On the D

My lesson for today is: Never give up.

Almost after two years after graduating J-school, after those countless story pitches and “sorry” e-mails, amid losing and gaining hope, I finally did it today. I have my first story published in an international newspaper. Well, I’ve had my stories published in India but for me, India is more like our next-door neighboring publication.

So a random day, I sit down and write a well-though story pitch and e-mail it to two publications. In about two hours, I get a green signal from one of them, The National of the UAE. I get a deadline and I send the story. But I don’t hear it from the editors. Once again, I think that it won’t work for me. I wait until Monday to e-mail them back. Then I hear from the editor on Sunday. Hope is alive again. I am not in front of my computer and the editor wants the story soon. Thanks to my friend who follows my instruction on the phone and sends the story. And then, the rest is history.

The story is now published. My byline has the title “foreign correspondent” attached to it. And I think this is just a beginning to a whole lot of other openings.

So I’d say never give up. I’ll keep on trying. I’ll keep on persuading. If there’s something I truly believe in, if I know my feelings are more than 100 percent committed and if I know that this is what I want, I am going for it. After all, how long can someone be reluctant and resist you, eh, right?

Here’s my story on the tattoo convention from The National, April 26, 2011 

When you read someone, you  imagine him/her to be a certain way. And when you meet that person, it’s just like–Wow!That’s what happened when I met Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize winner, acclaimed writer who is clouded by controversies regarding her political write ups on issues regarding India and the world.

During a dinner the previous night, we came to know that she was in town and would be speaking at this seminar and we were like, “Yes, we’re gonna attend it, and write about it.” As it seemed no one else knew about it. So we were the only media, the mainstream Nepali media, there. So this morning when the news was published, got calls and texts–people were surprised, I suppose.

Yesterday, she spoke for two hours on various topics from her personal saga to the Maoist movement. But most of the time, she tried to connect with the people telling them her personal tales, the low moments of her life that in fact gave her the strength to become strong.

when I met her personally, I asked this random question on the Internet becoming a site of conflict as she had mentioned in one of her interviews. I just wanted to know more on what she had to say.

She said, “Internet is very enabling in some ways that I fear that it has  started to control it[the revolutions]. It helps to fuel a revolution; I’m worried about them [Internet] trying to control it.”

Then I asked what one has to to do to become a good writer to which she replied: “You need to write good.”

Here is the story that Sumina Karki and myself did. We didn’t want to get political, and so we turned personal, if we may say so. Everyone talks about politics and goes after her on that subject. Why not be a little different?

Arundhati on Arundhati 

KATHMANDU, April 19: “Thin, black, clever” in her words, Sryian Christian from Kerala, Arundhati Roy thought she was the “worst that a Christian girl could be.”

In the village of Aymanam in Kerala, Roy observed that she was one of the girls who hadn´t been indoctrinated. She rather spent time catching fish and knew every insect, grass and dragonfly.

The 1997 Booker Prize Winner for The God of Small Things, Roy was in Kathmandu to attend a conference ´count me IN!´ organized by CREA, a feminist human rights organization.

“I had to get out of here [the village]. To be a woman and to be married into that community was like being buried alive,” she said during a two-hour session on Monday that was a part of the three-day conference. Moderated by Shohini Ghosh, an essayist and documentary filmmaker, Roy shared her childhood experiences of being a woman — and that too, a rebellious one in a con — and the moments that made her strong.

The talk mainly delved into her personal life. Listening to Roy´s life ordeals, euphemized by her signature wit, it seemed as if the writer had channelized the low moments of her life to boost her self-esteem.

“I didn´t see much complexities, I just saw a simple terror of being a normal woman,” recounted Roy who ran away from home at the age of 16.

And in fact, years later, she seems to have succeeded for she is nothing like a ´normal´ woman. She has proved to be an exceptional one usually clouded by controversies for her political write-ups ranging from India´s nuclear issue, separation of Kashmir and the growing Naxalite movement to global topics like the United States´ war in Afghanistan.

For Roy, the inclination toward political writing started during her student years at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

“By third year I started questioning about cities, urbanization and who are they for, among other topics.”

After graduation, Roy went to Goa, sold cakes on the beach and later returned to Delhi where she lived amongst the unprivileged strata of society in the Nizamuddin Basti.

It was during this time, before she started working on The God of Small Things, that she met her husband Pradip Krishnen, wrote scripts for movies and penned a series of political essays on the movie Bandit Queen which raised a series of debate.

“I was shocked that they had changed India´s most famous bandit into history´s most famous case of rape,” Roy said.

Though the controversy was covered-momentarily-because of her famed novel The God of Small Things, she noted that a lot of people quite didn´t understand the book.

“A lot of people were looking at me like I had won the World Cup without knowing what the book was all about,” added the 49-year-old writer.

Her award-winning novel, however, also turns to be the pages from her past. Some of the characters are, thus, inspired by her family members, her brother to name one.  Another influential figure in her life is her mother, Mary, who is also a women´s rights activist.

“My mother and I have a very complicated and a conflicted relationship. My mother was, is and has been a huge influence in good and bad ways,” she revealed. The conversation was paused by laughter, triggered by her humor.

Moderator Ghosh didn´t miss talking about Roy´s essay ´Walking with the Comrades´ that appeared on Outlook India, an Indian magazine, in March 2010 and her trip to Chattisgargh. Informing about the women´s status in the tribal group, Roy added on how she went with a firm prejudice that in an armed struggle women were going to be sufferers and at the receiving end of violence. However, she was completely disabused by the fact that the Maoist armed forces comprised 48 percent women.

“I interacted with many of them and also learnt the reasons behind their joining the movement. They had watched their mothers and sisters being raped and killed, their houses being burned down by the police,” observed the writer. However, according to Roy, women´s struggle and revolt was not only the struggle with the state demanding for their rights but also to break out from the boundaries of the patriarchal society.

Thus writing about these issues, the questions she often faces is if she is a feminist, to which Roy rhetorically questions back, “Writing about millions of women being displaced isn´t a feminist issue?” But being termed a feminist, another adjective that finds its way toward her is — romantic.

While walking with the comrades, Roy was frequently branded as romantic to which she reiterated: “Often when you´re in the middle of a huge and dangerous argument, one of the strategies is to use labels as missiles in order to not deal with questions. I have no problem with romance but what do they mean by that?”

And amid different labels and loathing that Roy has come in for because of her writing, especially that with political connotations, she has underscored issues sidelined by the urbanites in her home country. She added that one doesn´t have to belong to a particular caste, creed, religion or any affiliation to write about issues surrounding them.

“For me the idea of being a writer is someone who tries to break out of that and who believes that eventually all of us must reach out and be able to have relationships outside our own little cocoons.”

´Count me In!´ conference held from April 16 to 18 brought together marginalized women from South Asia — India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka — to discuss violence against women and strategies of resistance.

Well, I’m one more year older. But what difference does it make, I ask to myself as I start a journey to another year of my life. I reflect on the years gone by and try to evaluate myself: how far have I come in my life and what have I done. The reflection of myself and the reality surprises me.

Growing up, I don’t know if I had any concrete dreams or even a goal. For a large part, I looked at myself as that “loser kid” who wouldn’t make anything out of his life. But slowly and surprisingly life’s mysteries and those hidden realities started to unfold. And without realizing, I started following a dream that I never even dared to dream. I should say, I started living life. And when I really started living that life, I felt alive.

Tracing the life I have lived in the past few years, I really feel proud and pleased to see what I have made out of my life, who I have really become. Never have I believed in myself so much; never have I trusted in what I do and what I can do. I can only say that the years gone by have made me stronger in a lot of ways. And in these past few many years, I’m really pleased of the people I’ve come across and the friends I have made. Trust me, I never thought I’d have some good friends and the notion of friendship, most of the times, seemed fake. Until I met people like you, you and you, and I started believing in this sweet relationship.

I don’t know how to define life and I don’t know if I’ve ever tried to look for a meaning. And coming this far, I still am perplexed what it’s all about. Sometimes I feel what I want of it and most of the times I feel lost in this jungle where you constantly have to prove yourself to everyone—right from your parents to your boss and sometimes even to your best of the best friends. And while trying to prove yourself and make a point, the best in you just slips away and your identity gets isolated. During these years, I have tried to prove to myself, I’ve tried really hard. But from what I’ve understood, at the end of the day, I’ve stood as who I am.

So who am I then? I’m still the same person who I was yesterday before turning a year older. I’m still that passionate person who loves what he is doing. I’m still that person who whines and complains over every other thing. I’m still that annoying and irritating person who my friends love or hate I can’t figure. I’m still the same person who you know me as. Yes, with an extra day and another year, things like maturity and responsibility might take an extra step forward and I’m ready to embrace them.

Jeez, I’m one more year older. And looking back on my life, I don’t regret anything. Even the stupidest of thing I’ve done, the mistakes I’ve made and the paths I’ve taken—I don’t regret about any of it. Without those moments, life wouldn’t be as it has been and I wouldn’t have been the person I am. So on this occasion, a toast to life that I’ll live it in my full spirit irrespective of some gray and gloomy days. Cheers to the journey I have made, people I have met and the steps I’ve taken that has made me the person I am, that has made life worth living.

To life….

It’s been a year and a half that I’ve been back from the United States with five years of memories etched on my mind. With each month, those memories, and more than that, those materialistic used-to-ness of the things that weren’t even a part of my life before landing in the US had slowly started to fade away. Sometimes, I find those products and services online, see the commercials on American channels and only wish those things would have been available here. For instance, Taco Bell, Doritos, Chipotle, malls with stores that have all the brands that I became used to, theaters with all those indie movies, good live music, those TV shows…the list is endless. It’s pretty sad how one gets attached to these materialistic pleasures; it just cannot be ignored. After all, it had been a part of me for those five years.

After coming back from the US, the places I traveled were in India and Nepal. Both the places are similar and though American pop culture dominates the cities, a lot of stuff still lacks, and why would anyone even care about them, right?

But last week, it was something like time traveling; something like going to a place which is nowhere close the US but so like the US. Traveling to the United Arab Emirates, for me, was like a slice of the United States neatly placed, at least the materialistic part. When I landed in Dubai, one of the thriving metro and cosmopolitan cities in the Middle East, rather than experiencing some traditional Arab culture and hospitality, I was happy to face the pleasures of my past.

Umm, where do I start from?

Let’s start from the first contact with the city. Driving in the roads of Dubai was like a flashback. I apparently had forgotten in these almost two years of time that there are such things as lanes and traffic rules. For the first time in almost two years, I saw people driving in lanes, proper traffic signals and everything. And yea, they were driving on the right hand side of the road. And better than that, they had all automatic transmission. So American! I totally wanted to rent a car and drive—AVIS was right next door to where I stayed. But sadly, just had to limit myself with the cabs and the buses and the metro.

Off the roads, and inside the malls, I totally went berserk. All of a sudden I didn’t know how to react. Right from the time I entered the malls, the only sentence running on my head was: “This is so like America.” I know it sounds stupid but I suppose I was missing that materialistic mall culture. Honestly, I had never been fond of the malls while there but after coming back I realized I do miss some of the aspects of that mall culture. We have tons of malls in Kathmandu but they don’t have the stuff that I like and have been used, especially the stores. So in Dubai, everything was in front of me—those stores that I wanted to shop and all those brands that were too much of high end. And more than that there were options. It wasn’t like limiting myself to the three malls in Kathmandu, window shopping and never being able to satisfy myself with what they have. Round and round, up and down the mall, I kept looking at the stores, kept browsing the shelves and kept saying: “Jeez, this is so like America.”

Moving on, on becoming totally Americafied and trying to connect to the past were the chains of restaurants. Seriously, I had never even though that these restaurants would be there in Dubai—TGI Friday, Chilis and even UNO. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” For me, it was more than the chains and the food they served but the memories I have of those places, the moments spent with my friends and my cousins—TGI Friday in Las Colinas or Dallas, Chilis at University Drive in Fort Worth and waiting for two hours at the super famous UNO in Chicago for a table for two. It brought back memories. And man, I almost screeched when I saw Krispy Kreme. I was seriously dying to have that cream filled chocolate glazed and just the plain glazed doughnuts and that second when I indulged myself with that 5 Dirham doughnuts, it felt like the best thing ever. Yum. And yea, not to forget madly munching on Dorritos and then Dunkin Donuts. My dad’s friend even asked, “Why do you keep munching over these kind of stuff?” I couldn’t explain. I just said, “I’ve been missing them.”

And things I have been used to, well might sound very stupid, but it’s the hair cream I use too. It’s been almost seven years now and I’ve been very loyal to it. When I came back from the US, I carried some four of them. The next year, I asked my cousin to send it for me and then last month I asked my friend to bring it along. And when I saw that in Dubai, I was like…hell yea!

For me, the five days in Dubai was so much like revisiting the US, getting the things I had been used to and realizing that I was really missing them. It sounds very stupid for me to be thinking this; it makes me sound very materialistic and shallow. But at the end of the day, I think when you’re used to it for a long time, when you have attached yourself with something, though materialistic, it’s sort of difficult to stop wanting them and moving forward with what you have now. This might not be the case for everyone but for me, I did realize it. And well, I’m just a selfish person with those materialistic values embedded in me. And I’m so glad I didn’t have to fly for 14 hours to America; I found it some four hours away in the UAE.

Call me whatever, say that the UAE is not like the US; but for me, it was somewhat like the US, at least materialistically. And I loved every bit of my time spent there. The only disappointment: no Taco Bell!

“I quit.” This is one phrase that I constantly hear in the Nepali work sphere. And I think how easy is to say this word here. It’s apparently very easy, and as it looks like it, most people say it in the spur of the moment without even realizing “what next?”

Ask me, and this would probably be one of the last words that I would probably utter. I mean, I don’t actually realize the meaning of this very word, “I quit.” It’s like the end of the world, it’s like giving up hope, it’s like that you’ve lost the battle that you weren’t even fighting. Quit against who, quit against what, and moreover quit for who?

At times, when you’re working, the work pressure seems to be paramount, the stress level higher than Everest; and then there are always disagreements. But this is not a reason for anyone “to quit.” It simply states that you’re running away. It’s a testament that you just dived in, and you were never ready for the job; you just worked for the heck of working–what a waste of time and energy and moreover an embarrassment for taking over the job that someone else mush have been the perfect fit, a job that someone else would have respected and would passionately worked for.

It’s very difficult to get a “real job” and a job that you really like. I can tell this from experience. Graduating in the US when the economy was in shambles, and then looking for a job, it was tough. Forget me, reading the news about thousands of layoffs, households getting apart,young graduates working odd jobs and people totally frustrated of life because no one was actually hiring–it was really not a good time. At this point of time, I think most people realized what it takes to have a job and to be working. A job is not something just to be taken granted for. You’re getting that responsibility, you’re getting that space and opportunity; you’re getting to work in a position that someone else would have died for.

But here, sometimes it makes me sad to see a distorted reality of the real picture. I look around, I see and what I realize is that most people don’t realize how “important”they are in the work spheres they’re working. They tend to “neglect” the fact that they’re there because they are capable. They rather seem to ignore the “difference” they’re making and the “difference” they could make. Above all, they fail to “understand” that they actually have a job that is the lifeline to livelihood. So many times, all these facts just doesn’t get underscored enough and most times we tend to underestimate what we have, as if nothing was that important.

And then in the spur of the moment, without even thinking, the word is spit as if it was just a spat. “I quit.”

It’s a word that has a lot of weight and you might as well be crushed by it, and thus we should be really careful in using this word. I mean you can’t always stick to one job but quitting isn’t the solution. You “move on” to better positions, you “seek for” better opportunities and you move ahead. You just don’t say “I QUIT!”