Patan: Through my eyes

Growing up in the heavily urbane Kathmandu I never really knew about Patan. I had only been there once but how this foreign place, many kilometers away from my home became familiar place to me, I could never have imagined. But some places have a way of staying in our minds, sometimes amidst hazy clouds of our dreams and also in the way we seek the same familiarity in other places. Patan became a hauntingly recurring dream; its dark brick paved alleys, the mysterious wooden temples, the clanging of bells remained etched in my memories. It seemed almost as if they were calling out to me in their despair and sickness after the Earthquake that hit Nepal on April 2015. 

As I walked the streets of Mangalbazar, I knew the Patan I had seen would not be the same again. From a distance I could hear the devotees chanting the morning prayers, bells clanging in unison, the smoke of incense heavily flowing from the tiny windows like oil spilled on the floor, the very sight that introduced Patan for what it was. Yet the ugly wooden poles that supported the temples was what caught my eye at the beginning. The majestic temples looked as is an old man stooping on a crooked wooden stick. Finally it revealed Patan for what it was; utterly old despite its breathtaking beauty. 

It was evident that the Earthquake had hit hard; leaving scars open and bleeding through the cracks that had struck its walls. Some monuments lay half broken on the ground, its piece slumped on the ground like a beheaded head, and the half part that remained like an ugly stump. And yet despite such a devastating damage, nothing had changed around it. Patan had not ceased to be Pat

an. Its aesthetic beauty, its inviting spaces filled with people,the surreal atmosphere around had not ceased to exist. People crowded near it, some deep in conversation with a cup of tea, its steam melting in the air, some staring into distance and some capturing the moment in their cameras. There were occasional glances towards me and snatches of conversation I could hear close by. 

I could do nothing. I could only see, hear, feel and think. I could only absorb all the sights and sounds around me. And for a moment I felt like I was but an outsider, looking into an elaborate painting placed on a huge white wall in a gallery somewhere far away. And yet my feet were on the old path of Patan, in some places already worn away. At that moment, I could only think if Patan was so old, how many feet had landed on the same spot as mine were mine at that moment. And what of the person who had owned those feet? Where were they? Some had indeed already perished. They as I had stood on the same threshold and relished the beauty of Patan as I was doing at the moment. But yet here Patan was, outrunning so much death, storms and earthquake, standing even with the support of the wooden poles.  

A little of this and that

I realized that there is nothing perfect in this world. It seems all this time I was seeking perfection, searching it in every person who turned back and smiled at me. But it was all but an illusion, a mirage that I had seen in the desert that was my heart and sometimes my mind. And yet I yearn perfection so much. You know what they say about that feeling when someone you truly love leaves you in the middle of nowhere of your life and than you alone have to find your way back when all your life you have been led by their hand? Well, it's that feeling and more. When you realize that what you fought for with the entire world with every will in your fragile body and soul was all for a lie; a fabrication of your own mind. And suddenly you feel like a fool, suddenly you are everything you ever hated in the world. 

                       We spent so much time thinking of the perfect life, the perfect moment, the perfect dream and everything as long as it has perfect in it. Well, it is nothing but a crumpled, cracked faded old building covered by the most vivid and dazzling facade. 

                         Change it seems is so inevitable. We are the being of change. We grow, we live, we breathe in change. Every second, the Earth is never in the same place as before, every minute the Sun throws yet another light born in it completely different from all the other light ever thrown in this place since the beginning of time, every hour the weather is not the same as before; the cold of the winter is replaced by a warm almost enveloping air moving swiftly towards summer. Change is everywhere. It is the single most rule through which reality must sustain. It seems than it must be the easiest thing in the world. As easy as breathing or thinking or dreaming about the past. But it is quite contrary. The prospect of change is the most difficult thing and can scare anyone. Change is what I fear the most, change in my ideals and the reality that only yesterday I thought to be true. It lies ahead like a long road leading home, the only distance of which can scare anyone. 

                       But it is better to be hurt and left alone rather than to be caressed and loved by a lie. Truth is what I'd choose rather than living in the luxurious life of Ignorance. I will rather have my heart exposed to rain, storms, the winds that blow in the evenings of winter or the scorching heat of summer rather than to have it enveloped and propped up in thick layers of lies. This is what I choose to believe and maybe, this realization is the only thing that make change bearable. 

Memories

Memories are a strange thing. All it takes is one sound, one voice, one word for them to come back at an astonishing speed concealed with so much emotions from a sea of other memories. They are fragile too. The face of a person, the lines, the creases, the smile, the depth of the voice remained etched in my mind, whose strong hold on my mind sometimes made me believe that I will never forget them regardless of the time that will flow after that. But now I find that I am forgetting them ; the memories that used to be on the threshold of my mind are now lost in the well of my memories that I have to dig through to get a hand on and feel its shape, its contours and rethink on what they are made up of. 

Memories are a funny thing too. There are so many of them and still so many that can be made. But only some remains stuck and tangled on the web of our mind. Most of these memories are of course, of profound significance but yet there are some which ought not to have been remembered. And there are memories of me breaking into a million pieces, crying in the darkness of my room trying hopelessly to muffle the sound of my cries, my first day in my new school, getting lost in a crowd from my mother, meeting my sister after many years. If I mention them all I think I will fill the entire content of this diary. 

The truth is memories fade with time. Some of my memories are also faded. They are in black and white. Only the outline and the place are visible without any fine details. They are shrouded by the long distance of time of now and then while others are vivid and clear. They are imbued with the depth of reality. They have remained in my mind the same way my eyes saw them then. But these memories will slowly fade, become old and wither away in the evening breeze. This is how a memories are supposed to be. They are not meant to remain vivid and over use the colors of my mind. But sometimes all it takes is one voice to defy all of this. All it takes is one voice; its brightness, its warmth like the afternoon in the month of December, to bring back a flood of memories; colored, painted and outlined with so much shades and details. They don't fade with the passing of time like other memories but instead they grow vivid and detailed, like they are stretching its arms to touch reality and be redone again. 

The Night

November is setting in. Winter is advancing forward taking away all the warmth of summer. With it's advancement the nights are also moving fast to end the day. But I like to wonder if the reason behind the nights moving too fast is because it too wants the winter to move on fast and disappear, completing the course of nature. And every year it is the same process. The night pushes and struggles with winter although it cannot alter the or even move the gigantic mass of winter which is moving in a deathly pace at its own accord. In spite this night never grows weary. It struggles and fails every year although it never gives up. 

How many times have I become the night that tries to push winter away?
How many times have I tried to become what I never was?
How many times have I tried forgetting the past instead of embracing it?
I do not have a count like the night which has no inkling of how many times it has failed and has risen again. 

I can only conclude that I am but an idiot who does not have a slightest hint of what she is doing but advances forward. Although it is said that only the passionate wait forever and spent one's entire life yearning to touch the sky one can never reach. Surely, the night too is passionate. A passionate idiot who years to touch the sky. 

I am the Night. 

Photo Credit: Manish Amatya Sir 

Verse: Snowflakes

Can you hold one of these snowflakes?

when your hands thirst for warmth. 

Can you hold me?

For I am one of these snowflakes

falling into an unknown world. 

Can you hold me?

Though I am not a flower,

that blooms in the heat of July. 

But if you hold me...

I will melt. 

I will melt in your warmth and merge

into all that you are. 

Words saved me

Words I've realized have saved me than any other thing. I think I was eight when I first realized and felt the beautiful flow of words. Even when I was a child, away from the ways of the world and its rules without having an ounce of understanding, but just a child drunk on the phase of childhood. Even before I even knew what words were, words were given to me...or rather they chose me. 


Words have somehow saved me from myself too. They were like my fear that stops me from hurting myself even I'm unaware about the possible threat. They've stopped me from destroying myself, from the addiction of loneliness. They were the ones who tried at first to poke at my heart, gnaw at my mind, knock on my thoughts continuously until I finally decided to close the door behind, take a pen and write the first letter in the fresh page of a diary. Little did I know that they would come so easily after that, like a lesson I've thoroughly memorized for an exam, and then they would become an addiction; the train of thoughts following the trail, some buried yet some gasping for air, would come out of my heavy heart covered with a thick layer of dust through the years that had gone by. Words replaced my loneliness and then they taught me to fall in love with me and my thoughts over and over again.  

Words; it is so easy to come by. It seems they are found on every street, stuck on walls, tattooed in  the body of others and some painted on the floor. Yet I found words not on the first letter of my Nursery years ago when my hands first learned to hold a pencil but I found them in the sinking world of my loneliness. It seemed it had conspired to meet me alone and  miraculously save me from my impending doom. 

Words saved me. 

The day I stepped up

'If a story is in you it has to come out' said William Faulkner. I don't honestly know if I have a story worth telling, a story with love at first sight, near death experiences, life changing moments or anything by the name of miraculous or amazing. I don't deny the fact that I do have a story; a story of inspiration, regrets, defeats, disappointments and love buried within the depths of my soul that is demanding to come out and be manifested in words. I don't even know if that story will come out but I can't deny the overwhelming emotions in me that is wanting to spill on these pages. And yes, everyone has a story and I have mine too which is why I decided to start blogging. 

 Honestly, I am like a flower trying to blossom between the spaces of stones; vulnerable and oblivious, unknown if I will ever survive the scorching heat of the day or the cold breeze of the evening. But I also know that to become a writer is to be vulnerable and also to have the courage to share the words which we are so accustomed to keep within the lines of a diary. 


Whenever I see someone older and experienced achieving the heights of success with their words I am imbued with fear and insecurity. I am let down with a thick cloud of worthlessness on having read their works. There are many aspiring writers in whom I find this same feelings mirrored. But here I am writing( or trying to write) my very first blog, hanging onto a single thin thread of hope that somehow I will write with passion and inspiration and perhaps it will be read.  

                                         One of my favorite quote about writing that inspires me no matter how many times I read it