Travel & Place

Kathmandu is a valley of temples. There are thousands of temples and stupas, some grand and famous, others quietly hidden. Many remain unknown to people because they are tucked deep within the maze of Kathmandu’s narrow Alleys.

Some trips stay with you long after they’re over. For me, one of them will always be the hike to Pathibhara Temple in Taplejung.

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.

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.

The unfiltered, full-bodied, holy chaos of it. I miss how it filled me with something that wasn’t just oxygen, but place.

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.

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.

One berry. Two girls. Zero sense of direction.