THE CONVERSATION (a short fiction)

Ajay Pradhan | April 8, 2011

I woke up earlier than usual today. Normally I sleep in on Saturdays. It was still pre-dawn and even the early birds hadn’t come out of their nest yet to wake the neighbourhood up.

I pulled myself up from my bed, went to the kitchen and made some coffee from the high-Himalayan Nepali Jalpa Gold organic coffee beans that I had recently brought from my trip to Nepal. While the coffee was brewing, I sat down in the living room, mindlessly flipping through TV channels, trying to find something interesting to entertain myself with.

Nothing was, of course, interesting—most channels were still finishing up the graveyard hour mindless infomercials: the Magic Bullet chopper, Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter, Ginsu Knives, and, of course, the George Foreman Grill and the overly promising Bosley Hair Transplant. Maybe I should try out the last one some day. But, who cares about it anymore, I thought. I’m married and my wife is still a little too crazy about me, with thinning hair and all. So, as quickly as the thought of calling Dr. Bosely crept into my brain cells, it vanished.

It was still too early in the morning for the weekend newspapers to be delivered. I yawned, as if bored with myself and with the soft darkness that still hadn’t given way to the early morning sun.

Bored with stolid TV channels and having nothing else to do, I walked into the little room hidden away from the living room. It was my study—a place to nurse my daily need for some solace from all the ills of the world—the wars, corruption, incompetent governments, greedy corporate world, and the consumer-fleecing telecom companies— and for my prized moments of pensive isolation. It afforded me some energy to make feeble attempts at writing, which I have now long been convinced is not my forte.  

A desk occupied one corner of the study, with its side against the wall, just under the sill of the tall and wide window that overlooked the bluff and the bay beyond. I sat in the chair behind the desk, leaning my body against the comfortable backrest of the chair, causing it to lean far back nearly against the custom-made book racks that covered the entire wall behind me, floor-to-ceiling, one end of the wall to the other. The side wall, opposite from the windows, was also covered with matching book racks, full of books—fictions and non-fictions. Directly in front of me, near the door, was a plush couch. Two chairs occupied the space directly in front of the desk, as if I were to receive co-workers or visitors in the office at my work, my day job.

The aroma of coffee wafted from the kitchen, which I had forgotten about. I made my way to the kitchen, giving a quick glance at the wall clock on my way out of the study. It was 4:25 am, way too early for normal, sensible people to wake up on a Saturday morning. The rest of the neighbourhood was sleeping as I returned to the study with a steaming mug of coffee. I looked out the window as I walked around the desk to reach my chair. A distant light glimmered in the dark waters in the bay—a steam ship.

I took in the aroma of the coffee, taking long whiff, but without drinking, making sure that I took full pleasure of both aroma and taste. Sitting down, I realized that I had begun to write something last night, but had stopped without even completing the very first sentence. Procrastination marked much of what I did, especially my writing.

I glanced over the unfinished first sentence: “Jyoti was beautiful and intelligent, but was one of those girls who didn’t…..”

I read the incomplete sentence, took a deep breath, and tried to think of how to complete it. My mind wasn’t quite alert. I took a sip of coffee. I grabbed the pen, still trying to figure out what it is exactly that I wanted to write. I took another sip of coffee, and looked out the window, in the distant darkness, not looking at anything, but only thinking and thinking.

“Stop thinking, and finish what you wanted to write.” A soft female voice jolted me from my deep directionless thought. I rapidly looked around to see who just spoke. There was no one else at home today; my wife and our three children had gone to my in-laws’ for the weekend. I thought to myself, I must have just been imagining.

“I said, stop thinking already. Go ahead, complete the sentence. I want to know what you have on your mind,” the female voice said again.

I was quite alert now, thinking there was an intruder in the house. I looked around but saw no one in the room. I stood from the chair and walked to the living room. No one there, either. I looked out the window, just in case there was somebody looking up at the window from the backyard lawn. It was all very quiet, with no one to be seen.

I returned to my desk and sat on the chair, silently laughing silly at myself for imagining things. Lazily, I grabbed my pen and pulled my notebook closer, thinking of writing from where I had left off last night. As soon as I looked at the notebook, I jumped up, disbelieving what I was seeing.

There on the notebook were the two sentences that I had just heard.

My hands were pressed down on the desk top. My knuckles were ashen white.

What’s happening here, I mumbled to myself. The room was silent.

Looking at the words written on the notebook, I pulled it slowly towards me.

“Hey, don’t get too close. And, don’t get any cute ideas.”

Not knowing what was going on, I blurted out, “What’s going on? Who’s speaking? Somebody using a remote microphone?” I’ll admit I was somewhat unnerved now, a bit shaken, even scared.

No answer. No sound.

“Charlie, Mr. Man, I’ve waited all night long for you to come back and finish writing whatever it is on your mind.”

“Huh? Who’s this? Why do you call me Charlie?” I said, with faint voice, apprehension and incredulity written all over my face.

No answer.

“Charlie, Charlie! C’mon.”

“Whoever it is, can’t you hear? I’m asking who you are.”

“If you’re not going to write, I think I’m going to go back to sleep,” the voice said.

I was a little irritated that my repeated questions were being ignored, but was curious. I asked again, “Who is it? Somebody spying me through a remote camera?”

No response.

I began to look around, under the desk, in the book racks, to see if there was a hidden camera or a speaker. Nothing was out of ordinary.

The voice had stopped. I lifted the mug and took a sip of coffee. It had gone tepid. I stood up, went to the kitchen, poured the tepid coffee in the sink. I quickly rinsed the mug with tap water and filled it up with steaming hot coffee from the coffee maker. I have the habit of rinsing mug even though I’m just going for a refill.

I came back to the study and sat down at my desk. I leaned back and closed my eyes, wondering if the voice would call me again; actually, waiting and hoping it would.

I was feeling lonely. My wife had gone to her parents’ house, her Maiti, yesterday with our three little children for the weekend. I was invited to join them at a family picnic in the afternoon today.

I grabbed the pen, pulled the notebook closer, and completed the sentence: “Jyoti was beautiful and intelligent, but was one of those girls who didn’t care much about her future.”

“No, you’re wrong. Of course, I do.” The voice came back again immediately. “But thanks for completing the sentence. Welcome back, Charlie.”

“Who is it? Who are you?” I said, with my husky voice.

Silence.

“Hey, who the heck is this? Why are you doing this? Staying silent when I ask something. Speaking up when I’m least expecting,” I said again, raising my voice a little.

More silence.

I was a little irritated, a little disappointed that the person, whoever it was, wasn’t interested in engaging in a conversation with me.

I was surprised that I felt resentful and insulted that my questions were being ignored at somebody’s will, somebody who seemed to be playing some kind of mind games with me, remotely through some technology that I had no knowledge of.

In a huff and wanting to avenge the silent treatment that I was receiving by ignoring the voice that had stopped, I grabbed the pen to write again and looked at the paper, just to be completely shocked out of my socks. The sentence that had been spoken earlier was there on the lined page of the notebook, in neat royal blue ink: “No, you’re wrong. Of course, I do. But thanks for completing the sentence. Welcome back, Charlie.”

My hands were trembling, my teeth chattering. Sweat broke out of my forehead and my palms became moist. I felt fainting spell, but before I fell over the desk or to the ground, I grabbed hold of the desk and sat down slowly and firmly in the chair and gathered my thoughts. I paused, staring at the words on the notebook that I had not written. After a long pause, a thought came to my mind: maybe, just maybe, whoever was speaking to me before cannot hear my voice but can see me or read my sentences.

I rubbed dry my moist palms on my pajama thighs, grabbed the pen again, and apprehensively wrote on the notebook: “I must be crazy to be doing this, but I have to ask, who are you?”

“Jyoti, of course.” I saw the words appear on the notebook.

“Jyoti who?” I wrote down quickly.

“Don’t act innocent. You created me.”

“I don’t even know you. What’s your last name?”

“I’m sure you know me; I think what you know is somewhere in the back of your mind. Or maybe you’re right, you just don’t know me yet beyond my first name, but I’m sure soon enough you will know me. Why’re you asking my last name? You haven’t given me one yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“You started it all. Now you give me a last name, if you want.”

“Okay, how about Hammerschmidt? Jyoti Hammerschmidt? You just seem to know how to keep hammering your demands at me.” I asked with a soft voice.

She didn’t reply.

I wrote on the notebook, “How about Jyoti Hammerschmidt?”

“I don’t like that name,” pat came the reply, all written in ink on the notebook, below my own sentence.

I took a little pause to think and then wrote: “Are you deaf?”

This time the answer took a little longer to come: “You are mean and insensitive.”

“Why? I’ve been called many things, but not mean or insensitive,” I wrote.

“You are my creator, my author. I’m your character. You are determined to portray me as a deaf. And, if I am really deaf, why do you have to remind me of my deafness by asking if I’m deaf?. That’s hurtful.”

I read her lines and felt strangely stupid. I wrote, “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Tell me about you,” I wrote down.

“It’s all in your head. You just need to find me there.”

“What do you look like exactly?”

“What do I know, my creator? You tell me. But first give me a nice last name, so I don’t have to feel stupid every time somebody reads about me and asks what my last name is. But I’m not going to be a Hammerschmidt or a Nailschmidt. Give me a nice Nepali name.”

“Jyoti Tuladhar. Like it?”

“I kind of like it, thank you. Hi, I’m Jyoti Tuladhar. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Charlie….,” She trailed off, and wrote again, “By the way, what’s your last name?”

“Brown. Call me Charlie Brown.”

“That sounds like a cartoon character.”

“How would you know? You’re just my creation, a figment of imagination.”

“I’m a story character. Charlie Brown is a cartoon character. I know that, because I dwell in your brain. I go wherever you go. I see whatever you see.”

“If you’re suggesting I’ve been thinking about you for a very long time, you’re wrong. You just came into my mind last night, when I was all by myself, lonely, and bored to do anything else. You know what, you don’t even exist,” I wrote. I took a pause and added, “Actually, I might just throw this paper that I’m writing on in my waste paper basket. Heck, I may even feed it through the shredder. And then that’ll be the end of it all. You will cease to exist for me.”

“How cruel.” The two words appeared on the paper, below mine. I noted that the ink was bleeding.

“Are you crying?” I wrote.

“What’s it to you if I’m crying? You are heartless.”

“Look, I’m sorry. But, I haven’t even written beyond the first sentence and I don’t know what to write. I don’t think I want to write even.”

“Of course, you will write, I know that. You’re a writer. It’s in your blood. You’re a wordsmith.”

“Heck with wordsmith, swordsmith. I’m not a good writer. I can’t think of writing anything interesting. Besides, you’re disturbing me,” I wrote.

“Why don’t you write something romantic? A romantic short story, maybe?”

“I hate romantic stories and novels. The only romance I like is the one with my wife.”

“Hmm, Charlie, by the way, how old are you?” Jyoti wrote.

“What does it matter? I’m married, with three kids.”

“How old?”

“Eight, five and three.”

“Silly, I meant your age, not your children’s. But, thanks for letting me in on their age. And, don’t worry, I’m not going to ask your wife’s age.”

“I’m 36, but what does it matter?”

“And how old am I?” Jyoti wrote.

"God, what’s with this age thing? Why are you asking? I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”

“You’re my creator, you’re a writer. You invented me. Don’t forget.”

“You’re 28, okay! No, I take that back, you’re a 12 year-old kid. Not even a teenager. You’re so immature.”

“I rather like your first thought. I like 28.”

“Fine, 28 or 48, for that matter. What does it matter?”

“Why are you upset? I’m just trying to have a conversation here,” Jyoti wrote.

“Hey, why did you call me Charlie in the first place? I don’t think I ever told you my name. In fact, that’s not even my name.”

“Look at the cover of the notebook. It says ‘Charlie’s Notebook’”

I looked. “It’s just a brand, silly.”

“Then what’s your name?”

“You can keep calling me Charlie Brown.”

“No, please, I want to know.”

“I’m Samrat Upadhyay.”

“I saw that name on the cover of a book you were reading last night. I don’t think you’re the author of that book.”

“What’s the basis of you opinion?” I felt stung at being told the bitter truth.

“If you were the author of that book, you wouldn’t be reading it, Sir.”

“Alright, you got me there. My name is Deepak Sthapit.”

“I think that’s a cute name.”

“Why, thank you,” I wrote.

“At least you could say you’re pleased to meet me. How impolite.”

“Pleased to meet you. Happy?”

“Yes. I want to giggle and laugh, but don’t know how.”

“What do you mean you don’t know how? Just giggle and laugh, like everyone else.”

“Emotions are hard to show on paper, if you didn’t know.”

“Am I a writer or are you a writer?” I wrote.

“You tell me.”

“You know what, you do think like a writer.”

“But I’m not. It’s you who are the writer.” She wrote.

“So, who are you? I mean, what are you?”

“I’m just your story’s character.”

“But, what do you do? Tell me about your life,” I wrote.

“I thought you were going to write about that. Remember, your first sentence of the story was ‘Jyoti was beautiful and intelligent, but was one of those girls who didn’t…..’”

All of a sudden, I broke free from my conversational reverie with the character of my own story. I read and re-read my first line.

“Do you want me to write the story then?” I asked with a soft voice.

Silence.

I wrote down the question, “Do you want me to write the story?”

“No, let’s just keep talking. I’m not interested in your story,” Jyoti replied on the notebook.

“I’ll warn you, I’m not much of a conversationalist.”

“You just have to be intelligent, talk intelligent. That’s all I want in you.”

“What do you mean you want that in me? It’s not like I’m your friend or boyfriend,” I wrote down.

“But you can be my friend or even boyfriend, can’t you? Maybe we can go out on a date, tonight. Do you want to go on a date with me?” Jyoti asked.

“Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute here. Stop this nonsense. I’m married. I’m a happily married man, with three kids. Thank you for asking. But no thank you. I love my wife.”

“I was just testing you… and teasing you,” Jyoti wrote.

“Oh, is that right, huh? You know what, if you test me and tease me like that again, you’ll end up in the paper shredder or in my fireplace.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to test you or tease you anymore. Once is enough. But, you know what, you could use some sense of humor, if you ask me.”

“I don’t need your opinion,” I blurted, and wrote, “But, I hope you’re not judgmental, Jyoti. Hey, thanks for the conversation. But I have to run. Just realized it’s already 9 am and I have to go meet my wife at my in-laws’ We have a family picnic today. I’m getting late” I lied. I was invited at my in-laws’, but I didn’t have to get there until after 1 pm.

“Deepak, you just called me by my name for the first time. And I loved it. Before you go, can I just ask you one question?”

“Sure, Jyoti. What is it you want to know?”

“Before we began to have this conversation, what were you going to write really? What kind of story did you have in mind?”

I thought about Jyoti’s question for a good few minutes, and wrote: “Why don’t we leave that for our next conversation? I’m late already.”

I closed the notebook and ran from the room. In my haste, I bumped my toe on the doorway. I flinched with pain. Just at that time, my alarm went off and I woke from dream.

Snoopy, my puppy dog, was licking my toe, trying to wake me up for his breakfast. It was 9 am.

[The End]

Note: 

I wrote this short fiction four years ago. It was submitted to The Malahat Review , a literary journal published from Victoria, Canada, for Far Horizons Award for Fiction in 2011, but did not win the award. 

(http://www.malahatreview.ca/contests/contests_info.html)

It was later published in NCSBC Newsmagazine as "Conversation with Jyotika".

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Pointing Fingers at Wrong Direction

Published in The Republica (Nepal's broadsheet daily newspaper), January 20, 2010.

http://archives.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=14247

	Pointing fingers at wrong direction
	AJAY PRADHAN “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and hence clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” - HL Mencken When Mencken, the celebrated American essayist, journalist, satirist and acerbic critic of American life and culture, who died in 1956 at the age of 75, wrote the above quote, it seems as if he had a premonition about Nepal’s current politicians. Nepal’s contemporary politics is fast becoming a fairy tale of nightmare. Everyone has a tale to tell. In every tale, the hobgoblin is the country’s southern neighbor that often creates trouble for Nepal. For every trouble in every tale, many of ours index fingers seem to be automatically pointing towards India—as though India is to our north and our index finger is the compass needle. India is our southern neighbor and friend that we can’t live without. However, it is also a neighbor, at times, we love to hate with passion. Such seems to be the image of India, permanently etched in our national psyche—an image of a friendly but troublesome creature, just like the hobgoblins in the Seelie court of popular folktales. Such seems to be our indelible national psyché. It is the Nepali political leaders who mortgage the country’s dignity and run to New Delhi whenever the going gets tough. Our fairytale political ‘leaders’ from every political Seelie courts i.e. political parties of every stripe and color have done everything possible to create this national psyché. The purpose is simple. It is to keep the populace alarmed about a perceived threat from India and to keep it in unreasonable fear for being shielded from the mostly imaginary threat. say imaginary, not because there is no threat at all, but because the significance of internal threat that ignites within Nepal is potentially more lethal for Nepal’s integrity than of external threat from India. It is the Nepali political leaders who mortgage the country’s dignity and run to New Delhi whenever the going gets tough for them. Seemingly, dignified leadership has become all but a big farce. There is no leadership to speak of. There is a vacuum of leadership. Why else are the politicians treating the Constituent Assembly (CA), which we had to wait for nearly 60 long years to get after it was first promised by King Tribhuvan, as though it were merely a regular legislature? It is too bad that the political leaders were too shortsighted to saddle the CA with the twin burden of governing and re-writing a new constitution, when the CA should have been elected with the sole mandate of writing the constitution, leaving the task of governing the country for a separate, interim political mechanism. It is worse that the politicians and the purveyors of democracy and people’s interest are shackling the feet of the CA and preventing it from moving forward. The lack of political vision, statesmanship, pragmatic strategy, and perpetual ineptness in governing and apathy for common concerns can only be hidden from people’s eyes by baiting common Nepalis on a perceived threat from India. This is the purpose why the inept political leaders who have ruled Nepal throw dust in the eyes of the common citizens by blaming India for Nepal’s every foible. By doing so, they each must share the blame for surrendering country’s dignity and accepting India as their master. And, what do we, the people, do about this? Do we show outrage towards our inept politicians who have hidden agenda? No. We do nothing to make our leaders accountable. Instead, we allow our index fingers automatically point towards India, when we should be pointing them to our own leaders in Nepal. ajayspradhan@gmail.com
Published on 2010-01-20 00:30:05 LATEST COMMENTS writer is absolutely correct. we the people are being misinformed and led astray by our very own elected leaders and it is a sad thing. we the people ca only elect them but we should also have the power to boot them out if they become a nuisance. blame game doesnot benefit any body and only positive action on the part of people can set things right.[more] - ykbhattarai It is amazing how the author of this article is pointing fingers at a wrong direction himself. it is not the leaders that are to be blamed for the political chaos that surrounds the country right now. truth be told the Nepalese populous lacks political literacy, it lacks a will for progress and development, and finally it lacks a vision for a better Nepal. however we are really efficient like the author of this article at pointing fingers towards others. It is we, who are to be blamed because fo [more] - Aman makaju Ajaya Ji: Nice to see your analytical, short and sweet article. It has been a dilemma that after our leaders fail in governance, they blame others for own failure. Earlier it was a trend to blame to the royal palace, then the trend descends down at the party level and now to India. Though no political party is fair, some political party likes to land rockets on others´ foreheads. If its political cadre kills someone, this party constitutes a commission and concludes something funny. No[more] - K. Bhujel All comments

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Driven by Passion, Guided by Wisdom

Ajay Pradhan | February 26, 2011

The looming federal government shutdown in the U.S. sends me down the memory lane, back to the 1995/96 government shutdown in America. The episode taught me a lesson—about passion and wisdom, the two defining characteristics of a successful leader. I think it is a lesson that we, in communities small and large, can benefit from.

I remember the year 1995 vividly. It had already been two years since I had traded the balmy piedmont of North Carolina for the amber flatlands of Indiana.

President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was in the penultimate year of the first term of his Presidency. Newt Gingrich, a Republican, had become the Speaker earlier in the year, ending 40 years of Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, touting to the voters the Republican legislative agenda, the Contract with America.

Gingrich and his Republican colleagues vowed to implement the controversial legislative agenda that called for sweeping budget cuts in social programs like Medicare, public health, education, and the environment.

When the Republican-controlled Congress sent the budget bill laced with deep cuts to the social programs to President Clinton, he immediately vetoed it, saying that the cuts would hurt the average Americans.

In retaliation, Gingrich and his fiercely loyal conservative colleagues threatened the President that if he didn’t pass the budget bill, they would shut the federal government down rather than repeal the cuts from the budget.

If that happened, the Republicans warned Clinton, his Presidency and political career would be over.

Republicans expected the President to buckle under their pressure. He didn’t.

Republicans shut the federal government for five days in November 1995 and for three weeks in December 1995 to January 1996. Non-essential services were shut down and non-essential federal government employees were furloughed during the time the government was shut down.

Gingrich and his uncompromising Republican congressional colleagues were driven by passion – passion to cut social spending, in order to keep the corporate taxes low, never mind if it hurt the average Americans. It was a purely conservative ideological agenda.

Interestingly, to the dismay of Gingrich and contrary to his expectation, Clinton’s popularity soared and his own popularity plummeted in the public opinion polls. Public outrage was clearly against Gingrich. The public saw him as an arrogant, uncompromising and bellicose politician.

Clinton, whose popularity had gone down to low levels earlier in the 1994 mid-term congressional elections, regained his popularity—in fact, his popularity went through the roofs—and easily won the second term to his Presidency in the 1996 Presidential election.

Gingrich’s dream faltered, because he was simply driven by passion, but wasn’t guided by wisdom.

For a leader to be successful, it’s not enough for him to be driven by passion. His actions have to be guided by wisdom and his behavior tempered by tolerance and pragmatism.

One can be intelligent and educated, but still be unwise in actions and decisions. One can hold a leadership position, but still may not be able to be a true leader.

The one and only ability that a true leader must have is the ability to convince others to follow him, embrace his ideas. It’s not enough for him to limit his sphere of influence to a limited group of followers. It’s not enough to be a dreamer; one needs to be pragmatic and have the guts to cut across dividing lines.

To convince a diverse group of people with diverse sets of ideas to follow him, he must be open-minded. He must understand that diversity in ideas is not a weakness; it’s strength.

In simple words, he must have a big enough heart to acknowledge and respect ideas that may not necessarily conform to his own.

He must not—not ever, never—out of frustration, dismiss opposing viewpoints; let alone dismiss them with offensive and disparaging remarks, as did Gingrich when he defined Clinton as his adversary that he dreamed of sending into oblivion. In the end, Gingrich earned the label of a most uncompromising, haughty, condescending, arrogant, and dislikeable American politician in the modern history.

A leader that descends to the level of dispensing absurd, indecent, disparaging remarks on those who question his vision must correct his behavior… or step aside.

No matter how genuine his passion is for the causes he believes in, if it is only passion that he has to give, and not wisdom, then he cannot lead.

The cause is not as important as the trust of the people that he is trying to champion the cause for.

It is not enough for a leader to be driven by passion; he must be guided by wisdom.

An uncompromising, narrow-minded Gingrich with a passion for conservative ideology may be able to shut the government down, but that passion is not enough to win the trust of the people and lead them towards his cause.

It’s for each of us to decide, in our own places in little communities and larger society, whether we only want to blindly push for a cause when we are not wiling to let our minds guide our actions. 

Note: 

This article was published in The Republica (daily broadsheet newspaper published from Kathmandu) on March 16, 2011. The Republica article may have been edited and is copied/pasted below.

http://archives.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=28915

	Driven by passion, guided by wisdom
	AJAY PRADHAN The looming federal government shutdown in the US sends me down the memory lane, back to the 1995/96 government shutdown in America. The episode taught me a lesson—about passion and wisdom, the two defining characteristics of a successful leader. I think it is a lesson that we, in communities small and large, can benefit from. I remember the year 1995 vividly. It had already been two years since I had traded the balmy piedmont of North Carolina for the amber flatlands of Indiana. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was in the penultimate year of the first term of his Presidency. Newt Gingrich, a Republican, had become the Speaker earlier in the year, ending 40 years of Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives, touting to the voters the Republican legislative agenda, the Contract with America. Gingrich and his Republican colleagues vowed to implement the controversial legislative agenda that called for sweeping budget cuts in social programs like Medicare, public health, education, and the environment. When the Republican-controlled Congress sent the budget bill laced with deep cuts to the social programs to President Clinton, he immediately vetoed it, saying that the cuts would hurt the average Americans. In retaliation, Gingrich and his fiercely loyal conservative colleagues threatened the President that if he didn’t pass the budget bill, they would shut the federal government down rather than repeal the cuts from the budget. If that happened, the Republicans warned Clinton, his Presidency and political career would be over. Republicans expected the President to buckle under their pressure. He didn’t. Republicans shut the federal government for five days in November 1995 and for three weeks in December 1995 to January 1996. Non-essential services were shut down and non-essential federal government employees were furloughed during the time the government was shut down. Gingrich and his uncompromising Republican congressional colleagues were driven by passion – passion to cut social spending, in order to keep the corporate taxes low, never mind if it hurt the average Americans. It was a purely conservative ideological agenda. Interestingly, to the dismay of Gingrich and contrary to his expectation, Clinton’s popularity soared and his own popularity plummeted in the public opinion polls. Public outrage was clearly against Gingrich. The public saw him as an arrogant, uncompromising and bellicose politician. Clinton, whose popularity had gone down to low levels earlier in the 1994 mid-term congressional elections, regained his popularity—in fact, his popularity went through the roofs—and easily won the second term to his Presidency in the 1996 Presidential election. Gingrich’s dream faltered, because he was simply driven by passion, but wasn’t guided by wisdom. No matter how genuine a leader´s passion is for the causes he believes in, if it is only passion that he has to give, and not wisdom, then he cannot lead. The cause is not as important as the trust of the people that he is trying to champion the cause for. For a leader to be successful, it’s not enough for him to be driven by passion. His actions have to be guided by wisdom and his behavior tempered by tolerance and pragmatism. One can be intelligent and educated, but still be unwise in actions and decisions. One can hold a leadership position, but still may not be able to be a true leader. The one and only ability that a true leader must have is the ability to convince others to follow him, embrace his ideas. It’s not enough for him to limit his sphere of influence to a limited group of followers. It’s not enough to be a dreamer; one needs to be pragmatic and have the guts to cut across dividing lines. To convince a diverse group of people with diverse sets of ideas to follow him, he must be open-minded. He must understand that diversity in ideas is not a weakness; it’s strength. In simple words, he must have a big enough heart to acknowledge and respect ideas that may not necessarily conform to his own. He must not—not now, not ever—out of frustration or otherwise, dismiss opposing viewpoints; let alone dismiss them with offensive and disparaging remarks, as did Gingrich when he defined Clinton as his adversary that he dreamed of sending into oblivion. In the end, Gingrich earned the label of a most uncompromising, haughty, condescending, arrogant, and dislikeable American politician in the modern history. A leader that descends to level of dispensing absurd, indecent, disparaging remarks on those who question his vision must correct his behavior or step aside. No matter how genuine his passion is for the causes he believes in, if it is only passion that he has to give, and not wisdom, then he cannot lead. The cause is not as important as the trust of the people that he is trying to champion the cause for. An uncompromising, narrow-minded Gingrich with a passion for conservative ideology may be able to shut the government down, but that passion is not enough to win the trust of the people and lead them towards his cause. It’s for each of us to decide, in our own places in little communities and larger society, whether we only want to blindly push for a cause when we are not wiling to let our minds guide our actions. ajayspradhan@gmail.com
Published on 2011-03-06 01:00:29

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The Deceiving Light

Ajay Pradhan

November 27, 2010

In the cold darkness of the night, 

she wandered and got lost.

Flickering light from a distant lamp

beckoned her in the nightly gust. 

With hope, towards it she rushed,
flapping her lustrous, mottled wings;
only to meet with her lurking death
on the hot surface of the porch lamp.
In the end, it was light, not darkness,
that deceived the poor butterfly.

 

Note:
Inspiration to write this poem came when I was at a hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba at a wintry night (Yeah, in winters, people call the city Winterpeg) in 2010. I was there for a training at the University of Manitoba. The city was covered with thick blanket of snow. I was done for the day and was back at my hotel. It was a little too early to go to bed. So, I stood by the window and took in the wintry view. I saw a lamp post, with moths hovering around the light, some of them falling dead apparently due to the hot light bulb.

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Nepal Shall Rise Again

By Ajay Pradhan | May 2, 2015

A quake that struck
In a land that's far
Where the earth that shook
As in times of war

Oh, the Nature's power
Reduced to rubbles
The Dharahara Tower
And magnificent temples

Many a small houses
And buildings tall
Crumbled and collapsed
Crushing helpless souls

All that I could do
Was watch, horrified
With a heart that broke
And a mind, terrified

The chest that heaved
The throat that choked
Knees that wobbled
And tears that flowed

Distressed for the safety
Of the loved ones there
After many a frantic calls
Did I learn, safe they were all

But a week has passed, and
The heart is in desolation
As the more that I learn
Of the terrible devastation

Such is the pain
In the fragile heart
And unsettling agony
In mind's every part

From the nation in pain
I feel bad that I am far
But my motherland is always
Right in my heart

Though shaken is my soul
And my broken heart cries
I know that it'll heal again
As surely shall Nepal rise

Note: 

I am reactivating "Humanature Journal" blog after a hiatus of five years. Last week's major earthquake in Nepal has opened a floodgates of emotions in me, which I think and hope will become expressed through my words.

I had closed the blog from the public for personal and professional reasons in 2010. I have retained some of the blog entries from until 2010 and I have removed from public view many others.

In the coming days, I will post on this blog some other pieces I wrote and posted on social media during the hiatus in the coming days.

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Book Review: “Sister of My Heart”, a Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

By Ajay Pradhan | February 15, 2010

This is a late review. The book was published eleven years ago in 1999 by Doubleday. Yet, I hadn’t heard of the author until this month, even though I have seen the movie “Mistress of Spices”, based on her novel by the same title. After reading the book, I read a number of reviews of the novel. I wanted to see what other readers, critics and reviewers thought of the novel, especially the author’s style. Most reviews I read gave positive review of the novel and extolled the
author’s gift of writing. But, I didn’t find in those reviews what I was looking for—her style and the beautiful employment of fiction metaphors and similes. Therefore, I decided to write this review.

The story is about two young women, Anju and Sudha, who are cousins, who grow up together, and who are born on the same day, the day both of their fathers die in suspicious circumstances in the predator-infested thick mangrove jungles of the Sundarbans. Despite the element of mystery and curiosity about the death of the fathers, this is not a mystery novel. It’s not a genre or popular fiction. It’s far from being a commercial fiction. The circumstances of the girls’ fathers’ death, therefore, is not the main line of the story, but only a critical foundation which thrusts the two girls to a lifetime of bonding as it does their mothers, Gouri Ma and Aunt N, and an aunt, Pishi, who all live in the same house as a close-knit family. With fathers dead and no other male members in the family, the upper-class Calcutta family of three women and two girls forms the central unit of the story. The story is about the relationship and bonding between Anju and Sudha, whose love and affection for each other is full of selfless sacrifice, open truthfulness, mutual dependence, cathartic devotion, and, at times, with slight jealousy. The author adeptly traces the story of the two young women from their childhood to their womanhood, as told in first-person narrative alternately by Anju and Sudha. Each is the sister of the heart of the other.

This review is, however, not so much about the story itself as it is about the author’s writing style. The novel is a literary fiction. The story is driven, as are all literary fictions, more by characters than by plot. Some acerbic commentators hint that literary fiction is a neologism and, despite the poetic and lyrical metaphors and similes that enhance the elegance of prose, makes the story unreadable. Notwithstanding, the generally accepted notion that literary fiction is the work of superior intellectual mettle than are those of genre, popular or commercial fiction. I do not agree that literary fiction is mostly unreadable. I believe those who make such harsh and unfair judgment are those who wish to read in literary fiction what are essentially the domain of commercial or genre fiction—stories essentially driven by plot. I do not imply that genre or commercial fiction are any less better (I actually enjoy them, whether Frederick Forsyth’s international political and crime intrigues or John Grisham’s legal suspense in the suburbia of America); I only say that Divakaruni’s work stands in a category that is obviously different from commercial fiction.

Divakaruni artfully tells the story in narratives full of similes and metaphors. Her prose is lyrical and is poetic. Divakaruni’s liberal and artful use of metaphors, which is mostly used in poetry, paints the story with a poet’s mind. She is, in fact, an award-winning poet (which I learn from the author’s introduction in the book). Divakaruni’s prose reads like poetry, even without verse. Her use of trope or figure of speech, while making sure they don’t sound trite, makes the story warm and pleasurable reading.

Divakaruni is an exceptional writer. But, of course, she is not the first literary fiction writer who liberally uses metaphors as prose style. Norman Mailer, a literary giant, for example, is a master storyteller who packs metaphors in his stories. Divakaruni’s use of metaphors, drama and passionately living characterization reveal her exquisite cognitive ability to observe or imagine lives in intimate and rich details and tell them in a way that makes readers feel they are not only observing a story but are, in fact, in the story. Her ability to engage readers is amazing.

One of Divakaruni’s unique style is that she creates her own metaphors that are at once meaningful to readers, instead of using the ones that have existed and been used by others (e.g., “bright as pomegranate juice” to describe a smile, or “my mouth is crowded with gravel” to describe how the narrator feels the need to retort to something she doesn’t like, or “the sun paints the wall golden” to tell the reader that the sun has shone in the room, or “smooth as molasses” to describe the smoothness of spoken words). This metaphorology is Divakaruni’s gift to readers, in addition to the story itself. This style adds additional dimension to Divakaruni’s skill as an author—that of a linguist using semiotics, symbolism and, to some extent, mysticism of words and phrases. She deftly spares the readers of archaism in her style, maintaining the high level of reader engagement and interest from beginning to the end. She elevates the work of storytelling to an art form.

Divakaruni weaves into the story elements of conflict as part of the story structure that keeps the readers engaged. The conflicts in her story are based more on characters than on plots. As a reader, I felt as though I was in the same room while the protagonists were engrossed in conversation, oblivious of my presence. She introduces element of curiosity, if not mystery, into the story in the early part of the story as a conflict that she resolves only near the end of the story (when Sudha, along with her infant daughter, Dayita, are on their plane flight to America). Between this early conflict and the eventual resolution, there is a lot of action in characterization. The characters in her story drive the plot.

This is Divakaruni's first and only novel that I’ve had the pleasure of reading so far. It’s an emotional story that has an intellectual impact like such that a linguist and author with rich imagination can make. I liked the book for its warmth depiction of female bonding amidst complexities of life and wondered why I hadn’t heard of the author before, much less read any of her novels. Although literary fictions are not the primary source of information about cross-cultures; this novel provides a literary vehicle for cross-cultural readers to understand and enjoy Bengali culture and society in Calcutta.

When I completed reading the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if Sudha was going to return to Calcutta from her sojourn to America. The novel stood well on its own as a complete story; but there are several strands that I couldn’t help but wonder about how they would progress. I wanted to know what would happen to Singhji and whether Sudha would see him again and how she would feel if she did. I wanted to know what would happen to the trinity of women in the family, Gouri Ma, Aunt Nalini and Pishi. And, of course, most of all, I wanted to know what would happen to Ashok, the man Sudha loved but sacrificed not once but twice—for Anju, the sister of her heart.

Before I close this review, I must say one thing. I have the bad habit of reading multiple books simultaneously. When I started reading this book, I had already read about a hundred pages of “The Hungry Tide”, a novel by Amitav Ghosh. I found the story too enjoyable to put the book down and go back to Ghosh’s book. As much as I was enjoying Ghosh's book, too, it just had to wait.

After reading the novel, when I found out that Divakaruni wrote a sequel to the story later, “The Vine of Desire” in 2002, I couldn’t help but feel good. I immediately started looking forward to reading it. After one book, I have become a Divakaruni fan. She is a brilliant storyteller.

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The Fog House - Part 2

By Ajay Pradhan | January 15, 2010

As Peter jogged with Zoë in the park, he sensed something was wrong when he saw several cops huddled near the cliff overlooking the ravine.

“I wonder what the cops are doing here this early in the morning. I’ve never seen them here before,” Peter, slightly breathless, said to Zoë.

“Something seems to be wrong,” said Zoë, looking in the direction of the policemen.

“Let’s go check out,” said Peter.

“But, Pete, should we really? We don’t have a whole lot of time today.”

“Come on, ZoZo; let’s just see quickly if there is anything they need help with.”

“Let’s make it real quick, then. We might be interfering if we linger on.”

The area was barricaded with police tape and the police were not answering any question or providing any information. They were stopping people at random and interrogating them.

One policeman approached Peter and Zoë and asked, “Hi, I’m Inspector Deepak Gurung. Do you live in this area?”

“We don’t live very far from here,” said Peter. What’s the matter, Officer?"

The policeman ignored Peter’s question, “Do you come to this park often? When was the last time you were here?”

“We’ve been coming here every morning this past week. Is something wrong?”

“Have you witnessed any incident here recently? Any screams? Any assault? Any fights or scuffles? Anyone injured? Any backpackers?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“And who is she?” The policeman asked Peter, looking at Zoë.

“She’s my fiancée.”

“Give me your names and contact information. Both of you. We will contact you if we think it is necessary.”

After writing down their names and contact information, the policeman handed Peter a business card and said, “If you recall seeing anything out of ordinary, give us a call. You may go now.”

“What’s wrong, Officer? Is somebody hurt?” Zoë asked, before walking away.

“You just leave now.”

Peter and Zoë departed from the park.

~

Earlier in the morning around six-thirty, an anonymous phone call had tipped the police about bodies of what appeared to be two young women at the bottom of the ravine. When policemen came to the scene, they found the area pretty much undisturbed except for a backpack, a pair of broken sunglasses, and wallet with approximately two-hundred dollars and ten-thousand rupees in cash.

When the police arrived at the scene early in the morning, a thick fog hung over the ravine and obscured a clear view. They could not spot the bodies down in the ravine. When the fog started to lift up, they could spot the bodies with the help of binoculars from the rocky ledge. Four policemen were preparing to climb down to the bottom of the ravine by a rope ladder approximately fifty feet below the ledge. The park-side shoulder of the cliff overlooking the ravine was secured by two lines of barbed wire to prevent unsuspecting park visitors from walking to the edge of the cliff and falling off to a near certain death. The ravine bottom was rocky that formed the bed for strong currents of waters cascading down with enormous force. Only sheer magic or a divine intervention could save anyone falling off the cliff.

Inspector Gurung of the Special Homicide Department of Nepal Police led the taskforce to investigate what appeared to be a case of double homicide. Several police detectives and forensic specialists were inspecting and searching the area for evidence and taking pictures and collecting any relevant specimens.

Four policemen had reached the bottom of the ravine with the help of body harness and rope ladder. Bodies of two young women lay on rough rock and boulder surfaces approximately twenty feet from each other. The bodies appeared to belong to approximately nineteen to twenty year-old Nepali women. Based on their facial features, they could have been either twins or sisters only a year or two apart. When the policemen had completed taking pictures of the bodies and the scene and collected any tell-tale evidence, they prepared to lift the bodies with the help of body bags harnessed by ropes up the cliff to the waiting team of policemen in the park above. At that time they spotted a third body partly submerged in the riffle of water obscured by a large rock formation, approximately thirty feet from the second body. This too was a female body, belonging to a Caucasian woman approximately thirty years old. After making sure that those were the only bodies present at the scene, the policemen lifted the body up to the park surface. Then they climbed up to the surface by rope-ladder.

The bodies were handed over to the coroner and forensic specialists for detailed investigation. The preliminary inspection of the bodies established that the death was caused by gunshot wounds in the chest of all three women.

Back in his office, Inspector Gurung had one of the Sub-Inspectors prepare the preliminary crime scene report for records and submission to his immediate boss, Deputy Superintendent of Police Kamal Mudbhari. The DSP wanted the report by five o’clock; he was flying with his family to Kathmandu that evening to attend a family event.

~

In the evening, Peter’s parents and his sister accompanied Peter and Zoë to Pokhara Airport to see them off. His two old friends were also there to see him off.

Peter’s sister Kirti said, “Da, the next time we see you and Zoë, it’ll be for your wedding. I can’t wait for your wedding.”

Peter smiled at Kirti, and looked at Zoë. “Neither can I.”

Peter’s mom, Tula, who was always emotional at times of goodbyes, wiped a tear. “I’m glad you two could come home to celebrate Dashain this year. It has been three years since the last Dashain when we were together.”

Peter’s dad, retired major Khadga Man Serchan, was nostalgic. He said to Peter, “You remember that Dashain in 1982 after I returned to Hong Kong from the Falklands War, when you were merely five years old? We came to Nepal for our vacation.”

“Yes, of course, Dad. How could I ever forget that?”

The retired major turned to Zoë and said, “Has Peter ever told you about it? We were all having fun flying kites on the top floor terrace. The top floor terrace still didn’t have the railings then. Both Peter and I fell backwards down to the second floor terrace. It was our big fortune that Peter’s mom had just placed bales of hay to dry there; otherwise we’d have broken quite a few bones.” He started chuckling.

“Yes, he’s told me about it several times,” Zoë said, smiling.

“And, you know, I have never forgotten and will never forget this. The first thing Peter said was, ‘Dad, are you okay?’” Peter’s Dad’s eyes were moist as he patted the son’s back with is hands.

~

The retired major’s mind drifted back twenty-eight years to the year when Britain and Argentina fought a war over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina.

That was the first war Britain was involved in after the World War II. The Gorkha Brigade of the British Army had earned a reputation as a brigade of fearless fighters during the World War. A Gorkha Brigade battalion was ordered to go to war on the Falkland Islands. Khadga Man Serchan was a sergeant at the time, with a young family. He was one of the Gorkha soldiers assigned to go to the war. His youngest child, Kirti, was not even two.

When Khadga Man broke the news about the impending conscription to the war, Tula was distressed and couldn’t think of anything to do or say for a moment. She was quite concerned for her husband. Wars are never easy on the family of even the most determined soldiers. Khadga Man and Tula had young children. She was concerned for them. But mostly she was very worried for the safety of her husband.

“I have two days to get ready. The battalion leaves in three days.”

“For how long?” asked Tula, hesitantly and barely audible.

Khadga Man looked in her eyes, then looked out the windows, and whispered after a palpable pause, “Who knows?”

“God be with you. And my prayers will always be with you.”

He took her hand in his and said, “I think it’d be better if you went to Nepal while I’m gone than staying here without any family.”

Three days later Tula left Hong Kong for Nepal with three young children. Her husband left with his battalion for the uncertain war on Falklands Islands.

~

Nine weeks into the war, one day on the South Sandwich Island, one of the three disputed islands, the other two being Falkland Islands and South Georgia Islands, Sergeant Serchan saved a local woman and her five year old boy from being killed by a salvo of artillery assault. Serchan was thinking of his own family, his two little boys and the baby girl, when he saved the mother and the little boy.

The mother belonged to a local resistance group that sided with Argentina. Sergeant Serchan had essentially saved an enemy—enough of a crime for him to be put through a court marital by the British Army.

During the court martial, the military prosecution questioned his loyalty to the British Army: “Your job was to kill the enemies, not save them. Why did you save them?”

“Because I’m a fighter, not a killer.”

The military judge quickly dismissed the disloyalty charge, and ordered that Sergeant Serchan be released from naval detention with full honors and dignity.

[To be continued...]

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