Prishna

“Who am I?” questioned the essay in its title and answered it on the very first line. This essay by Sudha Tripathi in the third chapter of the 9th grade nepali book remained so ingrained in the back of my mind that recently, I searched for it, only to find it in recitation and photos of the text book.

Choosing a space, designing it to my want by filling it up with my muses and interests was what excited me when we shifted to a new house. The space I chose became exactly what I wanted it to be. I filled it up with post-it notes, song lyrics, journals, books, and fandom posters and collectibles (some bought, most made by myself). Even the smallest thoughts I had, I hung on my bedroom wall.

Less a festival, more a traversal time was Dashain for me for far too many years. It felt like travelling from the scorching summer time to searing winter in almost an instant. The time between Dashain and Tihar felt like an entirely different timeline. Needless to say, Dashain was the reason I only recently learned what Autumn felt like and that Kathmandu even experienced Autumn at all.

Everyone calls it “hamro manakamana” probably to clear out the confusion that early in the morning, they are going to the nearby manakamana mandir, not the Manakamana of Gorkha. The word “hamro” attached to it made it special, even for people who lived more than a hundred meters away.

A tree stood. It was an ordinary, almost forgettable tree, in the middle of the hills of sand and gravels a depot owned. I didn’t notice it myself till I had to walk the road it was across for my daily morning and evening classes.

For more than half of my life, I have only ever seen the houses among huge fields of paddy and wheat around me. Even after migrating thrice, we never escaped the little VDC unit that housed mostly the area locals and their agrarian lifestyle.

While we chomped up our orders, small gossip made their way through each bite and there they were with their attentive ears, often laughing along with us or cursing the teachers when we complained about them.

Perhaps we grew out of ourselves over time, or it really was the buildings, the number of visitors and playmates went down with each new building. We were gaining new neighbors, but by then, it felt too much like work to make new friends, to know new people.

The way I view it, I see it as a stage, a play stage in which each actor is the main character with their own stories.

Perhaps it was the horizon that ran along the far extended farmlands that made the sunrises and sunsets over there more interesting than anything.

The crematorium is where I always feel drawn whenever I’m made to go to Pashupati. I reserve a step very devoid of people to sit and view the surroundings.