Do you ever dream where your reality and the sub-conscious blur… your past and present blur… your memories and moments blur… into something unknown? Meow.
I woke up. With a terrible headache. The sun was already inside my apartment, uninvited. It must have been well past noon. I lay there in bed for a while, trying to piece together the night before. But sometimes your memories have a way of slipping away from you, doesn’t it? Or most mornings, in my case.
My apartment was a mess. Books stacked in corners and on the floor – Murakami, Hemingway, Nagarkoti. Dusty vinyl records sat in the other corner – Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Bob Dylan. I had not played them in weeks. Maybe months? I have no clue.
I lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling. The fan spun slowly, as if it could not decide whether to work or not.
I could hear Kathmandu beyond my thin walls.
Horns. Voices. Bells.
The city does not wait for anyone. It exists loudly, beautifully, indifferently.
“Meow!”
Mr. Robert Frost had arrived.
“Mr. Robert Frost?”
Yes, the black cat. He came and went as he pleased. My silent companion amidst the mess of this apartment and the chaos of this city. But I never knew where he slept or who else fed him.
One quiet Sunday, I had been reading my favourite Robert Frost poem when he appeared at the window. I looked at him and asked, “Have you ever taken The Road Not Taken, Mr. Robert Frost?” He replied with a casual meow, as if in agreement.
I pour him a bowl of milk. He drinks, looks at me, and then disappears into the streets. That is our ritual.
~ ~ ~
I am a salesman. It pays just enough to keep me in this apartment. But life has not always been like this.
I grew up in a village two hundred kilometres west of Kathmandu, Shantikot. Shantikot is the kind of place you end up when you are going somewhere else, get lost, and stop to ask for directions. It holds no significance on a map. But it held everything for me.
It is a place where myths and legends float in the afternoon breeze. The mountains paint stories in the night sky. At the centre of the village stands a massive Pipal tree. The roots of the tree run so deep, as if they hold the entire village together. And so it did.
Everyone gathered beneath the Pipal tree. Stories were told there, arguments settled, tea shared. Some people had never left the village in their lifetime. They did not need to. Perhaps the tree had all the answers.
Life in Shantikot moved to a predictable rhythm. Seasons changed. Festivals came and filled the place with colour and noise. For a few days, you felt something close to joy. Then the colour faded. The noise faded.
Was the joy real? I often wondered.
The Pipal tree stood as it always had. Unmoved by any of it. Silent to my questions and wonders. Standing beneath it, I often felt a weight I could not name. A pull, a restlessness.
On my twentieth birthday, under a full moon, I stood beneath the tree. Its roots spread out beneath my feet, holding the ground, holding the village together.
I stood there knowing I was about to pull myself free from all of it. What I was searching for, I did not know.
I left that night for Kathmandu. It did not stop me.
~ ~ ~
In Kathmandu, I found a job, an apartment, a routine. Somewhere between them, I existed too.
Temples beside traffic jams. Incense and dust in the air. Horns and bells in rhythm. Kathmandu had it all and nothing at all.
At night, I walked. No destination. No purpose. Through narrow alleys and flickering streetlights. Past shuttered shops and dimly lit tea stalls.
I think I was searching for something during those walks. A person? A place? Maybe a feeling. A feeling I had once known and lost.
Some nights I sat in corners, listening to strangers. Some nights I walked until my legs ached. Some nights I just meditated to the chaos of Kathmandu.
On one wall of my apartment, I had pinned photographs. Places I had been, places I wanted to go, and one particular photo of Shantikot. Slightly faded, slightly crumpled.
One night, I stood before that wall. I stared at Shantikot and lost track of time.
The Pipal found me. I was standing beneath it. Twenty years old again.
The roots. They were reaching out in every direction. For me specifically.
A voice. I could not hear it clearly. But it was asking something. I turned. Kathmandu. I was walking through the streets of Kathmandu. But the streets were empty.
No voices. No horns. No bells.
I walked and walked. And then I was beneath the Pipal tree. The streets of Kathmandu had led me… home. The roots of the tree and the alleys of the city were tangling together, and I…
I woke up. In my apartment. It was still dark outside.
Mr. Robert Frost was asleep at the foot of my bed. I did not remember letting him in, but there he was.
~ ~ ~
In the morning, Kathmandu was there. Still noisy, still alive.
The smell of tea brewing nearby. Somewhere, a radio played a song I half recognised. A motorbike engine started and faded.
People going to work, opening shops, praying at temples.
Mr. Robert Frost was by the window. Watching me watch the city.
“Where do you go, Mr. Robert Frost?”
Meow.
“Some road not taken?”
Meow.
“Do other people have a different name for you?”
Meow.
“Do you feel like you do not fully belong anywhere?”
There was silence.
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