Reflections

“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.

When I think about my childhood, I remember a lot of small things. The sound of pressure cookers, the smell of fresh paint during Dashain, the quiet walk to school. But the clearest sound of all was my mother’s silver anklets.

One Tihar, when I was around 13, I decided I wanted to help my mom make sel roti. I still do not know why. Maybe I was feeling grown-up that day, or maybe I just wanted to feel involved in the kitchen chaos.

But I remember one particular event of that Dashain: my five rupees note. Growing up, I always cherished the red notes, especially the 5 and 20 rupees notes. Mainly, it gave me my chocolates from the shop. And even from the red notes, I loved the smallest, the 5 rupees.

I was always envious of my friends who had mamaghar near their house. They would go there every weekend and return with stories about their cousins. It was fascinating to hear how free and happy their weekends sounded when they went to their mamaghar.

Lucky earned the most, Rs. 800 a day, but in a family where every rupee was already spoken for, it never felt like enough. Yet, despite the constant financial struggle, Lucky’s family never went hungry. His mother somehow stretched the little they had into enough for everyone. “We may not have much,” she would say, “but we have each other.”

You always eat dessert at the end, after you’ve savored your main dish and Bhaitika was just like that for me: one big, fancy festival that wrapped up an entire month-long celebration made just for us sisters. Although it’s meant to celebrate the bond between brothers and sisters and even when it has “bhai” in its name, I always felt like the sisters were the real main characters.

My mom craves jhol momo like any child would crave candy. Her eyes light up and her sharp, loud voice softens into a somewhat demanding request. Suddenly, the power dynamics shift between us.

As time changes its course, so do our daily lives. Be it a change of moving places or a change of clothes. In my life, the place I lived felt a change when my family moved.

It’s a truth I’ve wrestled with: not all readers are writers, though all writers are surely readers. Reading is my sanctuary, my muse. The greatest works of literature unfold like worlds I can slip into effortlessly. Yet, when I try to write, my thoughts, those fleeting, brilliant sparks that flare while reading or daydreaming, vanish like smoke.

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.

I rarely carry my umbrella and today, it was almost about to rain, the weather felt moody. The kind where the sky feels heavy, and every slanted drop taps a rhythm in the streets.

Our terrace still stands tall above the house, its stone-mixed tiles stretching wide, carrying the same view of Swambhunath as it always has. Yet, the terrace of my childhood exists only in memory.

Maybe one day, I’ll step beyond the veil between sleep and waking, and finally visit the places my heart already knows.

There used to be a small waiting area just outside my school gate, our own “pratikshyalaya”. It wasn’t grand by any means but that waiting place was my after-school world

I wish I had more pictures of that corner of Kathmandu where I grew up. Proof that those moments truly existed, something that immortalizes the pristine condition as I remember from my childhood.

Because I feel a village might not always be something you’re born into or inherit from your parents. Sometimes, it can be shared, borrowed, and lived through the people around you.

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.

Growing up, goat was a delicacy reserved for special occasions. In my family, there was a particular way of cooking goat meat.

Now, when I think back to those Saturday mornings, a quiet ache settles in. How a simple snack used to bring immense pleasure, but now it’s just a snack.

Hangma Hukpa Chongbang: I remember how my non Limbu friends tried to pronounce my full, hefty name. Whenever someone new gets to know that I am not just ‘Hangma Limbu’ but ‘Hangma Hukpa Chongbang’, there is always a confused and curious face behind it.

Whenever I go to my old house, which is now made of concrete, I go to the roof, look at all the surroundings, and think about how much time has changed.

Years have passed, but whenever I crave that taste, especially during festivals, I still ask her the same thing... “Aama, sel roti banaidinuna.” And she smiles, just like always, brushes her shawl aside, and starts the process.

Growing up I never imagined that the place I was raised would linger so vividly in my memory. Born in the heart of Bhaktapur, you could find a temple, or god and goddess at every turn.

It felt like us grown ups, tall and built with memories intact, but no longer as free and wild as we used to be.

Whether we meet up in that dark tea shop near our school, or a well-lit café in the center of the neighborhood, or even at a fancy eatery abroad, every time our paths cross, however infrequently that is, it has taught us something.

In the Terai, the border wasn't just a physical line; it was a scar etched deep into the soul of a generation, a silent testament to dreams swallowed by desperation.

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.

My village in Bardiya is a place I have been to only a handful of times. Yet, I would say that this place has been a big part of my story, unknowingly shaping me through the experiences and stories of the generations that came before me.

A place that isn’t just a village, but a memory box filled with joy and fragments of my childhood.

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.

Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like to grow up there: in bicycles and streets that do not really indulge in the chaos of traffic, what it felt to cross a river to reach the school and how must it feel now when they narrate their stories of mischief for their daughters.

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.

I missed the life in the worship. Because at home, temples weren’t just sacred. They were social. Messy. Human.

The things that matter most take time to build. They're rarely perfect, but always meaningful.

New roads, new walls. Same village, same love.

A memoir of resilience and reinvention shaped by displacement, familial duty, and the slow rebuilding of home in unfamiliar soil.

The marks we leave behind. Our tender human attempts to be remembered.

I didn’t know I missed home until I smelled Timur in a foreign grocery store.