Ah...now I can't even collect myself to write

This whiff of air cannot extinguish the fear, flame and uncertainty in the atmosphere I am breathing, it can make it more disturbing, wild and deadly. The turbulence is there in the street that is mysteriously ending into dark homes and leading to places more agitated. Unfortunately the fire inside me roars no more, it does not intend to rise about to reach that sun in the sky. It has extinguished only the warmth of the ashes can be felt. That desire to be part of the change, to stand tough on ideas has become feeble.
People in the street are fighting for either individual identity or for the identity of the group while I carry this burden of my own identity. A part of me laughs in my one and half years toddler. A part of me try to imprint the footsteps in this land as she jumps and dances. She sings and I moan in pain. My pain part physical and most mental. No-one knows what the future has in its store but we expect it to be turn out in a certain way, we are either exhilarated for that future or just do not want to be the part of the future and sometimes we just can’t decide. I am in the state of indecision.
Now the whiff of the air has become a whirlpool not inside me but outside. It is probably trying to uproot the existence of the shatters but the stern looking structure stand still, tough. The trees are wavering with the flags of the school in my neighborhood. I cannot count the number of leaves that has fallen off but I can see the flag torn in middle. Its symbolic at this time when the country stands at the door of restructuring assignment. I have fear of tomorrow but I would rather prefer to use the term “apathetic” to describe my state. I cannot think of my identity in the restructured country, I am confused with my identity in my own life in my own world. I can’t shed my identity, I can’t choose. I could have chosen had I any option just pulling it, pulling it till I can.

Murmurs

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.

From my death bed...

There were few months and now there are very few days and who knows its just the next moment, that I will get away from you, forever. This time this is not going to be few days of separation, yes its forever. I am leaving you with memories and what I am taking… I don’t know. Last 32 years of togetherness passed through high and low but what a journey it was. I am rejecting you today because it is more painful to remember that I am leaving you than to think that I am dying. I have been bed-ridden for a week now. I had six months, then five, then four, three, two, one and now just few days. I want to think of other things but what I end of thinking about you. I start from my childhood, remember the friends that I have had but slowly I slip into your memories. Only after wandering into your memories for a long time I remember I had made up my mind to forget you, to give up your thoughts. I turned my face away from you just a moment back when you were away because you are making it difficult for me to leave. My throat chokes when I see you, when I see the fear in your eyes for loosing me, I see the reflections of those days we have been through in your eyes. I knew I was dying soon and the first thing I did was put all your photos away, had those framed pictures of yours slip into the drawers. I saw the picture we took just after the rituals of our wedding completed and we were at home. I looked happy and so did you. You looked a perfect bride and I remember the first footstep you took into my home as my wife. I remember the very next day I had woke up early and you were still asleep beside me. I looked at your innocent face they reflected faith that you had upon me with which you left your parents home just to start a new life with me. The vermillion had fallen into your face and it had made you look prettier. That morning I had made a promise to myself that I am going to make this woman happier as much as I can. I had kissed you on the forehead and I can still feel that kiss. You moved a bit and looked at me, that look hounds my dreams as if my life stopped there. You were there all the way, when I failed you encouraged me, when I got something, you were happier than me, you advised me. From smallest choirs of making my bed, making my dresses ready to raising our kids you had been a great wife, a great partner. I have rejected you, dismissed your presence but it is you all the way, all in my thoughts. I don’t want you to see me the way I am today, I don’t want you to see me helpless and I don’t want to see the loneliness that awaits you. When you try to bring that fake smile I die millions of times. Day-before-yesterday I wanted to move my hands on your grey hair, to embrace you, to kiss you in your forehead and only I know how much pain I inflicted upon myself when I refused to look at you when you came to our room which has been “my” room for last three days. I have asked you not to come to me, not to come to the room because that makes it difficult for me to die. Somewhere its your thoughts that are holding me back. I cried holding the shawl I had given you on the day of our wedding. I want to see you in the same red saree, with same cheerful eyes, and same shyness. I visit to you such so many times in my dreams. When I am awake I am worried if you have eaten well, if you have slept well and in my dreams I see myself watching you sleep, watching you laugh, watching you working in the kitchen with your Kurta’s shawl tied back to prevent it from falling. I am worried if you are well but I can’t ask, I am withdrawing. If God listens to the last wish of a dying man, I ask him your happiness. I love you…………….and that is the only thing I remember at this last moment of my life.