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.