the future is now
I’m not surprised, not at all. I knew, all along, that this day would come. I knew it right away, back in 2008. Well, I know it’s easy to boast about your ability to predict the future when the future is ‘now’ and nobody is going to really know if you really predicted it right. But it doesn’t matter at all, since it’s too late and nothing can be done. You have no choice but to walk all the way to your office, a few miles from here, and your home is a few miles in the opposite direction. This place, in Maitighar, used to be a busy traffic island. Now it’s a park. We come here to ease our poor legs, since they have been “working all morning”. I live in Lagankhel and work at the Bir Hospital in Sundhara and it’s a tough day.
Anyway, it’s 2048 A.D and Kathmandu is a dark, cold city. It can hardly be claimed a city as there are no automobiles running on the street anymore, just a few ambulances pass by now and then. Ambulances don’t scream as they used to, because the road is all theirs now. We had a few of these things around till 2015, some distinctly rich could put up to ride till then. But the unfortunate ones wouldn’t tolerate. I heard they flipped those cars and burnt them. Still, we see a few aeroplanes, since they are fueled from somewhere else. But, aeroplanes are not much of use to us since there are only a few fortunate ones who can afford to get the “hell out”. Load shedding schedules were modified every six months or so, every time lengthening the dark hours, till it stabilized about a decade ago. Since then we have had three hours of electricity a day, three days a week. Television and music system are no more a daily luxury. Crime rate has gone up. People have been shifting from one alternative resource to other since. The owners of candle business, men with manual industries, and men with land have become the wealthiest ones in our society. But they are not as less anxious as you might think they are. They have their own aches to ease when it comes to transportations and efficiency. People have changed professions. Most of them turning toward agriculture since people in the city are in short of food and it’s quite impossible to transport food from elsewhere without fuel.
I used to believe ‘everything happens for good’. Now I don’t. Since I work in hospital, I’d observed some brighter sides of the crisis. Less people suffered from respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, throat inflammation, chest pain, congestion and whole bunch of different diseases pollution would bring. But that was only during the few years that followed the crisis. After a few more years, people poured in once again. Massive number of ill fed people came to us. With the abated food supply everything had started to become more expensive in a geometric proportion, and the poor were the first to suffer miserably (anemia and malnutrition). People who studied at night in the candle lights suffered all different kinds of defects in vision. Myopia, hypermetropia, purblindness, and what not? Every now and then we heard that an international agency was in to aid us, but it never happened. Or may be the aid was never large enough to be noticed. Or may be we had expected too much. Or it could be the same old story of dirty politics. Politicians? They never seem to back off. Not even in these gable end circumstances.
When I was young, back in 2008, we had lots of vehicles around. Anyone older than forty can remember the dreamy scene back then when Ratnapark was just a few minutes drive from Lagankhel. Now, its two hours walk on a day like today and an hour & a half when I’m on a hurry. So the time I leave home is a variable with its possible value in a range of half an hour, while the time I reach my office is the same everyday. The value would have been in a range of around five minutes if it were 2008, neglecting the traffic jams then. Legs are the kings of the street, and of course bicycles. I wish I hadn’t screwed up my old bicycle after I had my motorcycle. I guess I shall buy a new one soon. It’s hard to believe I once had a motorbike. I see it everyday in my garage, but I miss riding it. It had only been a few years of luxury. I was a kid back then with hunger for speed and risk. I was amazed by the way bikes could make you feel the rush of the [still] air. I thanked relativity…….. Then, we ran out of fuel. And it was never the same again.
I keep telling myself not to be nostalgic, but I can’t seem to help it. Not a day goes by with a thought. That kid is long gone. This old man is all there’s left. I got to live with that. And hope? Hope is a good thing, probably the best of things. Yes, I hope that someday the dust covered piece of metal in my garage is going to come alive once again. And I’m going to feel the same rush of air, with the rays of crisp sun on my shoulder. Well, I know it seems unlikely. But not impossible, or is it?
Rare Species
Did it really always or at least often happened to me, of all the guys in our little gang, or was it just my imagination? It was me who got to brush my body against the prettiest girl’s in the bus trip to Bhaktapur with my fellow friends that fine day. It was me the other day, who not deliberately, believe me, not deliberately got to feel god knows what of the lady in the bus when returning from Nagarkot. It was me who got to know and befriend to this fine women, who I even had a little crush on, in the bank just because I didn’t have a post box and she did. So, you see, it was really often me. Or let me be honest, I like to take it this way. And Shyam, a close friend of mine had approved of it. So see? My anticipation was to some extent not merely my imagination and certainly not a hallucination.
Now, let me make it clear where this little bluff about my fate is heading to.
“Let’s go home, it’s too cold and I’ve to pee!” Ravi stammered with a look of irritation on his face. A handsome lad he was, always well dressed, always playful, always talked too casual, cool and always way too ‘unstable’. He always talked to girls like he owned them, like they were children and he was to entertain them. I have to say he was a clown, to be precise and true to myself. He did it with a confident yet shy notion. Guess that’s what girls like about him. He had a lot of them around. At times, he reacted awkwardly to regular situations; it made me wonder what went on in his head at these times. Sometimes it felt like he was to say a different word or in a different tone of voice and he ended up in a whole different output.
“Isn’t it time that we go? I’m sick of watching this silly dance”
He always wanted to do one thing, and when he could do it, he wanted to do something else. It was his idea to watch kartik naach, and now all he wants is to go home and pee? Pee was merely an excuse, of that I was certain. He was always uncertain of what he wanted. He made one of these attempts in every few minutes, but we were so used to it that it didn’t matter if we didn’t respond them. And he was so used to our silence that he didn’t bother. But if it was Shyam or me who said “Let’s leave” it would really feel like its time to leave.
Shyam, on the other hand, watched the dance with much interest. Shyam was really “on the other hand” from Ravi. Shyam did not at all bothered about how attractive he looked, all that mattered to him was science, literature, programming and other uninteresting things you can think of. He had an analytical mind, he had a variety of stuff stored inside. He had a stiff body which made robot like moves, curly hair, mostly unkempt. It was impossible, though I’ve tried a few times, to imagine him with a girl talking romance. Just so impossible. Though he talked about girls, didn’t act extra in their presence. His thoughts were always rational, always meaningful.
Ravi was sitting in between Shyam and me on the stone stairs, so when Shyam talked about the music, the dance and their history, he had to talk across Ravi to reach me. So, Ravi started catching up with us and his desire to pee, it kind of disappeared.
It was a dance of the gods. One of a kind, the dance was accompanied by the beating of the authentic drums and cymbals. Though the musicians didn’t bother to keep a steady tempo and at times the dancers with godly masks and shiny clothes and gold colored jewels and belts seemed to miss the beat and jumble the steps, it was still claimed sangeet and nitra. And the interesting thing is that it was still fun to watch, the technical aspects? Who cares!
Now, the dance was over and a play was about to start.
It was then that I sensed someone sitting next to me. I told you it always happened to me. It was a white girl this time, a kuyre. We had been sitting next to each other for quite a while, our elbows touching very often, it just took a bit for me to realize. We had lots of foreigners in this place. Most of them seemed to have traveled all around the globe, and this was the last place they could find. I mean basically they were too old. Few were of our age, and they were rarely beautiful. This girl sitting next to me belonged to the rare species.
It was pretty hard to say if she was a kuyre at first glance. Her tanned skin and dark brown, almost black hair made her look more like a nepali.
