sEPt 18: soMEthINg uNder The PlaTE hiT uS

                               

Sept 18, it wasn’t a 'Friday' on the Gregorian calendar and Nepal was inebriated somewhere on the events that were to make headlines the following day. CPN-UML president was grumbling over the Maoist’s irksome allegation: "The two biggest oppositions are not willing to haul the stalled peace process to some logical end." It's only our leaders; whose generosity still eyes at the logic anymore for rest of Nepal it's only a tool to mount political gain. But our PM Dr. Bhattarai must have been busy packing his stuffs and memorizing antique words of Marx for he was to catch the flight to the US at midnight the same date. However Jhallu was hopeful to seize the newspaper's headlines the following day.

And it was just the day to the most glamorous fashion event's conclusion: 'Fashion Parade'. The colorful and stylish lives were working out on the hangover from the other night's 'After Party'. While a woman was reported dead of an illegal abortion at a hospital in Itahari, eastern Nepal the same date, Sept 18, it is!

The episode of 'Dead Rhinos' continues yet again to menace the officials. The second to be reported dead in past few weeks, leaving behind 503 numbers of its species at the Chitwan National Park. A jeep accident in Myagdi hits death toll to 11 a few weeks before the biggest festival to knock at every household. 'A catastrophe inevitable' they say but who cares about the narrow hilly tracks. It’s inevitable only for our road authorities aids to its certainty.

These above incidents would make pretty colorful newspapers the following day but Kathmandu and all other places back home were hit by 6.8 on Richter scale temblor. The chaos unfolded, people were scattered, and CA members evacuated the hall. Ktm was witnessing a rock and roll for over two minutes with involuntary head bangs. The "impotent" British embassy's wall also supposed to be an important structure snatched away few lives including a father and a daughter. Few other lives at Eastern part of the country were not spared either. A lot of injured lives are at stake and scores more hidden behind the hills hola. Our state by now, must have befriended this idea that Kathmandu is in jeopardy.

The highly dense, with an over population of over a million, the heart of the country embraced by Himalayas, the only place beholding ; sophisticated apartments, luxurious hotels, high rise malls, KFC, Pizza Hut, King's way, hundreds and thousands of educational institutions, corporate houses, party and fashion loving young generations, the insane dream of a regular guy to get settled once in for all just to change his permanent address to Kathmandu, the city lost into the absolute madness of god knows what , was finally brought into senses after a long time. 

This is an alarm with no snooze button. It’s a wakeup call. Let’s disclose this long forgotten issue of actual decentralization and put it up on the "things to do" list the very first thing. Authorities might be pondering on blaming the British Embassy for the loss and expecting a couple of mass agitations. May be corrupted British Embassy's personals are to be blamed for the 'impotent wall' and our authority could get easily away with this accusation. But i am talking here about the graveness of the situation. A tweet by @lemboo read 'it is 6.8 and we pull funny one liner and anecdotes. If it is 8.6 we would be RIP-ing over the departed souls and cursing over the devastation.' So next time the temblor hits the country there will be no one to blame for detriments. I hope 'JHALLU' did not make another headline the following day.

P.S: a sincere heartfelt condolence to the bereaved family. RIP all the departed souls.

kANcHAA taLKiNg tO yOU : paRT 2

Its 3 Years passed since my mother walked out on that puffy evening. Now, i can count on my own. They apparently publish books on time. However, i only got those books few days before exams. No wonder, i failed my 2nd grade that year. I got new sets of younger friends instead; some of them even call me 'Dai’.  I seem to be caring less on, what they call me. But they are born with the same curiosity as to why i am only called 'kancha '. I get along with this guy though, Rishi. He is a son of a poor farmer. He is too filmy in his nature and seems to follow Bollywood pretty much. He catches up well with the movies news too. He once told me Hrithik Roshan Has 6 fingers and i in total disbelief was like what????? He told me the names of few Bollywood stars in our gate go chats. Shahrukh Khan, Salmaan Khan , Saif Ali Khan , Aamir Khan and all the khans in the industry. That’s why for few weeks i thought; to become a film star, you must have ‘khan’ hitched to your name. When i was all alone and a little free, i would call myself ' ‘Kancha Khan'. Until this day, i asked him out of my intense curiosity :'Then why dont Hrithik Roshan has a khan to his name??' to which he just smiled. Later when we had a lot of film conversations i got answer to that witless question. And i never called myslef 'Kancha Khan' again.

Few days back; Rishi came to me thrilled and said;" Salman Khan's new movie is a hit, Bodyguard". He seemed a lot happy for some reason which i couldn’t reckon why? I kept that curiosity to myself for i didn’t want to spoil my friend's excitement. However it’s only Rishi who could tell why. On my way back home that day, i was pushing myself real hard because it was already late for chores. When i saw couple of guys, well dressed who sometimes talked with this alien language. They would often say 'Oh My God' with pauses literally after each word. But we only said 'OMAGO' back at school, that too rishi taught all the class. He must have heard that from some movies he watches so often.

They started discussion something about 'Body guard' the movie Rishi was really excited about. That's when i got all my ears into their conversation. They said: Bodyguard movie is a total crap, how could Nepalese spend around 2.5 crores for that shit piece... (Alien language for a while and)...Nepalese would even buy Salman's poop had that been supplied to our country in packets but that only flows down the drain to Ganges in India,we should stop watching this bullshits they throw at us every now and then, we must realise the Indian's are looting us and blah blah..(Alien language)....blah blah. They were already getting on my nerves for they were talking nasty about the movie my friend was so much intoxicated to. I absolutely didn’t care the parts of the conversation involving how much money we had lost against this film. Rather i was thinking, if i had any i would lend it to Rishi so that he could watch this movie. However i didn’t.

I was done with the evening chores for that day and i was wondering to myself in all the tranquility of the universe. I was forming opinions over as to how i am going to present the story of the guys being biased over Rishi's favorite movie. I was pondering couple of thoughts to how my mother was dealing with her illness too, that was for a while though. However i was more focused over the fact how Rishi is going to respond to this allegation the boys were making. That's when i Pivoted my head around to see a 100rs note flattened over the gorgeous tea table, that they received in a dowry of their eldest son's marriage. There were a lot of furniture and electronics but they seem to have utmost fond to this one though. I had never craven anything comparable to that 100rs note before in my life. An evil part of my head said to filch that one and go on a movie show the following day with Rishi, bunking the classes. But couldn’t hear to my mettle inside and fairy part of my brain fairly won the tussle.

I was beckoned to the real world when i heard him, the head of my new family exclaiming over the news reporting about the noble deeds of our Newly elected Prime Minister. He enunciated something that included 'Mustang max', 'only 4 lakhs cash vaulted in all these years', 'He sure is our new hope' and ' He will take peace process to a conclusion'. I was there listening to him words per words with no such expressions that could give him any hint to i was listening. I knew this prime minister is from the rebel party who used to fight with the army. I have myself witnessed the agony of that war to some extent. I can vividly remember that frantic day of June 6, 2005 when a road side bomb detonated by the former rebels killed 38 people including lot of women and children in Madi, Chitwan. That’s is where i am from. And the very next day i was rendered to this new family.

Lights were out already and that night all i thought was about bodyguard, Rishi, offensive remarks from those guys, 100 rs lying on the table, our new prime minister and those mercilessly killed people and their bereaved family. i wished our new PM was a genie who could fulfill my tiny wishes and straight out things like providing relief to those deeply moved family of that inhuman act ensuring no more war. I wished he could live up to the expectations of my head of the family. And i wished if he would provide us any tickets to this new movie 'Bodyguard' the next day.

kANcHAA taLKiNg tO yOU : paRT 1

'Kancha, how r u doing?' it was late twilight already, when i heard a faint sound calling my name. I remember my friends asking at school, how come your name is only 'Kancha'? Because our class had a lot of similar names that sounded complete such as Ranjan Poudel or Shyam Karki or Ritesh Shrestha and so on. No one really bothered to send me to that primary school with a complete name for i was not living a complete life. I cocked up my head to see if that is someone i knew for that call had some tender touch in it. Something i haven’t heard in years. The voice approached near me and was my mother's.  She didn’t look all fit and wasn’t smiling either. She has not smiled at me like in forever. I could hardly interpret the reason, WHY?

This is the second visit my mother has made in all these years. i was in a dilemma of expressions. I couldn't figure out what i was supposed to do that instant, except i knew i had to be done with the dishes pretty quick and get back to the kitchen. I thought, did she really pop in at the wrong time? I absolutely couldn’t retrieve the timing of her last visit but i was sure as rock, that wasn’t the right time for a tiny family get together. I said something like: i was fine and asked how she was doing herself, that answer i never got. And the next thing i remember, i got back to my chore. I was doing dishes like every other day since a person whom i said uncle left me here few years back. And never saw him yet again.

i couldn’t exactly remember how many years for the course book were not in town yet. That year, we were supposed to learn counting and year before that i was only admitted to that primary school. I can remember my teachers whispering to their ears about the reason why? and they said stuffs like; the government has just changed and followed by blah....blah....The teacher also said,"hernus Kandel sir, aba ko 5 din viral kitbag naaye ma ta dashain bida ko 15 din agadi nai taap kaschu ghar tira. Bazar kati charko ho sir! feri sirmati le Bombay sari vanera hairan cha..". They both laughed for a while and started their bosh. I plugged out my ear then but the conversation might have gone something like govenment...hahhahaha.....government..price hike...salary....corruption...hahaha...government.

She went in, my mother greeted 'Namaskaar' to my new family. Don’t panic, it's not the regular family like you r visualizing at the moment. Long back i have switched to a new definition of family. Now, defination of the family goes like 'A social institution, where i get to sleep over the mattress on the kitchen floor. Eat whatever prone without any complains but sometimes with a fake smile though. And my birth- mother visiting me barely, god knows when to sponge off my new family. ‘I remember she said something like: she wanted few cash and that she was ill. I could reckon from her voice that she was real ill but i was stuck with a dilemma already. This scene where my mother is ill,could not desire any emotions from me for i was already running short of emotions.

A bleak ‘NO’, i heard from inside the room that wasn't my mother’s. May be she had asked to take me home this 'Dashain'. Is she out of her mind? Does she know a trifle about my family here? How many people visit us during this festival of joy? And how profoundly happy they look over the lovely dress they wear? How many varieties of dishes are prepared which is served over multiple utensils? How busy i am with the rotation of plates? I mean they rely upon me, my new family. I am the one, responsible for checking the flow of dingy plates out and cleaned one in of the kitchen.

Anyways, what i was going to do even if they allowed me to go? Which they won’t because they like me here, they need me the most like the politicians adore mobsters during the elections. And frankly, i am happy they do, at least they don't give me to unknown places. I don't have to advance to new techniques of survival. I don’t have to adjust with my routine anymore. I must tell you this; it wasn’t an easy task, to wake up at early 4 am when i first got here. I felt like going back to sleep again , which i did couple of times and i hear this 'Kanchaaaaaaaa' a real loud 'kancha' that would shake me literally.

Who likes to go back to village anyways? I don't think the tiny faces i remember from my remotest memory are still catching up with the village life. Who likes to sleep till the scorching sun hits your face? Who likes to poop on the open corn field these days? Who likes to swim and flow with the river for unlimited hours anymore? So i hint, they must have long left or been conferred to places like i am. My mother said nothing before she left. I was almost done with the utensils then. However, i followed her skinny image from behind until it disappeared into the puffy dusk of Aswin Month. And now when i observe the time during Dashain, it is way too hotter out of my wildest imagination.

faKE wORms tHaT sHattERed mY dREaMs

Its dawn already, I am not surprised.  It’s been like this ever since I got here but I have succeeded to go to sleep at 3 these days. However the chicken chilly I made the other night turned out to be more of a ‘chilly chicken’. May be its all my friends cursing me back for that evil act of mine and no wonder I ain’t getting any sleep.

‘Not having a proper sleep routine gives you ugly dark circles and the thin appearance’ they say. I don’t really care dark circles or the thin guy look but it seems that I am going to have some problems with my digestion process. I mean, ‘you eat a lot’ I always hear this from the people who have fathomed me. That I have always adored as some sort of compliment. For a thin guy like me, it’s always good to learn that you are eating a whale of food. However it’s always been one tough job for me to put on some weight. People wonder where the stuffs I eat get lost. I too ponder a couple of thoughts. But I have been living all my life on few explanations to the fact that I am thin.

Rewind a decade or more, there was a visit by this surveillance team at my school to testify the tapeworm defiled students. On an assembly of hundreds of student they called out my name; I was a tapeworm holder. I didn’t know what a tapeworm was or how it could possibly harm me. Rather I was happy my name was called and not my friend’s. When I was reported the same at home, they said something like ‘oh! That’s the reason our boy is so thin’.

I am not doubtless, whether my family was worried of tapeworm devouring my food or they were worried about my physique or both. However the day before my eldest brother and I hit the road to Kathmandu planning to take the worm down, I won gold in a relay race. That explains I was not weak or ill or infirm but my physique was a matter. And I was going to Kathmandu for the first time. So my excitement was on the air.

I can comprehend that, I was the crux: the center of attraction. Hey! Look at him! Don’t you get enough to eat at home? Hey! Do they keep you outside the kitchen while rest of the family enjoys the food? It seems as if his elder brother is eating his entire share of foods followed by hahhahahha!!!! All these insensitive remarks by the people I knew very less, sometimes my close relatives or friends to my brothers or sisters must not have been very hilarious to the people who really cared and loved me for thin and thick(except I could never get thick).

So that must have come as a great relief to my family ‘The Report’ for I was the only evergreen thin guy in my family. Finally they have stumbled over the reason and that is ‘I was holding some tapeworms’. Now the doctor would wipe my domesticated worms and make them homeless literally. And I could gain some pounds so that my eldest brother won’t have to mull on what people say about eating my share of foods were any true. Oh! I remember this one thing I said to my bench mate (he was thin too except he now boozes over Australian beer and gained pretty weight) ‘ pakh ! ma Kathmandu gayera juka flaera aauchu ani motayera you classs ko dada hunchu tespachi you shirey(shree bahadur gurung) , vagwaney(vagwan karki) lai pitnu parcha.’ He replied with an elated smile; he was buying everything word to word, I could tell that from his liberated smile. Even I was buying it from my family. I was already living a life of a thick school boy whom all the class feared.

Nonetheless, the dreams got shattered into pieces when we discovered at the teaching hospital Maharajgunj that the report was fake and the whole surveillance team was a bunch of thugs. The final reports were negative and I never had worms. I wasn’t a happy man; I wished I had bladder full of nasty and nutrition sucking worms. I had already pledged to my friend, by now he must have already threatened a guy or two hoping that his thin friend would return thick with arms of a wrestler.

That was a story back from 4^th grade. And fast forward a decade and few years I am still a thin guy with plenty of other explanations as to why I am thin. I say stuffs like, Maybe I talk too much for a thick guy. Maybe I don’t sleep at regular hours. Maybe I think too much for my age. Maybe I don’t drink no alcohol. May be I don’t go to the gym. May be I will put on some pounds once I get to the city of my dreams (New York). I mean I have never in my life seen a single person whose weight when measured after few years stay in America reduced to that of when he first left.

But I only say these things to keep people off me for I don’t want to sound rude. I can’t say ‘budge off you faggot mind your own fucking business’. That’s rude I think. What’s with the people complaining about other’s physique anyway? Thin or thick ugly or fair; I am not chasing your girl! You moron or I am not some gay hitting on your boyfriend! You dunderhead female.

Now this might sound like a piece out of utter frustration of being thin. I don’t care if I am a thin guy or thick as long as that changes my perception over things.

ThE bLaCk diArY

                                                

It has thick black cover, the diary they gave me. The very first blank page next to the India’s (political) map reads “यस सृजना उच्च मा वि को २०६५ सालको कक्षा १२ को परिक्षामा दोस्रो स्थान हसिल गर्ने राघव गौतमलाई  यो पुरस्कार प्रदान गरिएको छ |” Honestly these words never encouraged me to load this blank pages with my thoughts and words. Neither the first glimpse of this diary could convince me this thing that people say “Prizes are Prizes after all”. May be I expected something a little fancy, a little flashy stuff and not this dark black covered diary. That wouldn’t be me being unfair to the school authority had i been a little anxious over expectation while waiting for what the prize will turn out to be. I mean I was diligent, I worked my ass off. But I wasn’t sure what I was really expecting for I didn’t know what else could be the options. I am still not certain what I would have chosen, had I been the authorized person to do so. May be some expensive chocolates too, but those sweets wouldn’t have made it this far and this black domed diary crossed few oceans along with its gainer.

It isn’t in its old shape anymore. It is no longer yoked to the cover. But when its fold, no one can exactly tell that the cover and the body are not glued together.

Like I told you, I never thought I would ever scratch an ink over it. And I never drifted away from my vow that ‘ I won’t jot a word down’ until it was one evening of 17^th march 2009. I finally surrendered to its might. Not only my promise has set a new dimension, my whole life was on a different trajectory. I only realized it soon as I got out of the cab opposite to this grand bus station ‘Green line ‘and actually saw some different people for the first time. That different people driving sophisticated buses would now drive me to the place I was destined to spend precious 4 years of life. By different people I mean absolutely different, they didn’t look much incomparable but they sounded aloof. The language I have never heard before would be now the language of my communication. For the first time in my life I realized, it is the language that connects people (not hutch or Nokia). It is the language that embraces people in a Nation. It is the language I didn’t know I loved so much that I can’t use no more in here. And that moment I sensed a slight melancholy that could no longer persist for I had been longing to speak in English ever since I decided I would glide down to Bangladesh.

Now If any of my teachers or friends back from school read this, this will only sound hilarious to them. ‘Not speaking in English’ was a crime back then at school that I and my friends always committed. Duress by school that we never cared nor feared.  And now that has changed into a desire. However to my dismay I could hardly find any people who could talk to me in English at that sophisticated bus stand, not because I had any marvelous accent but I had actually knocked the wrong door. Soon I figured out that my dream of speaking in English like they show in the movies was deserted. What was I even thinking before I decided to come here?? And I finally settled to make my first entry to this journal.

The very first entry read something like : the wonderful people I met, how a guy was combed to this tere-naam hair style, how monstrous the building seemed to me.  How much I was taken aback when I was first served grainy ‘dhaniya’ with a bill in one restaurant (sometimes I anticipate the same in Nepali restaurant these days). How much I missed pretty girls for it had been already past few hours i haven’t seen a single girl. Another sentence read, how content I was to help this old man I met on the bus the other day who told his sad story of being pickpocketed. This first entry read this childish and hilarious yet the most romantic sentence I could ever write. Something like “every time my heart pumps it reminds me of you”. I can’t stop this shy smile that appears on my face every time I read this line solely. It also articulated how much I missed my whole family, my father and my younger brother the most that evening. And finally I wrapped up that first day entry devoured with the reminiscence of my friends.

I am not sure, whether people share their things in their diary or not. However every time I consider of posting something on my blog. I hunt my diary down( for I never know where it is; no wonder it is in a bad shape now)and set about writing. Start writing! Just like that?? I mean what do I even write, what am I even writing and why do I even write in the first place. So if I really want to think something before I write any piece, I will have to come up with all these answers in the premier. Hence I have an only answer that is : “ yes! I embark writing just like that and leave it to you”. Like they say in the movies ‘Tension  लेनेका  नही  देनेका’.

What about the diary?? It is almost filled in and for past few years I have been writing. I started it like a regular diary, thought I would make entry of each day in Bangladesh since that first evening. However It was a long row to hoe; instead I started writing philosophies, my dreams, my failures, again regular entries, nation’s issues and sometimes nothing (like today). And this notebook, which I thought would turn out into something like balance sheet(to keep track of my expenses so that I won’t turn out luxurious someday, which I am lucky I didn’t) turned me into a pen-man and kept me arouse at this hour of the morning.

(It’s already 5:30 in the morning when I enclosed this last bracket)