Up in the hills, a house resides where many generations have lived and left their mark. Stories of youths, children's awkwardness linger in the stoic black and white or yellowish pictures. Each framed in the classic wooden frame, some having the scars of time with blemishes. Others lie in the heaps of the dusty albums stored away in the daraz (cupboard).
Among the pictures, stories, people, stood my father who had lived and left the same house. The house which is still perched halfway up the hill, tall and prideful. But the glow it once had, when my grandfather was alive, is gone. Its glory, too, has faded.
My father (Saila) was the fifth child among the nine children of my grandparents, a troublemaker middle child. He lived in the house until he was seventeen. He foretells the story that the village life was hard, doing the housework, mending the fields, going to Dharan for seven days to bring salts, and kerosene. School? He barely had time. He tells us he left home early, before any of his siblings, in search of a better future, to be a laure (Indian army). Did he get in the army though? Not at all. But that story is for another day.
During his youth, he sailed alongside the hills of Jaljale, only to be pulled into the turmoil of Kathmandu in his old age. He remembers his life in the house where his siblings and parents lived. He did say that the life he had during his childhood and teenage years were hard but he still wants to go back. As if he longs to stay in that memory but with the comforts of today.
He concurs that the time he lived there and the place it was isn't the same as now. He says during Dashain and Tihar, the house would overflow with yellow marigolds, fresh paddy, and blooming kodo (millet). Relatives ran laughing through the yard and radios used to blast old songs. Now it stands quieter. Fewer relatives, fewer flowers. The paddy fields have turned wild, with no one to take care of it.
He wants to go back to be the Dadaghare Saila (a title of our grandfather), and make the house relive the youthfulness it had before. Maybe be the grandfather who sends back many goodies from the village for his grandchildren in the near future. Maybe even bring back the glory the house had before.
The house in the hills in the middle, still stands, once cared for the middle child who had sailed along the hills and was later brought through Kathmandu. He now lives in the city, but time and again, he dreams of going back to his house of youth, as if to relive that youth once again.