DOKO, Old People, and Purpose of Life

One of my elderly coworkers was having boiled soybeans for lunch. When she offered me some, I had a moment of a DejaVu, a quick flash back. Few months back, I was having boiled soybeans for snacks with my grandmother. And my grandmother was so happy to peel the cover for me as she knew I hate peeling skins and covers of fruits like orange’s skin. It annoys me. I would only eat an orange if someone prepares if for me.  Anyway, as she was enjoying doing that ‘motherly’ thing, she was also making me blush with all these questions about my marriage and her eagerness and expectation to see my children etc. I enjoyed her company. Old people are awesome. I have lived with many old people. I have been close to many old people. I liked to study their behaviors, habits and psychology.  I learned a great deal from them too

Few Days Journal …While In Nepal

Few Days Journal …While In Nepal

Sep 16 2012 

Banepa

Few days in here and I am dying to get back already. I am suffocating slowly. The stand stillness of this society is undeniable. The hospitality and concern among people still have not changed either. Everyone I see at least want to talk for few minutes.  As I walk to the Bazar, many young teens ask me “dai do you remember me?” They are teen now means they were in one digit age when I left, and during this time, they have matured and looked different. I could not recognize most of them. A cousin sister came to see me who I have never seen before. She was not even born. She also asked me if I knew her. That was fun.

Monsoon is at its peak. It has been raining at nights since three days. The sound of the rain dropping from the rooftops on the ground makes a constant river like sound. Since two days I have waking up early like four, with the birds chirping and the milk van rambling through the street. The roads have ditches filled with mud water, big enough to swallow little kids. The black of the road is no more there, its just gravel and pebbles. Too many houses have been built around, too many dirty kids crying and too many women constantly beating their kids in return, it is like a drama house.

From the balcony, I stand and watch people pass by. The easiness, confident, stress -less and no urgent manners of people walking by…No complication, no big projects…. For them its everyday life, they don’t hurry although sometime they walk fast.

Everything is so expensive except the cell phones. Even the dogs are using cell phone to call for the mating in the middle of the street. I have never been an attention seeker and when I get too much attention, it makes me nervous and unfocused. I get too much attention from mother and grandmother. They are boiling the water, and making sure I have water for shower and cooking delicious foods but I have an easy lifestyle. I have always lived a hermit’s lifestyle. Today I took bath with the rain water collected in the water drum from last night, just for fun. The road are muddy and slippery, and too many punks driving badly in those roads.  Don’t feel like going anywhere. When it rains it is muddy, when it is dry, there is too much dust. I inhaled of lot of dust last two days going and meeting people. Really Nepalese people have the greatest of immunity against pollution. I have only lost it because I didn’t have to do it for few years.

 I have plans to travel up to the Mahabharat Range, to the country and take beautiful pictures. I have not used camera that much. Sometimes I take out camera to take pictures and people gaze at me, probably thinking that I am showing off, so I feel uncomfortable. Traveling in public bus- I have given up.  I am going nowhere using buses for sure. I am scared to travel. If I have to live here, I have to retrain and recuperate myself first.  Trying my best but too bored.

September 19, 2012

Banepa

Early around 5 here... Have been sleeping around 8pm and waking up around 3am. Its been hectic so far. Because of early morning waking up, the day seems to prolong. For few days now people are celebrating ‘Teej’, not men but women-I should say. Women are little empowered nowadays, I guess. To me it looks like a modern way to express era -long oppressed sexuality. For these few days, women are free of household duty, caring of the olds and kids and for a little bit can go to temple with beautiful clothes and jewelries on, and dance as much as they like. What cannot dance express about sexuality than anything else?

 

Buses are full of women in red saris. Little girls are excited to go with moms to their uncles’ homes or to temples and observe fasting in hope of getting good husbands. Women, although beaten by their no good husband almost the year around, keep this fasting for their husband’s good health and long life. Just like everyone, young and teen girls’ population also has been exponentially skied. I look from my  yard- high school, college students passing. Most of them are girls, almost 65%. And they look good too. They are fit, properly dressed, wear clean cloths, carry umbrella for protecting their smooth skins. Seems like they know how to care about themselves now. They look pretty. I see lot of pretty girls on their cell phones, perhaps talking to their new boyfriends. I guess the emergence of Satellite and cable TVs and Indian serial have turned them into hyper dramatic girls. They know about cleanliness now than many years ago. 

  

My cousins and brothers make fun of my anxiety and fear when I am taking extra caution to cross the road. I try not to give them opportunity to think that I am pretending or I have become weak. But the honking and verbal abuses, from bikers, and taxi drivers annoy me up to a passive depression. It is truth, it take courage to cross the street in Kathmandu. Only a Gorkha can do it. Talking about Gorkha... one of my Army friends is here for vacation too. For other he is Captain or Commander and what not, for me he is just a good friend, another Gurkha trying to survive in Nepal coming from a recent visit to Iraq. Seeing he argue with his parents about raising the living standard, gives me hope and energy. I have to borrow his courage and be a Gurkha in everything.

21^st September 2012

Banepa

Its been more than a week now. I am feeling really exhausted. I also finished meeting most of all good relatives. Some pretenders are still waiting for me to go to them so they can criticize about me afterwards. Most well off relatives boast 24/7 on how good their sons’ and daughters’ income are. They brag about their houses and shops and cars. They pretend to care and ask about my health and job and so on but quietly pray for my downfall and suffering. When I leave their house, they talk silly. ‘Oh he lives with his brothers in an apartment like Indians….He married low-caste…He has a daughter in USA…He didn’t meet so and so…He brought cheap gifts… Every time I hear the rumor that they said this, I get annoyed and angry. I waited and I still wait for them to say something directly to me, in my face.  But they are coward, liars, hypocrites and useless, burden to this earth. They have too much time to drink tea and talk non-sense about other people. I really, truly, fully, wholeheartedly hate these people.

I told my parents about everything. I told them that I have been fortunate to make a decent living with luck, hard work and constant effort. I like to keep it this way. I want challenges in life but not from Nepalese people or so called relatives. There are only few relatives that I can count on my fingers, who I respect, love and care for. I would give my life up if it would benefit them. Only few…All others are just hungry jackals. Nobody has given me food when I am hungry or bought me clothes or made houses for me. So people should not talk about ‘my shit’. They should mind their own business. But they won’t. This is a failed country and people are sick. They get fever when they hear something good happened to someone. They lose appetite, they even faint if they see someone got better than them, in education or wealth or health or career, even when someone gets with skin tone. Nepalese people are ridiculously jealous and greedy of their own people. They get heart attack if someone wears a new shirt. Every Nepalese people living in Nepal know this is not an exaggerated statement.

All my vacation is almost finished going to relatives that don’t even really care for me. I did it just to please my father and mother. I have nothing to show to them or give any news about. They do not care about me and nor do I.  I wish this is the last time. I am tired of meeting people. I am tired of their prepared dialogues, and fake concerns. I hate their rumoring habits. I loathe their negative attitude. I want to go back and start afresh. The greenery, mountains, gorges, trees and rivers are the only thing I appreciate here. I enjoy when birds chip in the morning. I love the clear sky with lots of stars. I crave of people who show love for animals and kids. I admire the innocence and hope of old people. I want true love which I don’t see here in anybody else. There is only smell of dungs and trash. I want to smell the fragrance of love and dream. I hate overcrowded cities and polluted towns. My peace and love is highly violated. I have no base. I am alone in the world and I am living a life of turmoil between cultures, generation gaps, parental obligation, professional career, Nepalese formalities and difficult yet only nutrition to support the hope of life, ie LOVE. Thank God, I like to meditate and give thanks for giving me what I have. Please accept my prayers, help me cope with these bullshit of my strangled life before the stupid kids’ fighting in the street spoil my short meditation in the evenings.

Every morning and evening I am taking my grandmother for a short walk. It is too muddy because of rain though. We come from walk and sit in our yard, and I ask my grandmother “funny” questions. She gives her ‘ innocent’ answers. She does not care about being right or being judged for intellectual integrity. She is simple, innocent, uneducated, and unafraid. Just purely and heartily she makes comments on people. She does not lie. She is tired of this weather and pretentious people, just like I am. She hates fakers just like I do. I love her. She is my inspiration, an idol, a mentor from whom I learn to overcome fear, get rid of my jealousy, envy, lying nature, and avoid constant anxiety over worldly things. I just enjoy my minutes with her. I cannot even convey to her exactly how I feel; she won’t understand the ‘BIG’ vocabularies I use. But she knows from my eyes, how blissful I feel when I am with her. And as always, she loves her radio that I gifted her. A radio to an old woman whose eye sights are going bad, that’s the best gift to overcome her boredom and I enjoy how she do not even know what the news mean. She ask question like “Babu, what does this “Atankakari” means?”  or “Jharna (for Jhalnath Khanal) k bhanchha?” Life is peaceful and simple within her. I wish I could train my mind to become like hers.