As the classes had already begun even before I had arrived … The next day after I arrived it was the science class from the Wagle sir… he was a new science teacher, and a class teacher for us. Tall, thin and broad faced … he looked good humor and talented.
His first class did surprise me … he seemed strict with the classes. He wouldn’t want any of us talk in the class …after he taught us … he would then ask us the questions in random … We had to stand up and give him the answers … incase if we failed he would make us stand for the long long time.
It hadn’t been even a week, in few days he realised I wasn’t so good … then he told … how had I got the second place in the class. His words did make me think … but still everytime he got the question for me I was nervous and failed to answer the questions. I knew I always took his classes seriously and knew about the matter that he taught in the class but still I wasn’t capable of given the exact answer he wanted.
In few weeks everything got to it’s place and it wasn’t difficult with his classes though I didn’t make so much of the difference in the later days. There were some changes in the hostel. Guru was no longer appointed our hostel warden… it was because he no longer took classes on the literature… ‘Nepali’. Surprisingly Som sir had become the hostel teacher for us.
Also for the class captains Santosh Gurung and Daksha were appointed.
Since this year there was a sort of difference in taking the classes … in two years we were to have the Final exam that would end our school and then we would get started with the college or the university. It was since a year back when the teachers had always highlighted us about the exam that we had to appear at the end of our high school.
And from this year it had begun … because the questions were to be asked from the courses from the last two years. Last year, we hadn’t been to excursion… it was decided to take us the beginning of this acedemic year… Soon everything was confirmed and it was decided they were to take us to the capital for three days and two nights…
It had been three weeks now I had been back from home … The same week it was deicded we were to leave for the tour… the capital that we were supposed to go for was about one hundred and forty miles… and about a continuous six hours bus drive… Two classes were to go... the junior brothers also with us. As for the teachers Kumar sir… Som sir and Pun sir… were decided.
Last night before we left… we were excited about the tour but instead there was something that broke my feelings into pieces for the time. This time Daskha decided he would get along with the mate Chandra, whom he had grown closer to... and had taken the next seat in the class. It did hurt me in some ways because he had always been there for me… and now he seemed to drift away. But it was the reality I had to accept.
Long day in the bus that evening we reached the valley … we stopped in many places and took time so we had been late for the valley. It was already dark when the teachers sort out the hotel for us and assigned the respective hotel rooms. For some of the mates... we were given a room in Sunrise Hotel… it seemed a good place…. Among all the rooms we were lucky to have a bigger room with three beds… but it was meant for seven of the classmates… with me, others were Santosh Gurung, Rochan, Bishnu, Prakash Shrestha, Nawaraj and Raju.
We were very happy for the place … even more than this we were happy for not being in the school … and next things … for getting the greatest opportunities to see so many things. Just one of the mate, Rochan who had had the camera … asked if he could take the picture of all of us … So… we the remaining six of us came and sat on the side of the bed… as he was about to take …the side of the bed broke… and we all went down on the floor …. “Bang” Instead of the picture … for sometime we were worried … but later we told the teachers the true story and they believed us… In sometime the bed was replaced. That evening we went for a walk… I didn’t know the valley nor did my other friends, so we were carefully walked our ways so we would remember the way back to our room. When we returned… it had already been the time for the dinner… good meal with the chicken soup we did eat a lot… After the meal we had already planned for something else… The card game… Just right after we had been we began the game… we weren’t the professional gamblers who knew so many games… there were two games that we would play... One with the three cards and next with nine. To save our money and use more of our time we started with game played with nine cards… and played for a rupee for each game. However, we were only five who played… others decided to sleep… As the night rose … Nawaraj and Santosh Gurung gave up so Bishnu, Prakash Shrestha and I was the one to remain.
After the midnight the craze went more … we turned to three cards game … that was the easy money making game… I was lucky … I often could grab the huge amount that was collected in between all of us… We played until five in the morning… then we decided for the sleep… after the long night’s game… I had won about two hundred and fifty Rupee, a great amount for me. At about six… teachers came waking everyone… Just about an hours sleep it had been enough for me. I was feeling heavy with my head… as it made me feel like I needed some more rest… Still I was feeling dizzy when we left the hotel room… however we were to come back again for the night. In the morning… we visited to the temples… In ‘Budhanilakhantha’ a temple of Vishnu, he favoured taking a picture of time. We also visited the school of the same name which, wasn’t far from the place. After then we also visited Pasupati and also the only one airport…We wnet to the roof top to see planes laning and take off… That afternoon, after our lunch, intially we went for the ‘Durbar Square’… the old palaces…and after then to the ‘Balaju Park’. Finally to the Buddhist temple ‘Swayambhu’ from where we could see the most part of the city… As it was already getting dark… it made the glorious picture of the city with the star like little lights all over the land. After then we returned back to the hotel room. We were feeling hungry and tired… after the meal… we couldn’t stay longer… we did play cards for some time but later we decided to sleep. Next morning the teachers decided to take us to our Central school. It was about fourteen miles east from the valley… About an hours drive to the top of the hill…though wasn’t so steep… we reached the place. It was the spring but yet the fog wasn’t gone … so it wasn’t so easy getting to know how big the school had been… Things seemed well managed and proper that with that we had… there were numerous two stories buildings… all made of bricks… After all I concluded …it looked good… In some the teachers talked and they came … Everything had been decided a day earlier so, direclty we were taken to the school dininghall. I was surprised to see it … it was almost three times bigger than that we had. And there were long tables and two long benches on each side of it … in two long rows… In a line we walked into it… we were served … five loaves of bread with butter and also we were given tea and an egg. It was very heavy for us… five loaves of bread… it was already more than enough. However it didn’t take long before we were all done with it. After then the teachers brought us to the bus in the long line the way we were taken… as we came down we could see some students of the school… (They were the intermediate level student…12th grade equivalent in the science stream.)
We were then back again to the valley… we were then taken to the historic place… Bhaktapur… we were engaged there for few hours before seeing the historical temples, places and the remainings of the ancient palaces and it’s legends… By the time we left the sun was trying to disperse the fog and we could feel the sort of wamth from it… Seeing all those things around something did surprised me… In almost every of the places we went there were only ancient traditional houses and even the streets around there … they were paved with the bricks. The latest in the morning we went to see the “changunarayan Temple” built on the top of the hill… which wass also about an hours bus ride from the place.
It was already noon when we again got aback to the school for the lunch… coming back… then we could see the open fields and the little villages that hadn’t been clear that following. When we came to school… we also could see how big it was… I was shocked seeing it… it had covered all the side of a big hill…We were so hungry that day… Rice with vegetable and chicken… it was sufficiently a heavy meal for us, which we all did enjoy. Today was the third day of the tour and we were supposed to return the following night back to school. So, we didn’t stay up long in the place…When we came back to the valley again… the teachers decided to take us to the zoo…. in the main city in the capital. When we went in there… for some time I was together with the others friends … loking around different animals … birds which included from little moneys… peacocks…cranes... bears, rhinos, tigers…and lions. At a place … an eleplant was chained… we few of the friends were gathered to look at its huge size… suddenly a friend of us was almost kicked by it…
Looking one after anothers… accidently I didn’t realise when I had missed the other friends… but I didn’t worry because I thought they would be some where around. Passing by I came across a little red money in the small cage… it’s innocent face made me to stop at it… it seeemed like it wasn’t happy in the cage… it seemed like it wanted to tell me something or share something with me. I kept looking at it.. trying to understand it with it’s motion that it tried to make it to show me… but suddenly I realised I had already stayed there too long… Then I looked around… I couldn’t see any of my friends around… Running and rushing I came to the gate… still I didn’t come out in the sight of any friends…
Where are the friends and where is the bus…??? For some time I was frightened and shocked. I came running straight from the place… passing acroos a volleyball team playing volleyball at the left I figured the bus… For the god shake I wasn’t late… I thanked god… I was the only one to come… though still they hadn’t prepared to go. After sometime the last place we were to see was again the next historic place ‘Patan’ which also had several ancient temples. Just some time before we had left… there was almost the fight between one of a friend and with one of those street businees men selling the sort of jwelleries at the corner of the street… The guy came to the teachers and told that our friend had stolen the ring, which my friend didn’t accept. He was a young guy and had brought other people to suppoert him… When we left the place… some stones were thrown over us… but it didn’t really hit us.
It was about five six hours long bus drive … at about mightnight we were again aback to school. We had the dinner and right after it …straight to our bed.
In sometime again Bishnu became my very good friend… this time things even got deeper… he became the one I could tell everything and as for him… I became the one… whom he felt could understand… it was strange it was so many years later… I felt like I had got a real friend. For the school day, third week of March, few weeks earlier I was offered with a role for the Nepali dramma named “Andhabishwash” which meant superstition. It was a woman’s role and I don’t know why kaji sir had decided me for that part… for few days I did I leaft the class and went for the preparation… But soon I felt alone as rest were all junir brothers whom I couldn’t go alone… I felt the time tougher with them so I gave up. Later Jitendra their classmate took and played it well…
On the school day, for the first time in my life I was awarded with some for that I had done some thing good… there were few times when I had got prizes from the school teachers in classes for small test or some sort of contest. But it had never been in the formal occasions like Schoolday or Annual function. On the day… at the end of the program… the distinguished guest distributed prize for me
The last of April, the school decided to come out with the school magazine… “Dipen” Before our first term exam we all the articles were collected. For the magazine, in the editorial board, five members were from our class were selected along with the two other members from the junior class.
After our first term had been over… we were all to go home for the vacation for a month… As For the editors for the of magazine we were called to attain the school after fews days, after the vacation had started.
On the day we came. I had expected almost everyone would be there, but to my surprise there weren’t even the half the total numbers of members. From our class, we were three out of the total five; Narjan, Bishnu and me. Santosh Grg and Kushal weren’t there. Apart from this there were two brothers from the junior classes. Howeever the teachers, I was surprised everyone was there. Soon after we arrived we were called into a classrom, the room next to the staff room, the classroom of the junior brothers of grade three.
Soon we were handed our jobs… we were to copy every of the articals in the fair writtings. We weren’t lazy for that one after other we did it. It was good time with the teachers…. It was somehow different feeling than the other days because we were doing something for the school and and we were free than the others days. With the teachers… in the afternoon we were served tea… it was great.
Till the late almost to four we countinuously worked copying the articals… We had thought we we would have succeeded in a day but it didn’t become true … even with best of our effort it seemed we still needed a day. So, it then became necessay that we had tocome back to the school the next day or we had to stay in the hostel room for a night.
Finally, three of us decided for a thing. We decided staying there for a night. However we decided going out for the walk and retun before in the evening. After then… there was still something … where were we to go for a walk. In sometime we decided seeing a friend, Santosh Shrestha who lived just about more than a mile from the place. He had his house there and lived with his parents.
It was some time before the dawn we reached his house. We were fortunate we meet him, he was there in his houses. Taking to him soon his parents arrived… and they too started taking to us … started asking who we were… And where were we from. We all gave our details to them especially for his mom who had been interested in the matter.
Well, knowing us… as the schoolmates and the friends of his sons… it was happy meeting us. Soon in our talk she even asked all of us to attend the marriage ceremony of her son (elder brother of our friend) which was almost certain to be in few months. She called everyone from the class. (Six months later, we were invited but we couldn’t go because of the school) We meet the friend but still there wasn’t anyway to spend the time … How were we to spend the eve.?? We then decided…. Let’s go for the movie show.
It was decided … but before that we decided to go back to school for the meal… So, we wouldn’t be hungry … apart from this it would save our money…In the kitchen… when they cooked for few people it tasted very different. It had very great difference in the taste. It was hot and fresh with the vegetables of the green beans. It was delicious.
Before we left the school we talked to the teacher we were stay the night in a friends place …and not in the school. They accepted it. That eve… it was first time after so many years I was going for the late night movie show. We got our ticket… before the show started I looked at the people… there weren’t so many as there would have been in the day. It was a Nepali movie “Mahadevi” and wasn’t so bad… and wasn’t different from the Nepali and Hindi movie trend.
The show ended at about nine. While climing down the hill and waking along the highway it would still take thirty or forty minutes to get the place. It was just a small village …with fe w shops and a small community… and along the highway there weren’t any street light…. In the day… we walked in the middle of the road. It was a great pleasure when we covered all the spaces… Since the road was very straigth (at that part only) we would move aside when we say any traffic coming on the way. We weren’t making fast paces… because we were enjoying the walk… so it was only about ten when we reached the friend’s house. Reahing the place… santosh made everything for us. For four of us we were give two room in a house which was few minutes walk from the place. It was his sister’s house he told. The house was small with with the entrance in the middle so on two sides had the entrance to the room… we took the first room opposite to each other with only one bed in it… Santosh and Narjan decided to sleep in one where as bishnu and me went for the other.
In some time the lights were turned off… Bishnu and me …we even didn’t talk for longer before he was fast asleep. I was somehow tired of the day’s work… but since it was too hot and I could sleep… the more I tried to sleep the more it kept me awake…. I kept turning side… sometimes, I tried looking at my friend sleeping next to me… to see if he had been distrubed when I frequenty turned my side. Twelve…. One …two…. It was some time near about three… I could then hear drops of rain falling on the roof (As roof had been of the metal sheet)… In my life I had always loved rain… and rain falling on the roof, it was something that would be like a song sung that would easily make me fall asleep.
It didn’t take time… Soon I was fast asleep. Next morning when I woke up… my friends had already been awake. The rain of the night had been over but sky still seemed dark with the clouds densly heaved on the top of the hill. So, it was a sort of dark cold morning.
After then we went back to the friends parents house ... they offered us the tea. However we didn't stay there for longer, before we three, thanking our friend for all his help and hospitality we left him and rest of us decided to go to the school.
In the school, the teachers were already with their own work, we quietly took our seat and started our job that was yet to be furnished. It was good teachers didn't tell us anything. It was in the day when our work was done.... we decided to return back to our homes.
After, a month’s vacation I was back to school again for the school. Things had slightly been changed since all these many years… There wasn’t any doubt that I was not upset for leaving the family and the home but still I wasn’t so desperate that I would still have the tears in my eyes coming back to school…. it didn’t happen.
In short while evening became a routine again … day after day… it was a week… it was then two weeks… On the prince Dipendra’s birthday, there was the inaguration of our first school magazine “Dippen.” It was a big book with so many articals, poems and pictures…. I was very happy seeing it… especially my article… a small story about a bird… sparrow…”Mero Pyaro Satti”… and on the beginning a huge picture of the editorial board, on which I was on the first row out of two and on the right.
It was the first week of July… I had the severe illness of the cold. It was something that would desperately kill me… because there was nothing that would ever treat me worse than anything… with it everything would plunge over me, headache, fever severe cold and cough….
And it would not leave me for at least a week or even more … for about two weeks. The intially two days were so bad… I got a very strong drug “Actified plus” from prajwol, the classmate… it was some how the great recovery for great instants when it made me very bad. Gradually, with every morning it slowly turned me better before I was well again.
It was a month later, we the class team decided for something…. We thought we buy some wallpappers and calenders for our classroom second Saturday of the month. We all collected fifteen rupee… before the holiday and it was done. After we came back… we put them on the walls….. Initally the teachers appreciated that but after about three months after the vacation everything was gone … we were told it would obstuct the concentation of the students in the classes. What we had in our were all carried to the staff room and the office room and were stitched there. Additionally school also put many new on diffent places like junior hostel rooms and also in the dinning hall itself.
It was one of those nights in the middle of September. Something strange woke me up in the middle of the night… It was the falling of still glass…In the middle of the big hall of our hostel there was a small clay pot for the drinking water… There was a steel plate on the top as the lid and over it used to be a still glass so that during the night we could drink the water whenever we felt thirsty.
When I open my eyes in the middle of the night … out side I could see the moonlight… it was intense to make me see the trees in the forest ahead and also even the hills far in the East was visible… Then I decided to turn back to see what was happening… It was some how dark inside … but still it didin’t take me long become I could figure out the person who had been walking around in the dark… It was Durga.
He seemed to have gone to drink water… but after retuning back… It astronised me … he didn’t go to his bed…(he had taken the lower bed) instead he walked to the window and lokked out to the moon and wispered something… Something very fast… No way I could get it… which seemed more like a prayer though….
In the class everyone was known about his strange behavour… so I thought it was one of his strange deeds… so again I turned back and closed my eyes… Soon I was asleep. Next day it became a big story… he was only about three meters far way from my bed… it was not only me… there were few friends that had been completely awake seeing his activities… but they had so feared … even to speak to the friend sleeping next… (We always had two big beds brought together and so formed many groups…) Everyone thought he was caught with some sort of spirit.
But it seemed even bizzare when durga himself told it wasn’t anything of spirit… he had done it to frighten the others…
It didn’t take long… weeks and then month…one two then three months… it was the time for the second term exam. Though I wasn’t good in science but still I had the best marks in mathematics and other subjects… After the exams mother came to take me… so, it wasn’t the problem…
The festivals were over, I wasn’t so interested with it again the way I used to be… When I was a young kid I had great enthusiasm of the things like this but with time I gradually lost with all this because I started knowing the truth… what people believe about god and religion… I started thinking it was only and absolute illusion where the blind people are so greatly binded into it. I started asking to my self … why do they make so much of sacrifices of the animals to make god happy… why don’t they sacrifice themselves … or their own blood and flesh to make god happy … if they greatly are devoted to god… These of question to myself started making me isolated from the things like that.
Again the winter days had already started getting deeper. A month vacation was short … we were back again at school.
I must say this…. There is always a great difference in the ordinary hostel and the hostel only for boys… When I take into the account of the hostel of only of the boys … then I say it is a sort of place where there the students have a sort of wild nature and aggression however I don’t mean that there never exist love… It does and it exists in the purest form.
You might consider why am I to write about it… it is because it is only the thing extraordinary in the boy’s school. It was true almost every one would go for a fight with anyone …even for any little thing … or any little arguments but we would always cooperate ourselves to stop it and keep the matter from the teachers.
There were definitely some big fights … it happened when two individuals were phyisically strong but it had never happened that for the last eight years we had any group fights in the class…I wasn’t know to it … suddenly one evening after the evening class, I was shocked when I heard about it… three were two groups made and had fought before the dinner in the hostel. I didn’t see it because I was in the dinning that moment when it took place… Later after the meal I was told … it was between the two intimate Karki Brothers and Yogen's group that included Durga, prakash, arjun, Prajwal and few others…
Taking it into account I consider it as the worst moment that existed between us… There were several fights and it happened almost everyday…it was unstoppable so… it soon was known to every student in the school, (even the juniors) and also soon it was known by the teachers too…
The teachers came to know in the evening… because most fight happened at night. The friends indulged in it were called to the staffroom…
There intially they were punished and then brought to talk. Though we had always been accused of the most stupid class till the last day we stayed in the hostel but after we left everyone recalled us that we were one of those very best. Only the thing that made the teachers and the staff to feel that was that even we did so many stupid things and never helped the teacher to know it… and also that we kept doing it… But still we never did disobey the teacher… before then we would always blow low… and hear them what they told us. It was late in the night when the teachers left them free… even after then there were moments when there almost started the fight but still it didn’t go further. Though things didn’t improve because the two teams never talked to each other again but still it didn’t get worse than what happened.
For the desperate eight cold winter morning it made me feel like a hell, when the hostel teachers woke us up at six… and then made us go for the PT. I greatly hated it but there wasn’t the way to escape… so, in the dark cold foggy morning we flushed our face with cold water then in some fifteen minutes we came out in the field for the morning excercises. As usual in two long trailing lines we had to run the around the football ground. I had always felt … I wasn’t that physically strong for the races... or even for running… In few days after the arrival… I had already caught the cold … and today, for the first time in life… I even caught the cough… there were few frozen blood marks… in the cough…
Next day again… it happened the same… I thought was there something behind it…??? Since then I was some how conscious about myself… I tried to protect myself from cold… Luckily it didn’t happen the third time.
It hadn’t been long our mate Santosh grg’s dad had come to our school as the sport’s teacher. Though it has become easier for us since he was there… as usually he would take over us… being the most senior batch of the time… To enhance us or motivate us for the exercises … and also according to most of the friends will… once a week he scheduled us taking out of the school building… it was fun coming out of school but still it wasn’t enough to satisfy me… I would never want it in any cost.
This year I came tried to come out with something to make the difference… I decided write a novel… a Nepali novel on the fore ground of the typical Nepalese culture, tradition and the society and based on the family story. It was about three sons and a mother… out of all only the youngest who marriages to the widow adopts her before she dies… It ended in twenty-nine pages of the school notebook… Though I had thought to elaborate the story to make it bigger I couldnot proceed it because of the final exams… (Unfortunately I happened to forget the book underneath my bed when I had gone home for winter vacation… After back from home I couldn’t find it … I dicovered in the mean time during our vacation police personnels had been there for few days for the training. They might have displaced it away.)
His first class did surprise me … he seemed strict with the classes. He wouldn’t want any of us talk in the class …after he taught us … he would then ask us the questions in random … We had to stand up and give him the answers … incase if we failed he would make us stand for the long long time.
It hadn’t been even a week, in few days he realised I wasn’t so good … then he told … how had I got the second place in the class. His words did make me think … but still everytime he got the question for me I was nervous and failed to answer the questions. I knew I always took his classes seriously and knew about the matter that he taught in the class but still I wasn’t capable of given the exact answer he wanted.
In few weeks everything got to it’s place and it wasn’t difficult with his classes though I didn’t make so much of the difference in the later days. There were some changes in the hostel. Guru was no longer appointed our hostel warden… it was because he no longer took classes on the literature… ‘Nepali’. Surprisingly Som sir had become the hostel teacher for us.
Also for the class captains Santosh Gurung and Daksha were appointed.
Since this year there was a sort of difference in taking the classes … in two years we were to have the Final exam that would end our school and then we would get started with the college or the university. It was since a year back when the teachers had always highlighted us about the exam that we had to appear at the end of our high school.
And from this year it had begun … because the questions were to be asked from the courses from the last two years. Last year, we hadn’t been to excursion… it was decided to take us the beginning of this acedemic year… Soon everything was confirmed and it was decided they were to take us to the capital for three days and two nights…
It had been three weeks now I had been back from home … The same week it was deicded we were to leave for the tour… the capital that we were supposed to go for was about one hundred and forty miles… and about a continuous six hours bus drive… Two classes were to go... the junior brothers also with us. As for the teachers Kumar sir… Som sir and Pun sir… were decided.
Last night before we left… we were excited about the tour but instead there was something that broke my feelings into pieces for the time. This time Daskha decided he would get along with the mate Chandra, whom he had grown closer to... and had taken the next seat in the class. It did hurt me in some ways because he had always been there for me… and now he seemed to drift away. But it was the reality I had to accept.
Long day in the bus that evening we reached the valley … we stopped in many places and took time so we had been late for the valley. It was already dark when the teachers sort out the hotel for us and assigned the respective hotel rooms. For some of the mates... we were given a room in Sunrise Hotel… it seemed a good place…. Among all the rooms we were lucky to have a bigger room with three beds… but it was meant for seven of the classmates… with me, others were Santosh Gurung, Rochan, Bishnu, Prakash Shrestha, Nawaraj and Raju.
We were very happy for the place … even more than this we were happy for not being in the school … and next things … for getting the greatest opportunities to see so many things. Just one of the mate, Rochan who had had the camera … asked if he could take the picture of all of us … So… we the remaining six of us came and sat on the side of the bed… as he was about to take …the side of the bed broke… and we all went down on the floor …. “Bang” Instead of the picture … for sometime we were worried … but later we told the teachers the true story and they believed us… In sometime the bed was replaced. That evening we went for a walk… I didn’t know the valley nor did my other friends, so we were carefully walked our ways so we would remember the way back to our room. When we returned… it had already been the time for the dinner… good meal with the chicken soup we did eat a lot… After the meal we had already planned for something else… The card game… Just right after we had been we began the game… we weren’t the professional gamblers who knew so many games… there were two games that we would play... One with the three cards and next with nine. To save our money and use more of our time we started with game played with nine cards… and played for a rupee for each game. However, we were only five who played… others decided to sleep… As the night rose … Nawaraj and Santosh Gurung gave up so Bishnu, Prakash Shrestha and I was the one to remain.
After the midnight the craze went more … we turned to three cards game … that was the easy money making game… I was lucky … I often could grab the huge amount that was collected in between all of us… We played until five in the morning… then we decided for the sleep… after the long night’s game… I had won about two hundred and fifty Rupee, a great amount for me. At about six… teachers came waking everyone… Just about an hours sleep it had been enough for me. I was feeling heavy with my head… as it made me feel like I needed some more rest… Still I was feeling dizzy when we left the hotel room… however we were to come back again for the night. In the morning… we visited to the temples… In ‘Budhanilakhantha’ a temple of Vishnu, he favoured taking a picture of time. We also visited the school of the same name which, wasn’t far from the place. After then we also visited Pasupati and also the only one airport…We wnet to the roof top to see planes laning and take off… That afternoon, after our lunch, intially we went for the ‘Durbar Square’… the old palaces…and after then to the ‘Balaju Park’. Finally to the Buddhist temple ‘Swayambhu’ from where we could see the most part of the city… As it was already getting dark… it made the glorious picture of the city with the star like little lights all over the land. After then we returned back to the hotel room. We were feeling hungry and tired… after the meal… we couldn’t stay longer… we did play cards for some time but later we decided to sleep. Next morning the teachers decided to take us to our Central school. It was about fourteen miles east from the valley… About an hours drive to the top of the hill…though wasn’t so steep… we reached the place. It was the spring but yet the fog wasn’t gone … so it wasn’t so easy getting to know how big the school had been… Things seemed well managed and proper that with that we had… there were numerous two stories buildings… all made of bricks… After all I concluded …it looked good… In some the teachers talked and they came … Everything had been decided a day earlier so, direclty we were taken to the school dininghall. I was surprised to see it … it was almost three times bigger than that we had. And there were long tables and two long benches on each side of it … in two long rows… In a line we walked into it… we were served … five loaves of bread with butter and also we were given tea and an egg. It was very heavy for us… five loaves of bread… it was already more than enough. However it didn’t take long before we were all done with it. After then the teachers brought us to the bus in the long line the way we were taken… as we came down we could see some students of the school… (They were the intermediate level student…12th grade equivalent in the science stream.)
We were then back again to the valley… we were then taken to the historic place… Bhaktapur… we were engaged there for few hours before seeing the historical temples, places and the remainings of the ancient palaces and it’s legends… By the time we left the sun was trying to disperse the fog and we could feel the sort of wamth from it… Seeing all those things around something did surprised me… In almost every of the places we went there were only ancient traditional houses and even the streets around there … they were paved with the bricks. The latest in the morning we went to see the “changunarayan Temple” built on the top of the hill… which wass also about an hours bus ride from the place.
It was already noon when we again got aback to the school for the lunch… coming back… then we could see the open fields and the little villages that hadn’t been clear that following. When we came to school… we also could see how big it was… I was shocked seeing it… it had covered all the side of a big hill…We were so hungry that day… Rice with vegetable and chicken… it was sufficiently a heavy meal for us, which we all did enjoy. Today was the third day of the tour and we were supposed to return the following night back to school. So, we didn’t stay up long in the place…When we came back to the valley again… the teachers decided to take us to the zoo…. in the main city in the capital. When we went in there… for some time I was together with the others friends … loking around different animals … birds which included from little moneys… peacocks…cranes... bears, rhinos, tigers…and lions. At a place … an eleplant was chained… we few of the friends were gathered to look at its huge size… suddenly a friend of us was almost kicked by it…
Looking one after anothers… accidently I didn’t realise when I had missed the other friends… but I didn’t worry because I thought they would be some where around. Passing by I came across a little red money in the small cage… it’s innocent face made me to stop at it… it seeemed like it wasn’t happy in the cage… it seemed like it wanted to tell me something or share something with me. I kept looking at it.. trying to understand it with it’s motion that it tried to make it to show me… but suddenly I realised I had already stayed there too long… Then I looked around… I couldn’t see any of my friends around… Running and rushing I came to the gate… still I didn’t come out in the sight of any friends…
Where are the friends and where is the bus…??? For some time I was frightened and shocked. I came running straight from the place… passing acroos a volleyball team playing volleyball at the left I figured the bus… For the god shake I wasn’t late… I thanked god… I was the only one to come… though still they hadn’t prepared to go. After sometime the last place we were to see was again the next historic place ‘Patan’ which also had several ancient temples. Just some time before we had left… there was almost the fight between one of a friend and with one of those street businees men selling the sort of jwelleries at the corner of the street… The guy came to the teachers and told that our friend had stolen the ring, which my friend didn’t accept. He was a young guy and had brought other people to suppoert him… When we left the place… some stones were thrown over us… but it didn’t really hit us.
It was about five six hours long bus drive … at about mightnight we were again aback to school. We had the dinner and right after it …straight to our bed.
In sometime again Bishnu became my very good friend… this time things even got deeper… he became the one I could tell everything and as for him… I became the one… whom he felt could understand… it was strange it was so many years later… I felt like I had got a real friend. For the school day, third week of March, few weeks earlier I was offered with a role for the Nepali dramma named “Andhabishwash” which meant superstition. It was a woman’s role and I don’t know why kaji sir had decided me for that part… for few days I did I leaft the class and went for the preparation… But soon I felt alone as rest were all junir brothers whom I couldn’t go alone… I felt the time tougher with them so I gave up. Later Jitendra their classmate took and played it well…
On the school day, for the first time in my life I was awarded with some for that I had done some thing good… there were few times when I had got prizes from the school teachers in classes for small test or some sort of contest. But it had never been in the formal occasions like Schoolday or Annual function. On the day… at the end of the program… the distinguished guest distributed prize for me
The last of April, the school decided to come out with the school magazine… “Dipen” Before our first term exam we all the articles were collected. For the magazine, in the editorial board, five members were from our class were selected along with the two other members from the junior class.
After our first term had been over… we were all to go home for the vacation for a month… As For the editors for the of magazine we were called to attain the school after fews days, after the vacation had started.
On the day we came. I had expected almost everyone would be there, but to my surprise there weren’t even the half the total numbers of members. From our class, we were three out of the total five; Narjan, Bishnu and me. Santosh Grg and Kushal weren’t there. Apart from this there were two brothers from the junior classes. Howeever the teachers, I was surprised everyone was there. Soon after we arrived we were called into a classrom, the room next to the staff room, the classroom of the junior brothers of grade three.
Soon we were handed our jobs… we were to copy every of the articals in the fair writtings. We weren’t lazy for that one after other we did it. It was good time with the teachers…. It was somehow different feeling than the other days because we were doing something for the school and and we were free than the others days. With the teachers… in the afternoon we were served tea… it was great.
Till the late almost to four we countinuously worked copying the articals… We had thought we we would have succeeded in a day but it didn’t become true … even with best of our effort it seemed we still needed a day. So, it then became necessay that we had tocome back to the school the next day or we had to stay in the hostel room for a night.
Finally, three of us decided for a thing. We decided staying there for a night. However we decided going out for the walk and retun before in the evening. After then… there was still something … where were we to go for a walk. In sometime we decided seeing a friend, Santosh Shrestha who lived just about more than a mile from the place. He had his house there and lived with his parents.
It was some time before the dawn we reached his house. We were fortunate we meet him, he was there in his houses. Taking to him soon his parents arrived… and they too started taking to us … started asking who we were… And where were we from. We all gave our details to them especially for his mom who had been interested in the matter.
Well, knowing us… as the schoolmates and the friends of his sons… it was happy meeting us. Soon in our talk she even asked all of us to attend the marriage ceremony of her son (elder brother of our friend) which was almost certain to be in few months. She called everyone from the class. (Six months later, we were invited but we couldn’t go because of the school) We meet the friend but still there wasn’t anyway to spend the time … How were we to spend the eve.?? We then decided…. Let’s go for the movie show.
It was decided … but before that we decided to go back to school for the meal… So, we wouldn’t be hungry … apart from this it would save our money…In the kitchen… when they cooked for few people it tasted very different. It had very great difference in the taste. It was hot and fresh with the vegetables of the green beans. It was delicious.
Before we left the school we talked to the teacher we were stay the night in a friends place …and not in the school. They accepted it. That eve… it was first time after so many years I was going for the late night movie show. We got our ticket… before the show started I looked at the people… there weren’t so many as there would have been in the day. It was a Nepali movie “Mahadevi” and wasn’t so bad… and wasn’t different from the Nepali and Hindi movie trend.
The show ended at about nine. While climing down the hill and waking along the highway it would still take thirty or forty minutes to get the place. It was just a small village …with fe w shops and a small community… and along the highway there weren’t any street light…. In the day… we walked in the middle of the road. It was a great pleasure when we covered all the spaces… Since the road was very straigth (at that part only) we would move aside when we say any traffic coming on the way. We weren’t making fast paces… because we were enjoying the walk… so it was only about ten when we reached the friend’s house. Reahing the place… santosh made everything for us. For four of us we were give two room in a house which was few minutes walk from the place. It was his sister’s house he told. The house was small with with the entrance in the middle so on two sides had the entrance to the room… we took the first room opposite to each other with only one bed in it… Santosh and Narjan decided to sleep in one where as bishnu and me went for the other.
In some time the lights were turned off… Bishnu and me …we even didn’t talk for longer before he was fast asleep. I was somehow tired of the day’s work… but since it was too hot and I could sleep… the more I tried to sleep the more it kept me awake…. I kept turning side… sometimes, I tried looking at my friend sleeping next to me… to see if he had been distrubed when I frequenty turned my side. Twelve…. One …two…. It was some time near about three… I could then hear drops of rain falling on the roof (As roof had been of the metal sheet)… In my life I had always loved rain… and rain falling on the roof, it was something that would be like a song sung that would easily make me fall asleep.
It didn’t take time… Soon I was fast asleep. Next morning when I woke up… my friends had already been awake. The rain of the night had been over but sky still seemed dark with the clouds densly heaved on the top of the hill. So, it was a sort of dark cold morning.
After then we went back to the friends parents house ... they offered us the tea. However we didn't stay there for longer, before we three, thanking our friend for all his help and hospitality we left him and rest of us decided to go to the school.
In the school, the teachers were already with their own work, we quietly took our seat and started our job that was yet to be furnished. It was good teachers didn't tell us anything. It was in the day when our work was done.... we decided to return back to our homes.
After, a month’s vacation I was back to school again for the school. Things had slightly been changed since all these many years… There wasn’t any doubt that I was not upset for leaving the family and the home but still I wasn’t so desperate that I would still have the tears in my eyes coming back to school…. it didn’t happen.
In short while evening became a routine again … day after day… it was a week… it was then two weeks… On the prince Dipendra’s birthday, there was the inaguration of our first school magazine “Dippen.” It was a big book with so many articals, poems and pictures…. I was very happy seeing it… especially my article… a small story about a bird… sparrow…”Mero Pyaro Satti”… and on the beginning a huge picture of the editorial board, on which I was on the first row out of two and on the right.
It was the first week of July… I had the severe illness of the cold. It was something that would desperately kill me… because there was nothing that would ever treat me worse than anything… with it everything would plunge over me, headache, fever severe cold and cough….
And it would not leave me for at least a week or even more … for about two weeks. The intially two days were so bad… I got a very strong drug “Actified plus” from prajwol, the classmate… it was some how the great recovery for great instants when it made me very bad. Gradually, with every morning it slowly turned me better before I was well again.
It was a month later, we the class team decided for something…. We thought we buy some wallpappers and calenders for our classroom second Saturday of the month. We all collected fifteen rupee… before the holiday and it was done. After we came back… we put them on the walls….. Initally the teachers appreciated that but after about three months after the vacation everything was gone … we were told it would obstuct the concentation of the students in the classes. What we had in our were all carried to the staff room and the office room and were stitched there. Additionally school also put many new on diffent places like junior hostel rooms and also in the dinning hall itself.
It was one of those nights in the middle of September. Something strange woke me up in the middle of the night… It was the falling of still glass…In the middle of the big hall of our hostel there was a small clay pot for the drinking water… There was a steel plate on the top as the lid and over it used to be a still glass so that during the night we could drink the water whenever we felt thirsty.
When I open my eyes in the middle of the night … out side I could see the moonlight… it was intense to make me see the trees in the forest ahead and also even the hills far in the East was visible… Then I decided to turn back to see what was happening… It was some how dark inside … but still it didin’t take me long become I could figure out the person who had been walking around in the dark… It was Durga.
He seemed to have gone to drink water… but after retuning back… It astronised me … he didn’t go to his bed…(he had taken the lower bed) instead he walked to the window and lokked out to the moon and wispered something… Something very fast… No way I could get it… which seemed more like a prayer though….
In the class everyone was known about his strange behavour… so I thought it was one of his strange deeds… so again I turned back and closed my eyes… Soon I was asleep. Next day it became a big story… he was only about three meters far way from my bed… it was not only me… there were few friends that had been completely awake seeing his activities… but they had so feared … even to speak to the friend sleeping next… (We always had two big beds brought together and so formed many groups…) Everyone thought he was caught with some sort of spirit.
But it seemed even bizzare when durga himself told it wasn’t anything of spirit… he had done it to frighten the others…
It didn’t take long… weeks and then month…one two then three months… it was the time for the second term exam. Though I wasn’t good in science but still I had the best marks in mathematics and other subjects… After the exams mother came to take me… so, it wasn’t the problem…
The festivals were over, I wasn’t so interested with it again the way I used to be… When I was a young kid I had great enthusiasm of the things like this but with time I gradually lost with all this because I started knowing the truth… what people believe about god and religion… I started thinking it was only and absolute illusion where the blind people are so greatly binded into it. I started asking to my self … why do they make so much of sacrifices of the animals to make god happy… why don’t they sacrifice themselves … or their own blood and flesh to make god happy … if they greatly are devoted to god… These of question to myself started making me isolated from the things like that.
Again the winter days had already started getting deeper. A month vacation was short … we were back again at school.
I must say this…. There is always a great difference in the ordinary hostel and the hostel only for boys… When I take into the account of the hostel of only of the boys … then I say it is a sort of place where there the students have a sort of wild nature and aggression however I don’t mean that there never exist love… It does and it exists in the purest form.
You might consider why am I to write about it… it is because it is only the thing extraordinary in the boy’s school. It was true almost every one would go for a fight with anyone …even for any little thing … or any little arguments but we would always cooperate ourselves to stop it and keep the matter from the teachers.
There were definitely some big fights … it happened when two individuals were phyisically strong but it had never happened that for the last eight years we had any group fights in the class…I wasn’t know to it … suddenly one evening after the evening class, I was shocked when I heard about it… three were two groups made and had fought before the dinner in the hostel. I didn’t see it because I was in the dinning that moment when it took place… Later after the meal I was told … it was between the two intimate Karki Brothers and Yogen's group that included Durga, prakash, arjun, Prajwal and few others…
Taking it into account I consider it as the worst moment that existed between us… There were several fights and it happened almost everyday…it was unstoppable so… it soon was known to every student in the school, (even the juniors) and also soon it was known by the teachers too…
The teachers came to know in the evening… because most fight happened at night. The friends indulged in it were called to the staffroom…
There intially they were punished and then brought to talk. Though we had always been accused of the most stupid class till the last day we stayed in the hostel but after we left everyone recalled us that we were one of those very best. Only the thing that made the teachers and the staff to feel that was that even we did so many stupid things and never helped the teacher to know it… and also that we kept doing it… But still we never did disobey the teacher… before then we would always blow low… and hear them what they told us. It was late in the night when the teachers left them free… even after then there were moments when there almost started the fight but still it didn’t go further. Though things didn’t improve because the two teams never talked to each other again but still it didn’t get worse than what happened.
For the desperate eight cold winter morning it made me feel like a hell, when the hostel teachers woke us up at six… and then made us go for the PT. I greatly hated it but there wasn’t the way to escape… so, in the dark cold foggy morning we flushed our face with cold water then in some fifteen minutes we came out in the field for the morning excercises. As usual in two long trailing lines we had to run the around the football ground. I had always felt … I wasn’t that physically strong for the races... or even for running… In few days after the arrival… I had already caught the cold … and today, for the first time in life… I even caught the cough… there were few frozen blood marks… in the cough…
Next day again… it happened the same… I thought was there something behind it…??? Since then I was some how conscious about myself… I tried to protect myself from cold… Luckily it didn’t happen the third time.
It hadn’t been long our mate Santosh grg’s dad had come to our school as the sport’s teacher. Though it has become easier for us since he was there… as usually he would take over us… being the most senior batch of the time… To enhance us or motivate us for the exercises … and also according to most of the friends will… once a week he scheduled us taking out of the school building… it was fun coming out of school but still it wasn’t enough to satisfy me… I would never want it in any cost.
This year I came tried to come out with something to make the difference… I decided write a novel… a Nepali novel on the fore ground of the typical Nepalese culture, tradition and the society and based on the family story. It was about three sons and a mother… out of all only the youngest who marriages to the widow adopts her before she dies… It ended in twenty-nine pages of the school notebook… Though I had thought to elaborate the story to make it bigger I couldnot proceed it because of the final exams… (Unfortunately I happened to forget the book underneath my bed when I had gone home for winter vacation… After back from home I couldn’t find it … I dicovered in the mean time during our vacation police personnels had been there for few days for the training. They might have displaced it away.)
In about two weeks … we had the finals of our school examination. After then we had the vacation for two weeks… Long two weeks in the cold winter.
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