Autumn leaves

Have you ever seen a leaf fall off a tree? You probably have. But have you seen a bud on a branch curling out, gradually, into a green leaf? 'Green' is an understatement here. The variations in the hues of green a single leaf is composed of are mind-boggling. First, it's this very light green, sprouting out of nowhere. The green is sometimes pigmented with white. Then it changes its colour to a dark, clear green with distinct veins and nodules, the kind you draw when you are in kindergarten. And just when you think the green is there to stay and calm your nerves, it changes into another shade of green--the shade which I find less calm. The full, swollen leaf then slowly curls back until the green turns into a sadder brown. And then, just like a hard-to-mend cassette player that quietly leaves its favourite spot in your room, the leaf too bids adieu as the soft wind tickles its over-grown veins and nodules. It finally falls down gracefully with a gentle prod by the same whooshing wind and joins the multitude of dark-brown, decaying leaves on the ground.

Quite a botanical description it was, I must say. Now, I ask you again. Have you seen a leaf sprout off a branch? Have you seen it flaunt all shades of green and brown, and fall off the branch without ever making a thumping sound? I guess not. I have. I have witnessed the whole orchestrated fall of leaves--these autumn leaves which, like a well-harmonised orchestra, spring out of the curtains at one point and hide behind those thick curtains at another. The only difference is that the drawing off of the curtains in an orchestra is followed by thunderous applause, while the fall of the autumn leaves is pierced by a silence, deep and cold silence.

Three thousand kilometres

Adi looked sideways in slight disgust upon being summoned by his childhood nickname. The first thing he saw were the hazel eyes

Adi’s eyes grew wide as his eardrums were hit by these words. “300 kilometres?” he asked himself. It wasn’t the intangible weight of the words that hit him hard, but the very tangible distance of the journey he was about to take that made his round face look swollen. He tried to eavesdrop on people’s conversations half expecting that the number was incorrect. To his utter dismay, the number he had overheard was correct to its very last numeral. Did they even know how long 300 kilometres is, he wondered. Did they know that it would take eight hours for the bus to cover the distance? No, eight hours and 20 minutes, he corrected himself after some swift calculation.

Adi then contemplated his hasty decision to take a road trip, to hop in any bus he could spot and ride along on a journey that could take him anywhere. He knew it was very unlike him to act in haste when all his life he had calculated everything meticulously. Even as a child, he had followed dragonflies with such pertinence that had defied even the most calculative insects’ tactics. And when all of his friends would be still be aimlessly chasing the zig-zag curves made by dragonflies in flight, he would have a bottle full of bright yellow and brown and red. Although the bottle and the buzz of dragonflies had long been replaced with piles of papers and theories of atomic physics, the meticulous pertinence had stayed with him.

An unwavering gaze

The world around me, its baffling motion, makes me dizzy. The trees move past the windows, the houses never stay put in their places, the people keep drifting with the wind; all the while the motion of this world tries to ridicule me

Once upon a time in a kingdom far far away,” so begins the story. The intent eyes grow wider as the woman opens her mouth and the magic words flow out gracefully. I wonder how many times the kid has listened to these words. Did she ever wonder where this far-away kingdom is, or when exactly once-upon-a-time is? Maybe she has every word of the story imprinted in her heart, the engraving so deep, it’s deeper than the Gulf of Panama. How deep is the Gulf of Panama, anyway?

“Please tell me the story again, mommy,” the intent-looking girl prods her mother adamantly. The story must have ended with a happily-ever-after, I think sardonically. Where can you find these three words knitted carefully except on the very last page of a happy story?

You must be thinking I’m a cynic, and that I’ll most probably oppose to that. That I’ll tell you I’m rather a realist, or go on and befuddle you with a sad story from my life that has made me the kind of person I am today. Hold on, I’m not going to do that. I’m not being a cynic, nor a realist. I’m a ghost. Yes, you heard it right. I am a ghost. And yes, that very well means that I am dead. I’m not going to tell you how I died though, for I really don’t remember how I died. And I don’t intend to remember. I mean, don’t wise men always warn you not to dwell in the past? I’m a ghost who tends to live in the present. Well...I’m a ghost who apparently lives in a train that moves unabatedly from one place to another. “A body in motion tends to be in motion,” my Science teacher’s words ring in my head. “How?” I had questioned, “A train stops at far too many places.” I had witnessed her stern gaze as my classmates shared glances and giggles. She would be happy to see the continuum of this train, its routine motion, despite the stops. It keeps moving all the while I keep sitting in this blue-cushioned seat. I remain affixed to this seat. The world around me, its baffling motion, makes me dizzy. The trees move past the windows, the houses never stay put in their places, the people keep drifting with the wind; all the while the motion of this world tries to ridicule me.

The woman and the child have gotten off. There they go and drift along to the people they love, the house they belong to, the windowsills that proudly hold their gleaming photographs. I can’t help but smile as I think of their contagious smiles. I have a beautiful smile, just so you know. Not that you can see it, or anyone else can for that matter.

I’ve seen all kinds of smiles—from smiles with moustaches to smiles without, from a gentle curve on the lips to a wide grin that showcases the twinkle on every tooth, the cat’s purr-fect smug grin.

“Excuse me.” Someone needs to walk past someone, I think past the smiles and the cat’s grins. “Excuse me.” When I hear the same voice twice in a row, I turn right to see who wants to pass. There I see an old man sitting, a shortish man with small eyes, as if someone has just painted two thin lines on his round face. Chinese, says the right lobe of my brain. Korean, the left lobe echoes.

“Excuse me.” After uttering those words for the third time and with some annoyance, the man sighs and moves forward to another empty seat. The Chinese man (I listen to my right lobe) seems to be captivated by something. He is looking steadily at something. There is nothing in this train to be amazed at, to fix your eyes upon. There are only windows, blue seats the fabric on which has started to tear, and the screen that shows you where the next stop is and the stops after that are. Wait, the screen! I follow his gaze and realise what’s been keeping him intent. It’s the screen, the letters changing every few minutes. I’ve spent long enough on this train to be able to tell you what stops come after what. Okay, the names are weird, but I remember anyway. Well, not this man, I figure. He doesn’t know the names and he doesn’t want to miss his stop.

As the train stops at a weird-named place, a bunch of youngsters barge in. They’re 15, I can tell. Their distinct chatter, the shrieks they echo, the words they flaunt, they’ve got to be 15. A few of them walk past the old man and continue with their teenage ways.

“Did you see how was she looking at me the whole time? says the flirtatious one.

“Biology? I slept during that class.” The backbencher.

“I want Gucci for my birthday.” The fashion-stylist.

“x and y and derivatives.” Okay, the studious one.

This derivatives talk makes a man—who has had his head buried in the newspaper all the while—take a peek. The woman sitting by the window, who has been sleeping for quite a while, is wide awake now. Fifteen is quite an age, I smile. I wonder what I was like when I was 15. Is the old man wondering the same? Was he the studious one? I take a long, hard look at him. There’s something gripping about him—his unfaltering gaze. He’s wearing a hat and is quite well-dressed. His fists are clenched, his jaws tight, the creases of his face are rigid. He has the apprehensive look of a soldier. Maybe he’s a soldier. He might have fought some wars in one of the provinces in China. I’ve heard China has many provinces. I once asked a Chinese girl where she was from. “China,” she had replied. “Yeah, but which state?” I had prodded. “Even if I tell you the name, you won’t remember,” she had smiled. She was right, I don’t remember the name. Only if I could go and ask him which province he’s from. Now that I’m a ghost, maybe I’ll remember the name.

“What’s in a name?” a bespectacled teenager smirks. “Names aren’t who we are,” she continues.

“Shakespeare,” a boy sitting beside her yawns. The rest help overwhelm the compartment with a reverberation of giggles. I don’t know what there is to laugh at. Teenagers, you can never understand them. I wish one of them would ask the old man where he’s heading to.

“East,” shouts the studious one. “East…Easter. It’s Easter,” she chirps proudly as she scribbles in her notebook. A word-puzzle, I presume.

As the train comes to a halt, the teenagers get off the train leaving us in utter silence. I feel like the earth has resumed rotating, the woman sways back and forth in her blissful sleep. I like the conundrum of motion—the periodic movement of the train, the ubiquitous flow of the people and the whooping of the wind. The houses by the window never stand still, the letters on the screen keep changing, and the people never stay in one place. There’s something comforting in motion, in the drift of the winds, the gentle footsteps of the people, the fall of the leaves, the harmonic flow of the syllables. Everything is in motion, except for me and the old man. Could it be that he finds solace in his steady gaze? Only if he were to turn his head and see the houses and the trees and the bridges pass by. Only if I could tell him how comforting the prospect of motion is.

“Lichtenbergstrasse,” the screen beeps. I mean, who would call a place Lichtenbergstrasse? As soon as these letters appear on the screen, the old man sighs and tries to stand. The old man moved! I feel like I just saw a waft of wind over still waters, or a twig twinge in the depths of wilderness. He stands up gently and walks slowly toward the exit door. Lichtenbergstrasse, so this is where he lives.

Outside, he’s greeted by the whooping wind that carries him gracefully. Another family waits for him, another smile, and another photograph. Maybe his grand-daughter is keeping herself afloat for another happily-ever-after story. As he drifts slowly by the window, he turns his head and looks straight through the window right into my eyes. Has the world stopped rotating again? No, it’s his unwavering gaze, fixed on me for a fraction of a second. The earth keeps rotating as I’m left dumbfounded by his deep stare, deeper than the Gulf of Panama. How deep is the Gulf of Panama, anyway?

- Barsha Chitrakar 

Counting Boots

As the door opened, a stream of colours flooded in: red, brown, white, yellow and black. A brief moment of fanciful colours flowing out and moving in separate directions, enlivening the grey street in a pool of colours.... 

As the heavy door slid shut, the flow stopped. “Did you like any colour?”

“Yellow. You?” 

“Nah… I didn’t like anything. Okay, here comes another flow. Let’s watch.”

As the glass doors slid open, Amar and Surya fixed their eyes on the street that seemed ready to absorb the colourful streaks. The colours are always the same, one might say; but for Amar and Surya, they were always different, splendid in hues that amazed and befuddled them. So every day, at 4:30 pm, they would sit together on a metal seat at the bus station, waiting for buses to stop by, watching the rhythm of the flock of people getting on and off the vehicles, counting their colourful boots, and revelling in their own bewilderment at the change and variety of hues.

 “Three boots, and the colours weren’t even good,” Amar said, with distaste in his voice. His shoulders slumped as he sat lower in the seat, evidencing his growing frustration.

“Three isn’t bad. But why don’t you like any colour today?” Surya asked in astonishment. It wasn’t like Amar to get disappointed by the flow of the colourful boots. Any other day, he would have counted the boots, made a list of his favourite colours and drawn some random sketches in his notebook—some with fur, with stiletto heels or with maze-like threads that wound around someone’s leg.  But all he did that day was scribble on two pages of his notebook.

Less is more

When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me a story. It was about a boy who dips his hand in a jar full of candies. He takes out one, then another and suddenly he wants more. He tries to get a fistful of candies only to realise that his hand is now stuck in the jar; all because he wanted more. ‘More’, my mother told me was a dangerous thing to want, to crave. But that didn’t stop me from wanting more—more of the story, more ice-cream, more marks in exams, more love. And now, as I lay back in my deathbed, all I want is more time; more days and some more nights.

I had never thought that I’d die young. I’m barely 30 (I’m 22, if you must know) and I am dying!

“You have six months left now,” my doctor told me one fine day. It’s hard to believe that until before that day, everything had been normal; my life had been a long one. And now, I’ll never get to see myself turning 50 and complaining about my grey hair and fussing about my favourite daisy pot which my grandchildren would crash into pieces. But these were not the things that got me thinking after my death announcement was made. I worried about my mother. What was I going to tell her? How on earth could a daughter speak words of unimaginable brutality and bitterness to her mother?

“I’m going to die, mum.” I have always hated those epic teary-eyed dramas with their impossibly lengthy dialogues.

“Me too,” my mother had said without so much as a look into my eyes. “With all this work to do, I might as well die right now.” The way she had said it, she might as well have been talking about the weather.

The purple haze

The bus came to an abrupt halt after the brakes were applied without any warning. Not that this was anything new or illegal. If you are travelling in a public bus on the roads of Kathmandu, then you are bound to get some abrupt jolts from all directions every once in a while. That sudden frontward jolt brought all the passengers back from the dreamland they had been happily residing in for the last half an hour. The silence of the bus (the snoring sounds of some sleeping passengers excluded) was then overshadowed by lazy mumbles. Someone yawned, a guy swore, some lady at the back row cursed the driver for that unannounced jolt. Inertia of motion, I thought.

The bus-driver honked his favourite horns. And without even looking outside the window, I knew that we were now stuck in a traffic-jam. The blistering, honking and screeching street noises were only analogous to the rows and rows of vehicles that thrust against each other for a tiny space to crawl in.

“Congestion isn’t new,” said the old woman sitting beside me.

I looked at her side, looked at her face that clearly showed the years and decades she had been through and survived. I remembered all those anti-ageing and anti-wrinkles creams. Maybe she had never used one, I thought, or never considered it necessary. Besides, she had lived in a time when anti-ageing was as alien a word as anti-congestion was now for us; a time when clean air was not new, when getting old was not new. Congestion isn’t new, she had said. Maybe she was open to changes, physical or otherwise, I concluded.

“A chakka-jam has been announced,” the bus-conductor said as he entered the bus after his thorough inspection of the road. We were used to that, announcements without any pre-announcements. The bus-conductor, a teenaged boy, took his mobile out and started typing.

“Posting my Facebook status,” he announced, “Chakka-jam at Sundhara Chowk,” he said slowly as he moved his fingers in a familiar way of movements. At least now people will get pre-informed, I thought, courtesy of that announcement.

That prickly prick

The first time I saw that sharp, sparkling thing, I didn’t know what they were doing. As they inserted that never-before-seen object into my body, its fluid passing slowly through my veins scintillating

those valves and nooks it had never before made its way through, half of my body was left paralysed. And then high-pitched shrieks filled the silence of the room, shrieks so loud their frequency could have shattered the glass. This was my first encounter with the prickly prick.

“It’s okay. Mummy’s here.” A soothing sound made its way through my ear-piercing shrieks. “Shh… you’re my brave, little boy. It doesn’t hurt much, does it?” As she held me close to her heart and sang those oh-so-familiar words, the pain began receding. My fluttering eyelids closed, and my wailing all but stopped. As I took a ride in dreamland, I knew that that first-ever prickly prick of mine wasn’t my last, that there were many such pricks that would pierce my little body with no remorse, pricks not even the thickest of armour could shield off.

•••

I knew I should have never done that. I knew that I was being hasty. Just when everything was done, I realised that I had forgotten my helmet. I ran up a flight of stairs and BAM! I lost control and hit my head on the metal baluster.

“Steady now,” the health assistant said as he cleaned the wound on my head. It seemed like steady was everyone’s favourite word, except mine. I knew my mother was giving me her I-told-you-so look. She sat across me, contemplating, rehearsing and re-rehearsing things she was going to make me listen to and follow.