This is a letter that I wrote home today.......
Dear ------------,
I had a strange dream last night. I was walking back home from mid-town (maybe Thamel or New Road or somewhere else, I used to do that lot, before I learned how to ride a motorcycle), along Lazimpat and the dream was so vivid. I saw all the shops along the way, and not only that, I also saw the faces of the shopkeepers, customers, general pedestrians. I think it was evening, maybe five or six o'clock on summer. The sights were real enough and on top of that I remembered the smells too, of smoke out of vehicles, of food sold on some of the shops, of the stink of garbage. The background hum of people speaking and of horns honking and of overloaded tired vehicles straining under the pressure. I remembered all the little cracks in pavement, from where grass would grow, the dust covered walls of some of the houses, even the windows facing the road would be dusty, not cleaned for eons. Sometimes the dust would get washed during monsoon rains, but often times the dust would just form a protective sheath, some sort of covering on the wall. I felt the equal and opposite reaction from the pavement on my feet, as Newton Baje clearly quantified it. But on a dream? Later I realized that it was the cat not conceding her ground. I realized this later because if she sees any movement under covers, she assumes it's something suspicious or we're trying to play with her, and instantly seizes the offending hand (or feet whichever the case may be) and chews on it softly.
I could not fix a definite date or time, just some generic summer evening. Trying to fix a date is important as that would allow me to define the clothes, and hairstyles (the ubiquitous Nepali fashion sense, the hairstyle would be the same as on whichever Hindi movie is a hit at the time). I remember walking alone though. I guess this walking along this road is important to me, ages ago I had written a nice little story that happened on a particular night for one of my term papers during high school. High School! we used to call them college back then, strange that the semantics that one uses changes with time and place. English was one of my favorite classes, and of course of of the areas where I was (and hopefully still am) relatively stronger. I maybe should have gone into creative writing. If I have time, maybe I can take a class or two next semester. Hopefully that will work out. But I digress here.
No doubt, over the five years that we've been here, that stretch of road has seen many things. From large Julus, curfews, bone shattering traffic, heavy rains and cold nights, little dust storms, scores of people pounding it with their feet, an ambitious King, power hungry politicians, thieves and police, army boots, people dreaming of a better future, people despairing of a lost future and the list, I bet, goes on and on. The physical face of the road must also have changed. A lot of the places, little shops and people that I saw last night maybe do not exist anymore. People change with time, die or move on, shops get bought and sold, maybe broken up to be rebuilt as a shiny new mall, places get renovated and get a face-lift like a tired actress getting a breast implant just to push her career by a few more years and a few more miles.
A funny thing, I would have associated my memories of dear old Kantipuri Nagari to maybe Thamel or Dhapasi or even maybe New Road or Ason, and what comes to mind? The humdrum Lazimpat stretch, all the way from Lainchaur to Narayan Gopal Chowk (do they still call it that or has it been Loktantra-ised?) I used to walk (or ride or travel may be a more suitable word) through that road daily and maybe that's why I have such a strong memory of it and I had that dream last night.
A line in a famous song by Aerosmith goes "Life's a Journey not a Destination", and so the little road to Lazimpat represents my life. It's changed over the years, not only the road itself, but in retrospect, interpretation of the road too. I might have interpreted a crack in a pavement one way, and with hindsight, maybe I can interpret it in another way. Memories play tricks, most remember only the good part. This dream was different in the sense that I saw the good along with the bad, and remembered both the sweet smells of the street along with the banal stink. Remember I said that I did not know where exactly I was coming from, and so all of us start in this great journey of life from uncertain pasts and our destination ultimately is to arrive home, in death, as that is one constant in life. All the others, change and can be changed, you meet people along the way, make acquaintances for a brief period of time, some stay with you longer than others, sights, sounds and smells that you encounter along the way are experiences, some good some bad. The street of Lazimpat may remember your existence or it may not, depends upon the dent that you make on the pavement, but the street is changed in a substantial way just because you have walked on it.
Well, that's my interpretation of a dream.... hehehe, hopefully it is not so boring. All else is fine over here, it's just grown cold, below freezing over the couple of days. We've also had very little sunshine. It'll snow soon and everything will be covered in white, masks the underlying surfaces and gives a false feeling of cleanliness, untill spring thaw comes and everything is muddy and squishy. Then the underbelly will be exposed, but also life will start anew.
Love ,
Twaaks
Dear ------------,
I had a strange dream last night. I was walking back home from mid-town (maybe Thamel or New Road or somewhere else, I used to do that lot, before I learned how to ride a motorcycle), along Lazimpat and the dream was so vivid. I saw all the shops along the way, and not only that, I also saw the faces of the shopkeepers, customers, general pedestrians. I think it was evening, maybe five or six o'clock on summer. The sights were real enough and on top of that I remembered the smells too, of smoke out of vehicles, of food sold on some of the shops, of the stink of garbage. The background hum of people speaking and of horns honking and of overloaded tired vehicles straining under the pressure. I remembered all the little cracks in pavement, from where grass would grow, the dust covered walls of some of the houses, even the windows facing the road would be dusty, not cleaned for eons. Sometimes the dust would get washed during monsoon rains, but often times the dust would just form a protective sheath, some sort of covering on the wall. I felt the equal and opposite reaction from the pavement on my feet, as Newton Baje clearly quantified it. But on a dream? Later I realized that it was the cat not conceding her ground. I realized this later because if she sees any movement under covers, she assumes it's something suspicious or we're trying to play with her, and instantly seizes the offending hand (or feet whichever the case may be) and chews on it softly.
I could not fix a definite date or time, just some generic summer evening. Trying to fix a date is important as that would allow me to define the clothes, and hairstyles (the ubiquitous Nepali fashion sense, the hairstyle would be the same as on whichever Hindi movie is a hit at the time). I remember walking alone though. I guess this walking along this road is important to me, ages ago I had written a nice little story that happened on a particular night for one of my term papers during high school. High School! we used to call them college back then, strange that the semantics that one uses changes with time and place. English was one of my favorite classes, and of course of of the areas where I was (and hopefully still am) relatively stronger. I maybe should have gone into creative writing. If I have time, maybe I can take a class or two next semester. Hopefully that will work out. But I digress here.
No doubt, over the five years that we've been here, that stretch of road has seen many things. From large Julus, curfews, bone shattering traffic, heavy rains and cold nights, little dust storms, scores of people pounding it with their feet, an ambitious King, power hungry politicians, thieves and police, army boots, people dreaming of a better future, people despairing of a lost future and the list, I bet, goes on and on. The physical face of the road must also have changed. A lot of the places, little shops and people that I saw last night maybe do not exist anymore. People change with time, die or move on, shops get bought and sold, maybe broken up to be rebuilt as a shiny new mall, places get renovated and get a face-lift like a tired actress getting a breast implant just to push her career by a few more years and a few more miles.
A funny thing, I would have associated my memories of dear old Kantipuri Nagari to maybe Thamel or Dhapasi or even maybe New Road or Ason, and what comes to mind? The humdrum Lazimpat stretch, all the way from Lainchaur to Narayan Gopal Chowk (do they still call it that or has it been Loktantra-ised?) I used to walk (or ride or travel may be a more suitable word) through that road daily and maybe that's why I have such a strong memory of it and I had that dream last night.
A line in a famous song by Aerosmith goes "Life's a Journey not a Destination", and so the little road to Lazimpat represents my life. It's changed over the years, not only the road itself, but in retrospect, interpretation of the road too. I might have interpreted a crack in a pavement one way, and with hindsight, maybe I can interpret it in another way. Memories play tricks, most remember only the good part. This dream was different in the sense that I saw the good along with the bad, and remembered both the sweet smells of the street along with the banal stink. Remember I said that I did not know where exactly I was coming from, and so all of us start in this great journey of life from uncertain pasts and our destination ultimately is to arrive home, in death, as that is one constant in life. All the others, change and can be changed, you meet people along the way, make acquaintances for a brief period of time, some stay with you longer than others, sights, sounds and smells that you encounter along the way are experiences, some good some bad. The street of Lazimpat may remember your existence or it may not, depends upon the dent that you make on the pavement, but the street is changed in a substantial way just because you have walked on it.
Well, that's my interpretation of a dream.... hehehe, hopefully it is not so boring. All else is fine over here, it's just grown cold, below freezing over the couple of days. We've also had very little sunshine. It'll snow soon and everything will be covered in white, masks the underlying surfaces and gives a false feeling of cleanliness, untill spring thaw comes and everything is muddy and squishy. Then the underbelly will be exposed, but also life will start anew.
Love ,
Twaaks
5 comments:
enjoyed reading it, and i do too remember walk through lazimpat to get home.
bastards, you and sarin have made me walk throgh that road thousand times in drunkun stupor.
by the way did you sign off your letter to your dad as twaaks?
Hehehe, our prerogative, you should've been drinking with us, that way you'd also be oblivious to the long walk!
of course i signed it that way, to my ol' man too...
nice. being a creative writer was on my list too. but so was neuclear physics, astronomy, computer engineering, i can perhaps fill this page with what i wanted to be while i was in high school. i'd have been complaining if i'd became one of those and perhaps wanted to be a civil engineer... so its all good! have fun out there! i'm excited you guys are coming over... its gonna be awesome.
DR
so true dau, but it's he other way round! we're so exited that we're gonna be over there!!!!
kasto ramro lekhya yaar...yo finals ko bela dikka laagiraa bela refresh bhayo.
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