Don't hurry along the road...

 ... it'll hurt tomorrow.

I ran away on Friday to Pokhara, holed up in a hotel room, took a jeep to Ghandruk on Saturday, watched the NPL finals with the hotel employees, walked from Ghandruk to near Dhampus on Sunday, got lost as it was getting dark but got picked up by a bus going to Dhampus, stayed in a hotel in Dhampus shivering in the cold, then took a jeep back to Pokhara on Monday morning. I spent Monday sleeping and reading and finally buying a warm jacket -- something that would have really helped me in Ghandruk and Dhampus. I'm back in Sanepa now, and posting this between reading short stories written by high school kids. 

Here are some customary Fewa photos:

This, of a man by the lake, is meh.

This, with Taal Barahi in the background, is also okay only.

But this is the Pokhara Lakeside photo, isn't it? :)

This looks good enough to edit the RAW file and print :)

Now follow photos from Ghandruk, of the sunrise. 

And these are from Landruk, where, a dude told me I was 20 minutes away from the road. I didn't want to keep climbing the stone steps, and I had stupidly missed the road right by the bridge over Modi khola. I can keep a steady pace on a mountain road, needing to rest only every hour or so. But with stone steps I was having to stop every minute or so -- not for rest because my limbs were tired, but because I was out of breath. I didn't have enough muscles and mitochondria, I think. 

The road passed right behind the dude's house. He a dumdum.

And from the road:

I had to eat an hour or so after Landruk, so asked an old lady if she would cook me up one Wai-Wai with two eggs. As I was leaving, I asked how much I owed her. The answer was brilliant.

'I don't know,' she said, 'I wonder how much babu will give aama.'

What's a babu to do under such a circumstance? I asked her how much she thought babu would give her. She said, '300 rupees.' 

The jeep track to Ghandruk has led to a glut of new hotels there. But across the Modi, in Landruk and other villages along the trail, business has dried out horribly. So many shops unattended, hotels shut or shutting down. 

The most frequent topic of conversation was motor accidents and young men being maimed or killed. Another involved which country the sons were in -- Malta and Portugal, oftentimes. 

Significant stretches of the new motor roads are being laid down in reinforced concrete. This is preferred by local governments -- there is the perception that this will give longer-lasting roads. I am skeptical. I think the absence of drainage channels along the roads will lead to landslips. I think this method is preferred because local contractors can be given the gig rather than having to recruit the help of larger construction firms that own equipment needed to build roads. 

I also heard of a new drink which the locals in the jeep from Dhampus to Pokhara were calling something like 'bataari' -- which I'm not sure if it is a caffeinated energy drink or very strong liquor. Apparently it comes in a small bottle, costs rs 50, and is a favorite of manual laborers. Disparagingly, the locals talked of 'Salyanis' -- not from the Salyan district further to the west, but, I suspect, from the neighboring mountain of Salyan. Apparently it is also given to mules to push them past fatigue.  

Brr... It *is* December, and I *am* in Kathmandu...

 It is coooooooldddddbbbrrrrrrrr... 

And from the Saturday walk I seem to have picked up some kind of a stomach bug. A doc (033) said I should drink lots of ORS and take an antibiotic. He works with refugees. Another doc (096) said I should take probiotics and get a stool test done before going on antibiotics. He is a GP in Kathmandu. The man who is used to fixing people quickly has given me the short-cut to cure. The cautious man who thinks of longer term health has prescribed probiotics.

I bought the probiotic medicine and a ton of ORS. A long-haired pharmacist said the probiotic was what he'd have prescribed too. It has streptococcus faecalis -- I can't imagine how that doesn't mean poop. 

I'm eating poop to control my pooping.

Tomorrow opens an exhibition in NAC, Babar Mahal, by p.c, 12 Fellows, nature and its destruction. Go!

More pitchers from the roof.

Pharping - Farsidol - Sainbu - Bhainsepati

A rather sweet old taxi driver offered to drive me to Pharping for an amount which, as he neared our destination, he realized was too small. 'It escaped my mouth,' he said, without asking me for more pay. 

I got off at Pharping and walked down to Bagmati. Crossed to the dusty fields below Farsidol.

Fishponds? Recharging ponds for the fields? There's a tiny farmer here, with his mechanical-till, ploughing the field. 

The air was really hazy. I kept hoping for a decent photo of the light in the pines across a narrow gully, but the pollution made it difficult to catch anything.

Radishes :)

This is my favorite photo today, a tree covered in new blossoms, new flowers, fruits ripening. I wish I were a better photographer of color. I ate a Wai Wai nearby.

These are the shoes of a little boy who lives on the top floor of the house.

This is from the roof. I like the green and red and subdued light.

 Now I am home, dusty, tired, having acquired a jar of methi ko achar from the ladies of a savings cooperative in Sainbu.  

December is here! A year wasted!

 How looks a tired writer?

December already, room ear-nipping cold, sun mild in the day, evenings pretty with mountains to the northwest and north, but the long range to the east, past Nagarkot, always smothered under dirty haze, thick, thick.

But, still, a few trips to the roof. 

How wastes his time, the tired writer? Fantasizing about publication. So, he designs covers on MSPaint, reverting to the late 90s. For special effects? MSWord.

 Hurriedly names book, sends to IDPS for 5 copies. Regrets it, but sees it makes other people happy. So he comes home and makes two more covers:

and,

This one, Fog and Light, is thick, at around 450 pages, but it is of fluff, badly written film reviews (which are all on this blog, somewhere) and the early Kathmandu Post stuff, (also all here, somewhere, 2008 - 2009.

Now, from the roof:

 Now the mountains, from the roof:

And now, for contrast, self-portrait of a happy writer, some 15 years the younger, with a fresh shave to celebrate a project (Screenplay for Kohi... Mero, I think), found somewhere on this blog:

Jungle Walk!

 Not true. I was in a cab, on my way to the cable car at Chandragiri, with half of a plan: go to the top, decide whether to climb down to Matatirtha, and from there walk back to Sanepa, or climb down to Fakhel, on the southern flank of the mountain, then on to Farping, cross the Bagmati toward Tika Bhairab, and walk down through Bungamati, etc., to Sanepa. 

But I saw a gentle road cut along the length of a hill to the north. The village on top is Kot Gaun, I learned, and there sits Kalu Pande's samadhi. So, in typical Prawin Adhikari fashion, I took a taxi from the cable car station to the samadhi. 

Kalu Pande was more a diplomat than a soldier, it seems. He was Prithvi Narayan Shah's favorite when it came to negotiating 'ghaha' or treaties. He was present when the treaty with Tanahun was drawn up, giving Gorkha the peace of mind it needed to attack Nuwakot, in preparation to lay siege over Nepal. I think it was the next generation of Gorkhali soldiers who betrayed the treaty. In any case, Kalu Pande was killed in his very first engagement in the Valley, against the hilltop town of Kirtipur. His progeny have done well, some 10 - 13 generations on, otherwise he would be just another man killed for his ambition, and forgotten. 

By his samadi I ate dal bhat, with a 3-egg omlette, because they had just run out of any meat. Lordy, it was cold up there. I was scolded by the lady to leave the camera alone and begin eating before the rice went cold. This place, called View Tower Resort, also has rooms, ranging between 1,500 and 3,500 rupees per night, with a dorm on the lower price range and wo rooms with air conditioners on the expensive end. The lady blushed when I asked if there were single occupancy rooms. 'Only couples come here, sir,' she said. The rooms have a desk and a chair each, though. I think good enough for an 8,000/- word short story over four or five days -- beyond that, the back will suffer. 

 This is the view to the north, the hill is Nagarjuna. The sudden smear or burnt red on it are fields of marigold. 

After the dal bhat, I walked down to the valley. The roads being built here are all too steep, but the quick-fix idea by the local municipality if to lay down substantial sections in reinforced concrete. I'd much rather have this, a dirt trail, dappled and cool. But land prices here must be soaring, there were many a hotel being built. 

Around noontime, the light was harsh, but the forest gave respite.

This is a bamboo in bloom, with its blossom as the pock of gold. It ripens into bamboo rice. It is edible, if not entirely toothsome. I was texting over Whatsapp with a friend about food a little after I took this photo. We were discussing millet meal -- what is called raagi in southern India and dhindo in Nepali hills. I have learned, only in the past week or so, that the correct translation into English for dhindo is 'swallow', which is a group of foodstuffs -- starches -- that are swallowed, not chewed. Our chat reminded me about the centrality of poverty to Brahminness -- how poverty is foundational as both a terrifying generational memory, and how its performance is necessary to prove Brahminical virtue.

 

Below this mountain is the road that goes to Dharke, in a decent condition, lots of cars on it. I had been thinking of walking down to Dharke, if only because the road passes through Jiwanpur, which is where my father's father's mother was born. She was a child, with a little brother, already orphaned, when my great-grandfather happened to be walking to Tanahun. Aabai's family offered her hand in kanyadan to my great-grandfather, on the condition that he would also take the little brother along. She passed away a year or two before I was born. My mother tells stories of her kindness, but there is also another story in the family:

My great-grandfather, Laxmikant Sharma Adhikari, loved to collect books, write commentaries or 'tika' in Sanskrit -- ultimately the source for the term 'tick mark' for the check mark, or why so many of our foreigner friends say 'tick cha' for 'thik cha' -- and compose poetry. He would then teach some of these poems to my father's aunt, Putali didi, whose official name I don't know, but whom we also called Bandipur didi because she was married into that hilltop hamlet. Aanbai thought her husband was wasting his life in frivolous pursuits rather than earning a solid living. So -- the story goes -- she gathered his writings one day and burned them. Only Putalli didi remembered verses she had been taught, and that too, she gradually lost. 

The road is long sometimes, and lonely :)