I want to go to that place sit on the grass on that hillock, look at the expanse field that would end on a village spread like a length of a cloth, a muffler and wonder it that village really existed. I want to wonder on what kind of people lived in that village and think someday I would walk across that field past a small rivulet and reach that village. I never did, I never will. Probably I was not older than 10 years then, I loved sitting on the hillock in the evenings when me and my family went to Jhapa on Dashain holidays to celebrate the festival with my paternal relatives. We used to make a fan out of the dry layer of the bamboo, put it at the end of a handle (stick) and run to see it rotate. Those were the small things that made me happy, perhaps many kids still run with those “Firfire” and boast their fan rotated faster than others. I want to watch the people who returned home on those evenings from the small tracks in the fields. Those were no tracks for real but as people walked up and down through those field linings, the grasses would die underneath the footsteps of the passersby and a track used to be ready. Those tracks were small but they would lead to market faster, they would lead to destination faster. Human nature does not change as of these days we look for faster tracks to destination. Anyways I have no intention to discuss human nature, they are beyond my capacity. Many of those passersby might have been mixed with clay and if rebirth really happens many of them might be in their teen age, who knows many of them might have died again and taken another birth. I want to feel the whiff of air on my face like splash of water. I want to make futile attempts to hold those dry clay on my hand, I want to listen to the whistle of the bamboos. I want to say if I knew growing up wouldn’t have been fun I wouldn’t have grown up but that is not possible. Growing up is not something one does by choice, we just grow up. Mundane life…
I want to smell the smoke of the firewood that burnt to cook food for people in our village, I want to smell the wet paddy in the mills. Look for fish in that small stream in front of our house. I want to visit the garden and look at the parrots. I want to be surprised to see people climb those tall coconut trees and wonder at how the tender looking banana tree could hold such large number of bananas each facing downward.
I have only been a witness to that life never a participant, someone brought up in the city but never learned to adapt to the so called city life. My 10 month old perhaps wouldn’t even be a witness to those thing. Not every long back on the trip to Dhangadi when I visited a marsh and walked past the village I wanted to embrace the life out there, be part of it.
Those who went to see in Dashain holidays are no longer in this world or should I say in the firm and feature that I would recognize and hence no visits to that place in memory. The layers of rust in memories are thicker and I can recollect very few things. I can’t say for sure if I have a soft corner for that place though I can say for sure I am indifferent to my relatives who still make their living there. Just today out of nowhere I remembered that village, those evenings. When I touch my cheeks with my palm today there are no remains of soft clay blown by those whiffs but unfortunately those are not the same cheeks as well. They are rough not tender.
I want to hear the bells tied around the necks of cows that would ring as the herds of cattle returned to their shed guided by their shepherd after grazing the whole day in the jungle. I know the bells were tied so that the cattle would not go missing in the jungle and the shepherd could always track them but when the bells rang in rhythm it seemed they were tied to create a music. I want to look into the big eyes of those returning cows, into their fed bellies and look at the calves that would suckle the milk as if they have been hungry for years.
Life is not easy there, had it been no one from there would dream of coming to this city that I have not liked much. Life is not easy here, it is not easy there, it will never be.
