Screw New~ I want my Old me!!

My Ama said: You seem to have lost all your confidence~ you were very different when you were young~

I think this sentence at the end of this year, is changing my whole perspective on life. Screw new me, thin me, better me, I want myself back, the old me, the courageous dreamy ambitious energetic and happy and confident me.

Often times, I have been so much busy judging my past life and experiences as well as struggles and trying to focus on the present in the hope of a good future that I think, I have stopped listening to inner-most self and my own inner voice that led me to become who I am today.

When Ama told me that, I tried becoming defensive and told her- all graduate students are like this, we are depressed and we have imposter syndrome. Years back, I didn’t have that or if I had, it was very less. I am someone who battled my way into some really awesome work in Nepal, among toxic people, toxic environment, and moreover really difficult personal life.

But, wasn’t Grad school above everything for me? It was something for which I left my decade-long career, my identity, lifestyle, everything behind~ it was and is still my passion. But why did it cost me my confidence? Why my well-being?

I think this is because I don’t know how to do Grad-school. This is because my research on grad-school and imaginary things presented on the fancy websites and happy faces of the students weren’t enough. This is because I am a first-gen Graduate student in my family of four and my mentors back home had overconfidence in me I think things would be easier for me.

Grad school can be fun! And, I think these two and half years have been the best phase of my life in terms of the things I always wanted to do: study and write and teach.

Years back during my teenage days, Ama and I would talk and dream of a life full of books, writing, and teaching. And, right now, I am living our dream and she is so true, I might have lost some of the confidence because I believe in others more than myself. I have been harsh to myself, I have been pressurizing myself like crazy as my BFF says and thus, I have suppressed who I am to become the idealized me and it has cost me to lose my confidence.

So, screw that idealized me! I want myself to be back~

12.28.2018

Fairfax, VA

Finding the Inner Compass

Lost? Maybe? 

I had promised her that I will write her an email and I haven’t even started that email. It has been nearly two years. I want to tell her everything. But I took many steps back. Stopped writing – blog, poem, letters, sending cards, pictures, text, chat!

Resettling could be hard~ could be worse~ could be fun~ could be anything and mostly could be something that you are unable to communicate. Maybe because you are still waiting to find that inner compass that led you somewhere initially. And, now it is lost? Maybe?

How could I tell, I have been losing and finding, finding and losing the inner compass? 

I think I haven’t completely lost it but have been doing this back and forth, on and off. But there are so many things to keep track of ~ and the inner compass gets buried deep down in dark and eventually, you forget where it is.

I couldn’t write an email to her! Couldn’t share that I have been trying to find something that is lost inside me and searching elsewhere and everywhere outside me.

One thought in my head says: maybe she could have helped, maybe she could have suggested, maybe she could have guided as she always does. But, I had decided not to talk to anyone including myself.

Silence!

There was an urge to have this silence. I couldn’t even go back to the meditation days, where I could put myself down into hours of meditation and then heal myself.

This time~ healing was far far away because I was letting myself suffer – don’t know if it was the pain, irritation or a complete apathetic moment for me ~ I wasn’t healing because I didn’t want to heal. Just like I didn’t want to email her. 

But, now I think it is that moment~ to find ~ to search ~ to achieve the inner compass again! And, gear up on writing her with the truth of how lost I was…and how eager I am to find my inner compass

Kathmandu, without you…

The fall of Jacaranda flowers on the ground  that takes my breath away~~ Picture by: Kishor Sharma/ 2014

A love song for a city drenched in election fever (Published in The Kathmandu Post on May 13, 2017) 

After turning pink with the touch of spring, you must have changed to purple now. Your colours always take my breath, even when I am just thinking about you, as I am doing now. I scroll through all the moments that I have captured and I smile with moist eyes realising how life is different…without you.

When you let me go, did you also feel the same pain that I did while departing? Kathmandu, do you miss my tiny feet tapping the dust from the streets? Or the wheels of my scooter traversing your every corner? Lafayette, you know is huge. It is lovely but my heart yearns for your air, your warmth, your sweet touch, your smell. Missing you is a bittersweet feeling but it is something new. I had to travel 7700 miles to know what it meant.

I imagine the Sun being welcomed with water pouring down from an orange brass Kalash. Then an oil lamp guides the Sun that is peeking through the tiny clouds and sweet smell of incense. Colourful flowers decorate the pathway and melody of bells rings in a new dawn. The sun is here and it’s time to wake up, dear Kathmandu.

Kathmandu, when you wake up and wash your face with the shimmering rain and see your glowing face, you know you are beautiful.  The Jacaranda trees, unable to contain its blossoms, clothe you in a purple attire. Every April, through May, I lapped up every glimpse of you in your Jacaranda bloom, just like Parijat had done so long ago.

And, Kathmandu—as the evening seeps into the night—again with the oil lamp, incense sticks and ringing bells, the sun will slip away behind the clouds. But the Moon rises with its muted rays. The Jacaranda flowers, meanwhile, will continue to bloom and fall to the ground, now in company of buoyant fireflies.

Kathmandu, sometimes I wonder, which do you truly prefer? Your Jacaranda bloom or your peach blossom? Even if the both the colours are your own and paint the lives of those that call you home.

To write, again!

The gorgeous leaves at West Lafayette, November 2016.

It was true. Fall was majestic. It made me live color by color. Those gorgeous trees, fallen leaves, the smell of those maple trees filled me with immense sensuality. But, still ~ my fingers couldn’t type and I couldn’t write. 

I would capture trees one after another, their fallen leaves in my phone. I would collect those leaves one by one, color bycolor to keep them safe because I loved them. I would change my wallpapers in laptop, mobile, update my Facebook cover picture~ but still I wouldn’t write. I would refrain from writing.

The fallen Jacaranda leaves, Kathmandu, May 2016

 ( *Monologue* I would remember, I would miss ~ The purple Jacaranda blossom in Kathmandu~ both are beautiful ~ but no one wrote about that pretty blue fall with such an emotional intensity except Parijat~But, I desire to read more than that ~I yearn to feel it similar like the way I felt Fall in words). But it was true that Fall was installing a hope for happiness in me. It was true that it gave me joy to hold by. It gave made me feel love again. How? I don’t know! But, I can’t lie~ I was falling in love with the magic of nature for the umpteenth time. 

Inbox (16)

Dear Friend,

I thought of writing you a text, then I refrained. I thought of dialing your number but stopped myself halfway through. Then, I thought of writing you an email~but couldn’t type anything. I have stopped writing. I have stopped. I don’t know. These new shoes I am wearing right now are giving me blisters. It pains. Yet, there is no option- than to walk. Yes, with the shoes. I know by this time your forehead would wrinkle and in your eyes my suffering will twinkle. I know we communicate. But in silences. In grief. In pain. In ego. In our heads.

I remember the distance that grew gradually and it kept on moving down and hurting both you and me. In pain we remembered ourselves. In pain we thought about each other. I thought you should have been a healer~ like you were always! You didn’t try and I couldn’t dare. By the time, the pain we gave to each other had reached to the depth that nothing could ever fill it and nothing could ever cure it.  We lose many things in life. We lose love of our life. Yet, nothing pains more than the loss of friendship. “When you are an adult, you lose friends ~ that’s normal” – somebody had said. I wish we were never adults but remained the way we were – carefree- careless and caring. After a decade long friendship-what went wrong? Who was right and who was wrong? Who did a mistake? Who never dared to correct it? Both of us? You? Me? or Me? You? Who stopped us? Who is stopping me now? Who is stopping you now? I know my blisters will give you pain! I know you could help me to gulp the pain and smile to move ahead with pride. But, where are you?

But,

Then, our conversation never ended

Yes, it never ended

As, it had no begining

It was right there ~ always.

You know~ some conversations do not have an end

They continue

But with a flow ~ high and low

In silences.

In deep, dark silences.

With love,

s

 

 

The Path

That line supposed to separate

Hope and hopelessness

And,

Life and death

Who draws it?

Whose hand are those

That carves fate in the forehead?

You were the one

To walk on the path

You desired

Did you create it yourself?

Or

Are you treading on the path created by someone else?

That sublimity scares you!

Nirvana crack down your nerves!

You want it

AND

At the same time don’t want it.

*Double breathing*

The End.

The Mountain ~ That’s Mine

I know Mountains~There is the strong reason behind you standing stagnant for forever and ever!

Close your eyes and tell me what did you see? 

Black out. I saw nothing. Then I tried it again- something black and dark started to get accumulated around my chest and it took the form of a huge black, dark, gloomy and barren mountain. I have always disliked mountains, I felt like I can never associate myself with mountains. No doubt they are majestic, they are beautiful, they are breath taking too but somehow I can never say I “like” mountain- it doesn’t excite me as much as the rivers ~ that keeps on flowing on and on and on and is not standing stagnant for ages like the mountains.

But something that I saw around my chest was sadly not a flowing river, but it was mountain~ huge mountain and it had no snow, it had no greenery nothing. Never realized that I was carrying a big mountain inside me that is not very happy mountain, it is a sad mountain, it is a serious mountain. For, how long I have been carrying this mountain inside me? How long did it take to reach the huge height that it has now when I realized it is inside me? What are the things that have piled up to make this huge mountain? This is the pile of the fossils of feelings may be. All those feelings that I can personally feel ~ happiness, sadness, despair, anger, anxiety, fear, love, hate and on and on – may be all these things make the mountain.

Powerful Silences

Silence
communicates
may be more than the words~~ You heard me ~ didn’t you? Pic by: Niraj / Mumbai, India

 

One day I asked you~Why don’t you call me, text me? You answer~ is that necessary? Then we both laughed~ All we do is remain silent~ just deeply silent that surpasses the voice that needs to heard~because~ I probably don’t know the reason but may be sometimes silences are all that we hear! Especially you and me!

You tell me many times ~ it is through silences~ we talk more~more and more.

…

It was far away~ the point they met each other in the same color that one could not differentiate them from each other – they were dissolved in each other~ so open! There was the point where sea met the sky. When sky sees finds itself in the sea~ how will it feel? And when all those droplets travel in the form of vapor all the way to reach the sky~how will you feel oh! dear sky? To hold all those droplets and impregnate the clouds and then burst out again to fall in the sea~ how will it feel dear sea ~ to get back yourself that has travelled through the sky?

Dear Madhes!!

Dear Madhes,

It is 100th day of shutdown!!! One hundred day in 365 days amounts to some 27.39 %. And for this much time- you have been silently shouting by staying stagnant. Thanks to the Earthquake that had least impact in Terai ( in comparison) and now- how life is out of gear makes it worse than the earthquake, isn’t it? The silent roads ( assumption), the closed schools (reality- from yesterday it opened), the closed factories- what about the daily wage-earning workers? What about you dear Janaki?

I understand- revolution is necessary – if you feel it is not right and if you feel that you need to demand it – then you do have right to demand – it is democracy!!

We don’t know what happens to you- what is really happening to you- but it has continued till one hundred days!!! We have stopped giving headline that whole Madhesh is on strike- well, we did that till 18-19 days. The information that comes here is so minimum that we don’t know what exactly the general people – who are on strike feel or want. We hear the leaders – Gachhadar, Yadav, Thakur- all the time we are assured that “the meeting ended on a positive note”, “today is the decisive meeting” and at the end “the meeting ended inconclusively”.

What happens inside that meeting? Do you know it ? You don’t know! So do we! We don’t know what do they talk- what are they planning!!! We are in the age where information floats in the air – but I am sorry – I can’t distinguish between a reality and/or hyper-reality. I am not sure that if whatever we are told about you is reality or a hyperreality. We move in between reality and hyperreality, right?

Inbox (15)

Are you – A Warrior?

Dear Friend,

And ~ within all of us there is a warrior ~ There is The Bhairav – Photo by Kishor K Sharma ( Thanks a lot )

Like it was never before – have you ever tried to evaluate yourself through your own understanding of your self? By the way – do you totally understand yourself? Is it necessary to understand yourself? Where are your inner demons? How comfortable do you feel while moving with your inner demons? What theory do you use to differentiate in between  the Good and the Bad. After all whom do you call good? And whom will you regard as the Bad.

Have you ever thought about that? About how do you keep on fighting with your little invisible heart -Have you ever imagine how can little heart preserve all those threads that you call “feelings”. And now, you have created a web out of it – entangled and overlapped ~ yes all the feelings. Why don’t it act like the spider web and hold the self?

Hey~ what are your thoughts on Self? Do you realize how far have you traveled? We have always been asked the same question of “Where do you see yourself after five years?” – But let me ask you one question ~ “Where were you before five years?” Have you crawled over the mountains of fear, anxiety and helplessness and reached atop to come back again – to fall again- then to climb again.