Gosaikunda again.... Day 1

Gosaikunda again….

Day 1

Well one of my friend told me before the trip, you go to Gosaikunda like we go to Ratnapark, but that’s not the case. But yet again I was there in front of Pashang Lhamu Bus Service ticket counter, waiting for my bus, glancing through the number plate of each bus that arrives there, I was waiting for my bus, the bus that was supposed to leave at 7 am in the morning, the bust arrived at 7. As I hurried myself into the bus I realized that there was no seat number mentioned in my seat, just the side, It said “B” and nothing else, no seat number….I’ve been to dhunche many times and there hasn’t been a single trip where there’s no confusion regarding the tickets, that I why I buy the tickets a day before these days, and even doing that didn’t prevent me from not getting a seat, I hurried back to the counter to show them the ticket but before I could say anything a guy in the counter looked at my ticket and sir, your bus is the white one sir, I replied “ Ma Nepali ho dai” he thought I was a foreigner then the guy randomly wrote B 7 on my ticket. I knew that there’d be mistake again and there would be another guy with a ticket that said B7. On one of my previous trips three people had the same seat number. I went back to the bus, waited for someone to come and show me another ticket that said B7 and back to the conflict….

Here’s the chase, there are few things that you can’t avoid while travelling to Dunchce in the same bus service. Or lets the the trip is Incomplete without the following things

1. There’s always more than 2 people with same bus seat, today it was 3 of them
2. Regardless of what the bus says, local or super or deluxe, it will never leave in time and it will always stop in ever next corner and pick people up.
3. A drunk guy will ride bus from Kalikasthan, and a minor fight will break out during the ride
4. From Kalikasthan, there will be so many passengers that it will take at least 5 minutes to completely empty the bus
5. After Kalikasthan, again, there will be so many baggages that it will be very hard to walk in the walkspace of the bus
   and the trip is not complete if there isn’t a rooster rocketing inside the bus aimlessly! I was almost sure that the last part wont happen today, but almost at the end of the stop….Voila! It happened

Let’s get back …

The bust left at 7:30, though the counter guy said, it will leave strictly at 7, and I waiting for another guy with B7 but that didn’t happen, instead 3 guys had B11 seat and there was a minor tussle for the seat but it was solved in no time, because they are used to it. In most of the trips I had silent guy next to me, but not today, somehow I ended up with a chatterbox who won’t stop talking. He talked about Religion, Politics, Sports, Nature, Wildlife, Wetlands, Agriculture, everything that is there to talk about. I just nodded and said, Yeah that’s right all the time! And as we neared Dhunche, he talked about Earthquake for about 30 minutes, I listened to him this time and there was nothing but misery in his voice and what he had to say. His aversion towards the government and relief policies, well not sure whats situation on that but according to him no relief in terms of building construction has reached a single family in his village, which was supposed to be the part of 200,000 Nrs which the government was supposed to give for reconstruction.

Apart from that the trip was pretty normal, I mean nothing interesting happened at all. I got off at Dhunche, went to the same hotel I stayed when I was here before, and had a good cup of black tea and few oranges, looking at the Massive Langtang Lirung Mountain right in front of me along with Gang Benchhen of Tibet… and now here I am with a bowl of spicy water which was supposed to be a good noodle soup and my small notebook, writing about today. And Since I’ve reached the point where I’m writing, I guess this is it for today! Tomorrow should be interesting!! Lots of works to do, before I leave to Gosaikunda

A failed attempt, to forget!

The wind soared as the night fell, the evening lights and sounds of generators and barking dogs somewhere along the road was melody to his pain, along with the sound of silence in his heart! He looked at his watch,  a digital watch that he bought of the footpath shoed 19:43 Pm. It was pretty late into the night, with the next turn he'd end up inside an alley that leads into his home. The dark alley is darkest as darkness can be, enticing fears even in non believer that he is. He took his mobile out of this jeans pocket, he needed the flashlight as it almost impossible for him too see anything. Right when he was about to turn in the light he tripped on the speed breaker, his  phone slipped from his hand and fell on the ground with a crackling sound. It was pitch dark for him to see the battery, so he ran his finger on the ground, and found the casing first, and the battery and finally the body, shattered in the dark , where he was left out to seek something he list in a complete darkness much more like his life. He lived in a darkness called life where all of his dreams were lost and shattered to pieces. There was nothing right going in this life. Even in darkness he managed to put the phone back together, struggling with the battery for a short time. He started walking towards his home with mobile flash light leading the way! It was almost 8 when he reached home.

After freshening up and quick dinner, he called it  day, but it would still take him an hour or two to fall asleep. He just stared towards the dark ceiling, where he saw tiny sparks of his dreams fading slowly with every breath. Even in darkness, at times her face lit up in the thin air, like clouds they passed him, as she smiles and fades into the darkness. While he was deep into his thought, his phone rings, a call from a close friend.

"Hello, how are you holding up?"

"I’m doing good" he replies

"Well I can certainly sense it in your voice, don't hide!! You can always talk to me"

"I know that" he says with forced excitement

"You have to move on! Try distracting yourself! Have you tried meditating?" The friend adds, " It works, I have friends who tried that and got through stress problems"

"You know that I don't believe in these stuff!!

"Well at least try it once, there's no harm in it!! Even if you don't believe in it, it can at least distract you for sometime!"

"I’ll think about it , I'll talk to you later, good night" he cut the phone off

He back to staring in the ceiling staring at his dream, staring at her.... but he knew it that the more he thought about her the more harder it would be for him. He tried distracting, but nothing worked. Then he thought about trying meditation. But he knew nothing about it, so he looked in the internet for different methods of meditation. He learned about the techniques and philosophy behind the concept of meditation. About how one can control innerself with thoughts. He went deeper and deeper, learning more and more about meditation. After few hours of research he tried meditating  but couldn't stop thinking about her at all. He kind of knew that meditation did not work. He looked at his mobile and saw that it was almost midnight...he turned his phone off and closed his eyes!!

The new morning brought a new day, yet for him, the old memories tagged along, he woke up early in the morning at 3 am with a nightmare and couldn’t sleep. So he decided to try meditating, in the silence of the morning. He closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on a void, tried to think about nothing, while trying to think about not thinking anything, he knew it was a tricky business. For a second he did think about her, tried hard to forget, the more he tried the more he thought about her, about her hair, her smile, her voice, but after constantly trying to concentrate on not thinking about anything, he finally succeed and he found his void, he found his inner silence. He didn’t even realize that it was already 6:13 am when he finally opened his eyes, and he felt good, infact very good that morning. He got up from his bed, went to kitchen, prepared breakfast and then went about his daily activities. That day whenever he was free, he looked in the internet about various methods of meditation, he read articles about how meditating could control your brain waves, how they could possibly alter the various activities, these stuffs were a bit farfetched for his scientific brain, yet he was not in a place to judge, all he wanted was a rescue from recurring thoughts of her. Desperate measures in desperate times, as people say, he was desperate enough to try anything possible. He read a very interesting article on how one could reach inside the brain, how one can direct its soul inside own body and reach the brain center and change the memories inside the brain. It was like plot right out of some Sci-fi movie from him. He spent a long time reviewing the article specially on that method.

Later that night, he turned off all the lights in his room, closed the windows, insulated the small openings in his door and window, made his room sound proof and started meditating, In hope of reaching the brain center and erasing the thoughts about her. He tried for hours but nothing happened, he was about to give up but right before he stopped, he felt as if his inner self was inside his body, but lost it soon enough as his concentration was broken, thinking about if he should stop. He again tried for hours, and finally he felt that his whole inner self, or soul as people call it, inside his body, the amusing part was, he felt as if his real body was inside his body and he couldn’t feel his actual body that’s resting on the outside. The first thing he saw was a network, filled with sparks, that looked like a sky filled with fireworks, it looked beautiful. Strings and strings of colorful jellyfish like network with continuous sparks, but before he could enjoy the marvellous sight in front of him, he was swept away by a thick fluid, a thick reddish fluid, that was flowing with strong current, he was scared, he tried to grab anything that he could, but he failed, with a gush, he entered a dark chambers, completely embedded in the dark liquid, and he could feel the compartment expanding and relaxing, and with each of those contraction and relaxation, he could feel that the fluid is being forced out of the compartment, he tried to hold on the a string of fibres near him, he grabbed anything he could find and started looking for an opening, he felt a flap opening, but before he could make up what it was the fluid pushed him outside the compartment and he again started flying through the tube like vessel submerged in the red dense fluid. This time it travelled a longer duration than before, the vessel started tapering at the and reached a compartment, he was thrown down into a circular compartment, where he rotated along with the the fluid for sometime and exited out of through a smaller vessel, and he could sense that certain fluids were going out of the vessel and entering the vessel at the same time. Again he was pushed along the vessel, but this time he somehow could manage to grab onto a small perfusion and got out of the vessel. As soon as he got out of the vessel, he fell into a large chamber, it was dark, and filled with hair like processes, tonnes of it, he fell in the corner of two processes like that, he climbed to the top of that hill like structure and saw that the whole chamber was filled with it, and most of the chamber was filled with stuff. He again started looking for some opening but instead he was pushed down by a large chunk of substance to another vessel, this time there was fluid like before but had solid substances, he could the diameter of the vessels changing, and the it went up and down and sidewise before reaching a dead end, that’s what he thought, it was like swamp and he couldn’t move at all, he tried, he was stuck here for a long time, and before he almost lost his hopes, he saw a light at the end of the vessel, he hurried towards the end, and with a gush of wind he was forced outside and he fell hard on a pool of water.

That’s when he woke up and realized, that he felt asleep trying to meditate hard enough to reach his brain and deleting the memories. He realized, that life is a process, and all we feel, all we are nothing but a machine and our body constantly functions like a machine does and we can’t change anything about it from the outside, just by concentrating enough. Nothing but time and determination can change how we feel and from that day forward, he moved on slowly and gradually.

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!