Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Electric kettle without electricity

How does anyone feel this listless is beyond me but right now, all that is jumping at incredible speed from one atom of my being to the other is making every ticking second feel like a day. I feel like I haven't rested in a long while, nobody loves me and everyone is taking me seriously today when all I want to do is have a really relaxed time, doing nothing but stroll around the entire office premises like as if I am my own boss. Even jokes I crack are not laughed at. Did I wake up not being funny today? I should be my own boss. I wonder how my boss has all these legacy under his belt and he is a very young man. I should eye him closely next time we are in the same room instead of taking note of his tempo as his voice rise and fall in a way you wouldn't imagine of a guy of his prestige.

A friend was telling me a joke about a 30-year-old unmarried woman and how an old lady always suggested it was her turn next to get married at every wedding they attended together. One day, they met at a funeral and the 30-year-old woman told the old lady her turn was next. My listless has gone to an extend of not being able to remember her age though it was sprouted a few words before. The root of all this lethargy is in course of all the immigration stuffs and the way all government officials and offices works in Nepal. It is absolutely disheartening to see our country in all its possible glories and making myself understand it will probably never be glorified to its full right. I wish I could do something for my Motherland instead of just wishing for a change, for a brighter future. 

I came to Nepal hating my Nepali identity. Five years on, I do not want to leave this place. This is where I call my home and where I want to call home forever, where I want to raise my kids and make sure they are proud of their heritage. I love Nepal, the beauty of our country is compared to none - our snow-capped mountains, trekking zones and preserved areas where electricity and phone lines are probably going to reach in the next two years, forget internet connections, the male cows grazing the grass in the middle of the road, pot-holed roads which often causes accidents than not, the rickshaw drivers and the taxi drivers who bargains like housewives over the fares and the almost always sardine packed micro vans with at lease one guaranteed passenger with a terrible body odor and luck has you seated next to. The beauty is immense, in the people's lively eyes and happy faces. I looked at the faces of every person that I walked by today on the way to work and everyone looked happy, maybe it was just a look they pasted and have gotten used to faking it but something about this relaxed society has got to be the heart of fruit. Where will I ever get to be part of such a community who just doesn't give a damn about politics and can 'turn a deaf ear' simply because they rather have chai and watch Hindi serials? Or a place where I can talk Nepali and laugh, talk politics even and pretend to understand it because there is really not much to understand about it as it is full of confusion. I always tell people; if America is the land of dreams, Nepal is the land of opportunities because so many fields in Nepal is not looked into. Everyone in this forsaken country is either a doctor or working with NGO or INGO, etc. to comply with the societal norms, so can you imagine the number of people we need in all other prospects of getting a functional country such as the Arts and Recreations? There is so much to Nepal than any one of us will ever be able to link to, you just need to fall in love with the country and see the country's shambles in a lighter note to understand my point of view. 

And so, my colleagues are hurdled around an electric kettle as I write my fondness for Nepal and trying to figure out a way to boil some water for coffee with the line is down elsewhere except this side of the office that I am in (it has generator connections). Load shedding is a bitch but it is a pretty bitch, if not for load shedding, do you think we would have something to laugh about and something to figure about right this moment? I don't think so. I bid my goodbye with a cup of warm coffee in hand while my colleagues walk around figuring the kettle and its plug for hot water. They happened to like me quite a lot because whatever hot water was left in the kettle was poured out to make a cup of coffee for me. Or perhaps it was my depressive state and out of pity, more than love, I have this cup before me. Now if only this heart of mine did not feel like it wants to die from the caffeine attack, this instance would have been the perfect Nescafe moment for me - with load shedding and all, the cute bunch of colleagues and a tempo buzzing away on the road outside my office. 

Hearts,
Genisha 

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Numbers & Alphabets

It is weird. The art of writing to me is weird. Our magazine distributing manager just asked me to quickly add up 179 and 38. He was on the phone. I got so lost. I tried to do it on paper, the way I was taught to do so in primary school and it used to be really easy but I got stuck. I even tried to do it mentally. Seriously, why do I even try? I ended up using the calculator on my mobile and I was almost too scared to reply 217 because I couldn't trust myself, mostly, I couldn't trust the numbers. 

But numbers are weirder. Every single time someone speaks number and asks me to subtract and add to it, divide it, multiple it or deduct how much a dress would cost after 40% discount, I won't be able to do it. That frown on my face would have been much happier if I didn't start to go all blank and the life in my eyes go travelling miles to that day in maths class, my teacher looking at me, straight in the eye with a mixed look of hope and a look of sad lost, just like a lighted wick on a windy day. I had scored 2/100 for the paper. I always think of that day and I always speak of that day to anyone and everyone who asks me why I am so horrible in that subject. I lost faith in the beauty of numeric and I just got stuck in time. I would agree with all those who support the ideology of not getting graded. I was a maturing-by-the-second fourteen-year-old woman, extremely studious and extremely hyper. Now eight years on, I still haven't been able to get over it. It has scarred me for life. I am not proud to say this but I have always failed mathematics except for that final mathematics paper I sat for during my 'O' Level examination. With months and months of focusing on the subject, neglecting the rest because I needed a passing mark on it to get into the junior college of my choice, I circled in just right. 

Writing, now that is an entire different ball game altogether. Maybe, it is snobbish of me to say this myself but its innate or maybe, it isn't because which 'writer' has taken hours of classes for the said? I was every English teacher's pet without trying, except for my 'O' Level year English teacher who somehow hated me for my guts and of course he would, his name was Mr. Choi and one day at class, I accidentally shouted 'Ah, choi ah choi!!!' when someone said something inauspicious and the entire classes were in roars of laughter while I sat there, my brain working half a minute too slow. I wish I hadn't because he made every 40 minutes of his class pretty hellish for me. Like Nepalis' 'tuu tuu', 'choi choi' means the same in one particular Chinese dialect. He probably on purpose gave me red marks for his own indulgence of hatred towards me because I ended up getting an A in the end. Just saying how great I actually am... 

Carrying on with all the self-gloating, writing just happened to me out of the blue one day. Getting good grades without studying to actually getting paid for something I didn't have to think about to get done, something that I absolutely, without a shadow of doubt enjoy doing, I am just rolling around in glee. I wish Mr. Choi could come find me now, I would offer him a cup of milk tea. Now, the inferiority complex is something that I always struggle with but at the end of the day, I remind myself that I am not writing for anyone other than myself and my editors (because, I am human and I need a steady salary). My goal at the end of the day is personal satisfaction with the work I produce as should be the goal of everyone, in all misery. Although, certain writings might make sense to only me, I am happiest when I put the final full-stop on my last sentence in every of my write-up, irrespective of whether they get published or not.

The idea of blogging is initiated because lady needs to be paid to put hand to mouth. I need my mint! Besides, I have too many word files on my C drive (yes, IT nerd, I should put all files in D drive so it doesn't affect the full functional capacity of my laptop), so it is better to just put it out on the internet for the world to see, my main focus being my future editors and for my unpublished works because I worked hard enough for it, and because someone who means a little something to me told me, 'Look, these folder of things which you have not so aptly titled 'CRAP' deserves more than just your pair of eyes. OPEN UP A FUCKING BLOG, you are crazy enough to write weird stuffs people don't usually write, you should be crazy enough to keep up with it. Enough with your laziness, enough with your stuck-up attitude!' And so, this blog is dedicated to the readers who I bestow the full liberty to tell me I am just a cocky writer full of myself, that I am not even a writer at all and to the readers who loves me as much as they would love to hate me. 

Hearts,
Genisha