Man Maya crouches on the steps of her concrete house. The house is covered in rough cement plaster. Stark grey now from years of weathering. The colour of the sky above her is a shade darker than her house. “Don’t you feel cold on your legs?” she yells at me while putting her palms together to make the shape of a shell to return my greeting. Her hair is fully gray-- cottony. An imitation of the cloud accumulating above her head. I laugh and pull the end of the sleeves of my jumper all the way down to cover my fingertips. Aja’s jumper, actually. I have been wearing it since he passed last month. How else do you cling to a dead person, but in their belongings? I must make a weird image to Man Maya-- a woman in an oversized man’s jumper and no trousers. She probably thinks I have no trousers. The jumper hangs below my shorts but Man Maya does not know that. I am suddenly blushing because I am conscious of her age and experience and I kind of want her to know I am wearing shorts and that I am not being disrespectful. But I keep walking because the thought of walking up to her and telling her so is even more embarrassing. I walk past her house and downhill towards the river. And always, the river brings me surprises. She seems to attract so much self-destruction. This time, it is the construction workers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230507080524_f1b7ab4975bc796b3ba2fd313e8d0b673c065d5a94c2eac9a43a04b107b030bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20230507080524_f1b7ab4975bc796b3ba2fd313e8d0b673c065d5a94c2eac9a43a04b107b030bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Hijjya River"> <figcaption>Construction work at Hijyya River on 2 May 2023. </figcaption> </figure>  It has rained the entire week, but there is no swollen river below the bridge as is the rainy season norm. The river is fast downgrading itself into a stream. And like Man Maya’s hair, she too imitates the colour of the sky. The water has turned murky, as it does after rains, only, it has no might. Against the twilight, construction men sit on wheelbarrows, sharing a cigarette, flanked by heaps of mud and rocks. We are building a road that will connect to the main road, they explain. But isn’t there a road already that does the same, I want to ask. Then I hold back as the men start to sermonise about how roads are the key to development. Upsteam, the Angel’s Trumpet plants lay wilting on the dirt. The men explain they cut it down to make way for the road. Next to it is a stack of bamboo shoots, slashed down to its roots.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230507080528_981567632ae3587a194d0c429d2c9767273f097d7f1d93852372ab46665e5ac2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20230507080528_981567632ae3587a194d0c429d2c9767273f097d7f1d93852372ab46665e5ac2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Construction at Hijjya River"> </figure>  We can still use the bamboo for building, one of the men says. They have built a temporary shelter nearby for the duration of the construction. Downstream, they’re building stalls for what will be a vegetable market. They have torn down part of the hill to build. They boast about how much hard work it was and how they are stronger from doing that kind of work. “Nani, go to the Shiva temple and kneel for blessings,” one of them says. I nod and keep walking past the Shiva who now seems to lure only gentrification. My uninterrupted evening walks have run their course as the quiet pathways give in. Every other walk, there is one more fresh construction happening. Every other walk, there is one more creek that has gone dry (pictured, below).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230507080528_6f0cea842a9c5c1fb6ccfe2245b8c8e2f99ff04f1a41f4ba0e55d520ef7f0a7e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230507080528_6f0cea842a9c5c1fb6ccfe2245b8c8e2f99ff04f1a41f4ba0e55d520ef7f0a7e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="creek"> </figure>  My legs, now steeped in the muscle memory of this trail, might soon have to learn a new one. My daily route brings me back in full circle before Man Maya’s house. She is still on the steps of her house, now, a cigarette clenched between her fingers. I take courage and sit down on the pavement near her. Her heels are cracked and she wears no slippers. Before us stretches the last remaining open space in the village. Man Maya is the talk of the village-- how she went from being the owner of half the village to now being slumped in debt. “I sold,” she says. “The money seemed good at first, and then we couldn’t stop selling. I had to stop at the house.” “What do you think of the Hijjya River?” I ask. “Oh,” she says. “It’s a dying river.” “But it wasn’t always like that, right?” I probe. “My mother talks about the days when she was a child and they would carry her in a basket to Budanilkantha temple and the river would gurgle angrily as they walked past it.” “Indeed. Hijjya was the angry river. It was proud. It is where we all went to do our washing. In winter, it shone with clear water and in summer, it was always serene with the ducks, bamboo plants and the Angel’s trumpets thriving wildly on the banks. In the monsoon, always angry. Like the women in this village,” she lets out a laugh. “But all women wither and we also die. And this river is also dying. Did you see those men? So excited about building, building, building. Men like that bought my ancestral land too, and look how many houses have grown here in the stead of trees? It is making me go blind,” she laughs aloud and a whiff of stale alcohol sweeps past my nostrils. For a moment, I try to conjure the village of Man Maya’s childhood. A mud and brick house built by her ancestors, where we now sit, overlooking open grazing grounds for cows, green fields, tall trees, wild flowers and goats and cows and dogs and cats and birds. Before us, in the small patch of green now, a black puppy chases two kids and the mother goat bleats away and stares. “Are you okay, Man Maya Didi? I will be heading home,” I say. “Huss, don’t worry,” she says. “The river will get angry again when it must. All we can do is to wait and live that anger.” Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Pratibha Tuladhar

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Suburban Tales

Where rivers are not the Phoenix

I heard you were seen hanging out in Basantapur with a very young woman. I wonder who.
I imagine your face, warmed by the golden hour as you walked alongside your young friend, discussing philosophy and talking mysteries. Young people swarm to you like you’re their human magnet. Your face always lights up in their presence-- like you were born to do that. To talk to them.
It has been a while since I’ve seen your face. I wonder if there are gray strands in your beard now, or other signs of aging. I wonder what takes you out of your cubicle where you sit observing the world, battling it like a keyboard warrior. You once said one could destroy the world like that-- with your words.
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/light-of-the-absurd">Light of the absurd</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
I wonder what it might be like if I had been seen in your stead, sauntering in Basantapur, alongside a younger man. Walking, talking or perhaps just standing there in silence. I wonder what they’d say about a woman like me with "loose morals".
Cougar.
What could a woman like me, who lives sequestered, say about morality? I wonder what a man like you would say about cloistered virtue. A man like you, who believes in morality and nothing. Unlike a woman like me who believes in nothing and everything.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;…
One time, I ran down that temple in Basantapur-- the one in the centre with a long flight of steps-- with you trailing behind me, shouting my name. Don’t do this, you said. The life of a single woman is not what you need. Society will never let you live in peace.
It was 10:30PM. The courtyard had started to wear a deserted look with just a couple of men walking it at intervals.
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/reasons-for-disdain-at-dasain">Reasons for disdain at Dasain</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
I don’t care, I yelled back, as I ran all the way to the entrance to the Darbar Square. You caught up with me and grabbed my arm. By then, I had tears streaming down my face.
Today, I saw that the temple is still being rebuilt-- it has taken all these years since the earthquake for the reconstruction to begin. During the April 2015 earthquake, it had been flattened to the base. It is one of the last temples in Basantapur that is yet to go up since.
The stone steps I ran down, with you at my heels, are gone. They will be replaced by fresh masonry, new stones, new bricks.
Just before I had run down the steps, we were sat on the temple parapet, legs dangling, talking. About love. It is what we always did. In circles. The destiny of unhealthy attachments that follow the never-ending pattern of hurt and heal and hurt. I remember men walking past had stared at us. There’s a certain way people look at a woman who sits with a man in public places in the darkness of the night. There’s a certain way people look at a woman who sits with a man in any place in the darkness of the night.
When the reconstruction of that temple is complete, I shall go back and sit on those steps. In the darkness of the night. There will no longer be your voice telling me a woman has no business living a single life in a world where being affiliated with a man is the only way she can be safe. In the darkness of the night, after I have sat long enough at the temple, I will walk home, clutching my bag close to my chest, hoping the streets are deserted all the way. And that I don’t have to worry about running into a stranger. Man. Who will most likely brush past me. Or stare.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;…
The internet is a devious place. On some days, it is just a place. Where people meet. And find people.&nbsp;
You looked me up on an obsolete platform one day and said-- Hi, remember me?
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/the-light-of-feet">The light of feet</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
You’re that little boy I met at a cafe a decade ago. I pull together fragments of memory and chisel you whole. You are seventeen. I try to add a list of attributes so I can create the persona of an adult you, in my head. I imagine you’re a kind, bright child, interested in books and music. And not so much in me.
I have always meant to ask you out, but I was too young, you say. I do not laugh. I feel a pain tear through me. It no longer becomes possible for me to see you as you are now, because in my head, you become arrested in your late teens-- the child.
And as I start to pull away from the conversation, I ask: what does the world make of women who converse with younger men? Paedophile? Cougar?
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;…
And yet. And yet, I heard you were seen hanging out in Basantapur, lending one arm to this very young woman. You, with pepper in your hair. She, with a lilt in her steps.
I walked the courtyard today and wondered if you’d taken the same path with her as you had with me. Perhaps love is a pattern too, you know? Perhaps we kiss the same way every single time we love. Kiss, pine, long, pull away, break, scatter. How is your love different from mine then? How is it that you’re a man who’s decided to move on and I, a cougar?
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/a-letter-to-a-sister">A letter to a sister</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar

Walk of shame

Her costume, all white -- a cape and a mask. In the likeness of all superheroes, she has the gait of someone whose every move is purpose. And she wears her hair in a chic long bob — almost like Elastigirl. 
My superhero is called Doctor Anu, in the spirit of the syllables most superheroes go by.
When we first met, she was seated at her desk, a glass shield between us, examining my documents with brisk fingers and the silence of someone who is thorough with the content. Later, she ran her fingers over my abdomen, investigating, letting me know I had arrived. 
Doctor Anu, the one who never abandons her post.
When the 25 April earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, Doctor Anu was in the operation theatre, delivering a baby. She had just disconnected the umbilical cord when the rattling began. One of the two nurses attending ran out, screaming, and the resident doctor sat down on the floor and started to cry. 
The mother, lying on the operating table, anesthetised only below her waist as in the case of all cesareans, grabbed Doctor Anu’s cape and said: "Please don’t leave me!" 
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-wait/">The wait</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
I won’t, said Doctor Anu. And while the earth continued to shudder in instalments, she completed the procedure. 
For a moment, she teared up, thinking of her own toddler, who she had no way of reaching as the phones were down. She conducted two more surgeries that day, saving six lives. It would be 26 April when she would finally be able to go home. 
At the hospital cafe, she chats with her colleagues through her mask. When they break into laughter, hers is the clearest, heartiest. And I think that is her superpower — the ability to steer clear of the morbid in all situations.
She notices me, and gets up to join my table. There is a moment my eyes well up with tears as we converse and she puts one arm around me and pats. When she gets up to leave, she says: You call me or text me anytime you need, okay? 
Anytime I reach out, my phone pings back within an hour if not minutes, with brief but clear instructions— very superhero style. 

I am here, she says. And she just is. 
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/notes-from-a-musician/">Notes from a musician</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
 *********
Prachinta is Resident 301. We have it written on a band she wears on her wrist, along with the cannula that makes her hand look like an inflating balloon. She speaks every two hours asking me if she can have some water and I keep denying her request. It will make you sick, I say. Her body is still reacting to the anesthesia, making her throw up every few hours between zoning in and out and saying the blood pressure cuff is tight. 
What time is it, she asks. 2AM. How many more hours until morning?
Prachinta’s companions in the ICU are resident women 307 and 302. And a man in 603. Resident 307 needs careful handling. While phasing in and out of sedation, she wants to know what drugs she is on and how much the hospital will charge. At the end of most sentences, she says, "don’t tell my husband I said this", constantly censoring herself. And then, I am done with being here, I will go home today.
Resident 302 murmurs. Once, she asks if I am her granddaughter and if we are in a hotel. She says, I haven’t seen my grandchildren for so long, they are abroad. Then, Babu, why are you dressed in this uniform like you work in a hospital. I work in one, Ama, I tell her. Then she apologises. I guess you are not my granddaughter. Narisaunus hai. Don’t mind me. Then she falls asleep. 
Resident 307 curses. Being born a woman is a curse, she says. If you have a uterus, you are sin and suffering.
You don’t say so, Ama. All living beings suffer in our bodies. Men fall sick, too, I explain.
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/we-are-fire-breathing-dragons/">We are fire-breathing dragons</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
Prachinta starts to stir. Even with all the painkillers we have been shooting through her veins, she appears muted by pain. She can barely speak when she finally comes awake from the sedation. I help her sit on a stool and tell her to brush her teeth. Her hands, ballooning from the cannula, can barely hold the toothbrush. How do I do this, she asks. I find a black hairbrush among her personal belongings. She has long, greying hair. It reminds me of someone from my childhood. I comb the matted strands and ask if the greys are highlights. No, just age, she says.
I use my best braiding skills and tie up her hair with a piece of gauze. You have thick, beautiful hair, I say. Like the information even matters to a person who is spending time in the ICU. Thank you, she says. 
Her inner elbows have turned blue from the repeated punctures we have had to cause. But every time we make her wince in pain, she says: thank you. 
 *********
Writes Phoebe Waller-Bridge for Fleabag: 'Women are born with pain built in. It is our destiny. Period pain. Sore boobs. Child birth. You know? We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t. They have to seek it out. They invent ways to. Gods and demons and things so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own…and we have it all going on in here, inside. We have pain in a cycle for years and years and years. And then, just when you feel you are making peace with it, what happens? The menopause comes. And it is the most wonderful thing in the entire world. And yes, your pelvic floor crumbles…and then you are free. No longer a slave, no longer a person with parts.'
Maa sometimes says: I prayed all the years of my youth for the menopause. I have been thinking lately about how much I want to arrive at the menopause, so that my body can stop self-destructing. 
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/of-anger-and-love/" target="_blank">Of anger and love</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Light of the absurd

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150232/63fe10b79c7e80680e0da4aajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="1800"/><figcaption>Photos: PRATIBHA TULADHAR</figcaption></figure>Wait is like a big hole. An empty space to live in until.How long, no one knows. But in that space which is empty, is everything. In it, is the feeling of uncertainty, as well as forever. Uncertainty=Forever.In that space, is the voice of your parents, muffled as they discuss matters that must not be heard, once in a while, amplified over the sound of the hoover and the blender.“No!” says Baa. Not what I mean.“Okay, okay,” says Maa.And the feeling of uncertainty gets interrupted, delayed and even forgotten for a moment. What lingers is the sound of the hoover and the washing machine and the blender-- and other sounds the household is made of.“Life must go on,” says Baa.From the quiet of my room, I repeat after him, my lips forming the sentence in silence. Life must go on.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/memory-of-a-conversation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Memory of a conversation</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar…There are a bunch of things I carry with me in my heart. One of them is you. It is nothing spectacular for a memory, but it is still a place to hold within the emptiness.You are made up of a thousand chords in that emptiness and each when strung, makes my heart pick up a different kind of beat. When I think of the horrible things about life that I might have to reveal to you, my heart pounds, making me draw one hand to my chest and say, “stop”. Life must go on.You are also made up of soft sounds.I think of the afternoon in the sun, when you swiftly lay your heart before me and said, eat! The soft sounds of eating, when one opens the mouth, encloses a spoon between the lips and the teeth come down to do their job. Between the tongue and the teeth, the eating is done and you become a nutty pulp of nourishment for my being. You taste like childhood, like Maa’s cooking-- the only culinary that counts.Are you happy, you ask. I smile. Feed me more, I say. You smile. And it is the sound of a thousand monarch butterflies, flapping their winds softly against the start of Spring.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/of-anger-and-love/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Of anger and love</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar…Go turn your face towards the morning sun. It is when we are most adequate-- in the mornings, when our face is turned towards the sun.We were married to the sun, remember? All of us. And each of us were raised to believe in eternity. Life was going to be as eternal as the biggest star in the sky, nourishing us by the day, receding by night to allow sleep to lull us elsewhere.Being transported to that elsewhere was again, full of promise. In it were words, sometimes trapped in the ether, caught by you in the centre of your palm and then pocketed. Good things come from promise. The promise of another meeting. Just as the sun makes a promise to us every twilight-- the exact point when it will begin again at daybreak. How childlike this thought of promise and continuity! And yet, it is the image my mind lingers at-- one day at a time now.…<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150232/63fe10bc9c7e80680e0da4abjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="1024">Some days, my heart is steeped in regret for things left unsaid.When Maa put a bowl of vegetable soup before me, I got up and left the table, instead of saying “I love you”. When Baa offered to drive me to meet my friend, I got out of the car and said I can walk, instead of saying “thank you”. Reactions too, like words cannot be unsaid. I responded with my being, my body yelling at them in silence and they cannot be undone-- the getting up and out and walking away.But these were all days I needed out.For months, I told myself I have to go away. That is my destiny. I have always known I was meant to go away. Not knowing where drove me out of my wits and yet I wrote a prayer each night for my deliverance.But every time the time to leave showed up on the calendar, I dragged my suitcase to the door and stopped to stare at my parents. How can two people be so happy for your freedom? How can they revel in not knowing I have gathered the weapons to self-destruct? It is what wayward daughters do, pick the path of suffering and run swiftly towards the end of the world, with no desire to slow down, whatsoever.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/we-are-fire-breathing-dragons/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">We are fire-breathing dragons</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar…Ever wondered why growing old is such a relief? Because it lets us know that the worst has passed and that we are more prepared because of our familiarity with sadness and that even the worst will be lived through.It is full of promise, you see? Promise, that I will be right here when you want to sit down and take my hands in yours. Promise that I will always be capable of writing these open-ended, useless ramblings fit only for someone like me who never outgrew her teens.Perhaps it is true then, that we become arrested in the years when life poured the most into our fold. And from those years begin to grow the bubble that will eventually become the void. And around that, we chisel our lives, putting in a little bit every now and then, hoping for what life must become. And by the time life has come whole, we are still in the process and we continue at the attempt to architect it-- even the end must be perfect!Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

The wait

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230208140212/63e39fbb9c7e80680e0d7007jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Self portrait by Smyrna Samten Sherpa.</figcaption></figure>“All of us write songs. All of us make music.”I pause when I hear you say this. I want to say, I do not know anything about music. Instead, I say, tell me more.You carry on: “Playing with thoughts is also emoting. It is not very different from writing a lyric or composing music. It is song-writing and melody-making. Voice is just an instrument after that.”You describe songwriting as a form of storytelling, where one borrows from the conscious as well as the subconscious, like all storytelling.Friends from nowhereThe first time I heard you sing was on Instagram. You were seated on the floor of your room, guitar cradled on your lap, your fringe forming an awning for your face as you sang. The floorboards stretched all the way behind you, racing towards the balcony. Above it, the hills rose, forming a fortress for your room in Gangtok, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/letting-go-of-sikkims-ghost/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sikkim</a>. In my head you were a magician-- your voice, the deepest I had ever heard and your background, surreal.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/chinas-surge-should-nepal-be-worried/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pandemic</a> had just set in.I think my head draws this image of you from a collage of images I have put together from your social media. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/avoiding-the-quicksand-of-social-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Social media</a> allows for that to happen-- you can re-live many moments vicariously. It is what I have done through your stories.Now, sitting across me, you are somehow transported across time and space to a coffee table in a cafe in Kathmandu.The homecoming“If someone speaks two Nepali words or talks about Nepali music, it is like primal instinct, my body and mind react to it.” But you did not realise the real connection until you were in the land, “amongst its people”.You mention <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB4lfrJLNy4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jerusha</a>, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-sky-full-of-images/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bartika</a>, Yugal, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bipul-chettri-back-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bipul</a>. I start to gather fragments of your thoughts on my phone in the form of notes, while my heart busts with questions.In December, you posted a cover of Danny Denzongpa’s Chiso Chiso Hawa Ma, giving the song a life away from the original sound track. I ask what you think of how Nepali audience always want to lay a claim on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/arko-the-nepali-minstrel-from-bengal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali artists from India</a>.“Kathmandu has always been that home to Nepali musicians all across the globe, especially the hills of Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Kuresong and Sikkim. People here have always received them, listened to them, allowing them to teach in schools and explore their creative side. So, it is okay for Nepali people to claim Danny. I think it comes from a place of love and acceptance,” you smile and I do, too. Art is indulgence but also struggleYour parents are proud of you being Dr Smyrna Samten Sherpa. Your father, who placed a guitar in your arms when you were ten and prodded you on to the stage asking you to sing at church, still much prefers to introduce you as a medical professional.So, there is a catch in your voice when we go into how lonely the journey of pursuing art can be, but laugh and say: “I will always have music with me no matter where I am in my life…My parents will always be my parents even if they don’t agree with all that I do-- music has been home too.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/step-by-step-for-rural-health-care-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Step by step for rural health care in Nepal</a>, Aryan Sitaulahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLoRBVZmSlsYou have journeyed from singing in church to performing for a crowd, punctuating it with breaks to process the purpose and to write your own songs. And while music has brought you fame and new friends like myself, you say your real joy has come from being able to perform for children. You call it “the feeling of impartation”.Music is the food to my soul Your grandmother is on the phone with you from Namchi, South <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4709#.Y7o8tuxBzR0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sikkim</a>. She asks you why you want to leave.You answer: “In pursuit of self discovery”.You assure her by reminding her that you were taught to be like her-- dauntless. That she survived her time, you would too. And so you pack your bags and move to Delhi in search of a hospital job, in search of a life of music, bound to find you.Slowing down can be a good thingYou explain your idea of being Nepali: “The thing about people in Nepal, the hills of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim is that they know how to slow down. We use the word ‘laid back’ a lot of times to describe the crowd in our part of the world.”In contrast, you draw a picture of India, where musicians are expected to be perfect, where dinner table conversations revolve around people wanting to be something.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/moving-songs-from-the-boys-next-door/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Moving songs from the boys next door</a>, Sewa Bhattarai“I am sure everyone strives for that balance but with the advent of the internet and with life in a metropolitan I’ve started appreciating the idea of disengaging, slowing down. I think it makes music more human. I see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1lkroDm3Mo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">phatcowlee</a> pause from time to time, he brings good music from his hiatuses.”I miss being unguardedI have never heard anyone speak of the migration of sound scapes before: “Music is not a genre, it is a feeling”, you explain your understanding of how music is a feeling intertwined with history. “They have a certain theme and they repeat and evolve in other parts of the world as time passes." You draw examples from the blues in the cotton fields and our bards with Sarangi who sang about Mughlan.“Music migrates in that way but it is also a collective consciousness.”Listening to you across the table on a December evening, some things come home to me. That, I am not alone in feeling like an outsider in my own land. And that even when we feel like we are citizens of the world, there is still an ache for home. And that that is why we have music.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-sweet-smell-of-music/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The sweet smell of music</a>, Ben AyersRight now, I hold on to your thoughts: “From teenage angst to something to age wisely with…that is why God has given us music-- to lean on so we age gracefully.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Notes from a musician

“Maybe you are a dragon,” says M.
She wants to know what Mi-malaa in Newa translates to. I say, it is a fire-breathing dragon. And I immediately slide into a ramble about dragons, which is when she says she thinks that I might be a dragon.
I laugh.
…
I am five, sickly, forever dodging all kinds of arrows life darts at me, throwing me into fits of cough that cause asthma. It means I am not as athletic as my cousins or my classmates. I am the youngest in class and the littlest of all cousins. I am the runt of the pack. My oldest cousin sister, whenever it rains, lifts her frock over my head like a broken umbrella.
Stay in bed! I am told that a lot by everyone. Baa brings me Read-it-Yourself Ladybird classics.
One very dry day in March, Yaama, decides I must join the other children for Malaa ja-- the feast of the dragon. Maa is not entirely sure but she helps me put on my pretty pink frock that has a bunch of dolls embroidered to the front. Yaama leads me to the street before the Taleju temple where wicker mats have been spread out and children are seated in rows, like some picnic is underway.
My heart thumps at the sight. I am assigned a spot.
Men and women appear in a file, walking past us, leaving treats, ranging from cookies to cakes to fruits, on the leafy plates set before each one of us. The girl next to me asks me if she can have some of my sweets and I say yes. Drink your juice, she says.
I feel as though I am part of something important, even though I have no appetite.
Yaama brings me home when the feast is over. Maa asks me how it went. I tell her everything. She explains how in the past, it would have been a proper feast of rice and daal and goodies and that the event was a prayer sent out to the dragon to protect the children from itself-- March being a month of storms and strong winds and contagious diseases. Hence, Malaa Ja.
…
Maa has always owned a pendant with a dragon on it. In fact, all her sisters have one, a family tradition of carving the serpentine mythical creature with fins, scales and fire onto little slabs of metal.
While I still had a penchant for jewelry, I used to ask Maa if she would give it to me someday. I would ask her why the pendant has a dragon. “My birthchart warns me against the Malaa. I am supposed to wear the pendant so a dragon can protect me against dragons.”
Whenever it rained, Maa’s elder sister would rush to her rescue with an umbrella and shove her into the house. Stay indoors! She would make her watch the rain from the window. She was not allowed to be outdoors during storms. And so my mother learned to watch the rain from the window and read her books.
And across the sky, she would see the dragons flashing to the background score of thunder, spreading as far as the horizon in its colours, claws, scales and fins-- the sudden outburst of lightning sending shudders through her heart.
…
“On the main entrance of our old home were two massive, colourful dragons. They were beautiful,” Maa recalls. “The house had little attic windows and I would look at the mountains from those windows.”
When they pulled the house down to build a new one, the dragons came off the walls in broken bricks.
Maa has no idea who painted the dragons, but they were a symbol of the great creatures that would protect the house and its dwellers.
…
We have four kinds of dragons, says Deepak Bajracharya Gurju. They are: Mi Malaa, Bajra Malaa, Gongaa Mall, Pa Malaa, each named after their shape and impact.
“A Malaa is truth, but also an illusion,” he says. “It is as elusive as it is omnipresent.” And he shares anecdotes.
In one instance, a Malaa had drowned in a pot of brew and turned to stone. But when the woman who discovered it tried to hold it, the stone quickly transformed into its ethereal form and flew away.
In some instances, Guruju says, when the sky suddenly darkens, rumbles and the lighting strikes, we believe that a Malaa has flown away.
They have been forgotten over the years, he explains, but they are still present in symbols around us. We have seen them carved on to temple struts, to door knobs, painted on walls of old buildings, written by healers on bodies when people fall sick and sometimes inked on the skin. Sometimes, their form stares at us from the ruins of a house struck by lightning.
…
Dragons, Maa says, are representative of who we are as individuals. They are who we aspire to be -- fierce, cold as serpentine scales but bursting with flames that can burn everything to cinders.
She says, there is always that epiphany whenever the Malaa shows across our skies -- the idea of regenerative possibility all humans are. Of how we reinvent and reappear just as dragons do. That was the original hope every parent carried for their children -- that they be like dragons and they protect themselves from other dragons.
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

We are fire-breathing dragons

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022120710124/6390579b9c7e80680e0ce165jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1480" height="986"/><figcaption>Photo: FREEPIK</figcaption></figure>ChilblainsWinter spills out into my room in the form of jumpers. I happen to call them jumpers. Maa calls them sweaters. Is it because their job is to make you sweat, you once asked me. If so, why are jumpers called jumpers?Maa is always going to insist they are sweaters. Grandmother used to knit them in bright colours and complicated patterns, as though crossing needles all year was a way of mentally preparing for the Kathmandu cold that would arrive at her toes, threatening to bite them off in chilblains.Winters were harsh. Some mornings, she woke up to a layer of ice on top of the water left overnight in the washing tub. She would first crack the ice with a finger and then dip it in slowly, almost afraid.Throughout winter, her toes and fingers would itch from the inflammation caused by exposure to the cold. At night, laying next to her husband, a bunch of babes on the other side, she would turn to him and say: Warm my hands please -- they are prone to chilblains.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/stealing-a-dog/">Stealing a dog</a>, Pratibha TuladharKnitting inSo winter spills out into my room anyway, out of duffle bags and old trunks and the high shelf in the closet. Those are their place all summer. They remain tucked away, their warmth made obsolete by the summer sun. They shy away in different nooks of the house, perhaps sighing and waiting until it's time again.And today is the start of that time.Bring them out and leave them in the sun, Maa says. This should have happened in the month of Gunla, while the sun was still strong. Just at the heels of the monsoon, you know, she says.But Maa, I protest. We lost track of the monsoon this year. Didn’t it rain all the way through Dasain?Right, right.And so today is finally the start of the time. The jumpers are a bunch of colours, ranging from tangerine to black -- a splotch of yellow and blue here and there.Why do you buy so much black? she asks.Do I?And there are three bags of black nylon stockings. Some of them have run ladders from being worn for too many years. Why does a woman need 35 pairs of stockings? Maa likes to speak in hyperbole.I am not sure I need them, actually, I say. I didn’t even buy them. One pair of holey stockings was gifted by Funa last year. But when she was opening the delivery, she accidentally ripped a hole with the scissors into the packet. And so, all of last winter, I walked around in a pair of holey stockings.I don’t know any woman who walks around in torn stockings, you Hippie!Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/memory-of-a-conversation/">Memory of a conversation</a>, Pratibha TuladharWear me outClothing items become worn out when they are worn well. In that wearing out is the residue of the days it has carried our limbs, torso, etcetera. And so they begin to develop holes, collect lint, scrunch up in certain areas where the rate of friction is more frequent.They gather the memory of some wall you were leaning against while you waited for your paperwork to come through in a government office. The loop of wool sticking out of an old jumper is a reminder of how a stray nail gently tugged at you as you stood up to leave your desk one evening to go meet a certain friend.One of my oldest black jumpers has sleeves that hang all the way to my finger tips. In the newsroom, when I worked the late news shift, I would pull them all the way down and roll them in a fist, depositing them on my lap as I watched the late night news, waiting for my turn to get on the air. Gloves and mittens never warmed my hands the same way.Next to me once sat Ram Chandra, asleep on an adjustable office chair, the room heater at his knees slowly eating a hole into his fleece jacket.The almost accident left a charred dark patch on his jacket. Perhaps, if he still owns that jacket he looks at it and thinks of how I might have rescued it by waking him up, instead of sitting next to him gawking at the screen, my nostrils flaring in the air at the hint of something burning.“Not very smart, are you, didi?” Ram Chandra later asked me.Darkness of the streetAgainst an old Kathmandu house, supported by struts, sit three women with their goods spread before them in a molehill. The little hill is made up of fleece items-- colourful trousers, jackets and more trousers and some socks and beanies. Their colours reach you even in the darkness of the alleyway, beckoning at you like winter. But the women do not make an attempt to sell. They merely stare at me, perhaps wondering if I will buy.I have too much winter clothes, I make a mental note.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-light-of-feet/">The light of feet</a>, Pratibha TuladharSun-soakingWhen we were growing up, bringing your winter clothes out during Gunla was a ritual, explains Maa. Kathmandu winter demands that you get prepared in time. So, we used to bring it out and leave it in the sun all day before folding each item carefully and shelving it in cupboards where they were easily within reach as the temperatures started to drop after Tihar.No one has that kind of time now, Maa. Also, we have things hanging in the closet all year now, so what would be the point of having the coming out occasion for clothes?But the pile in my room does seem to be having a coming out per se, as warm colours peek at me. I touch an old cholo belonging to my Ajee, which was passed down to me as her souvenir. Bright red with black flowers, she wore it for many years while Aaja was alive and then it went and sat in a trunk in the store. Like we stock up summer clothes at the start of winter, Ajee’s clothes of colour had all been swiftly stored away when she became a widow. None of them ever saw a Gunla sunny day out. They just stayed there.But today, in my room, the bright red and the dark flowers of the cholo catch the sun.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.Read more:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/memories-of-war/">Vignettes from war</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar

Winter on my skin

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131156/63723b839c7e80680e0c95c9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683"/><figcaption>Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption></figure>The thing about Dasain is that I’m never good enough for it.When I was a child, I wasn’t good enough because I was a girl. It meant I could not participate in certain rituals by the virtue of being female.Over the years, I learned to make peace with it. Rituals were not my thing, anyway.One Dasain, after the main practice of sacrificing the gourd, painted as the demon Mahishasur was over, my sister picked the khadga dagger handed down from our Malla ancestors, and started to slice the gourd. It riled the male guardians in the clan. My sister tried to argue that it is after all the goddess who kills the demon, and the goddess is female. Not like her argument would work.After that, the age-old practice of impaling the gourd in our clan met a sudden end — causing our strand of the Tuladhar men to disperse into nuclear family Dasain celebrations.While my childhood memory of Dasain, or Mohni as the Newa people call it, has always been about the Tika big day (this year on Wednesday) when the men came together to perform the violent act against a painted gourd, the festival has changed over the years. Some of those changes are very welcome, including the one that put an end to the simulation of violence performed by certain Buddhist Newa families in Kathmandu.Growing up, I also experienced discrimination shared by some of my cousins, who were not allowed the tika by certain relatives because they were not Buddhist. But wasn’t Dasain a Hindu event in itself? I never understood that. And while I stood on the other side of the line where I was allowed tika, their sense of humiliation for being refused the blessing was mine, too. We were children together.Over the years, I also learned to stage fake periods when I did not want to receive tika. And while isolation during period is something my family has never observed, I still have mood swings the moment I see the tika tray.Lately, they remind me of the Asur people in certain parts of India, who mourn their dead during Dasain. But the tika is also sticky and leaves a mark on my forehead, reminding me that I have the privilege of it because I was born in a certain family.Also, for women, neither having or not having your period during Dasain is a privilege. Either way, it means you spend the festival running household chores or being banished for bleeding. All things become tied to birth eventually—who you were born to, where and how—your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, your civil status and your social station in life, to mention a few. They make that everything about you. In this case, they is Dasain and Dasain is they.Once upon a time, I worked in a newsroom. The country was declared secular and we stopped calling Dasain the biggest festival celebrated by Nepalis. We started writing: the biggest festival celebrated by Hindus in Nepal. But every other day, one person would change it back. All Nepalis are Hindu by default, he would say. How? I would ask. And he would say: it is just how it is. In my head, I would say: It is just how a newsroom you lead is. Closed to everyone who is not you.Over the years, Dasain has kept finding new ways to defeat me. When it discovered that I am a woman without a man, it naturally relegated me to the lower-station of social life. You need a husband to do certain things in the society that calls me its own. Doesn’t matter that this time of the year is about a woman who rides on a ferocious animal and is independent.I have met Dasain with an entirely new fear recently, because it’s given me fresh reasons for disdain. It tells me I’m not good enough. My hair is greying, and fast. Dasain wants me to discover hair colour. I’m told my cousins who are in their 50s “upstage” me in looks and it is why I will never “find a husband”. I’m also being told I’m too conservative in how I dress and in the topics I like to discuss. And so, I’m too conservative for this festival.It is never going to be good enough for Dasain that I’ve learned to play kitty to entertain my nonagenarian grandfather. Not good enough, that I let the spindle reel against my thumb, flying a kite with my nephews and my brothers.Dasain is often a reminder that singlehood is not even a concept available to one and that we must make the choice of finding a partner. It doesn’t matter that the partner might have been someone who slammed the door on your face or held you to the ground by your hair, or spent his entire time watching pornography on his phone while you sat up in bed wondering. But you must have a partner because that’s what is acceptable to Dasain.I’m never going to be good for Dasain. And that, is just fine.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Reasons for disdain at Dasain

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131140/637237c99c7e80680e0c734cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1399"/>Have you ever stolen a dog? Or tried to steal one? If you have, you know exactly where this story is going.Not all of us are guilty of this “petty” crime. But every time one sees a cute little puppy, the thought is likely to cross one’s mind-- even if only briefly. And it seems like an easy think to think. Scoop the little one in our hands and whisk it away! But then it is no longer a petty crime. It becomes real.Have I ever stolen a dog? I might have. Several times in my life. I am either stealing or borrowing them. Mostly, borrowing.Last month though, I guess I tried to steal a pup.It all began one afternoon when I raised my head to look up from the keyboard and turned my gaze towards the window. And there she was on the street below, swiftly burrowing into the sand with tiny but purposeful paws.Something about the moment felt familiar. Many years ago, I had met another pup who had similar energy. I would eventually call her Goose and she would live over a decade of her life with me, filling it with silliness. Goose, yes. A silly name for a silly dog.All dogs are silly, by the way. Or they let on, so we may be amused. It is almost as though their sole purpose in life is to amuse humans, who seem to have resigned all forms of tangible amusements in exchange for the gratification sought in holding and watching gadgets.Anyway, my story is about how I tried to steal this pup, who was apparently found by my next-door neighbour on the street.Read  also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/microchipping-nepals-dogs/">Microchipping Nepal’s dogs</a>, Aria Shree ParasaiThe pup, only weeks old, was a wild one. She would run about and play with the neighbourhood adult dogs. And children. The adult dogs sometimes watched her in delight, sometimes snapped at her, while all the children in the hood wanted ownership of the puppy.The pup, after all, was a white fluff ball. And as a friend once put it, the sight of tiny white furballs makes people want to steal dogs. Please note how Spitz are one of the most commonly adopted breeds in Nepal.One might say there is a whiff of the representation of capitalism in the way some of us are loyal to certain breeds and flaunt the way we keep our dogs. And there is the representation of horror in the way others keep their dogs chained all day, treating them like monsters who are supposed to guard homes. And there are street dogs, which would be an entirely different saga of both kindness and horror.I digress again. To return to the main story, the house next-door turned the puppy out because the little girl who lives as a tenant on the ground floor wasn’t allowed to keep a dog. This is the story for most tenants in Kathmandu-- you are not expected to keep a dog.The pup, however, immediately found new owners. Another little girl who lives in a hut across the street adopted the pup. She had been allowed to keep the pup for a specific reason. Her mother left for the Gulf six months ago to work as domestic help. And two months ago, her grandmother passed away. Letting her keep a puppy was her father’s way of making up for the care she no longer has.The girl started carrying the puppy around like it was a plushy, dangling it by the limbs. It always looked like the bones would snap, for the pup was so tiny.If the girl ever put the puppy down, it would run about and sometimes show up at our place by sliding under the gate. At first, I tried to steel myself. But none of it was going to work. The pup started showing up daily. And every day, I felt my defenses start to crumble.I started plotting theft in my head. But part of me knew it was wrong and I felt conflicted. I decided to offer the owners the option of allowing me to vaccinate the pup.When I walked up to the little girl to make the offer, she was clutching the pup in her arms. I asked her if I could help her get her pet vaccinated.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-nepals-last-wild-dogs/">Saving Nepal’s last wild dogs</a>,  Yadav Ghimirey“Hudaina,” she immediately refused. And then added, “Sui layo bhane usko ama runcha.” Her mother will cry if we give her injection.So, where is the pup’s mother, I asked her.“Bidhesh gayo.” Her mother has gone abroad, she replied, without looking at me, still holding the pup. I patted her head and left.The pup continued to show up every afternoon, claiming corners of my home like it was hers, sometimes falling asleep on the doormat, sometimes tearing it up.I started to obsess over her. I asked myself— what if this is Goose coming back home to me? I was torn between wanting to steal and to be fair. But would stealing and giving it a life like the one Goose had had not be fair?Then one day, the pup did not come. I went to find the little girl to ask. She only said: “There is no puppy”. Chaina.Then she insisted I let her braid my hair. She ordered me to lower my head and came up with a braid that only a three-year-old could accomplish. Then she pointed at the salt and pepper and asked what happened to my hair.I told her I am an old woman. And she asked: “Like my grandmother?”Yes, I said. I patted her head and I left. I decided, a three-year-old should not have to worry about protecting her puppy from being stolen.(P.S. Puppy-- that was what her name became, eventually-- is now in Gaighat, adopted by a relative of the little girl.)Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/canine-therapy/">Canine therapy</a>, Anjana Rajbhandary

Stealing a dog

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131120/637232fc9c7e80680e0c48bejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3024" height="4032"/><figcaption>Credit: PRATIBHA TULADHAR</figcaption></figure>You are a memory to me. From so long ago, when corridors were home to long hours of anguish, cloaked in a layer of make-up. Everyday, a layer went up my face-- a light layer, light enough for one to touch and shatter it all the way to my skin. No one tried and that’s a different matter altogether.But yes, those were days when the corridors were a passage to so many emotions. Always, there is that memory of my own stilettos thumping the metal base of the bridge that connected our two buildings, as I crossed over from one side to the other. Sometimes, during those walks, I caught sight of you in the parking lot, standing next to one of your cubicle mates. Men in those cubicles seemed to have a thing for long, unkempt hair. I used to wonder at the confidence with which you and your colleagues wore your hair past the nape-- so comfortable around your temples.I suppose, looking back, I can now tell you that I have always been so fascinated by the rare male ability to shift between the feminine and the masculine. It intrigued me to watch you all, so lost in conversations over tea and smoke. It seemed like you shifted in gender fluidity in those moments, one moment becoming the coy girl who tucks a strand behind the ear and the other moment, something else while crossing over to a more masculine territory of occupying public space in such a way, as only men do in our part of the world.I used to wonder what men talked about in those circles that appeared so exclusive to them. There was an air of spirituality too, that you all embodied as a group-- almost cultish, loaded with self-importance.Women rarely appeared the same way in that public space provided to us all as co-workers.When women gathered, we had our own share of work and fun and other things to discuss. I recall that politics was a topic as common as fashion and family troubles, but who really keeps an account of these conversations women have, no?Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/of-anger-and-love/">Of anger and love</a>, Pratibha TuladharOne time, Anna and I sat in the cafeteria, trying to think of the goofiest Bollywood numbers and rapped the table top to the songs. We might have made a spectacle of ourselves. Anna and I when together were sometimes a spectacle, you know? Sometimes, we were just muffled voices, discussing intently love and heartbreak. It still seems to always make up the biggest chunk of our conversations-- men who will not let you love them.So many memories in that cafeteria.In one such memory, you are wearing a chequered shirt, a gangly youngie, almost a teenager. R and I have just finished breakfast and you pull a chair and invite yourself to sit. We start talking. I can’t remember about what. But we can’t stop talking and R starts to get antsy and left out. You know how it is when you are experiencing a high from being able to speak your exact mind and can’t stop talking? That is how we are that morning in my memory. Eventually, R ends up leaving and we stay back, talking.Timi sanga kura garerai pugdaina malai, you say. The very Nepali way of saying I can’t get enough of you.I have been trying to look back at that memory, wondering what it might have been that we discussed that morning. Like they say, it is never the words but the essence of the conversation that stays with us. It is just the memory of you now, you sitting across me exuding the same enthusiasm for the conversation as me, until more people start crowing the cafeteria, casting us side glances-- what is a woman doing talking to a young lad in a space filled with caffeine and smoke? Not a conventional pair by any means. But the glances, also reminding us to go back to our computers. It is the single memory I have of you.I have been trying to dig up my old memories, combing through the dust settled over those days to recall what you looked like in those years and what we discussed during those hard-to-abandon conversations. So many layers have gathered over them now-- so many years, so much water flown under the bridge.I suppose those other conversations you had with your male friends that I so envied, must have been not very different from the ones you and I had. Yet, by the grace of being a woman, I was visually ostracised by the crowds around us-- Cougar, they mouthed as they walked past us.Yet, I am filled with utter longing today. I have been wishing we still went to work in a big office together where we ran into one another at tea breaks and tapped into stray conversations, lingering a little longer than schedules allowed, discussing telescopes and bands.That was some kind of freedom, you know? I have always thought conversations are freedom and that is why people have them. Because in them, you are free to navigate worlds in your mind and outside, that would otherwise be forbidden to tread, especially for women. In words, we find places to go, hands to touch and faces to hold in sight that are otherwise never in our share.I am sitting here in the drab brown and white of my room, imagining the colours one can traverse in conversations. Right now, I am hoping a woman like me, will be allowed conversations by a world that is made up of men like you.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-walk-in-the-memory/">A walk in the memory</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar