Search for a book

They say you can find even god if you seek him properly but today after wandering all around Bhotahity and Ratnapark I could not find a good book of Quantitative Techniques. This is not a book I am searching with a choice but rather with an obligation of a course I am pursuing. They also say to seek god one does not need to wander from one place to another, from one temple to another, god is inside oneself, one just need to concentrate and find that god. My concentration has never been so focused and selfless as I have never found the god inside me. I race between one thing to other when I try to unlayer myself, turn the leaves after leaves inside me. There hasn’t been a long time since I have started believing in god and even that was for selfish reasons yet I believe there he is or may be she is. What’s in gender? God is god after all.

Today was probably just another bad day for me. After visiting one book shop to another I still had found nothing but coincidentally I found so many people I hadn’t seen for years, some people whose images had been wiped up from my faintest of memories. I met my primary school teacher that’s more than eighteen years back at time I hadn’t even hit the double figure of my age. Then I almost collided with one of my father’s friend who I hadn’t seen for almost twenty years. Now one will wonder do I really mean I recognized them and I should say yes I did. At the time when those images where carved into my memories I used to be sharp today I am only outwardly witty nothing close to sharp. In the crowded lanes of Bhotahity the whole city seemed to have come, is Kathmandu really so small was a question I was asking myself in my soliloquies. By the way if I close my eyes something else opens its eyes inside me, it is just another me, who keep whispering into my brain one thing after another. These soliloquies are the reasons why I have not been able to find a god inside me.

I really struggled to come out of my burial. I was buried in works and before I could complete one another work will arrive. If one had to breathe voluntarily I would have died finding no time to breathe. I was thirsty as I walked the littered roads, my mouth parched. There was no water in office today because both the peons were absent. I measured the roads between Thamel to Shahid-Gate in vain. Many book sellers didn’t know what Quantitative Techniques really was. To be true even I didn’t know till few days back, I didn’t know statistics was called Quantitative techniques. When the teacher brought the subject before class, and discussed its role in decision making I was puzzled how could decision be quantified? And now I know it. It is not actually quantifying decision but aiding the making of proper and effective decision. Luckily I am not ashamed of my ignorance and that is why I enjoy the Eureka moments. The transition between complex problems to easy solutions is such a wonderful experience. Problems are problems until we find a solution, (what a silly statement it seems to be but that’s it). Complexity are properties of things, events etc. until a way-out has been found. Possibly simplicity is the fundamental property of every thing, may be we just need to discover it. The ‘Eureka’ moments cherishes us.

I almost ran out of the break time as I wasted all the time running helplessly from one book store to next. I cannot afford staying hungry, my hunger for knowledge would never be satiated with a burger but without a burger I will not be able to stay alive to enjoy the hunger for knowledge. Unfortunately this hunger for Quantitative Analysis is an induced one not a genuine one. Hopefully I will find it somewhere else.

Its winter now

The noise, honks had returned to the city that had crept into an almost weeklong holiday. It still made me wonder that this very busy city had been quiet; the dwellers vanished into their homes in the various parts of the country. I turned my wrist to see the time and it was already 3:00 PM, there was no way I could reach at the venue of an inauguration program. It could have made me regret but it didn’t, to be indifferent to things can sometime save one from anxiety. Why would I regret, I was just an invitee not the chair person of the program or anyone who would be invited to dais and who had to address the mass. I didn’t have to please anyone and that gave me comfort. Being trivial and inconspicuous has its own advantage.
More than the program I was involved in observing the city I was born, the city that has changed with every fleeing year, the city that has seen developments and destruction. The city that has been the city of opportunity to so many people, just few days back this very city was silent and asleep, which still astonished me. The process of its waking up was very abrupt, there were no transition. A day back it was calm and quiet with few vehicles owning the roads, rolling with pride and the very next day the city had gained its business, the offices were open, the people had returned, the music from an audio store lost among the noise.
I didn’t bother to look into my watch when I was at the venue, looking at watch is often just a formality, just like blinking of an eye the involuntary action. The minister who had to address the mass had not come and I pondered whether the minister didn’t come in time because the audience never came in time or the audience didn’t come in time because the minister never comes in time. I heard a staff hurrying towards the gate anxious and worried. I heard him say its already 4:30 PM and the minister had not come yet. That again saved me from pulling up my sleeves turning my watch turning my head lowering it looking into watch interpreting the sight in my brain and acknowledging it was 4:30 PM. Just to see time one had to go through so many trivial activities. A little later the minister dropped in. He spoke on everything except about his ministries and its work, he told things of which even a Kid will be well known and after he finished the hosts appreciated how he had shed light on so much important thing that gave me a nausea. My head being lethargic and dull, I took leave from the hosts exchanged pleasantries, laughed on things I would not laugh otherwise, appeared cordial, grinned and just few minutes later I was in the back seat of a local bus back to the thing I had started enjoying long back. A girl at the other end pulled up her shirt and tucked her head in. That made me realize the winter was already making its presence felt. I could see tiny blisters on my arms left open by my T-shirt, I felt cold as if I were shivering. I rubbed my right hand with the other hand, the red sun which was already very low in the sky seemed to be smiling. The headlights of the vehicles had sparsely lit the road apart from the street lamps which were themselves sparsely located. I thought I was late and this time I couldn’t resist watching my watch which said it was 6:00 PM. This very city was bright with no tints of darkness just before the holidays were now dark and black, the days had really shortened. Winter is my favorite season, the sun is loved most in this season, the moon is most beautiful, and the bent flowers give impression as if the nature is itself resting, hibernating to revive for spring. My reasons are vague as there is no strong reason why I like winter. I thought from tomorrow I should get the full shirts, warm clothes out from the closet. While I was getting over these things, the crimson sun was already replaced with golden moon. I looked at it for a long time before I got down at my station. On the road the cool air which I had blocked from the window in the bus attacked me, I bent a little and I gathered pace excited for no reason. I was at home very soon.

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.