems. I felt excited when I would see myself checking the home-works of the students and threatening them with sticks. In home we played school-school and I either had to be teacher otherwise I wouldn’t play. My friends used to get agitated by my stubbornness, so did my brother who also wanted to be a teacher in those games but I would never let anyone steal my role. Finally I started depicting the character and body language of the teacher so well that I never required to quarrel anymore to get my beloved role. Whenever the children played school-school, they would look for me. Knowing I was irreplaceable I would throw tantrums, tell them I have no mood or I have some other works to do and they would frown at me, call me arrogant but still did everything to persuade me. In those games I was living my dreams. I believed a day will come when I will be inside a real class, among my real students giving the real lessons. In those games I was actually practicing for that day. When I played the role of a teacher I forgot I was in a game and assumed it was all real, my friends used to get surprised. They said I might be taken by the rebelling groups for staging the programs they called ‘awareness campaign’ but that would not hold me back. Back then Sabitri miss had started using glasses which meant I had to have one as well. My Grandfather found me one from his old wooden box, it was only frame but I was fine with it.
To be a teacher one had to study get to bigger classes so I labored hard and I was a bright student. Those were similar days except I lived in village and I didn’t know one can choose from so many career options. When I passed the SLC(tenth standard) I was seventeen and I had topped my school. When the results were announced I was very happy, though the school-school game had stopped lot earlier, I still cherished the dream of becoming a teacher. I came home soaked in excitement after hearing the results. Everyone who met me on my way home was surprised and wanted to know what made me so happy but I wanted to tell my parents first. I thought my parents will be delighted with the news. At home I found my parents already in a happy mood I thought somebody else had already told them and cursed that person. Even then I told my father in no lesser excitement but it had little effect on him. He told me he had one another good news. I was married to the son of a local landlord, two months later. They never let me work, they said women from good background didn’t work. I knew it was not a matter of honor, it was the matter of doubt over women. Generations after generations after serving the family, after raising the children, after devoting herself to the dominant husband, after abiding by his unjust regulations women are still under strict scrutiny of the society. Its not the matter of honor, they fear their wives, their daughter-in-law might run away with somebody else or sleep with a stranger. They said people will have a subject for gossip, I knew they felt insecure themselves.
I remember my own growing up, the day when I had come home running to tell about my results. I can see an innocent, delighted girl in sky colored shirt and navy blue skirts with red ribbons tying her hair, hopping through the mustard fields to reach home as fast as she could. I can see the pieces of shattered dreams when her father told her about the marriage. When I was running home, I didn’t have the picture of my mother in my head. She never existed for us, we (me and my brother) were never given to her, she was never a family member of our huge joint family of uncles, cousins, and grandparents her position was no better than servants. I grew up without knowing what the dreams of my mother were when she was a child herself, I grew up without bothering if she had had the meal, if her health was fine. I never felt it was necessary to tell my mother about my success and failure but that day I had cried on her lap. She had said generation after generation women lived the same life and faced similar hardships.
Life is not fair always but for women like us its always unfair. I hope my daughter need not share my fate but I still worry. The children who had hidden inside the small shops, under the verandah and roofs of the houses to protect themselves from rain are back to street. Among those kids I see my Shraddha holding the hand of her brother; I can see her waving the other hand to me. I wave back to her. I used to play teacher in my childhood games, she plays nurse and I hope unlike mine she becomes a real nurse one day and for that I will fight the family, the society if necessary. Though my father crushed my dreams he did one good thing, he didn’t stop me from going to school due to which I could complete the ten class. The education has given me courage to raise my voice for my daughter. One day my Shraddha will be a nurse, I am sure because I her mother promise that.