26 Jan, 08

The night before last I dreamt a dream, a pure piece of fiction.

The place is a little way beyond Sanga bazaar across the stream. I am on the road walking slowly ahead. To my right is a terraced field that gradually goes sloping up. I can see Stevie sitting, up on a high terrace. She is in kurta suruwal. I happen to come across granny there. Her body a little bent forward, sari reaching to her ankles and girdle round her waist. Stevie is looking at us. I ask granny, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Just until there’, she laughs and gestures to a place ahead. I know Stevie doesn’t recognize her. I also get conscious about the fact that Stevie has read about her death. But granny is alive and walking here. I find myself in a strange situation. The episode just ends there.

The same place again after a while but this time in a small hut like house. Perhaps not across the stream. It is this side, the west bank. We - Stevie, Ama and I – are sitting on the portico of the house on the mud encrusted floor. I have no idea how Stevie got there. But she is there. Granny appears in front of us in the courtyard and laughs and says something. I am in an awkward position. Stevie knows that granny died in 2003. I hesitatingly mutter, ‘This is my granny.’ Stevie doesn’t speak. She just looks at granny all smiles. I catch granny’s left arm. It is just like as it used to be when she was alive, warm and soft. As soon as I hold her arm, her body turns into a dummy. Within seconds in my hand remains a half-size dummy of a man I had seen in the biology lab of the last school I taught. I do not know what to do with it now. I tell Ama, ‘It was granny actually. The same laughter and the same voice.’ Ama, as if she didn’t notice, says: ‘Was it?’ I have a strong desire to hand that dummy to someone and get rid of it. I struggle for a while. I shake it violently and hit against the floor. Then I wake up. It is three a.m.

I felt like writing it down then but my body was not willing to do it. I slipped into the cover. It was amazing to think how dreams connect far fetched things together. I wrote about my granny’s life, Stevie read it and commented on it and gave me several suggestions to improve it. I redrafted and completed. And now I wonder how the subconscious dramatized it in a situation where Stevie and granny came face to face. The place where the events in the dream occurred is a little hilly place in the outskirts of Kathmandu from where I started my teaching career and where I have set the novel I am writing. The dummy comes from the lab of school I taught some years before. The school is in eastern Nepal.

27th December, 07

I listened to Ginsberg's howl and the discussion on 'howl' recoreded on the occasion of the 50th anniversary celebration of Ginsberg's poem howl on the New York radio pacifica. The poem is a epoch making impact on the history of American poetry. The poem had to undergo trial of censorship. There is something incredible humanitarian in the poem. There is nothing in the poem that corrupts youth's or children's mind. It won the court case. There is something old fashion in the poem: the old fashion about the values, write and wrong. Howl has the potential to instil values long lost Whitman value.

And I read Amiri Baraka's Somebody Blew Up America. These poets of Beats generation were so outspoken against all the wrongs and follies of politics and social system and tradition.

11th December, 07

The 1st semester is drawing to a close. Christmas is at the doorstep. The prefestival excitement is felt and seen exverywhere. Today, there was the last class (workshop) with Stevie. The workshop was wondrously fruitful. I got very constructive comments from Stevie and everyone.

After the class, Stevie asked me to stay behind, telling that she has to give me something. After ten minutes, she came with an envelop that on the cover read:

Happy Christmas,
Mukul
___________

Do not open it till you get home !
(I mean, to Beck House)
Stevie and Nigel

And said, 'Don't open it until you reach your room.' She asked me, 'When will you open?'
I said, 'In my room'. Then said, 'Merry Christmas.' See you at Nigel's on the 21st.

I came back home, a curiosity of a child quickened my pace. Opened the envelop to find some GBP notes, staring at me, I counted, they made an amount of £250. I felt warmth of their heart on these notes. A huge prize for me. I felt this token of affection of my tutors towards me has made me aware of my destination once more. I had the similar feeling when Carol paid £1000 of my tuition fee on my behalf in the beginning of my university year in September.

With the notes was a note from Stevie in her hand writing on the university letterhead:

Dear Mukul -

Nigel and I would like you to have this money to help towards your costs: please do what seems best with it.
No need to than us. We are lucky to have you with us.

Very best,
Stevie

10th Nov, 07

It's already two days since I got message from Anita. May be she couldn't access to internet. The connection there is not at all reliable. May be she went to Gauriganj for Tihar. It's Bhaitika tomorrow. There's no internet at home there. She could have emailed me a message informing me of it. 'Why' has been worrying me so much. I needed to talk about the granny's picture for my writing. The scanned copy of her citizenship. And a few of her photos.

I hope to hear from her today.

6th Nov, 07

I was walking along Pantygwydr Road, on my way to the university. I was almost rushing as I had to reach the library earlier than my usual time and find some picture on the internet for Stevie's class. The picture or a document relating to family history. I noticed an old woman standing on the other side of the road. She was holding something on the wall. As she saw me, she called out to me. I looked at her, and pictured my grandmother. 'Could you help me reach the bottom of the road? My legs are trembling terribly' she said. I approached her and held her hands. She was shaking so much that she would have lost balance and fallen down in a few minutes time. She was slender like Dikura. Her hands and the wrinkled skin on her hand was similar to that of Dikura. Not only was I overwhelmed by compassion, but also a feeling of contentment.

'I fell on my knees; that is why. Sorry, I delayed you.'
'It's ok.' I said.
I thought, had she been my grandmother, my mother or my sister-in-law or my nephew would have been leading her. Dikura was never left unattended, until the last minute of her life.

We reached the bottom of the road but she needed to go further. I couldn't part with her as she couldn't go further on her own. We turned round the corner and started to walk along Brandygan Avenue. She didn't tell me to leave her there and go on my way. I understood, she didn't mean to be left there. I was pleased and felt fortunate that I got an opportunity to help her a little.
I didn’t ask about her family, her name or anything. I just asked her age.
'Me? I am 77 ' she said.
'I delayed you much. I'm sorry' she repeated.
'It's ok. I am not late. I will reach you where you need to.'
I was not bothered about time. I wished to lead her longer.

We turned round another corner to the right on Bernard Street and a little further ahead there was a shop. She was to reach there.
'You started your day with a good job today', she said. I nodded.
I helped her into the entrance and parted. On my way to the university I kept reflecting on my grandmother and her final days. How her body gradually weathered. How her white hair again began to turn black. How she became child like. How she often threw tantrums and demanded this and that. How life completes a full circle.

5th Nov, 07

I have not written a good paragraph yet. I am supposed be half way through by now. I think of my grandmother and her casual talks. They do not make any sequential thing. And most importantly I cannot trust my memory. I trust my imagination but not memory. But I need memory and facts more than the imagination to get on with this portfolio. I wrote to Anita a week back but she has her own limitations. She has a residence problem and she is combating the new situation. I am here and I have left her with the sons there. She needs to look after them and cook and feed them, ready the elder for school, send him and follow his assignments. I was left in trauma when I read her email some days back:

Baaba, I can't remember any moments of delight that we shared together. In my life there are only these two rooms and kitchen and the tention of the boys. I can't bring to my memory your face. I sometimes feel we will never meet again. How the living could be ahead. Let's go on waiting and seeing.
Baaba, I just felt so today and felt like writing this. Don't mind, Ok ? -Anita

After this I did not talk of my research with her some days. Thought this would just add to her troubles. And next day I arranged an online chat with her. Then I came to know that she had a problem with living there. The hotel downstairs was the cause of her distress. People got drunk and had a row every night. She felt lonely and insecure. The location there is a bit off centre and away from her maternal sisters' houses. Then I came to know that the sisters found another room to let her in near them where she felt better and secured. Then one day she wrote to me that she is getting shifted there.

After she shifted there she wrote to me that she is happy now. Then I followed up with my project. I sent a string of questions for her to research and write me back. To this she replied:

baba
we are fine.
yesterday you sent me massage in mobile & it deliver at 2.30 at night . there was one sentance 'help me ' so I did not understand & I connected net at night . I read mail & I feel better & slept.
yesterday in evening mama ghar ko aama khata bata ladnu bhayo ra aaakchine sabai lai tention bhayo tara naramro kehi bhayona .
tomorrow I am going to chandragadi there is puran .
today dadi is here .

today I talked in chuthai but nobody knows about that all quesrion' s answer. so I have to go to biratnagar to meet grandma's sister .
but sanubuha saggust me to goto chuthai first . so we all both family are going to chuthai tomorrow evening . he wil call everybody in our home he will ask that question he already convert that question into story and then .we will note down . if i cant get write answer then i will go to biratnagar.
dont worry i will manage.
sorry for late because last week I had tention about room . so I couldnot do . now I am free i will do this work at any cost .

other thing is fine
when I will ger answer I will send imediately
ok bye
anu

This made me feel better. I grew hopeful.

22 October, 07

I attended the talks of Nawal El Saadawi, the writer of The Hidden Face of Eve, Woman at Point Zero and God Dies by the Nile. A great writer, speaker and rebel. A rebel against all traditional establishment and a great feminist and human write activist. Here is what I jotted down from her speech:
__________________________________________________________________
We need to change the language like the first world, third world, middle east, the writer of the middle east, post colonial. I hate these words as these words are the colonised words. What is the meaning of post colonial? As if the colonisation is over. No, there is still colony. America as the so called super power is colonising the world.
You say that the women in Islamic country are not free. You think you are free. No. You are also not free. You carry your hanband's name. Why? Then how are you free? You are not free too. If you say you are free, don't carry your husband's name. Feminism is not to go against men. It is a humanism. You give respect to your mother.

I watched rugby world cup final and was shocked to see blood oozing out from their head. Sports should not have such violence. Sports like literature is a creativity and there should be pleasure. England lost the match and I watched the face of the captain, so sad, as if he has lost a war. It should not be in the sports.

There is a connection between global politics and female circumcision. G. Bush and female circumcision. Veiling and nakedness are both dangerous. Both take woman just a body. There is connection between family law and state law. Both are controlled by power and money. Media is equally dangerous. It is controlled by the government's mind. We are living in a system controlled by money and power.

Creativity makes people more humane. Best doctors are the writers and musicians.

Aid is such a decieving term. Where America has given aid means Ameraca has taken aid from there, so there is more poverty.
____________________________________________________________________

This is just a random notes I made during what she said and this is just a drop of what she said. An illuminating and worth attending talk.