(PART I)

I flew over the green fields and pretty red houses. As I looked down below, it all seemed so new. With a sigh I put earphones over my ears and listened to the music of U2 in desperate hope to calm myself. I closed my eyes. My stomach was in twists and I kept thinking I must have made a mistake by coming here. Images of all those moments I had left behind played in my mind torturing my thoughts. My heart raced and in a desperate attempt, I concentrated on the music….’with or without you…’.

I slowly opened my eyes, half hoping that I would be back to those familiar sights, sounds and smells that I was so accustomed to. But all I could see, was the back of the seat staring grimly back at me. The signals flashed to fasten the seat belts. I looked outside the window again. As the plane drew closer to my destination I knew it was too late to go back. I put my seat belt on and held the handles tightly as the plane rapidly descended.

The airport was so big, it all looked so clean. The plane started to slow down and with it the sweet feeling of adventure took over me. As we turned into the bay, a Qantas plane was parked next to us. The red kangaroo reminded me that I was back.

When the plane stopped, everyone stood up and made their way to the exit. I hesitated for a few minutes still apprehensive. But, my heart was beating with excitement and I quickly gathered my bag. I walked steadily behind the group of people. As I made my way to the immigration area, I heard those familiar sounds that I had long forgotten.

‘Welcome to Australia’, the officer at the immigration desk said. I looked up in a daze and gave the lady my passport. She stamped the passport and within a few minutes I made my way outside.

Hey guys,

This is my first attempt to post a story on sajha.... I have started with just a small piece for now just to get some idea on whether anyone wants to actually read my stuff

Please feel free to give feedback....

Cheers :) :)

I think you should keep doing what u intended to do. It looks great. Please keep on going. The more you write, better it gets. Go for it.

Just let it flow girl........ Good luck!

Simple yet beautiful...and did you just call it an attempt? I thought you were a pro girl!!!

Short but engaging. Keep 'em coming pal!

.

Not fair!

Try to end up your stories when there is a suspense ahead! ;) A little more topsy-turvydom , wouldnt it be better ? Just a suggestion!

Nevertheless, a good start!

thnks guys for ur comments :) :)

i will be posting regularly and see where this story leads me.....

please feel free to give me feedback

- shakshi

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(PART II)

As I stepped outside the glass doors, soft trickles of rain gently splashed on me. I didn’t rush to get under cover. It couldn’t have been a better welcome.

‘Pani paryo bhane sait huncha ni’ echoed a distant voice. It seemed so long ago, yet it was my uncle commenting on the same rain that bid farewell in another city, another place just 12 hours ago. At that moment I felt like I was transcending through two chapters of my life.

Just then a hand tapped on my shoulder and I turned around. ‘Have you forgotten us already?’, said my sister with a cheeky grin. I was so lost in my thoughts that for a moment I had forgotten that my family were coming to pick me up at the airport. With warm smiles they greeted me. My mum gave me a hug. In that one embrace I felt how I had missed the love of my family in the last few years. As I looked up into her eyes I could feel the same emotions inside her.

‘Your going where?’, was the first thing my mum said in late 2003, when after finishing my year 12 I announced I wanted to go back to Nepal. For a few minutes she looked at me in utter disbelief and half hoped I was joking. When I stared back with seriousness in my eyes she calmly put the cup of tea she had in her hand on the table and shouted out to my dad. My dad gave me the same glance. ‘She is actually serious!’, mum exclaimed. Without missing a heartbeat I looked at dad and nodded.

It took a while to convince them both that I wanted to go back to Nepal on my own and live there for a few years. After a few days of negotiating, they knew I wasn’t going to back down. My sister thought I was crazy and so did most of my friends. But I knew this was something I had to do. Somehow I wanted to find my identity and at the age of 18, I knew that if I didn’t do it then I would never get the opportunity. The strong minded will power I had received as an ancestral inheritance was no match against any reasonable arguments. My parents agreed. I was going to do my Bachelors in Nepal and my arrival date was January 15, 2004.

I can't believe that this is your first attempt to write.
Interesting Read. Easy and fluid. . We part and we meet; events like these brings in an avalnche of emotions and feelings. You have a nice and clear picture of these human emotions. After reading couple paragraphs, I now have lots of why and what. I am curious. Feed me the answers.

If its your first attempt, its terrific. please post the other parts too... wonderful... thansk for sharing

Very Gripping story ! Loved reading it.
BTW, the last paragraph of second part reminded me of P. Buck’s kinfolk . It raised a lot of why (as Sunnydev said ) in my mind . Hope the next episode will satisfy some of my “whys”.
Thanks shakshi for sharing such a beautiful anecdote of your life. Waiting eagerly for the next episode!
:)

I think I am really enjoying letting this story flow by itself..... Just adding another part to it now!

Just for a bit of background on the story I am writing....Well it is based on emotions in my life but the events and the people involved are fiction...

Please do keep the feedback coming.... Thanks a million! :) :)

(PART III)

I flew past the mountains. Apart from the numerous pictures hanging on our living rooms walls and the stories told by my parents, I had no idea what to expect. It was at such a young age I left Nepal that any recollection of this mystic place was wiped out from my memory.

‘On your right we have Mount Everest or known to the Nepalese as Sagarmatha,’ announced the pilot as he manoeuvred his way through the white icing tipped chocolate landscape. Those breathtaking mountains towered over both sides of me which made the plane become smaller and smaller compared to these massive landmarks. I felt vulnerable as I watched in awe at the scenes unfolding in front of my eyes. If my mind was a camera, at that moment I was frantically taking pictures.

After the flight through the mountains, we travelled over green plains and made our way to the destination. I arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport on the Royal Nepal Airlines flight at 4pm NST (Nepali standard time). We were 6 hours behind schedule and just as the plane landed on the tiny strip of land, the sun faded into an orange colour filling the late afternoon sky with a soft glow.

It had been a long and tiresome journey. This was the first time I had left my family. I think the only time I ever was away from home was a night at a friend’s birthday party. As I thought of the tearful and heart wrenching scene with my family and friends at my departure, I still had no idea why I wanted to come to this unknown place.

‘Well at least she is getting into drugs, following the wrong crowd or dropping out of school’ was the advice my aunt gave my parents when they told her about my drastic decision to come to Nepal. Maybe that was it. It was probably just a phase that we all tend to go through in our lives to self discover ourselves. Whatever the case, the decision had been made and there was no turning back.

Wow... Shakshi you should never stop this thing...a calm way and a right flow style of telling a story. It felt like i am the one who had written those lines, yet i know i didn't. Five years ago i felt the same thing when i landed in Detroit, amature, hopes to make it to the best i can be, an a feel of insecurity. You remind me of a guy i met in sanfransisco, neplaese, living for 18 years in California, just finished his book "The bridge Between Human Spirits".

The Bridge Between Human Spirits
by Khakendra Pun

Eagles in the Sky
Far away, up above a village's mountain those free eagles kept roaming quietly in their safest motion. A little village boy in old blue shorts and a cotton shirt with a few holes kept diving down the hill towards the bottom of his parents' cornfield. By then all the corn plants had already grown up to this little village boy's chin. Standing in the village of Ulleri, if you looked around you would see nothing but peaceful tall, green corn plants everywhere on the mountains' terraced fields. If ever a God were to offer this shoeless village boy the most precious thing it would certainly be his two beautiful little feet. That boy was me running down the hill in that village. I had nothing to worry about in life. With my bare feet I stood by the stone road, then I began to watch those eagles floating up in the sky. The eagles' widespread wings began to comfort my soul. While I kept watching them fly far up above me, I let my own spirit gain all the strength that I needed to fly like them. I raised both of my hands up above my shoulders. I looked around carefully and then began to fly down towards the hill myself. I might have dived down that hill thirty miles an hour if not more. That's when I found myself flying up and down in the mountains of our village. I was very happy that those eagles had their wings. That way they could fly anywhere they wanted to. The eagles that flew up above me had no boundaries in their lives. And I had no boundaries in life either.


Neuli Chauri - Winter 1984
In perfect silence you stand somewhere in our village road. The cool, fresh air whispers through your ears. The warm bright sun shines in the mountains. In its peaceful slow pace of life you see buffaloes, cows, goats and sheep grazing on the terraces of the mountains. No one is a stranger up here. Someone walks by you saying hello with a smile. You smile and say hello to them. If you keep standing on the road you will hear the stream sing down below the village. While nature shines bright with the sun, the flowers bloom with a thousand colors. In the silence of the peace and romance now you hear the song of the neuli chauri. "neul, neul, neul." You can't see the birds but you hear them sing from miles and miles away. Even though we don't know whether this bird is a male or female we call her neuli chauri, which means female neuli bird. I grew up in the village listening to this bird sing throughout the forest. Hearing these birds sing you start taking a long journey through your heart and soul into your life. Her songs become a symbol of peace and harmony where all creatures live with joy and dignity around her. Once you hear these birds sing you never forget to sing your song in your life. For the rest of your life wherever you take your journey you will hear their song in your ears. The song means love, happiness, sadness and joy in life. It means to live simply with what you are given by your mother and nature, and to understand that in all circumstances you will be healed in time by your own inner force of living. The song of this neuli chauri is like two lovers who distance themselves for many years, and yet the love between them remains pure and indestructible for the rest of their lives. In time these two lovers must unite again. The song means unity for all creatures who were once together, lovers who were yet to be united, lovers who yet had to meet each other, and the lovers who distanced themselves away because of the force of others. The distance between lovers is brought closer with this song. It sings about two lovers being able to feel, see and hear each other through the inner hearts of their souls.

Enjoyed! keep writing......

wowwwwwwwwwwwwww nice

Yeh I think most of us who have experienced the life of leaving our home countries can relate to some of the emotions I explore within this story....

Thanks once again for the feedback....I do apologise if the story flow is a bit slow but I do want to explore each emotion that the character experiences....

Cheers :) :)

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PART IV

So, on that crimson afternoon in the middle of the Nepalese winter, I stepped down from the plane ready to discover myself and grow closer to a country that gave birth to me.

As I was walking towards to airport, I looked around and I felt shocked. I stood there for a moment wondering if I was in the right place and then I looked back at the plane with a question on my face. I could not believe this was the place that had haunted my dreams for the past several months. I wanted to go back on that RNAC plane and leave this place never to return. As my eyes adjusted to the sudden change, I then started to see the valley and the mountains that surrounded it.

Through the concrete jungle of houses, I could just see those bare peaks moaning out to me and begging me to come. I looked at them and silently told them I was back and started walking towards the airport.

When I was heading to my uncle’s house where I was to stay for the time I was in Nepal, I looked outside trying to understand how I could feel so connected to this unknown place. My thoughts which had been filled with stuff normal teenagers have had suddenly filled with many questions. The people standing besides the streets passed by and I tried to reach for some answers in their faces but all I could see was how occupied they were with their daily lives. I looked at the dull matchbox concrete high rise buildings and they just stared back at me with a forbidding look. I felt there were so many things I would experience in the coming years within this now strange place. The car then turned into the drive way of a pretty two-story brick house. This was my uncle’s place and my home for the next three years.

‘Chori au au, kasto thulo bhayecha’, my grandmother greeted me with such a heart warming embrace. Her eyes twinkled with happiness and I realised how much I had missed out the love of my grandparents in the many years. I used to be so envious of my friends who talked about spending time with their grandparents during the summer holidays and getting spoilt rotten. Now, after all those summers it was my turn.

Shakshi,
True to your word, you write emotions. You bring buildings, mountains into life. Mute face says a lot to you. Your heart does really have ear, eye and all human sense organs.

Its funny how during times when your supposed to be studying you manage to write actively.....Anywayz.......herez another part to this story........

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(PART V)

Clad in a light blue sari with no make up my grandmother looked so beautiful. Her white hair that was neatly tied behind in a bun and the simple way in which she presented herself painted a picture of elegance in my mind. I used to steal secret glances at her in awe as I saw so many reflections of my own traits within her. In the years to come it was from her I learnt so many things about my birthplace, my ancestors and myself.

I remember my first trip to New Road in Kathmandu. I was out with my cousin on a shopping spree. I walked along the side walk after entering the faded coloured arches that marked the famous shopping strip in Kathmandu and tried to act casual. There were cars horning, motorcycles wizzing past and people just randomly crossing the roads. Having grown up in a very small town compared to Kathmandu, the number of people and activity that was going on around me was just amazing.

My cousin took me into ‘bishalbazar’ as she proudly announced as being the first shopping centre in Nepal. Apparently there is this shop called ‘gossip’ that had the hottest clothes. Now, a shop with the hottest clothes, this was something that I had to see. So I followed her keenly into the shopping centre and before I knew it my hands were filled with bags. One of the good things of coming from Australia to Nepal is the shopping. When the rupee is compared to the Australian dollar everything is a bargain and for those shopping maniacs hands are soon filled with shopping bags.

‘Have you tried pani puri?’, my cousin asked after she decided she had enough shopping for the day. Well, I still was interested in popping into some more shops but I followed her wondering what this ‘pani puri’ was. She took me behind this alley way somewhere in the middle of New Road and led me into this makeshift restaurant. I looked with a questioning glance at my cousin as the shop keeper dipped the small ‘puris’ into this odd liquid. In one quick motion my cousin managed to put the whole puri inside her mouth. Not wanting to look too out of place I followed obediently. It was so tasty and I knew I would be hooked to this mouth-watering dish. I probably ate near to 15 pani-puris and was soon as good as her in eating the puris. However, that night I paid a hefty price for the delicious feast.

Keep going.. Intersting story !!!! Bichara pani pui le dukha diyecha.

I had the same story with Samosa of New Road.. I exactly dun't remember what it is called but it was a really popular place.. 4 yrs ago.. Some one stole my purse from that damn place too.. I will never ever go there again..

Sakshi, liked it a lot..doesn't seem like u're writing for the first time. If my mind was a camera, at that moment I was frantically taking pictures. wonderful expression..:) Keep writing :) I'll keep reading :)

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