S.J.

I listened to him talk about me and my brother. He remembered our names even after twelve years. The amazing thing was that he recounted our problems and reassurance he had given my mother. Munching on a samosa Fr. recounted his days at the old school and how he loved teaching all those students.

On our visits to the cobblers hut in the school, we sometimes noticed his huge black shoes. They seemed huge at that time -- well he seemed a giant to us, kids. He still is a giant of man. Having lived in the country ever since the 60's, he has witnessed more changes in my country than I could imagine. His students have gone to establish themselves as leaders of the country in different professions. And in this context I would have loved to have had him as a teacher in his younger days. Then I could now walk on his side, dwarfed by his legacy.

I admired his acquired taste of all Nepali foods, specially the preference for momos from a particular restaurant in the Jawalakhel area. But he still had roots in America and as I watched he washed down the samosa with a cold beer.

My Grandmother

We used to be with her everyday, my brothers, my little sister and me. Everyday was filled with so much fun. Each morning would begin with us waking up and going to the kitchen where a warm cup of milk awaited us. Our grandmother would be there, amidst the kitchen smoke. It was the times when we still relied on firewood to cook our food. The milk tasted smoky and sweet. That smokiness was the real taste in the early morning milk. Then we gazed at the fire a blank expression on our faces, doing nothing, just staring into the fire. It was interesting to examine the fire with its iridescent colors dominated by the reddish hue and the greenish tinges. More capturing was to see it burn so intensely, partly because we weren't allowed to play with fire and partly because it was amazing that a small fire could grow so huge and eventually cook our food. But for grandma it was a regular routine she had been following ever since she could remember. She'd already spent sixty summers on earth and she was still so slim and so energetic. She always had energy to chase us around the house all day and still chat with her friends in the evenings.

Our dog barked an expectant friendly bark from outside. That was our ticket to playtime. Her name was Lucy. She was an alsation and a good one. Right now she knew we were awake and was waiting for us to come out and play. We got up and ran outside, the milk still warm in our cups. Grandma warned us to be careful with the milk and with that sweet childish innocence we smiled at her and ran out, spilling half the milk on the way out. We shared our milk with Lucy, our guard and play mate. We five were the unbeatable. I don't remember what we played but every second of it was filled with fun.

Time passed quickly and ma reminded us of that when she called us to have lunch. She had made each of us round straw mats from maize straw and during lunch each of us would take one mat from the neat pile in the corner and sit on it. Then starting from my little sister she served each of us the much loved dal bhat tarkari, a very generous helping of gaun ko gheeu and a chilli for my daring brothers. Me and my sister could never quite figure out why they wanted to have chilli when they clearly knew that after taking one bite they would be sticking out their tongues panting for cool air. We finished the food with great gusto and it always pleased her to see us eating so heartily. But we weren't that good helping at cleaning the dishes. After having lunch she would do the dishes and all the while we would watch her and give her company.

It would be near noon by now and we would go to outside and, if it was winter, just sit in the sun. My grandma liked to read a lot of stories and after lunch she would come out with a copy of manohar kahania in one hand and a chimta (forceps) on the other. We would have already brought a small bamboo stool and she would to sit on the ground on her own circular straw mat in front of the stool. Meanwhile one of us would sit on the stool and with the chimta. We would play with her hair and pluck out her white hairs with the chimta. For every white hair we picked out she would give us ek suka. By the end of an hour she would be feeling sleepy and we would have earned ourselves a nice sum of money for us children. Then we would eagerly wait for the madhise to come about selling those wonderful cotton candy. With the ring of his bell our activities would cease and we would run onto the nearest and shortest wall and shout for him. Coming back we would have a nice big sweet smile across our faces and share our candy with her.

In the evenings she used to go off to her friends places. We knew that she visited our relatives nearby but we hadn't act actually seen them. We just knew their names and whenever conversation about them cropped out we listened with a mixed feeling of interest and i-know-him/her-but-who-is-he/she..

Bedtime was always fun for us, kids. After all the family members had had dinner she would come to the bedroom. We slept on the floor and every night we took the mattress off the bed and spread them on the floor, all the time playing and wrestling on it. At last the bed was ready and we would wait to hear a story from her. Me and my sister always slept in the middle with her being nearer to grandma. My brother would turn out the lights and grandma would begin her story. Her stories were wonderful fantasy stories, some from memories of her own childhood days and others she had read in a book, some made up stories and some true ghost stories that happened while she was still a child in Darjeeling, some stories of her parents/grandparents adventures and some interesting anecdotes about her life. Sometimes the stories would be very interesting but she would be tired and she would start to sleep in the middle of the story. Eagerly we would keep her awake and listen till she shortened the story or till the story ended.

One night after watching a horror serial, while we were lying in the bed, listening to her stories she stopped in the middle of the story and asked me if I would be afraid of coming near her body after she had died. I thought it was a sort of joke. We'd just watched a horror serial and we were literally jumpy and her asking such a question made my spine tingle a little. But I couldn't picture her leaving us. I replied to her that she would not die, at least not while we still had a long way to go. She had smiled, and I felt she had sensed my fear.
Later on I was put to the test. She was sick, none of us thought it was such an important sign. But her dreams of seeing her ancestral grave must have worried my grandfather. It was a Saturday she left us. It was supposed to be a jovial day, we'd gone to visit our uncle, but when we returned home a phone call gave us the grave news that she had passed away while on the way to the hospital.

She had been right when she had sensed my fear for I was afraid of her when I saw her lifeless. Why did I fear someone whom I'd loved so much? Maybe a child inside me cried that day. But it was a surprise that I didn't shed any tears. I wanted to shed them but I couldn't bring myself to grief. Maybe she'd watched over all of us, her grandchildren, even when she passed away because a day later we were just as playful as ever. That probably made her happy to see that once again we would be happy again, that finally her worries, and pains were over and that she could now lean onto someone more powerful then her.

Thank you, if you can hear me.

The Wrong House

I was and still am a thief, but that experience has made me wonder a lot.
My new friend had driven me there. He had said he had seen a nice house out in the country that seemed to be abandoned but which was loaded with lots of goods. I thought it would be an easy task and without further inquiring we made a plan to break into that house. It was dark but somehow I had that uncanny feeling that I had already been to that place before. It felt as if everything was calling out to me like an old friend.

The place was unusually quiet, no dogs barking whatsoever. Only the noise of the cricket and the leaves rustling in the wind. It was weird. We went in through the kitchen window. We didn't take anything from the kitchen though. The drawing room seemed to contain all the fortunes of the house. We took everything expensive we could lay our hands on, from the TV to the priceless antiques. I like to read a lot so I took the liberty of even stealing the books in the room. We literally raided the drawing room. The other rooms didn't contain many things though. So after about an hour of stealing we came out of the house and drove to my friend's apartment.

I wasn't feeling well and was a bit tired so I told my new accomplice to split the loot while I took some rest. I drank some beer he'd brought and fell on the couch. I slept well that time. I slept like I had never slept before. When I woke up the room was empty except for my share of the loot. I asked the receptionist and she informed me that he had left a message for me. It went something like this-"I have left the city. Forgive me if I have embarrassed you." Making plans to spend the money I took a novel and started to read. The story was familiar. I checked the title and found that I had already read it. Well I took another novel and found that I had already read that one too. I took another and found the same result. I turned over the first page to see who had bought it.

Oh my god! I nearly jumped out of the couch that time. I was totally dumbfounded.

The book was mine. I checked out the other loots too. The antiques looked familiar so did the paintings and so did the jewelry. In fact everything looked familiar. Then I realized what else had seemed familiar and why. The country had seemed familiar and so had the house that we had broken into. The kitchen had smelled familiar and the drawing room had appeared so inviting.

Damn! I had broken into my own summerhouse and I hadn't realized it. The nerd had made a fool out of me. He had made me burgle my own house.

Inquisitive learning - (The Rising Nepal)

Every year it is the same thing. The teachers do their jobs, teach, and the students do theirs, learn. Every final exam the students study and give their exams and some, unluckily, sediment of the same class while others float to the next standard. Are those left behind really dumb or is it just that they can't seem to memorize like others? Is it that they don't know much or is it because they can't seem to hold on to information for long?

Ask me and I'd say that neither are they dumb nor are they unintelligent. I'd say the teaching system is too narrow-minded. Ask me what is wrong and I'd say a whole lot, but for starters I'd stick with the teaching part.

As a student I go to my campus, sit through lectures, sometimes understanding and at other times copying without knowing what is being talked about. I hope to read the note later and clarify, but I end up putting the note in my bag. So there it stays until the next lecture where more gibberish (to me) information is added. Finally the exams come and I look at all the gibberish in my copy. My search for intelligible notes leads me into such a frenzy that in the end I sit at my table cursing myself, cursing my copy, cursing the lecture, cursing the lecturer and cursing everyone and everything that enters my volatile mind. This would probably be my fault but I know I've done better. I've given my exams and passed with flying colors because I studied. I passed not because I understood and memorized, but because I memorized and understood.

This leads one to think of the dilemma that, memorizing then understanding, and understanding then memorizing, offers. All of us should have understood and then memorized but it's the opposite for most of us. Not enough practical experience renders the theory incomprehensible to us. I'd say the teachers, instead of sprinting to finish the course in the limited teaching days (thanks to so many public holidays), should take a jog. Build up the speed in the slow slopes and look around to enjoy the scenery in the up-hills. What I mean to say is just that some topics are easy while some are hard. Take a sprint in the easy section, cover up for the lost time. As for the hard section, go slow. Let the students do some research of their own so that they grasp the topic more firmly. Let them understand and enjoy what a scientist had so carefully discovered or invented. Giving a student extra information is the basis for letting his inquisitive mind search for answers. 'Do not give a hungry man a fish, instead teach him to fish' say wise men, and I say 'mould not the students mind as you want it but help him mould it the way he wants it, by himself.'

But ironically all of us, be it children or educated philosophers all have been through this. We've experienced this and even though we've hated it we carried on with doing our duty. Dutifully we've done our part and the teachers have done theirs. We have not had the time to raise our voices because in the future we will probably become a part of the system. Some of us will probably be the teachers we so disliked and, without realising it, we will be a part of the system. A system that treats us like zombies, gives us a few facts to digest hoping that some of us will probably snap out of the zombie phase and give a hand in maintaining the system.

But this is not something that is incurable. Every epidemic has a cure. The only thing it needs is time and understanding to cure. Let us no be what the system has planned for us. We have a cure and we must use it to rid our society of this hinderance. In this wild sprint to the finish the course in the allotted limited time do not spoon-feed the student all the answers but give him your guidance, support, help, and in time see for yourself the fruits of your labour being served to you in a silver platter by a truly educated person.