Rush Hour

The man wore a colorful shirt. It wasn’t the flashy, flowery ‘I am holidaying in Hawaii’ sort but it was colorful. It was colorful but not distracting. He sat right opposite to the driver’s seat in the Nepal Yatayat talking to the driver. And I sat right behind him. The driver was a young chap. He must be one of the new generation of NY drivers who were ex-conductors of the bus. The man got off at Tangal. And right before getting off the bus and after rising from his seat said,” Ma alikati hindera janchu. “(I will walk a little distance). The driver signaled the conductor (who looked of the same age) not to charge the man for his fare. The conductor said “Pardaina” (No need of the fare) when the man tried to reach for his purse in his back pocket. And no sooner the man started his ’short distance walk’, the driver stretched his body to face the conductor and said “Barha hajar talab khancha yo. Tel chorna paucha ni. Akhtiyar ko driver po hota.” (He earns 12 thousand for salary. He gets to steal oil (petrol) on the top of it. He is a driver at the CIAA (Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority).

Finally a Podcast

आज यो पोडकास्टका मार्फत धेरै अगाडीदेखिको आफ्नो एउटा इच्छा पुरा गर्दैछु। दुई हप्ता अगाडी लोडसेङ्गिगको बेला मैले पारिजातको ‘शिरीषको फूल’ पढिसिध्याएँ। ढिलैभएपनि त्यो शुभकार्य गरेकोमा म निकै खुसी छु। यो पोडकास्टमा मैले नेपाली साहित्यको त्यही अद्वितीय कृतिका केहि हरफहरू पढेकी छु। वाचन गरिएका हरफ छान्नु पछाडि कुनै विशेष कारण छैन। म समाचार वाचिका वा अन्य रेडियो कार्यक्रम प्रस्तोता पनि होइन त्यसैले यो पोडकास्टमा त्यो गुणस्तर नखोज्नुहोला। यसमा पनि काँटछाँट गर्नुपर्ने केहि ठाउँहरू छन् , ती चाहिँ Audacity मा पोख्त भएपछि हुँदैगर्नेछन्। पाश्व सङ्गित मलाई असाध्यै मनपनें ‘Sur Le Fil’ ( Soundtrack from Amélie by Yann Tiersen हो । आशा छ तपाईहरूलाई पनि सुन्दा रमाइलो लाग्ने छ।

Happy Tihar!

It took me an entire day to prepare this ( select pictures and add the effects etc though it a very simple video). All the pictures in the video were taken on the day of Laxmi Puja( Oct 17, 2009). The instrumental in the background is by Yann Tiersen titled ‘A Quai from the French movie Amélie.I don’t understand French… I wanted to use Nepali music but I decided against it as it would be the first choice of any Nepali ( or may be not). This blend of French music and KTM landscape and Tihar sounded good to my ears. I hope you enjoy it too. And though Tihar is almost over, I hope this effort of mine is still relevant. Wish you all a very very Happy Tihar once again!

In a pink room…

No, I do not plan on introducing a ‘Room Series’ in my blog. Sad? I do not have any explanation for this room blog series but I will surely blog about this light pink room I am at the moment. I am in Narayanghat. I want to name this guest house I will be spending my night in but let me refrain from doing so. There’s no proper explanation for that either. I should be writing on the farmers’ rights provisions in ITPGRFA. (Well the full form is too long and I don’t expect anyone to be interested in it either but I am tempted to complete this room blog first.)The curtains are nice. They aren’t great but I like them. It’s a red, light red and yellow checked curtain covering the entrance to the verandah while the cloth covering the window is red, light red and white. Does curtain (obviously) mean the cloth that covers windows? Or does the same word do for clothes that do the same for doors? I think curtains have no relation with the part of the room they cover… Whatever. It’s dark now. Let me turn on the lights first.

dark n green

It is a green room. And it is a dark. But it is not a darkroom. It is not dark enough to print photos but it is dark. So, it is a green dark room where you can’t print photographs.

कान्छा बाउको अनुहार …

This is bad, real bad and it’s only getting worse. I can’t write. I can’t write on things I want to write on nor can I write on anything else. On the onset the words just don’t come. And if they do, they get stuck somewhere in my brain,neck, hands just about anyplace used for expressing myself. Worse still is the fact that I don’t have anything good to say about everything!The rains don’t make me go ‘ooh romance’ nor does the climate change debate excite me. And its not because I have been meditating , attained equanimity of thoughts either. Initially I got obsessed with the political economy of things including of the rain which siphoned all romance out of it. I wasn’t breathing in the smell of the earth after the rain, I was thinking of the repercussions of the muddy roads on the pedestrians bla bla blah. And as it was bound to happen, CC turned into another ‘NGO kheti’ too. The gravity of the situation is understandable but this ‘everything changing in Nepal is GW’ without a thorough study of the state of affairs wasn’t appealing. I no longer hear his voice in my head saying ‘Yesma pani politics cha’ but nothing interests me now after the Polit Econ obsession phase. Seriously, nothing other than Dudhkoshi perhaps. Well, it was mentioned in a song I heard on the bus today and I wished to see the river.Weird.

Dashain’s over, the weather is excellent,the buses are still running empty so I should be happy. Happy to get a glimpse of the himalayas every morning. Happy , happy, happy. And I should be laughing when I see the planes take off and land everyday remembering a pilot cousin of mine say ‘even monkeys can fly airplanes if taught’! There are a lot of things I should be doing but I can’t. I am confused to the core. And this is a bad place to write but its still my only place to write…
नचाहँदा नचाहँदै ब्लग गर्नु पनि नखाउँ भने दिन भरीको शिकार खाउँ भने कान्छा बाउको अनुहार जस्तै भाछ

Forget KTM

What I liked most about Biratnagar were its residential areas: wide roads, big compounds with Asoka trees and plenty of land to grow anything one wished for.It looked well planned where each house had its breathing space unlike houses in KTM where most buildings seem to be breathing down another’s neck. I like this long one storied house we have been invited for dinner where I am lying down on the cemented verandah staring up at the stars. People below me are dancing as Narayan Gopal sings “Kun daiba hola kun sajog hola….” ( Mohani Laglahai soundtrack from the Nepali movie Chino) and they keep demanding for Nepali songs. And while they are not dancing they start singing Nepali tunes from the yesteryears. My cousins who are way too younger than me scream for ‘Desi girl’ type of songs (though the old folks did dance in that number too) but the older ones (way too older than me) have the final say. And I have to say my folks do know how to have a good time. They are always ready to dance and they don’t sing out of scale either. A sense of rhythm and scale may not be heredity in nature but as I lie down listening to their songs I can’t help thinking if it is and we are the way we are.

Bijaya Dashami ko Tika

Life

I walk out the brown wooden door. Then I walk out of the brown Iron Gate. I wish my next step out be a walk out of the circumference of the earth too. But that doesn’t happen. I end up in the bus stop. A quick glance at the carpets displayed through the window of the Interior Décor shop and then at the bikes right in front of it. There’s a guy sitting in one of them. He’s clad a in black jacket, black shades and most importantly looks very CLEAN. I don’t want to look at clean people when I am feeling very dirty myself, in need of a good scrub from head to toe. So, my head instantly turns in the opposite direction as if by reflex. My green t-shirt is discolored ( it was an absolute waste of money), my hair smells Johnson Baby’s Hair Oil and my hands are smeared with blue ink ( a blue Reynolds pen had to vomit it all in my hands).And that is how I look at work.

These Blessed Eyes of Mine