A Day's Dilemma

Pang Village

I woke up without waiting for my alarm to ring only to see the clear screen of my phone confirming that Ballu didn’t care to call me the whole night neither any message.

Is it the dripping of water on the tin sheet of the adjacent building woke me up?

Should I call Meetu dhai to switch off the water pump?

I opened my door to the rain. It was foggy all around, the rain gave a boost to the early February morning cold. It was just 6 in the morning, Meetu Dhai is yet to switch off the lights in the walkway. The dark clouds have severely damaged the twilight.

Who doesn’t like to sleep under a cozy blanket when Lord Indra emanates romance in the air? I could sleep the whole day but I am not sleepy, in fact I feel so fresh…fresh like anything.

 

Kaligandaki

Last night Sir was saying in his one of the speech that we create memories only to compare with them every time we have a new experience. We fail to appreciate the beauty; our mind gets busy comparing and acquiring them. I kept watching the rain as if I am seeing it for the first time.  For the next 15 minutes M.S.Subbulakshmi tried waking up my Rama while the rain accompanied in the background. I sat on the steps with a mug of hot water experiencing an early morning rain. Keeping aside the lenses of an analyst I watched it, listened to it, felt it, smelled it and drank from my mug. Yes! Sir was true, every experience is worth living if one can appreciate the beauty around. Where can I possibly go leaving all these behind?

A rainy day

But I have to go….I have started getting attached to this place to the people over here to the river Kaligandaki. Attachment is always tough that one keep thinking ‘will I be able to enjoy these tomorrow?, How can I make sure I can have these forever?.  Questions apart I am learning to be thankful and live this moment keeping the yesterdays and tomorrows aside.

At times my heart gets filled with grief and sorrow, it is the remnants from the last night. The rain has washed away most of it and I am feeling light. I was not ready to spare those blissful moments thinking of someone or something, rather live every fraction to the maximum I can. I better feed my mind with something positive that I would stay creative.

Meetu Dhai

I picked up an umbrella and walked to the banks of Kaligandaki. As her name says she was all black when I met her for the first, 5 months ago. Slowly and steadily now she acquired a light blue color. The rain has made her look muddy and plumb. I spoke to her, I felt her coldness, I prayed to enlighten me while sipping some from her. She is teaching me a lot, she is my Guru. I always try to listen to her from far and near. They say you speak to someone when you are sad but I speak to myself, I see them as an opportunity to learn and at times to write.

The Window

I better write. Watching the rain…making the Bel-tree to shiver, Kaligandaki to become obscure and the surrounding green mountains become misty and unclear … the whole frame appeared blurred. The otherwise mundane restaurant window acquired some life. I often clasped my hands to keep it warm. What I could just listen is to the rain and the river. I sat and learned the sloka which was discussed in the Sanskrit class last day. It Starts with ‘Ramo Rajamani’. I kept reciting it. I don’t know why , singing about Rama my eyes often get wet. Definitely not for the Rama of Ramayana but for my inner Rama whom I am searching for.

In search of Rama...

So I feel my Rama close to me when I am in despair. If he is near then to whom else I should extend my hands for help?. So he is coming to teach me a lesson and I try to learn the best out of such low moments in life. By now the same lesson of attachment has been keep repeating quite a number of times. Though I am doing my homework I am yet to master in this subject ‘Attachment’. Like every time I failed last night as well, in this same subject ‘Attachment’.  The test was through Ballu, the person I am more close-to in this banks of Gandaki, that I felt like leaving these banks forever. I was looking for an answer for my question ‘Why should I stay?’ throughout the whole evening.

Sunrise in Gandaki

If I stay then I am giving Ballu more occasions to lie to me. Am I in a way contributing to the list of his bad karmas? First of all why should he lie to me? What is he gaining out of it? I still can’t figure out an answer for it. He lies to his parents and I support it because there is a generation gap. He lies to his wife that also I support because they both live in different worlds.  But why to me?  We share many aspirations and interests in common. All these time I am with him, I didn’t ask for anything but truth. To cover one lie his guilty conscious mind often script out an ultra flop story in lack of planning and poor execution.

Am I judging people?

Am I failing to accept people as who they are?

The best way to acknowledge such situations would be by accepting things as it is. I am ready to accept but the lies have become a habit. It has already made the connecting rod to corrode. How can we run a resort with a corroded partnership? Recently I started having issues in believing his words. What surety is there that he is not lying while trust stays as the foundation of any business. So before things leads to conflicts I better clear myself from the whole scene where Kaligandagi flows on the background.

 

View from the other side

As Ballu go away from the banks of Kaligandagi everything changes…the tone of his voice changes….the conversation gets limited to one liners….there is always this urge to end the conversation fast….the otherwise social media enthusiast becomes offline….when every question to him turns out to be an argument…when the location becomes an assumption…when his replies get constricted to single words and most of them left unanswered. It is in a way better not answering a question than bombarding with a lie. The worst part is that he orchestrate his whole friend circle in Pokhara to rhyme the same lie and now that they have stitched a CID’s costume for me.

So the same Pokhara gang (the circle of friends in the Nepali city Pokhara) is the sole reason for my meeting with Ballu. I was staying with his friends in Pokhara during my journey through the Himalayas. “Come to our Batuwa Resorts for a couple of days and see” it was Ballu inviting me to the resort that they are constructing 60KMs away from Pokhara on the way to the pilgrimage centre Muktinath. I replied with another question “Is it close to Kaligandaki?”.

 

Kaligandaki; view from a hilltop

It was on my way to Muktinath that I first met her. She accompanied me all the way showing various expressions but the emotion was the same throughout; ‘anger’. The monsoon rains in the Himalayas has made her play the ‘Thandav’. She ran between the mountains like a wild elephant in ‘Musth’. So dark and mighty she was, true to her name ‘Kaligandaki’. I wished if I could stay on its banks for some time. I didn’t have to think twice, from then I am a part of Batuwa. Batuwa in Nepali means a wanderer, how ironically they have named it. I am in that stage of wandering. The meditation rooms made out of stones from Gandaki makes my classroom to listen to her teachings. May be she brought me here to feed me her wisdom by keeping me in her lap.

A Pournami Night 

I guess the Mother Nature didn’t like me judging her daughter as angry.  The pleasant sky got packed with dark clouds. The Gandagi and the mountains around unwillingly wore that darkness, making Meetu Dhai to switch on the lights in the walkway as early as 4PM. The Bel-tree doesn’t have the habit of shedding her leaves during winter, maybe she doesn’t belong here. The not very yellow leaves were also got forced to shed while the chilly wind from the snowcapped mountains shook her to the roots. The rain followed, taking those fallen leaves with her on her way to Gandaki.  She taught me to stay as what I am doesn’t matter whoever comes and goes.

 

Banks of Gandaki

These days Ballu comes and goes just like the winter rain, leaving me with Gandaki. I got used to it by now. He left for Pokhara like every time claiming a fragile reason. I struggled to remove the darkness getting clouded in my heart. But the environment was not favorable and the whole resort appeared strange to me. That day like never before Meetu Dhai and his wife were drunk from morning that they started fighting on top of their sound by evening. Minutes later once they absorbed silence it was our Chef’s turn. Though he drinks it was the first time I am seeing him talking to the television. The closed gates had to be opened for a group of guests who came to celebrate their friend’s birthday. The first birthday celebration in our resort only to end up in a fight at the midnight. Even I had to fight with them to close the restaurant at 12. All throughout Gandaki supported me to stay calm though Ballu provoked me with his lies electronically.

 

Kamal

What is it keeping him so busy in Pokhara that he doesn’t have time to talk to me at least for the resort’s sake? I thought it would be a girl not just a thought, my mind confirmed it is a girl. I still remember the parting words with him “Call me; if you have something truth to share otherwise I am fine as it is and I won’t be calling and disturbing you”. So I didn’t bother to call him, why would I give him a chance to lie?. It was the same day that Kamal our junior chef taught me a Nepali word “Chabki” which means girlfriend. I picked up that word to use it against Ballu, adding it at the end of the messages I wrote to him ‘Chabki Koi?’ – Where is your girlfriend?. His guilty conscious mind kept proving otherwise.

Meditation Rooms

Taking things for granted; yes, he knows that I will take care of it. But who will take care of me? I already started feeling like “I have better things waiting for me to take care of and I better keep moving”. 
Moving away from Kaligandaki? 
How about my wish to celebrate many Dussehras on its banks? 
May be she is teaching me the lesson of ‘Attachment’ in its ever hard way. A separation is always tough so I gave some time to reconsider. I booked a train scheduled to depart from Gorakhpur 10 days later. I informed him that I wish to talk that it would be great if he can come down before I leave. I can’t orphan the Batuwa resorts but this Batuwa has to go from the resort and go beyond the Kaligandaki.

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