jumbled up

A lazy Saturday afternoon is hard to find. It is hard to treasure it for long when i find one.

A visit to the mall - always hurried - scurried - in a mess, the brightly lit shelves, rows and rows of colorful packaging whirl past as the shopping cart whooze to the corner of your find.

The stories of those who walk by on the streets - the beggar, the street vendor, the fruit seller, those group of loud Indian visitors, lost dazed rich people trying to find coca cola - staring at them from your window and fancying up your own story for each one of them - what leisure were those now you realize.

I tasted my tea today - darjeeling leaves - with its rich fragrance. It had long been i tasted food. I gulp them down every now and then several times a day. I measure my water for enough intake - one red steel bottle on my left hand, pouring it down my throat - my eyes on the screen, my right palm on the mouse. Am i supposed to taste water? I wonder.

I lived for 15 minutes last week. I was in a cab to work. I closed the stack of A4 size print outs on my lap, the presentation material for the day - closed my eyes, brought my senses alive and watched, I listened, I smelled. I saw the droplets on the window of the cab - blurring my visuals of outside. I felt droplets on my bare arm that had managed their way in. I smelled the rain. I smelled the moisture inside the cab. The thudding of rain drops on the roof. The splatter on the roofs nearby. The incessant chaotic car honks, motorbikes that splashed waves around - the raincoats, the umbrellas, the squeezing under umbrellas, the smiles, the shouts, wet hair, muddy folded pants, the potholes, the rain boots, the whites turned brown on school children.

I suddenly missed school, i missed college, i missed mom, i missed a cup of tea.

But the days roll on. I still measure my water intake. Try hard to make in time for work. Balance it out well. Cook, wash, read, correct, edit, send, write,click, edit, call, shout, click, decide, edit, read, send, think, click, call, frustrate, write, gulp down, edit, click, send, stand, speak, opine, call, click, walk - rush, call, reply, call, listen, click, note down, translate, gulp down, edit, opine, speak, call, cook, wash.....

and the days roll on.

my world

The long lost freedom is not yet found.

It is in some old forlorn forgotten well, deep under the waters, whose walls have grown moss - lust, wet, green, innocent moss - carpeting the inner walls.

It might never be restored, retrieved - the freedom.

When i think of freedom, i think of a hilly, a mountainous place - a hill station perhaps - with its crisp fresh air, its friendly, innocent, simple people with no complications of emotions, with no ego - no expectations, no demands. A gay happy face when the daily demands of basic needs are fulfilled.

I think of a school on this hill, a school and its kids. I would love to spend time with them - teach them something perhaps - spend a lot of time with them - play table tennis with them maybe - run with them - chat with them - spend a lot of time with them - show them various books - solve their innocent emotional issues - talk with them - spend a lot of time with them.

When i think of freedom, i think of making friends in the lonely place - knowing people doing their own stuff - making tea, tending to their gardens, dusting their windows, scrubbing off a stubborn stain.

When i think of freedom, i think of a snack on this hill somewhere - a sandwich probably - and a book - under a warm lovely sun, lying on the grass - reading the book until my lids get heavy and i fall in a lazy cozy warm slumber. I wake up to the crisp fresh breeze - the flowers around - red, blue and yellow, dangling and dancing with the breeze.

When I think of freedom, i think of keeping the body and the mind fresh, healthy and alert.

When i think of freedom, i think of writing, on a table, or on the grass, or at a tea shop, or in the school - i think of writing.

When i think of freedom, i cannot think of you. When i think of freedom, you are a wishful character - the yearning in my life. You are what makes me complete. You fulfill me and complete the purpose of why i live. With you i feel free.

But you don't come alone. And i can't take you with all your belongings to my space of freedom because they clatter a lot, clutter a lot, make noise - a lot of noise. They are orthodox, conservative, complicated and stagnant. And for them, i have no space in my world.

But i have stopped taking you there anymore.

I keep you here, with me - where you are - lest they hear us and follow us to my world.

But i still wish, i still yearn for you to be there with me - under the sun, lying on the grass........

I miss you deeply, where I wish you to be.

resting it out

Am supposed to be on complete bed rest, i should be resting it out. I am.

But more you restrict the human nature, the more it wants to erupt, burst out! especially when it knows what's it that it's missing.

I am not supposed to be here, but am here for a brief while and it makes the sensation even more pleasurable, the keyboards softer the monitor more alluring.

I select lighter, readable books to hold on my face while i lay on my back all day. Currently it is Small is Beautiful and each sentence i read it seems is written in the context of our own country. I heard it somewhere that King Birendra used to love this book and slightly understand why. And i also get perplexed a little at that piece of information.

It is a beautiful book written in the seventies which still holds good for an economics book written on the basis of research and data decades ago, the substance still holds good and beautiful.

So many learned leaders of our country not just political leaders but thought leaders fail to lead their fields - their own fields - why? when they are so learned, when they know what to do, why can't they fight the odds, bring in that conviction and just do it, as Nike says.

I got an 'activator' on my top five strengths (from Gallup's test), and can't just stand it when things don't get done. I can't stand it especially when things could be done and are not done, forget those who are ignorant and incapable of stuff. But when those who can, do not, it's simply unbearable.

For now, i am just resting my energies out.

what's it called?

Until you sit straight, you don't realize you had been bending all the while!
I wake up at night and can't sleep for hours....anticipation kills.

I go back to my orange. Mom takes the extra effort to find oranges for me, in this season. Fruit is better than juice they say, i am not sure - when they are preserved as well.

I go back to my book - EF Schumacher - a wonderful read - clears my mind - economics makes me pessimistic of the realistic world, it shatters the beautiful world we create around us, and jolts us back to the present. Sad thing - we hardly do anything about it.

I call friends, bosses, relatives to wish them a happy new year, i text a few, chat with a few. That's done. What next?

Fb - scan, browse, comment, like, post, find, go back to the past, find new friends! i am married to my husband after three years in fb- the fun part is, it collates all the picture of both of u together. I had a wonderful time reliving each photograph again. Its like falling in love all over again.

I look at the picture of the new born beauty to my brother in law - we wondered how she will have to learn Nepali, Newari, Hindi, Tamil and of course English!

Get some sleep!

weekend

Apart from the questions who will win - India or Srilanka and who will bat first, the next question on my mind is....

Will NEA give the few extra hours of power for the World Cup as it did last time during the Ind - Pak match?

picture this II

soap in a row

@ a tea shop in dolalghat!

balancing act!

outside home

picture this

White flower:

@dhulikhel, 2010

Boy splashing water

on way to the last resort, 2011

twitter this

i opened a twitter account today. it's so awkward though, maybe because i am not used to it. i am so used to seeing familiar faces on fb, it just baffled me at first. then i search for people i knew, friends, family - there were none.

i then went for celebs - from bollywood and hollywood and then to familiar categories, my favorite writers, then nepal...it leads you to more sites. i never knew manjushree thapa had a separate site in her name, its boring though - not much information except a review on her books which i can get anywhere. And her FAQs aren't that friendly either. well, she is the reserved kine. as long as her literature enriches us, no complaints madam.

just blank

blank.

sometimes the mind is blank. not just when you try to scribble something but when you try to even think something, it is preoccupied with just one thing that is most important in your life and nothing else matters.

i have been home, resting for a week now. and it seems fine. nothing else matters. on the first day i had to rest, i was deep shit worried about office, so much work, so few people to handle, one of my other colleagues is on bed rest too. I felt guilty, bad, twisted, difficult. But now i feel fine. Life will go on, but nothing's as important as health, nobody will give it back to you - not your mom, not your husband, not your dad, not your mother-in-law. This is one thing that totally belongs to you and if you don't take care of yourself, no one else will, because they don't know how you feel - your health. I think i have learnt it the hard way, shouldn't have been that difficult, but the simplest facts are the toughest to penetrate sometimes.

i have been doing the most cherished thing lying on bed these last few days - reading.

pathetic coffee

Its exactly 10 mins before the net goes down...the load shedding starts and it's not powered here, where i am.

Well, i am not in for pathetic coffees anymore either. We try to get in the best that's around, grind them and brew them, tea is brewed, coffee is what? filtered?

Anyways, i am just through with one of the finest literature i have come across in these years - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It is one of the smooth writings i have read in a long long while, it reminded me of Dostoevsky. Atwood is simply amazing, and i am definitely digging out more of her from the library.

The starting sentence of the novel is "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." and you can't put the book down then after....