Voices

I looked at the pavements on the floor in silence, aimlessly, thoughtlessly, may be with a little thought, I guess without that not even silence can exist. The patterns there nothing new, not systematic enough, but they had existence now, and they’re there. Bricks upon bricks, meaningless yet meaningful. Confusing, I thought to myself, just like everything in nature, everything in life.

The randomization amused me, even forms, those who laid the bricks must have tried to find a systematic method to it but I guess he got tired because nothing is near to perfection, just as she wasn’t. My mind was about to be deviated towards her, that wasn’t something I was looking for, I needed a deviation away from here, I tried to distract me from thoughts, the more I tried to distract the more it let me to her. I looked at the bricks, the pattern…. Think….think I said myself, think about something else…..I looked towards the floor again and realized I had an empty glass on the floor, I needed another cup of Hot lemon. “Didi arko ek cup banaidinusna” I’m a regular customer there so I don’t need to mention anything else, she’ll understand, she was just stranger to me and she understood me at least with something, but a person who was close to me for such a long time never understood me, may be that is how it works. Again..distract….distract… a voice inside cried out loud. I could hear a voice inside me, I know I’m not talking but yet I hear voices inside me that resembles me, resembles my alter ego, there’s definitely two person inside me, one who tries to move on in life and one who loves the past, regardless how dark it is.  How do I hear my inner-self? Is it really talking? Can I hear others? May be these women in front of me, I guess I can hear the inner voice? Let me try…..

Right then, a glass shattered, and broke the silence in my imagination. There was this person in front of me, just a form, I could make that she was girl….

“Can I talk to you if you don’t mind?” She asked

I knew she was girl because she had girls voice, this form, I don’t know I just don’t remember her face, I just know she was a girl.

“ I was sitting over there and couldn’t help but notice that you were sitting alone, and that something is bothering you…

I have no idea how she knew that, I was about to ask but she continued.

….Bothering you because you’ve drank more than 11 cups of hot lemon and have done nothing but stare at ground wondering about those patterns of the bricks I presume.

Now she really got my attention, how did she knew? Was she hearing my inner voices like I thought about hearing others? How did she know?

“Don’t worry you’ll get through…She kept talking not letting talk at all…. Through it, there’s always a silver lining.

Finally I stopped her and asked, Who are you? Do I know you? Partly angry

She just didn’t care, and went on…you motivated, you arrogant, but motivated, you know you can and will do better, stop being sad….Bring out the pervious person in you, the fun person, the happy person. Feelings and emotions, they are like dreams, it’s all in your head and they come and go as you please, I know it’s hard but it’s not achievable if you try…I know you’ll never forget her, moving on is not forgetting her, its remembering her and to be able to live with the fact that she’s not yours anymore, she has a life and it was her decision, you can’t force someone to love you! But you can force yourself to stop loving someone.

She really started to piss me off

“You need to be strong, there’s so much to do in life….”

I stopped her, and asked

“Tell me who are you or I’ll stop talking”

She replied,

“Just like the other person inside you, beside you, I’m just another you”

I looked around for the person she talked about, beside me, there was no one, just those two women from before and no one, I looked behind me, no one! I looked back towards the girl, she wasn’t there. She was gone, my thoughts ran heavy, my eyes started looking for her but she was nowhere….There were few people lining outside Sankata temple, few couples feeding the pigeons but she was nowhere to be see.

Then I heard a voice

“Is something wrong?” the tea lady said

No, nothing wrong didi, I replied, why?

She said, because you’ve been talking to yourself for the last few minutes

Untitled

A sadness creeps inside
the soar throat,
a line of pipe with unspoken words
dark and haunted
by unfulfilled dreams
and souls of hopes
that died before they saw
the light of the day

a hand moves in
grabbing me by the throat
a hand Im familiar with
while the next hand crushes my heart
constricting it as try to cling on
of my last breathe

with the fading eyes
I slip into the darkness,
helpless, I scream but my voice go
unheard,
alas, with the last light
I saw the ever glowing face
a face that I love 

A Scientist's Love

It was a cold Kathmandu evening, with soft icy breeze brushing up outside his north facing window, with the canvas of early morning dew on his window glass.  He looked at this mobile phone

6:37 am Monday

He was almost late for work, but was reluctant to get out of his bed, let alone his room.  After wasting few minutes check his Facebook, he got up his bed. His room was more mess than his life was, the laptop cord lying on the floor along with his phone charges and few pairs of sandals which he never wore. The first thing he did in the morning was to drink a glass of water, and only then he’d take tea. The tea was followed by his bathroom time, or thinking time!

As an inspiring Chemist, he worked at a Scientific Research Center was a completely reserved guy with limited number of friends, or no friends so as to say. He rarely went out with anyone, the only thing he loved was his work, he did have a Scientific mind from the very beginning. He was very good with Chemical Manipulation, as people said, he had a creative touch to his brain and use to create various chemicals to solve different problem. At age 27 he had already won numerous Scientific awards at local and international level. Science was his life, as much as life is Science. There was nothing interesting in his life, the same day time routine followed every day of his life. He spent his day time, usually around lunch time in one of the local café. One of the unfortunate days, as it will turn out to be, out of all the weirdest thing happened to him. He was in the café, coffee shop to be precise, working on his laptop, a beautiful girl came in front of him,

“Excuse me, do you mind If I sit here?”

He took a time to reply, as he was lost in her beauty, she was very beautiful, tall and elegant, dressed well, with a scarf around her head and goggles shading her eyes, which were striking as well,

“Sure” he said in a soft tone, nodding his head.

She sat there quietly, drinking her coffee and staring at her phone, smiling occasionally, her smile was as beautiful as the first light of sun shining up against a snow covered mountains! He couldn’t help but stare at her all the time. She had realized that as well as he was doing nothing but staring at her, unless she looked at him, and when she did, he seemed turn is head around of look at his laptop for a change. It was her who broke the silence…

“Hi, I’m Sneha”

He never talked with anyone, let alone a beautiful girl, but he did reply

“I’m Aman”

“Do you come here frequently?” she aksed

“Yes I do, almost every day, my work place is quite near. I haven’t seen you here before, is this your first time?”

She nodded, drank a sip  of her cup of coffee and said “ Yes, I just returned back from the States recently, I live nearby, when I was here in Nepal, this place was not here, just saw it and walked in, I kind of like this place already”

He said nothing but “Yeah it’s a good place” and got back to his work.

She broke the silence again  and said, “Okay I’ve got to go now, I’ll see you around, have a nice day!

He just smiled and got back to his work.

Months passed and she was almost as regular as he was, they used to talk a lot, they were quite good friend. He was intrigued by her beauty and she was by his brains. Slowly they started having feelings for each other, but again it was her who had to break the silence, she knew that for the guy he was he’d not be able to break the ice and tell her that he loves her, so one day she broke the silence, and expressed her feelings to him. He reciprocated! It was his first time in love and he developed passion in everything he liked, and he loved her passionately, he was crazy about her, woke up texting her, slept with a good night message, called her every hour or so, she replied most of the times, He was getting addicted to her way to much. The first love is the deepest, and it surely is, he was so addicted to her that he’d probably not be able to live without her, there was nothing he loved more than her. He used to do crazy things for her, to show is love but it was never countered from her side, she just took it as it went. After being together for almost 2 years, she started to ignore him, never replied texts, never called back, and he was even more addicted to her than before. And on of the unfortunate days, she again broke the “Silence”.

“Aman, I’m sorry! I don’t want to be in a relationship” she said

He was devastated, he didn’t even know what hit him, he asked her the reason, she said it was nothing!

“There’s no reason, I just don’t want to be in a relationship that’s it!”

She stopped talking to him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her at all. For a guy who never developed feelings for anything but Science he never had to cry but now, he cried all night thinking about her, he wanted to call her, listen to her voice, tell her how much he loved her, but he couldn’t because it didn’t matter to her. Nothing did. He couldn’t let go of her, forget her. After months of disappointment and depression, he decided to create a chemical which will help him forget everything about her. He worked for 2 months in his lab and created a chemical, he tested in on a mouse, to erase a certain portion of small memory from his brain, he was successful in erasing the memory from the trained mice’s brain. Finally he was happy, he knew it will help him forget her. He made new batch and applied it on himself. He slept, and when he woke up, everything else was erased but her, the only thing he had in his brain was her, what he thought was in a small part of his brain was in every single part of his brain, there was nothing but her in his brain! And everything else contained themselves in small part and got erased. And now he was left with nothing but her memories in his head, couldn’t revert back to normal because his Science was gone! The only Science he knew was “Her”

Mission Impossible Rouge Nation : My review

So then Tom Cruise never gets old, and he is back again with the impossible mission at his hands! From the first installment of 1996; Mission impossible I to Mission impossible 5^th, the rouge nation he has only gotten younger; energy wise. And that’s expressed in the first few minutes of the movie when he jumps up on a running plane and then hangs on the door of the plane, which just took off with full speed, if it was other movies, people would be like, What the actual fuck! But its “Tom Cruise”, and he just makes it so easy and doable. Not only that, if you think that was unrealistic for you, few seconds later he is forced into the moving plane with the rear door open, and bangs his head on the metal, and just dusts himself and rises up, just like that!

The movie reflects an American version of “James Bond” franchise, (only that he doesn’t go introuducing himself as, Hunt, Ethan Hunt)  but with high tech gadgets and top notch action, might be a bit unrealistic for most of the audience, but it’s realistic enough, Because “Tom Cruise”. The overall story is pretty good compared to the previous editions, while Ethan Hunt is busy chasing an anti IMF group called the Syndicate led by and ex-MI6 agent, CIA director is on back of the IMF, and successfully dissolves the IMF. With his new mission being, brining Ethan Hunt back to the states, but Cruise is one hard guy to find.  Though technically he is a fugitive on the run, and on the eyes of the ever seeing CIA, that very CIA that can supposedly to the unthinkable and have eyes everywhere, and can track faces of moving people, but not Ethan, Because “Ethan Hunt”.  Plus, the fugitive, who is a subject of primary concern of the CIA, apparently can travel all over the world, without any disguise and not being in the radar of CIA, who apparently can track anyone they want but not the Protagonist. The plot is pretty interesting and keeps you going, definitely few humors on the way. Ilsa Faurst, played by Rebecca Ferguson, has crazy role, a triple agent or similar, who goes on from being a heroine to villain and back to heroine and villain and so on for multiple times, finally settling down to become a…..well I leave that for you to find.

The man of steel, Ethan Hunt, delivers his best! Tom Cruise never underperforms, at least in MI series. One moment, he drives a motorbike, probably at speed higher than 80kmph and bangs his knee on the road and just gets away with a facial expression, if that wasn’t enough, few minutes later he falls of the same bike while riding at speed higher than that, and gets up, dusts himself up, with nothing but torn up clothes, and not even a single scar in his face! Because “Tom Cruise”. Apart from these things, the movie is pretty good in  overall aspect, worth your time and money. 

Vehicle of Evolution: A Microbus Analogy

Imagine a bus. A bus filled with passengers, tones of them! 

I was in jam packed bus this morning, barely had an inch to move, though I was in a seat, and not standing, it was still very hard to move. Few hours ago I was talking to a professor about what I want to do for my PhD research. I was thinking about something related to Evolution, something about Evolutionary stable state or the questions of Tinbergen. I was trying my best to think of a Topic! But of course I wasn’t able to do that. Then I started playing with ideas in my head and it struck me!

An Ecosystem is like a bus, it has various components, various factors and most of all it species interacting with each other. There's an Ecologically or Evolutionary stable state inside and unstable ones. There's struggle, way too much of it, the struggle is not for survival but for the seat, the seat, hereby, can be analogous to survivor. And the struggle begins before anyone occupies the seats. 

Let’s say we're at RNAC (NAC at present) in rush hour!! You have to fight your way through at least 30 passengers to just get into the micro bus! Forget about getting the seat! It doesn't fit into the evolutionary state in my analogy, I mentioned it just to show that the struggle of the fittest beings way before they're into a system. The race to get into the microbus is like the race of the sperm to reach the eggs! The fastest one gets in and the slower ones are left behind. The struggle doesn’t end there, the beings! The genes now have a platform to stay secure for as long as they are programmed to, well technically it doesn't happen so here, it gets mixed! 

Most of you must be bored by now and started to wonder where the hell am I headed? Well it’s a bit complex and I guess complete wrong, but it’s just my imagination so for those who don't get it, take it as a fiction work, but for those who understand what I'm saying, it’s just Science in arts.

The door is closed, the normal seats are taken and an additional 8 people are inside the bus, more than the proper seats of the of bus. Those people sitting in seat comfortably are in stable state, they feel no pressure from the Nature. Nature in this case is the driving force, or the driver! Who stays comfortably in his chairs and drives the genes, the humans, to their destination, which is natural selection in real world. So the comfortable ones, specially the front seat'ers and the last seat'ers, who get to sit there most comfortably, face no pressure from the external factors driven by the Nature (Mr Driver) not lets go towards the first front row, the first seat'ers, the one on the right side faces a little trouble but the one right has to go through adaptive radiation to adapt to a situation where he/she has to turn their legs in a different direction just because of peer pressure of factor of the driving force, the conductor in this scenario, he can be genetic drift in my analogy. The left one on the first seat has to modify itself in order to be accepted in the place. If not, he/she is not accepted. These are the animals that are facultative resistant. I know it’s not a word but what I mean is when faced with struggle they can be resistant to the factors affecting them, unlike the vulnerable ones, they can make changes and adapt to the scenarios. The Obligatory resistant but within a comfortable zone are those sitting behind the driver’s seat, they are the alters, because they're facing the wrong direction. They are the alter species with weird characteristics fast adapting and with ability of rapidly changing

Now we're left with Vulnerable ones, who are the people who have to stand crouched up against 7 other people, the most struggling species, the most vulnerable ones in a regard that they must go through all the challenges within the system, they need to grasp on to the state, remain stable or they'll fail, and a new species, a new person here, who comes into the system will be a vulnerable one because he will find very little space and lots of competitors. But gradually with time, the new species will either be adapted and will get a seat or gets extinct i.e. gets off the bus without getting a seat. And the cycle runs when an established species goes and gets replaced by a new species. Some survive and some die off. And the species can be arranged hierarchically the most comfortable ones being on the top of the food chain and the lowers ones on lower side, but I think it requires a new article with some changes! Will think about it later! 

What I think about Talakjung vs Tulke

Talakjung vs Tulke, directed by Nishcal Basnet, the Director of super hit 2012 Nepali movie “Loot”  is dark comedy. The movie is set in a village of the  protagonist, who is a commoner, a sort of  innocent idiot who constantly fools around with the villages and gets in trouble a lot. The movie starts with early funny scene’s and a gradual buildup of the  plot as well the cast.

Talakjung aka Tulke, played by Khagendra Lamichhane, who was previously supposed to be from well to do family having being stripped of his land and wealth by the chieftain he now lives as commoner doing any work he gets his hands on and fighting with almost everyone in the village with few of the friends from his circle. Tulke, who hates being called Tulke has a cursh on Fuli, played by Richa Sharma. For the first half an hour the movie revolves around the life of protagonist, the first half of the movie is pretty funny , the story line starts when one of the Contractors who’s working on brining the roads to the village is kidnapped by rebels.  Slowly the darker side of the comedy is built up when an insurgency starts hitting the village. Talks about a revolutionaries taking over the village is on the rise, when Tulke finds out that one of his close friends in joining the force as well, he gets interested in it as well and starts talking about it with everyone. After hearing about the revolution going around the village the chieftain is scared that he might be over thrown, then he tricks Tulke into telling him about the revolutionaries. Fuli, who works for the Chieftain, tricks him and then sets him up for an attempted rape on her which leads to exile of Tulke from the village. Tulke then runs away from the village and goes to the city, meets a small time criminal and then starts his criminal life by robbing people around the city using a fake political party’s letterhead. His glory days are short lived as his leader is shot dead in police encounter. By chance he escape the encounter and leaves the city with five hundred thousand rupees that he took form a shopkeeper.  When tulke returns to the village, the village has changed.  His friend, Hanuman is dead, all of his friends are missing. Rebels are running around the village in almost full control of it. Tulke learns about the real story behind the death of his friend Hanuman. The story takes a different turn after that.

As for the end of the movie, I better no spoil it for you guys!

The first half is pretty good, with lots of funny scenes and dialogues. The second half of the movie, takes a different turn and most of the small parts shown in the movie is completely out of context or not related to the rest of the movie. The director has tried to incorporate different aspect of a commoners life and the state of insurgency. The movie is good direction wise and with a very good Cinematography, but lacks a clear theme or a story. The part where tulke goes to the city has no effect on the move whatsoever, as supposed by any audience, it was supposed to show over growth of Tulke’s strength or behavior but he returns as the same guy, without any effective change on the movie plot.  Even the name of the movies doesn’t seem appropriate as the per the plot.

A river, a bridge a climb and a flat road

A river, a bridge a climb and a flat road

Almost 5000 meters high, tried and panting like a dog, sweating like a pig, on an endless trail, almost as if the road would never end. I’m used to it, I mean I've done this many times, well not this trail but different other trails. But why is it that this one is testing my endurance, testing my limit. I’m fine, not tired at all and fit and fine, just heavy breathing. That’s why I’m trying to equalize it with slow walking, but the further I go, the farther it looks. The road/trail never seem to end, I never had such low will power to climb anything, it was plain torture, 3 hours of plain torture. May be it was because of careless walking for the 4 days before that and taking a challenge of doing a 2 days walk on a single day but I had its toll. As l lay down a cold stone on a landscape which seems far more a dream than reality, the lack of will stopped me to take my camera out and take a photo of it. I looked down, as down as I could see, almost 2000 meters below us was road that we took, where we were 2 days ago.  I glanced as far as I could see may be in a hope of seeing every road that we had walked which reminded me of how I ended up in one of the remotest part from one of the most Urbanized.

Back in Kathmandu

I was planning a trip for a very long time, specifically Annapurna Circuit Trek. Always been a dream to travel to Tilicho lake and cross the Thorang La. Out of no where a great opportunity hit me and then I had a chance to go there, as a part of my work. Going alone, though not hard would have been tiring as per my work so I took a friend with me, at least I thought there would be two of us. But  2 days before the trip I learned that a friend of mine from Peru had friend who was visiting Nepal. So we met with him and told him that we were doing the ACAP circuit trek and he crazy enough to say that he’d join us. I guess he thought it was an easy trek, which it was, well most of it. We arranged his permit, and parted and decided to meet at the bus park next morning! So we did and learned that he brought another friend, who was France. So it was four of us, taking on the challenge of Tilicho and Thorang La Pass. We took a micro bus to Beshisahar, which was supposed to take 5-6 hours, but it took us around 7-8 hours to reach Besisahar and after that it was a crazy crazy road on a jeep up to a small village called Chyaamche. We met 3 beautiful girls on the jeep one was gorgeous, and they didn't have a guide with them so they decided to join our crew as well, so we ended up at the same hotel that day and decided to start walking at 7, together, the all of us, at least we did that for 2 hours may be? Quoting one of those girls “ You guys are too fast for us”. In fact I asked them to join us up to the Tilicho lake, which they weren't doing, but if I had convinced them to walk up to the Lake, I swear they would have killed me there!

The trail is pretty easy as a whole, but we had to take a different road because of massive landslide, so we took a trekking trail which was better but came with a price, the price being plenty of leeches. Which we realized 2 hours or so after getting bitten.  The trail pretty awesome, as we walk beside the River Marsyangdhi, cross few suspension bridges. The first days walk was pretty awesome, everyone was fresh and fit enough. The highlight of the first day’s trip has to be the Daal Bhaat. I convinced my friend from Peru that Daal Bhaat is the best food ever, and asked him to have a Daal bhaat as well. Little did we know that the daal bhaat we were about to have was the second worst daal bhaat I ever had in my life, the first one has to be the one I had in Kalinchowk. We were crazy hungry as we had walked for almost 5 hours on just light breakfast. And the guy took about one hour and half to cook it and there was nothing other dhan plain rice, daal and few potatoes, yes just few there wasn't even a refill and the potatoes were as salty as anything ever could be. He was pretty mad at me for that! But it was just a bad luck that we had the food at the wrong place!

The thing is, the road to Manang is quite  easy comparatively with other trails, such as Gosaikunda or Langtang. The road is almost flat, but the funny thing is, where ever you stop, I mean the end of the days walk, when you’re about and hour away from the stop there’s a climb. So that means you walk on a flat road for 5 6 hours, which you think is easy and you walk fast and after you're all tired and beaten up you have to climb. I could sense the tiredness in every one so I had to lie to them about how the trail ahead of us is. So I just told them, to motivate them to walk that there’s a river few minutes ahead of us and a bridge and a climb and we meet the road and its done. And the funny thing is, there’s always a river, a bridge and a climb and we meet a road. That was the theme for most of the trip, and its always five minutes to go. But finally we reached out destination after crossing the river, climbing for 5 minutes which took about 45 minutes may be, and then we met road.

The next day’s walk was similar, walking along a flat road for 5-6 hours and then when were near the stop climbing for another 30 minutes which again had a bridge, a river, a climb and we met the road. But then we did what Robert Frost does, we took the road less traveled by, it was a crazy climb but it was fun. The next day’s trek was supposed to be good one because so far, all we saw was hills and rivers, no sighting of the mountains, but at then end of the 3^rd day we were walking in Himalayan territory having crossed trans Himalayan boundary.

Manang- unliked Mustang, Manang is pretty green and awesome, I'm not saying Mustang is not good, Mustang is heaven, but Manang is different!! Both places are equally amazing but unique as well. The landscape are different and so is the culture and everything, though bordering with each other they’re just two different dimensions. The road to Manang , after Pisang is the best one, it’s a flat road for may be 3 4 hours until you reach Manang, it all depends upon how fast you can walk. And if black pitched, the road to Manang would look similar to any roads on Terai highway.

After reaching Manang, we had our lunch and started walking up to the Tilicho lake, well to the place where we would reach before trekking to the lake.  I was working along the trail, watching birds and any other animals that could be seen.  On the way to a place called Khangsaar, I found a new species, to my list that is, and I was taking a photo but it flew away few hundred meters below me. So I looking down hoping to see it again and then get a good photo, I started waking looking below and out of no where I tripped on this huge stone and fell down in the direction of the slope that was way over than 1000 meters drop. I don’t know how but I was able to get back to my feet, somehow, I had blacked out for a second there and thought that I was going to die! I took a photo of that place to remind me that I didn't fall there! The walk after that was pretty crazy, crazy in terms that we had to climb and climb and again there was river, a bridge a climb but sadly there were no road, just a small trail where barely two people can fit.  

We were walking pretty fast for the 3 days before we did the Tilicho lake, had walked for about 7 8 hours every day. We had skipped a day and reached there before a day. Furthermore we decided to go to the Lake and come back down to the place where were resting, that was doable, because we did it, but it was hard, meant walking all day long.  But we took the challenge and did it, which turned out to be a little pain in the back. We started early in the morning, had breakfast, took some Rotis with us and then the journey to Tilicho began. The first few hours of walk was a normal one, till we reached the Landslide area where the fun began!

The road to Tilicho, at least the landslide are, its crazy!! It’s a slope with a landslide, where small stones keep on falling regularly, and may with 1000 meters drop below, not sure about it being a 1000 meters but is pretty high.  We saw some blue sheeps high up in the hills as well. We were having lots of fun, at least till then. After we reached the Tilicho Base Camp, the torture began. For the first climb it was easy just a small climb, but then after that it was just climbing up and up. To be honest its not that hard, but since we did the trek from a stop way before the Base Camp and had walked almost 3 hours before doing that climb it turned out to be a tough one. If you start from the base camp the climb may not be that hard. It will be hard but not that hard! Thus the climb was torture, as for the altitude sickness we didn't feel anything at all, apart from heaving breathing, which happens even if you rest in that altitude.

I took a rest on stone and looked back the place where we came from, which all of you know already. I looked back and remembered all that Ive written above, and as I looked up, my friends were way ahead of me and I had to walk to the top that crazy Jig-Zag trail. I just took all the short cut there was to meet with them. Then finally we reached a place which said, Tilicho Lake 35 minutes! Finally I was motivated enough to walk fast to the lake, and every torture and pain we felt while walking up to the lake was washed away with a single glance of the lake as if the water passed through our bodies and cleansed us from the suffering! The view there was worth every single step and would have been worth it if there more climbing to it. The blue color of the lake shines on a background of white clouds and looks as if there’s no end to it, or as if the sky and the lake meet at that very spot. The lake sits silently below huge mountains . Its seriously beyond me to describe how it exaclty feels to be there!! I was speechless for a moment there, and breathless too as the point from where we can see the lake is at around 5020 meters. 

To be continued !!