a room with a view

Heal

2012-02-13T13:08:00.000+05:30

Kalu received 25 stitches in two layers yesterday. His stomach had opened up in a 12 inch long, triangular cut. I don't know how it happened. It took the vet nearly two hours to clean him and sew him up.
Kalu is alive. He bleeds now and then when he scratches himself. His head is in a plastic basket, so he won't bite off the bandage. But I have some hope now. Maybe he won't die.

I was thinking last night, how I've spent so many nights turning to prayer. How odd that, when I never even visit temples or conduct pooja and things like that. But sometimes, the only thing you need to ask for in a prayer is for the dog to heal.

You

2012-02-11T06:44:00.000+05:30

when i'm crumbling
and there is no faith to cling on to

when everything else eludes me,
i still see your silhouette
at a distance

distinct,
as you walked away from me

maybe

2012-02-09T18:30:00.000+05:30

i'll warm up.
there are signs of thaw

When I am sick

2012-02-09T12:04:00.000+05:30

with a heartbreak, the bed is my comfort. i wait here.
the sun is pale against the wall of the bungalows that have gone-up next door. all these little colonies Kathmandu is now spotted with. pretty white bungalows that steal all the sunlight from their neighbours, you know. so, that's my only hint of the day these days- the sunlight that shines on the bungalow and reflects on my windows.

kanchu has strewn the floor with socks and lingerie. she likes to throw them in the air. so there they lie, crisp and dry from the sun they soaked in just before it started raining the other day.

i wish it would rain again, and i could just remain in bed, soaking in the warmth, matching my tears with the sound of the rain.

(if Nhooja read this, he would call me an emo. But, remember Kevin who said Derrida is an emo? he deconstructed himself.)

Dear Stranger (who was never a stranger),

2012-02-06T11:58:00.001+05:30

This one is for you.
When it was taken, I thought these were shackles. They can always make shackles look like jewelry. But you wear them if you like them, ni. Why does everything have to be guided by what the Feminist theory says? Women don't anymore think of anklets as the thing that makes the sound that tells men, the women are still inside the four walls of their home.
Why can't we just walk in them, the jingling telling us we're alive and free in music, to go anywhere? Just anywhere.

WHINING

2012-02-04T06:24:00.001+05:30

for you. you know am just a puppy at the core anyway.

so, i just fell asleep in a chair, woke up to the fog. and now am drinking coffee.

this blog is my place to whine, anyway.

:(

2012-02-03T18:50:00.002+05:30

i can't write

POWER-ON

2012-02-03T06:44:00.000+05:30

there's the grayish-blue almost orange sky,
there's the mist
there are ugly buildings
the solitary bill boards
and water tanks
boasting of their hollow Kathmandu existence

there's the sound of the hoover
there's the clearing of throat at a distance

there is a dim hum of the city
similar to its waking-up anywhere in the world.

and it's morning

CLICK DELETE 1

2012-02-03T05:57:00.003+05:30

i HATE these tinted glass windows before me. they feel like the night never ends.

am sitting here to catch a hint of the morning sun, as i work.
when, oh when?!

CLICK DELETE

2012-02-03T05:13:00.000+05:30

I HATE WAKING UP AT 4 TO COME TO WORK

so here's dark bitter coffee, just the ways this morning feels.
and i'm thinking of someone who just disappeared. and in this world of virtual everything, it's easy to do that.

this anatomy

2012-01-27T06:18:00.001+05:30

we're flesh and bones that hurts. frail things that hiss at the prick of a needle and reel when the solution passes through the veins, burning a steady fire.
we're flesh and bones that love while we forget it doesn't hurt.
we're also flesh and bones that love even when it hurts.

all of these are true. the last one has more truth.

For now,

2012-01-25T20:27:00.001+05:30

Maya will have to love the puppies
and find consolation in them
against the world

they're not as terrible as humans
when they grow up

Yesterday

2012-01-22T13:49:00.005+05:30

there was the afternoon sun,
Shradha's long legs
Pooja's big curls
and my eyebrows-
thick like a paintbrush.

we're girls who want our men
to love us with our facial hair and all that
~~we are girls who believe~~
~~there is no such thing as promiscuity~~
-either there is want
or there isn't

'wants are sexier than needs' anyway
like Shradha puts it

so, yesterday
we slipped on canvases
that listed afternoon sex
self-obsession
and liberation
that came from nudity

we snacked on sushi and eggplant,
gulped down teas from plastic cups
and marveled at the boy
with pouting, delicious-looking lips,
who paints reflection, mangled desire
and estrangement

he is everyman-
beautiful and abandon-bound

yesterday,
we thought we had arrested time,
even as our breasts are fast sagging,
skin shriveling up
and hair asking for more than a barber's scissors

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

2012-01-22T10:20:00.000+05:30

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

-Emily Dickinson

A challenge to the dark

2012-01-22T10:18:00.000+05:30

shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ass
shot like a flower in the dance

-Charles Bukowski

a poem

2012-01-21T07:11:00.001+05:30

is who you would be
if i had to find a form for you

in what you call prose,
you live more poetry than any of us
who claim to try at the verse

cribbing

2012-01-21T06:54:00.000+05:30

i actually hate having to wake up at 4:30 on these freezing january mornings to morning to come to work. but if i think of them as a pattern, it's not too bad.

i begin with struggling out of bed, my hands and feet like blocks of ice. when i walk out of home into the office car, khairo follows me all the way and actually races after the car while i shout at him to go home. my biggest fear these days is that something will run him over. he's just a stray dog, after all, you know. maybe i'll buy him a belt so people know he belongs in a home.

okay, my journey to work. wind finds a way to my face and hands and knees in the car and i become a ball of sleep and cold. but i'd rather keep going in the car all morning than arrive at work.

then i arrive and begin my franctic search for the one chair in the office that doesn't give me a backache. but it's always war over that one. today, i found it in the pantry. broken :( and my backache has been growing worse.

the heater (a sin) is a comfort on these mornings. and coffee and hot water. and knowing i can sleep in late tomorrow morning.

To drink or not to drink

2012-01-21T06:06:00.000+05:30

Green tea this morning. Just trying to figure if this will cool off my mind, which has been on blaze for days. But I read yesterday that coffee is good for a good fight against breast cancer and diabetes. (I don't remember my doctor saying NO COFFEE.) So, the next cup will be a coffee!
Let the mind go ablaze!

inconcentriccircles

2012-01-20T06:47:00.000+05:30

Kathmandu blew in chilly evening wind against my face, as I walked around the bend of the Narayanhiti Palace and made my way toward Lazimpat, last night.

These long lonely walks that stumble into faces of strangers I have seen before is a reminder that I will only be an individual, always.

Sometimes, when I stop to talk to strangers on these alone evenings, I find more fulfillment than the kind I do when I'm buried deep in the arms of someone I love.

Walking along Lazimpat, always reminds me of a stranger, who walked into my tea cup and found a way into my system.

In the middle of the night, when I peel down like layers and layers of autumn leaves that are being crushed down as they fall in dry silence from my body, it is this stranger I think of again.

I think, maybe in honest, hurtful words the stranger would still bring me complete in concentric circles that began at a point when I started to unbelong to myself.

PMS

2012-01-18T10:42:00.000+05:30

after all the struggle with yourself and spitting of bitterness at people around you, you finally realize it was a bleeding vagina you needed to put a stop to all that

this bloated stomach and these painful cramps!

and my thoughts turn toward Munadevi Shahi, 28, who died in Accham yesterday after being left in chau goth for five days.

a boy called Ben,

2012-01-15T21:46:00.001+05:30

once fell in love with me

and this is how he saw

the world around him:

frozen

and i fell in love with his photography.

you offered me a distraction from yourself, Ben.

persepolis

2012-01-13T06:53:00.000+05:30

who would have known the craving for a plate of biryani for lunch and a swarma for dinner were only the needs of a pregnant woman? during those days, they were lost in translation of missing the sharp Asia spice that brought one home- if only in the form of food.

she had no memory of how she discovered Persepolis. but it must have been one of those walks back to the dorm after university with DU, that led to this eatery.

so, Persepolis was a restaurant of plain settings, with Iranian rugs thrown at the foot of tables and paintings from Tehran pulling you into the walls.

her classmates noticed her love for the paintings and decided on Persepolis as the location for her birthday celebration. they brought out a Goldilocks chocolate cake and created a day for this pregnant girl, who was unaware of the baby growing inside her and unaware of how she was soon to have no home and no more birthday celebrations.

but that evening, she had had the happiest birthday in her life, as she bit into her swarma and later drank down her green mango shake- sour, sweet, chilled- like the memories of a home left behind.

Then and now

2012-01-12T10:15:00.000+05:30

Have you noticed the changes? This was Pampha Bhusal then:

And now, she's all pink and green and pepped-up. A certain niece of hers is grooming her, rey.

Does Phoenix have toes?

2012-01-11T23:10:00.004+05:30

As Baa massaged my toes with olive oil, a couple of hours ago, I thought of the time I had wept at night, in my in-laws' home. Ex in-laws. I would turn away from the man who shared the bed with me, who slept endlessly unaware of the hole inside me. As the chilblains on my toes warmed-up and itched, I would start to miss Mamu and Baa's room and the heater on wintry nights. Such a useless, cry-baby I made out of myself, wasting over immature toes.

No clue when Nhooja took this

So, here's Baa's baby's toes intact, resting right next to my baby's paws :)

so much is enough

2012-01-08T21:39:00.002+05:30

the way you look at me
as the safa tempo pulls away-

perched on the seat,
leaning half out
to catch a glimpse of me

fog

2012-01-07T07:01:00.000+05:30

there's something so beautiful about these foggy January mornings

just the immediate buildings stand out in silhouette. rest is covered in the dense white. even the squalor looks clean on mornings like these

finally

2012-01-07T06:21:00.000+05:30

i have my cup of coffee.
and the man i hate is playing some good music.
and sitting next to him this morning, i was reminded of the time i loved him instead of hate.
so maybe he's still my friend in a way. the friend i love to hate.

epiphany

2012-01-07T05:54:00.000+05:30

****************************************************
in the tiniest photo fame that appeared out of nowhere, i fixed my passport size photograph, taken just before the trial. mamu thought it looked very neat. then i told her something that didn't make her very happy. my objective behind putting it up- i realized, if i met sudden death, i wouldn't want them to put up just any photo for the samvedhana. i'd like to look nice there. there are things related to death, that i hope will be my way. for instance, i hope i'm wearing my favourite lingerie and my favourite Woodland's moccasins, when that happens. i hope there isn't any rain. and i hope they won't leave me at Pashupati but feed me to the animals or something. maybe the zoo. Zawlakhel zoo is in pretty bad shape. the animals there need moving. maybe my flesh will instill a little anger in them and they will rebel.
i'm angry. at several things.
right now, at having to get up at 4 in the morning and ride to work next to the man i loathe.
therefore, this morbid post
*****************************************************

so,

2012-01-06T06:47:00.002+05:30

coffee
it is again
that i drink
with
so much lust

water

2012-01-06T06:21:00.000+05:30

i thought
water
this morning

first
the kind
i drink
out of my mug
-warm

then
the kind
that washes away
-warmth and all

(in the shower
parts that were violated)

(at the kitchen sink
concealed wounds)

[in the rain
reincarnation]

the trial

2012-01-04T22:15:00.000+05:30

so
they return
in little sacks
gathering dust

blankets
mirrors
bed-side lamps
furniture
kitchenware
thongs
a used bar of soap

no books

memories
wrapped
in sniffles, sobs
scratches and bites
that knocked down walls of confidence

they come back
in sacks full of rags and fragments

You

2011-12-31T16:33:00.000+05:30

used to be
a person

now, words

You are my coffee

2011-12-31T06:38:00.000+05:30

The doc says no alcohol.
No coffee.

But this liquid slides down my throat
it's bitterness
turning sweet inside me

Coffee is a little like loving.

Like loving you

Blog reading in 2011

2011-12-31T06:19:00.000+05:30

I'm not going to write about coffee this morning (because there's only hot water in my mug right now).

Inspired by K, here's my list of blogs that kept me going in 2011:

1. http://karuna-tinydancer.blogspot.com/
this is Karuna Chandrashekar. poetry sprinkled with the most gentle and the most beautiful things, followed by a heartache

2. http://thinkinink.wordpress.com/
stories, poetry and other stuff by Pranaya Rana. here's where i go when i want to pamper myself with some good writing

3.http://sneezestar.blogspot.com/
here, when i need to feel brave about who i am and draw inspiration for life. thank you, Shradha Mukhiya

4. http://gooeyjournalism.blogspot.com/
here, just to find a part of myself and to find Ayushma Regmi

5. http://www.nepaliketi.net/
here, to listen to Sradda Thapa's arguments that help form my own

6. http://davaodiaries.blogspot.com/
this is my room-mate and my soul sister, Germelina Lacorte. i wish i could be as frank as her in my writing, without wondering what J would think about it

7 http://guffadi.blogspot.com/
you all know who this is. this one, to give myself an update on the world around me

almost there

2011-12-30T06:43:00.000+05:30

old books
and the warmth of the comforter
- perfect way to wait for the calendar to change

but first, Coffee

2011-12-30T06:19:00.002+05:30

nothing happens without a mug of coffee

nothing
-not even poetry

so here,

in the bittersweet taste
of heartbreaks,
there's always that hope
in fingertips, clinging
to fingertips
-like they are what keep
two minds together

(whoever decided coffee was a drink for the confused?!)

P.S. it is :)

:(

2011-12-30T05:54:00.000+05:30

walking a short way across the bridge to the office building at 5:30 in the morning was a killer. yes, december mornings are beautiful. but they are also annoyingly cold. walking across the bridge, my thought turned toward street children and dogs :(

kennel cough

2011-12-28T13:27:00.000+05:30

when kanchu falls ill

-i die

The night bus driver

2011-12-25T06:26:00.006+05:30

do you remember

the cutting winds

that sliced through

the slits

of the wind-screen of the night bus

as you huddled inside your jacket,

the limbs of the stranger on the next seat,

dearer than the ones you'd just said goodbye to?

do you remember

how the morning light waited

on the baited breath

of the wee-hour travellers,

who skipped the darkness of the night

to make a passageway for you

into dawn?

their hands searched

fires

lighted by the road-side vendors,

as the jogis smoked their pipes

and struck chords

of solitude in disarray

their feet,

stiff with chilblains,

knocked the frost on the grass

to kick-start another life

their tongues,

burnt with a small lie,

searched for a reason

to purge

and their eyes

squinted at the sparse hint of light,

as the December morning

stretched

like the open, open grazed fields

you drove across in Jhapa

just as the night bus drew closer

to the journey's end.

Lindia Benningfield

Early Morning

the sky

2011-12-23T19:17:00.000+05:30

it seems took cue from my insides today and spread over us in patches of cirrus clouds

it was so beautiful

and i wondered if in that beauty, it still hurt

Coffee

2011-12-23T11:22:00.001+05:30

P.S. My only respite on days of incoherence.

L A Z Y

2011-12-23T10:56:00.000+05:30

it is one of those mornings, when you feel like doing nothing.
n o t h i n g

the house is a mess today
my stories are waiting to be written
the books are waiting to be read

i'm a little
s
c
a
t
t
e
r
e
d

December mornings :)

2011-12-23T10:32:00.001+05:30

are certainly more beautiful than anything else i've ever known

even the warmth of the blanket feels like an embrace you cannot abandon

Dear Coffee,

2011-12-18T05:49:00.000+05:30

I'm failing miserably at the dermatologist's instruction to give you up.

My heart does a silly sommersault when I see you swirl in froth at the bottom of my mug, just before the hot water from the flask brims you to the top.

I take a sip and I'm home again to the bitterness of loving you.

morning

2011-12-18T05:42:00.000+05:30

hot water
slides down
my system

it's sweet sweet

and the first thing
i need

disgust

2011-12-17T14:58:00.002+05:30

the tissue paper

patched with tears and mucus
dies up
before the electric heater

i've run short of tissues
-so reuse to reduce

??

2011-12-17T12:37:00.002+05:30

what will change
after these 24 hours?

you?
I?
or the spiking of words?

elusive 56

2011-12-16T17:42:00.000+05:30

who are you?

are you this splitting headache
that celebrates
my falling apart?

fie!

2011-12-12T10:53:00.000+05:30

the soothsayer
says
life evolves
out of short phases
that
trip and stumble
at a period
set
a couple of paces
away

so
the journey begins
- this one
with an ellipsis
and will end at one...

Stranger

2011-12-11T06:38:00.000+05:30

Dear stranger,

I see mischief beaming in that smile, as you sit bent over a piece of writing, your face, framed by big curls.

If we met, would the persons beneath our skins embrace each other like our words already do?

Love,
P

P.S. Confession. I just google-stalked you.

Breakfast

2011-12-11T06:07:00.003+05:30

Stumbled upon a site by a foodie that's all about photos of things that look delectable. It's just what I sorely need but do not need on a hungry Sunday morning. But how much I agree with her when she says:

This is my outlet to share two of the things I love the most: breakfast + morning light.

Sometimes, I've dragged myself out of bed, only at Baa's offer of the lure of a good cup of peppered/ginger tea and cheese omelette and soft, warm toast and potatoes in their crisp jackets.

P.S. And this prayer was answered! My colleague Srijana ji just shared a huge tub of vegetable momos and cheese and mushroom pizza! Yes, it's only 6:30 am :)

Dearest Germie,

2011-12-04T06:31:00.003+05:30

Sometimes, I think of the patch of sunlight that shone on that building we could see from our bathroom- the first hint of the morning for our eyes, that had become accustomed to reading under the light of the electric bulbs. Even at six in the morning, we had to turn on those light. You would tip-toe against the floor boards early in the morning, trying hard not to wake me up. But half awake, I'd hear you on your phone, talking to Ja sometimes, but mostly to Sean, in a tongue, I knew wasn't Tagalog, but something I'd started to recognize for its rhythm. I loved how the rhythm naturally slowed down and tripped when you talked to Sean and it made me think, some day, I'd sound like that, speaking to my little one.

Space. There was a lot of that in our little dorm in Katipunan. We were free, connected to our families only in our hearts. We were free to wander for hours in the National book store or the little book store next door to us, like it was the ultimate way of claiming our identities. How much we sought from the world in those evenings that ended in a 20 minutes walk back to the dorm from the Uni! We were free to spend the night, talking to the undergrad kid who thought Derrida was an emo. We were free to think we would take the MRT one morning and keep moving out of Manila.

And we knew it was a time of our life that would never return.

They're building beautiful new bungalows behind our house here in Kathmandu. I hate how they fragment my view of the sky and block light and breeze in my room. The morning sun now appears on the walls of the newly constructed houses before it does in the garden. Every morning, I stare at the sun shining on those buildings and think of Manila mornings, that began and ended with you. I guess, I miss you.

Love,
P

P.S. And right now, the thought of biting into a soft, warm pandesal with melting cheese, while sipping a cup of Spanish style coffee is driving me out of my wits. They were always a part of our breakfast conversations.

half awake

2011-12-04T05:50:00.000+05:30

it's Sunday morning again and i feel an obligation toward you. between loathing the 4 am alarm and looking forward to a very long day, it turns out i developed a love-hate relationship with this day of the week. for some reason, times drags on Sunday mornings for the first half, bringing the entire week to rest. i become the cursor on the screen, resting where i abandon it. i am free to wander inside my mind. and i keep arriving at you.

just a dream

2011-11-30T12:39:00.001+05:30

i felt the land crumble beneath my feet. like quicksand.like sand fast melting into water, the ground under my feet gave way and i started to run. the run was uphill. grinding, muscles stiffening, the land fast dissolving, i ran uphill toward you

:(

2011-11-29T23:01:00.003+05:30

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.”
― John Grogan, Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog

puppy

2011-11-29T10:35:00.000+05:30

they have taken the puppy indoors.
yes, i complained.

insane, insane, insane

2011-11-27T06:51:00.000+05:30

for three consecutive nights, i've heard the pup yelp. it whines, yelps, weeps, stops when it tires then starts again. this goes on all night, making me want to kick the face of whoever it is the pup belongs to. why adopt a pup if you're going to tie it up all night and leave it to free in 6 degrees? am assuming that's why s/he weeps all night.
i took a sleeping pill last night to deafen myself against his cries.
when i woke up this morning, he was still weeping. the sounds were more feeble. but he hadn't stopped.
i need to find the house. this is driving me insane. why are we so cruel toward animals? humans. that's not even a name we should use for ourselves. we're monsters. monsters.

if and when

2011-11-25T13:12:00.000+05:30

where words are not scathing
and silence makes up for everything unsaid

where you do not judge the movement of my hands
and i hold no grudges against your roving mind

where you and I
are just what we become in each other

if there is that field Rumi created,
I'll surely meet you there.

Dear Coffee,

2011-11-20T06:38:00.002+05:30

it is

as if i'd forgotten

that after the initial sweetness

you're bitter,

murky,

vindictive

i drink
right down

to the bottom of the mug

where you nuzzle

in contempt-

concentrated,

leaden

and i'm charred all over again

Trippin'

2011-11-20T06:13:00.000+05:30

Everywhere

there's stumbling over
what the night brought in.

i try so hard to keep my eyes open
-my brain shuts in
gives in to the heaviness
of the dust from the vial

they hold in
what tires to break free from me

a'tripping over you

Dear stranger,

2011-11-17T21:18:00.000+05:30

Transcend.

We are made up of letters.
We shall meet where your syllables find mine.

Love,
P

I lisp

2011-11-15T22:52:00.002+05:30

Find You

perhaps here
you and i
will still be
where
we were

swinging in
during the
afternoon lull
over teas
brailleing
poetry into queer shapes

perhaps here
i never have to worry
about losing you

Silence

and yet

what did we leave behind for each other

but a stretch of silence

when the nights coiled and twirled and held our words together

they became conversations

when we touched each other through the trans-pacific waves

we consummated our love

when we lashed out at each other, the words fragmenting, bickering,
falling like swords and we clenched against wants

we fell

you

you set me adrift
you're the shore

CLICHE

the spaces
are closing in fast
and i hear, the world is speeding toward destruction

i wonder if you will see my lips lisp your name
when i abandon this wreck.

Poetry

2011-11-15T22:24:00.000+05:30

there is no you

just because
it's absence
if there's too much longing
for

2011-11-15T19:56:00.000+05:30

our bruises brush
weep
embrace
and heal

the hollow
in our throats
form into lumps
as the fingers
follow the spine
and press to the shoulderblades

Whole

2011-11-15T19:51:00.000+05:30

flicks
collar-bone
knuckles
shoulders
dipping of eyelashes in a dimple
ankles
knees
the archway of a hip-bone
a finger
caught in a mesh

Plato's wholeness.

stand

2011-11-15T19:14:00.000+05:30

I will.

just so you know

another dog dies

2011-11-13T17:20:00.002+05:30

and am not a happy person today. there are always dying dogs, hungry dogs, lost dogs in this neighbourhood.

bruno died today. he had been coughing for days and with Kathmandu getting so gloomy, I knew it was coming. they shouldn't have left him in the "cage" in this cold. but we humans do that all the time. cage them, hit them, kick them, tie them up, make them starve, run them over with cars and throw things at him. sometimes, acid.

home is becoming a playground of sorts for stay dogs now.of course, baa thinks am mad to leave food out for them on the front porch. that i should laugh when they jump in air at the sight of food. but am crazy about them and it can't be any other way. kanchu is slightly jealous, but am sure she knows she tops my list of all the dogs in the world!

Quiet

2011-11-13T06:57:00.000+05:30

That stillness again-

of the time

we slipped into silence,

as mid-mornings

became

a battleground,

where we hoped

to contain

the rankle.

In this stillness,

you're still

my place to go to.

For you,

2011-11-13T06:39:00.000+05:30

there will have to be verses
again.

They are all I have
to concretize
your absence.

at home

2011-11-11T13:06:00.000+05:30

my afternoons with mamu are fraught with sounds. buckets, bangles, utensils, punctuated by her cough. i seek so much in these afternoons. much of it is just escape- like it even exists.

delude

2011-11-09T06:51:00.003+05:30

I wake up to images of fresh green tea
while i sip darkdarkcoffee
to keep me awake at 6 am
and chase the ghosts from the night away

i can never fall asleep before morning

SWIG

2011-11-07T07:21:00.003+05:30

i take a swirl out of the coffee mug.

i can barely keep my eyes open

Re-cap

2011-11-06T06:26:00.001+05:30

to think of
who we became
when we touched
across the ether
in just words
that we built
our hearts on

a walk
a drizzle

there were half-emptied cups
there were unfinished conversations

there was you
who needed sovereignty
and me, who
needed some love

knowing i was loved

2011-11-06T06:02:00.000+05:30

i miss
my sunday mornings
of waiting
for you
to appear online

it's

2011-11-03T13:09:00.000+05:30

heavy again
from drenching since last night

a room of one's own

2011-10-14T11:26:00.000+05:30

chhori's ears perk up at the sound of the bells. the pooja continues in the front porch. i am not a part of it. station ids, news flash, scroll updates- i'm more at home in this world of clicks. real people are at a distance. i'm burrowing within myself.

Foul

2011-10-10T10:57:00.000+05:30

you bounce off the tongue
and nestle in a cavity

i reek of pain

Ajee,

2011-10-08T22:26:00.000+05:30

when we came home
after leaving you
on the pyre in Pashupati
i tried hard
to find a name for the feeling

it seemed impossible- temporary

we always feel that way
when we lose
what we love

always

i shut myself
in the shower
to shed what tears remained
while the water
ran between my toes
like rivulets
washing you off me

i stepped out

my hair was smoked
the smell of you

Girlfriends

2011-09-25T06:24:00.004+05:30

am thinking of how your eyes
dipped in the coffee-mug
bitter-sweet
in between our conversations
in the cafeteria
where you toyed with cake-crumbs
and how the fly
surrounded your hair
drawing a halo
before deciding to land
on the cake instead

-we were made up of angst
we still are

we drew circles within ourselves
of what we knew was negation

you clung to your Communist
with a clear crisp voice

i, desperately clawed at what
i thought might perhaps be love

we wondered at how it would be to love,
to make it

we touched the Kathmandu wind
that dissipated, even before

i remember, the pussy-willows and cat-tails
were in full-bloom, then

in Delhi,
we touched

through a mesh of what
tangles life had become

marriage, sex, drugs,
rejection, want, need

we drove though the streets
dragged ourselves up the narrow staircase
on to the landing
as it struck, that
things would keep moving despite us
and so would we

i look at your beautiful face this morning
and smile the taste of coffee in my mug
you always photograph
just as you are.

I shall rise

2011-09-24T11:08:00.000+05:30

you destroy me again.

i am the Phoenix

Poetry

2011-09-17T22:27:00.000+05:30

the pitch, the lilt, the hum, the nasal
and the air that escapes in between syllables-
there's something insanely beautiful
about listening to poetry in a language you do not understand.

(Kathmandu Literary Jatra)

the eyes

2011-09-11T10:15:00.000+05:30

will never get out
of the purple dips
patched from
nights of nothingness

the wait

2011-09-06T22:36:00.002+05:30

Babu's toes, spattered with mud is all I can remember of last night's wait. That, punctuated with little walks into the emergency to see if ajee was breathing alright or to give her the bed pan.

Outside, where we sat, the night had started freezing- a reminder that the festivals were nearing and then it would soon be winter, before you even realized. Baa's parka kept the wind out for me. But Babu froze in the NSD anniversary jacket he was curled inside. His torso hung in mid-air as he fell asleep on those metal waiting chairs, fixed permanently at a distance of 15 inches each.

It was the only time I could remember, sitting in a hospital waiting-room that had no walls. In between the snatches my eyes slumped into, I caught the figures of women, spread on the cold floor- waiting in their snores. My limbs hurt from being confined to a chair. But there had been hospital nights before. Only, not so cold and hungry. Hungry. I hadn't had the time to eat the previous night.

So, Babu and I headed to the cafeteria at 4 am, our feet just a drag. A man, blinking his sleep away, sold us milk coffee from the vending machine and two slices of bread pizza, which he quickly micro-waved and sliced into smaller pieces. We sat in a long hall, filled with black metal chairs, again with a 15 inches gap in-between. Maybe 10 inches. Even in that anxiety over ajee's wheezing, her rising potassium level and the plummeting sodium level, the bread pizza tasted better than the New York Firewood pizza I had had a few days ago, between pamperings at a beauty parlour.

Hunger and mud-spattered toenails- what things to remember from a sad day like this.

belly dancing

2011-09-04T07:52:00.001+05:30

at this talk with a group of college kids yesterday, a girl asked me if it wasn't the responsibility of women as well, to change the way women are portrayed in the media. isn't it also them, who should refuse to be portrayed as sex objects?

why always blame men for everything?

i long

2011-09-04T06:16:00.000+05:30

for something like you today
-terse.

Saturdays with Mamu

2011-09-03T19:07:00.000+05:30

I take Mamu for granted. I seem to think she'll always be young, beautiful and strong. But I look at her closely and it's not true. Mamu is ageing. Her hair has more gray than ever and is more wavy than my baby curls and her breasts are sagging swiftly- toward her navel.
My Saturdays with her have not happened for a while. Because I take her for granted. But I watch her today- around baajyaa-ajee, around Kanchu, I watch Kaaley follow her down the road. She forgets to remove the apron sometimes, after cooking. Mamu is ageing.

The God of Small Things,

2011-08-26T13:22:00.001+05:30

an afternoon that doesn't slide,
cushions
and water dripping down uncombed tresses

-just a few things I covet

Some afternoons

2011-08-25T13:28:00.001+05:30

are as quiet as this- the construction noise next door spinning a faint headache, the washerwoman flipping wet linen in a tub and the distant sound from the TV show Baa watches. Always, this silence makes me want to leave. And if it wasn't for Mamu's bangles that jingle against the kitchen counter, I guess, I'd have left. Now, even Kanchu seems to be able to nap away in this silence without wondering if I'm still at home.

dogs

2011-08-23T20:53:00.000+05:30

and i somehow, have always found each other, even after i decided never to adopt one again.

i don't know what to do with phucche kale. he whines if i don't give him food, or carry chhori in my arms. and chhori loathes me when i feed him. baa thinks i've taken in all the dogs in the tole.

how does one not feed a hungry dog, though?

Anger week

2011-08-23T20:30:00.000+05:30

I've had a very very angry week. And much of it has everything to do with the Nepal Literary Fest.

First, I was mad at Ajit Baral for taking me for granted and expecting me to fill in the spaces just because Taslima Narsin opted out. But, I guess your closest friends do that- take you for granted and you never unlove them for doing that. It's just friendship.

Then, I heard how someone had asked Ira Trivedi whether she thought her face was prettier or her boobs. And that made me furious because how the hell do you ask anyone such a question?! I feel like asking him if he thinks his balls are nicer or his brains, that invents such a question. Why just Ira, who's a published writer- no human being should have to entertain a question like that! Just because you have the floor, doesn't mean you ask a question to humiliate someone.

I also heard Ira succinctly said it's like asking a mother which of her two children she loves more and was glad she handled it that way. But I was mad no one interrupted and said that question did not deserve an answer. It was unwarranted for.

I'm also mad at the organizers for not defending their guest.

Then, there's all this super touchy shit about Nasrin "Tweeting herself to controversy". Can we behave like adults for a change? Thank Heavens, there are still people like Dinesh Wagle who makes sense in their social network messages.

Dinesh Wagle: d way some narrow minded folks responded 2 her misinformed tweet is disgusting. Why must she
know abt Nepal b4 coming here? I don't knw abt Lesotho, so what? Blind patriots, grow up! The blind patriots shld know that u can't issue or reject a visa (threat) 2 a visitor based on her knowledge (or lack thereof) abt Nepal. And for @taslimanasreen to cancel the Nepal trip just coz of some morons' childish tweets is so unTaslima, contrary 2 her fighting image

Before the rains

2011-08-10T21:10:00.000+05:30

Looks like the rain has stopped for this year without finding me. It didn't realize how I had started out with the dream to drench before it began.

I'm standing here. Dry.

Of course

2011-08-07T05:56:00.000+05:30

I don't like these mornings of heavy eyelids and painful limbs. But these are familiar mornings that come after a night spent wondering.

Just get me off my mind and slip me back in bed.

The thing

2011-08-06T21:38:00.000+05:30

about this is that it will always be your own battle. Your own. No one else's. Not even your mother's.
The silence of the house is yours. The cords- of the laptop, of the cell phones, of the camera- entangled; they are yours too. And the slight thud in your temples that gives you that familiar headache. They are all yours. You've tried so often not to be in this place. You've tried. But when you get here, it always feels like the names on the contact list of your cellphones are just alphabets and what they spell could never be people in blood and skin. When you're here, everyone shuts you out. Everyone has friends. Everyone is happy. Everyone. You do not know how to deal with this place. You know you've been here before. Left. But you do not know how to, while you're here. You know you're being dangerous to yourself. You want someone to call. To reach out and tell you anything at all. But it's the only times when you have no emails in your inbox and no text messages in your cell phones. The landline won't ring. Even he doesn't understand. Or perhaps you've becoming so good at it, he doesn't realize that you're not. So he just decides not to write down a prescription. Only talk. But you come home and you're in that place again. Again.

that

2011-07-26T23:27:00.002+05:30

we should love certain men, just because they love the girls we so love

today

2011-07-24T13:47:00.000+05:30

i can't bear the me you created

some things

2011-07-19T15:52:00.001+05:30

like the sound of that machine i don't know the name of- the one carpenters use to slice lumber- can transport me to childhood. also some things, like the fragrance of Johnson's baby blossoms, i just dabbed on my nape because Kathmandu is getting unbearably hot. it feels like Manila when i do that. makes me think of Germie's face and how she always dabbed Johnson's baby powder on her face in the Ladies, during recess. i have loved how that face lit-up when we talked stories, lives, books.

Germie is a child in her black shorts and Tee again, touching all her books, sprawling on the extra bed in our room, which used to be mine. I occupied Jana's bed in summer because she wasn't going to be on campus for that semester. So, Germie, her books, chocolate biscuits and wrappers. We quarreled over the mess sometimes- over the way the beef noodles she ate made me nauseous. And she teased that I sounded pregnant. But you didn't want to get pregnant in that heat. And when the undergrad kid, whose name I can't remember, brought his girl friend over to the dorm on Friday afternoons, I always wondered how they could make love in such heat.

Our Fridays were a lot about planning and falling out. I felt betrayed when Germie didn't want to go out with me. In the two semester on-campus, I'd started planting a sort of possession on her- like she could only be my room-mate in the world. I was comfortable the way we could just be in our room- hair unkempt, underdressed, without words.

So, the day she didn't want to go to Trinoma with me, I immediately found someone else to go to Rustan's with me. Out of spite. Later, when she passed me on the Katipunan Ave, I looked through her like she were a lost lover and just walked on.

Later that evening, she'd brought me chocolate biscuits. I don't remember getting her anything.

Fever

2011-07-18T22:30:00.001+05:30

your heat

cradles
me
to sleep

my bones

2011-07-14T22:18:00.001+05:30

feel like wisps of smoke

frail-

they twist
and
dis
si
pate

against the skin

as they stretch me
a little further
than these nerves can bend

Aryaghat

2011-07-13T23:09:00.000+05:30

scares me.
the first time i landed there was to cover someone's death. there was another passing away to cover today. this time, also with hands that reached out to touch A and tell him he had done his best.
i'm scared, nevertheless. i don't know where i find those words to console. do words ever console the dead? i've always wondered. nothing takes away the smell of the pyre you lose your loved one to. so, what can really console?
i wonder if that's where i will be laid someday and brushed down into the Bagmati. i wonder if my loved ones will join me there- maybe the Indian Ocean.
for now, i want to float away.
Kathmandu air is so thick with the dead.

synthesis

2011-07-10T06:27:00.000+05:30

what did we know of fusion
before today?

drifting
through nights
where sleep jerks itself back
like punctuation
between phrases,
we melted
into the crevices
of meaning