Death of Rock N Roll
This is the closet you can come to flying. I am standing 1,400 meters from the sea level. The tightly reeled strings are unwinding at the velocity of the wind. My stomach is churning at the sight of the string. The wind is orchestrating its zing. His arm flexes one last time before he throws the bobbin to the floor. He catches the strings and perches them in between his fingers. The strings are invisible on the backdrop of a clear blue sky of the harvesting seasons (asoj). His sight is fixated on the string whirling and sliding amongst each other. Pulling and pushing, the wind wants to stumble his flight. The force of the wind and his body are cascading. He anchors into gravity. “Changa Chet” shouts kaka from the blue terrace of the five-story house. Bringing down the kite of the neighbors to the ground.
Dashain is the biggest festival in Nepal which signifies kali’s victory over evil. In Dashain, we fly kites, gamble and eat a lot of sacrificial meat along with coca cola. Kathmandu is a city filled with compact houses that grow out from each other. They extend their barrandas and terraces to find space to breath into the sky. If you don’t have a good terrace, you gather in your neighbors, friend’s, families. We compete amongst each other to be the only kite soaring freely in the sky. My kaka was the absolute best at flying kites. He had the finest lattai (bobbin), which he preserved throughout the years. The kites were so dear to him as well as his bobbin which he got all the way from India. He gained a lot of satisfaction in his soul through sustenance of materials. He made sure he used every single thread of the lattai. He would patch the torn kites using rice and yet succeed in bringing new kites down to the ground.
The entirety of samsara lies in the view from the terrace. You can see how the sunrises from the vast terrains of the sub-Indian continents and sets behind those army-colored hills. If the mountains are not to play hide and seek, the sun sits perfectly between two perched slopes of the Himalayas. In the high altitudes of the Himalayas, you can perfectly lay on the clouds, the thing I love the most about the terrace (chaat in Nepali).
And a month later, in Tihar (Diwali)only he was allowed to put off fireworks from the terrace. With his male adult Privileges, he would spark and watch the fireworks from a greater height overseeing the valley which would be lit by the string lights of various colors. He lived amongst the mountains of Colorado, DC, Virginia, New York and California. Inter-cast marriage bought the thread of being boycott from the family. So, he abandoned his long time American-Nepali girlfriend. After 12 years in America, he came back with a crocked nose.
It is late 2000’s, cellphones are not a thing in Nepal. We have this weird machine attached to the landline. Figure out it was for international calls exclusively for his phone calls. Everyone is seated at the dining table enjoying the lunch. The landline rings with a single tone played in different note. calling all the way from the dream land it is Satish kaka. Hajurmami (grandmother)picks up the call and immediately panics. He has been robbed at the basketball court and was physically hurt. Now he has a crooked nose which compliments his slightly slanted front teeth. The teeth were stroked with slight brownish tint from the mixture of the cigarettes soot and the chai. Nevertheless, it sparkled whenever he smiled. His words barfed cigarettes. He also loved charcoal for that reason.
In order to take care of family business, to get married and ultimately to make his parents happy, life forced him to return back to Nepal. His marriage ended up being an alliance marriage for business and politics.
on the day of his return, all of our family members went to the airport to get him. The first time I saw him, his face rose up to me like the sun itself. With him he brought America into our family. He bought on rock and roll. He bought his immense love for reggae and jazz fusion which was his source of pure joy. He enjoyed music like a child does. Listening to its every quirk and irk. His hair grew from a shoulder length curled hair to a punky spike and ended with a fade cut from Munna Bhaiya( a local barber in our town).
Laid flat like his hair with the expectations of the society, everything was being laid out flat, ironed and hung in the drawers. He has a widely stretched earlobe piercing that had overtime overcome with the taboo in our family. Growing up did not have to be so painful. Inside these drawers were puzzle pieces of his past or should I say an alternate reality that was not lived. He saved his piercings pieces and his merches from bands like the tools and sex and pistol and his many vans.
“Who are you to wave your finger” buzzes from his phone. The only one thing that did not change in his life throughout was the cellphone’s ringtone. He is the reason all of my cousins listen to The Beatless, Pink Floyd, Nirvana and such. He is the reason we did drugs. A complete trendsetter. He introduced me to Amy Winehouse, The Rolling Stones, Queen who had the biggest influence in my life as a teenager. He was my definition of cool. Our parts manufactured by his completeness. He is the reason I am here. He is the reason I started to dream.
He was a traveler at heart. Even after his return to Nepal, he travelled to places like Mauritius island, to different parts of Europe, India, Philippines etc. He had built an immense love for trekking. As the years rolled on by, he seemed to have lost a spark. The free spirit seemed to be very confined. His dreams and aspirations still found life in his actions. One of his daily routines was always watching national geography or BBC earth. Specifically shows narrated by David Attenborough, his voice created a deep peace within him.
One day before the grey and heavy clouds of the monsoon had arrived, the terrace changed its face. It seemed to me that the onset of monsoon was earlier this year with the global warming. Terrace was a part of Satish kaka’s(uncle) daily hire. Before sunrise, between work breaks and before bedtime, you would find him perched on the edge of the sky-blue circular stairs, with dudh ko chiya(milk chai) in his left hands and a pilot churot ( a brand of cigarette popular in Nepal) in his right. He would fill the emptiness of his days with the colors of the surrounding, views of the mountains and the busy ness of the valley.
Amidst the same old routine, the same festivals that repeat each year on end. The vastness of the sky made him jealous and he started to envy the flights of the birds. He seemed aloof, isolated, shut down. Once he was made punk embracing the darkness. Now, within the limitations of society he had no space. He was slowly becoming the night sky.
Few years after his marriage, him and his wife made long attempts worshipping God in order to bear a child. After seeing no results, He had stopped celebrating Dashain as a resistance to believing. Years later, they succeeded. Now, He has a daughter and a son, Aayana and Aayansh. The way he coped with his life was to live with a constant reminder that he is just an experience.
Even the many rivers of Nepal were rushing him to life’s conclusion. His inner space reached out to the highest of the highest mountains in the world. Within the never-ending existentialism of life. The big question of purpose and calling. His last trek was summiting Macchapuchre.
On that particular stormy day, he decided to seek liberation from the same terrace. His inner space could finally expand infinitely to reach all parts of the world, no borders, no boundaries, no chains, no passports, no visas, to touch every corner of the sky. The truth fell as a wound in his chest, the only cure ever was love. Generations of suffocated veins. The rage that was only ever seeking the fresh breath of childhood. Somewhere he fragmented into the air. Somewhere I feel that he is the rain falling on my shoulders.
I believe that was the day God came to our doorsteps, to answers my prayers for grace to enter my family’s adobe. He lived on the first floor so it was always easier for him to access the front door. This made him the one opening doors for all visitors. The gate was also blue and made from the same steel as the circular stairs of the terrace. From the small cornered window, Hajurmami screams on top of her lungs. It echoes to the front gate, “Satish, dhoka kholde ta! (Satish, go open the doors!)”. With all of his desire to become like the sky, he went to open the door. God took him as a dove on his wings and gave him eternal life. He was once again united with all of the earth.
Even the sun took the whole night to set that day, it was in denial if it should move on, or never rise again.
