Huck Finn In Every Rame, Shyame, Lakpa And Pemba

Come August, it would be five years since I left home. Yes, home, not a country. I refuse to be bound by any geo-political boundaries, or pledge my loyalty to any tribes or groups, I am happy to make my home anywhere, in that sense I am a true global citizen. I can assimilate into any society, but would they (the host) welcome me as their own, is the question? Quirks of integration…

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My lame progressive attempt to be a global citizen is bogged down by my regressive nostalgia and memories of Nepal at every step–the fondest memories. For me, Nepal is a pristine koseli of all my childhood/youthful memories, there is not a shred of feeling of patriotism or pride—no politics, no ideology, but all emotions and sentiments, when I think of my Nepal. If one doesn’t have a control over where to be born, then why take a pride on something that you didn’t even work for? Nonetheless, I’m happy to be born as a Nepali, I would have been as happy, had I been born as a Mongol, European, a Mauri or a Eskimo.

I love Nepal, not because, it defines my identity or nationality, I didn’t ask for or wish for that–just a sheer fate, what to take a pride in roll of dice. I love Nepal not because, it’s a home to Buddha, Sita Mata or Mt. Everest. I love Nepal for the precise following personal reasons, you can beg to differ as much as you want here, since your pride got nothing to do with mine.

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God! How I miss the warmth of Kathmandu sun, after being shriveled up by snow for years. Verities in seasons make a year look short back home, unlike a dual season here–summer and winter, pretty mono-chromatic, though a stint of fall gets pretty colorful. I could tell Dashain is around the corner, facing the sun, closing my eyes, and taking a whiff of Kathmandu air– lungful, without even looking at the calendar. Come rainy season, it’s even more interesting and eventful, doing acrobatic prancing around the puddles on the road, autumn and spring are the best. Winters I didn’t like. The power shut down every forth night would remind the Kathmandu basi that we still live in medieval period, but I loved it, perfect time to gaze into the sky, where a band of Milky Way would show distinctly, in the absense of city lights.

I sometime wonder; why people even bother keeping taps in their homes, when there is no running water? A jug full of water to wash your head, and a bucket to take a bath would suffice, albeit, everyone looked groomed and preened. Mazboori ka nam Mahatma Ghandhi, a good lesson in Resource Management.

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How I miss that fizzing noise when the marble at the mouth of the colorful soda bottle is popped open in the alley of Ranjana Hall, and how I would be bed ridden for days from that acidic drink with the inflated tonsillitis. The best was having Pani Puri by the road side; occasionally the vendor would scratch his crotch and break open the puri with the same fingers–magic of taste, or the filthy crotch, I don’t know, which one. Or it may be an organized deliberate act of revenge of Madhesi’s on Phadiya. Talking about Madhesi, my family barber from Sarlahi, how he would always give me Amitav Bacchan hair cut with middle parting, and end it off with applying pungent hair oil dripping from my fore head. He had my hair cut since as long as I can remember, so he thought, he was entitled to make a call more than I, on how I looked. It was not intrusion, it was love. With a hair like that I looked like a Mongolian junior Bacchan with a buck tooth. I wonder, how Ram Narayan doing these days.

Ah! That fiery Choila-Kachila and Bara behind the Krishna Mandir in Patan that would make you feel like fire breathing dragon from up while eating, and from rear the next morning. Always made promise never to go back, as your sore ass and throat heals a little, you find yourself back, before you can remember your last torture in sauchalaya.

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And those countless evenings to dance bars, Nepali version of cabaret, and walking home all the way to Maharajgunj with Twaaks and Loore, herding the guys in drunken stupor, or having that dare devil ride on the motor bike while drunk with Loore. I wonder sometimes, how we are still alive. Having brawls getting your skull open, or have someone else’s open, paying visit to police station, and all those visits to hospitals. Sweet memories. Kathmandu is the vault where all my memories are locked away. I want to pay them my visit, my homage. I want to visit all those restaurants where I had my dates. I want to have that taxi ride again where I had my first kiss. Damn memories.

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How I have come to detest order in life, now I pine for that chaos of Kathmandu, where a normal day is a collection of petty squabbles with taxi driver, tempo driver, bus driver, teller at the bank, clerk at the government office, and with your parents to top it of. Even the trite activities like paying the bills demand a wit to avoid standing in the queue for hours. How you need to have a connection with Wada Adyakchya to get a cylinder of LPG gas, and to make it worse, your mother’s nagging, 24/7, to get your lazy butt to get that unwieldy LPG cylinder. It’s the chaos that makes your life eventful, and among these events you find those memorable moments.

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Going back many many years, I miss those roads, where I have run half naked with a perennial running nose, with a shiny coat of mucous on my sleeves by rubbing off my nose, a filthy toddler that I was. I’m pretty sure; my parents would deny claiming me as one of theirs’, if they ever caught me in the public frolicking, with a tousled hair, torn short-pants, catapult around my neck, and a Hatti Chaap chappal with a knob that goes between your toes broken and now it hangs on your knees rather than be under your sole. I was an unruly kid, embarrassment to my folks, and a good example for other parents to scare their kids.

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As a kid, there is not a single pond, creek or a river in the Kathmandu Valley, I haven’t swam, be it—Sundari Jal, Bagmati, Bishnumati, Tukucha, Chobar, I have swam with buffalos in Gahana Pokhari in Hadi Gaun, Rani Pokhari got spared since it was barred. Water body in the valley was comparatively clean, pre-urbanization of Kathmandu. And there isn’t a mountain around the valley I haven’t scaled. And there isn’t a tree that I have not stolen a fruit form in the whole of Wada No: 4.

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I was a Nepali Huckleberry Finn, at least in spirit.

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Very apt song for this entry as an addendum, Sarin suggested. ### In My Life ### There are places I’ll remember# All my life though some have changed# Some forever not for better# Some have gone and some remain# All these places have their moments# With lovers and friends I still can recall# Some are dead and some are living# In my life I’ve loved them all ##### But of all these friends and lovers# There is no one compares with you# And these memories lose their meaning# When I think of love as something new# Though I know I’ll never lose affection# For people and things that went before# I know I’ll often stop and think about them# In my life I love you more ### Though I know I’ll never lose affection# For people and things that went before# I know I’ll often stop and think about them# In my life I love you more# In my life I love you more #### ———————————————-The Beatles

My Huck Finn adventure of Kantipuri Nagari in the next post…

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