Random hits on the keyboard

Coffee is the first thing in the morning and the last thing before dinner. Here, coffee is everywhere, just like tea in Kathmandu. The coffee shops on the footpath are the best. It is now evening and the curfew is about to start. On the way to my hotel, I stop in a 'café'. And..... While I wait, I watch tampu, they call it Bajaj, rushing on the road. Toyota Hiace, called minibus, overtaking Bajaj ruling the road - exhausting a thick smoke. The wind brings the smoke toward me but soon an aroma of coffee takes over. Few kids approach, to sell ground nuts. I signal them no. The kid smiles at me and says hello and bye instantly. And the coffee is ready. I forget the count but maybe it's my fifth or sixth coffee today.  The whole day's fatigue simply vanishes with a slip of a coffee. Someone rightly said that we must save our earth because it is the only know planet to have coffee.  My nose is super dry then. Maybe, it is because of a hell lot of coffee, or maybe...

चाँदनी रात, शायद उता, माहोल होलीको  तिमी र हामी, अबिर रंग, उबेला खेलेको  सोच्दैछु यहाँ, आकाश हेरी, आजको पूर्णिमा रात आउँदा घर, छुटेका पर्व, मनाउँला एकै साथ । गरेर दुःख, अरु केही दिन, बिरानो ठाउँमा  भोलीका दिन, सुनौला होलान्, बसौला घरैमा  यतिका वर्ष, परदेश बसाई, दुःख मात्र छैन नि  सुखका पल, नयाँ सिकाई, फरक संस्कृति । आउँदा घर, थुप्रै कहानी र व्यथा सुनाउछु  अहिले यता रात पर्न लाग्यो भो अब निदाउँछु छोरा र छोरी निदाए होलान् दिनभरको थकान तिमी नी सुत्नु, राम्ररी बस्नु,  बातमारुला बिहान ।।।

As the day passes, I welcome the windy evening I fill my blog, jotting down some feeling A sleepy night wishes to wake up And the fear and the anxiety grip up Far in the West, the Sun has set some endings are at their best  No matter how hard the day was It's better than how the earlier day was Tomorrow will be the sunny morning  I will wake up and do the usual running The day will be the same busy and working But it will be one day less for the homegoing Good night 🥱

I continuously switch my time zones. I see it is 07:46 PM here and I try to add 02:45 in it. F** it's not easy. I am good in mathematics but adding 2 hours 45 minutes requires supercomputing ability. I think it's stupid of Nepal to want 15 minutes time difference with India. I wish to tell to those who decide this, "Time difference and national sovereignty are not the same". But it is what it is. And also my old model Protrek watch does not have a Kathmandu time zone.  I live in two time zones, at least. My father figure is in the Kathmandu time zone. I switch and adjust myself for the Viber calls. Later, I imagine that my loved one must have had one dream by now. My professional avatar follows this location time zone, I eat my dinner in this time zone. It is chicken fried rice today and this taste very very different than in the place at +05:45 GMT. BONNUIT!

I can't describe more how the internet has become a part of our daily life. I now know it well when I have no easy internet.  This reminds me of life in the 90s. It was different. These technologies were slowly appearing. The telephone was a symbol back then. We had a neighbor who had the telephone, and they were tired of receiving calls from everyone. The telephone set was locked in a wooden box, but as a kid, we learned to deal with the hang press - pressing the hang key number of times, would actually dual the number. And we would talk for hours over the phone. I probably have memorized more than 150 telephone numbers, of my friends, relatives, school, hospitals, and government ministries ( I have no clue why I memorized this, but it was fun). Being able to operate fax was a kind of technical expertise.. Now, the internet is so common that we can't imagine not having it. It is so given... Just imagine, no ATM, no credit card payment, no WhatsApp, no email, I'm not talkin...

Once again, I see the beautiful moon in the clear sky. Moonlight has little to no significance in urban but this place, being urban, is calm at night, once the curfew kicks in, I can only hear the whisper of wind. The city suddenly goes mute. The cars and 'bajaj' are out of the road. The sky is clear and the moon takes over the sky. The stars are twinkling, and they are accompanying the lonely moon. I see the moon from my hotel room, then beautiful hills beneath. The city is about to get asleep, until tomorrow morning. Again all hustles and bustles will resume, and the coffee shops will open, spreading the aroma of roasted beans. Till then, I say good night to the moon. 

Early morning, small chairs and benches are arranged outside cafes. Many small cafes are erected on roadsides. Coffee beans are roasted. The smoke of beans fills the surroundings. As the customers arrive, the hot roast pot is taken around the customers, fuming the whole café. The customers seem to enjoy the cloud of coffee smoke. What a wonderful tradition.  The freshly roasted coffee is ground. The whole café turns lively with the coffee aroma. Coffee is served in a small cup, with local incense on a tray. The serving lady sits and serves with a big smile and pours from Jebena until it is just about to overflow. There is no rush, time simply stops in these cafes here. Every sip of coffee is magical. Every single drop of coffee carries history. Forget Starbucks and forget illy Caffe. The main Ethiopian food is Injera, and it has many varieties. I am trying to get used to it. I was planning to bring Injera but I dropped the idea after knowing that it needs to be fermente...

20 kg is the luggage limit and 7 kg is the limit for hand carry. Here I am somewhere in a remote place, with no internet in the city except in my office, trying to minimize my needs, limited to total of 27 kgs. This is the height of an oxymoron - trying to have the maximum in life by having the minimum. Am I being minimalist?  3 pairs of pants, 1 shirt, 4 t-shirts, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 jackets and a laptop, chargers, daily hygiene stuff like toothpaste, trimmer, papers, 2 books, a kindle, and a mobile phone. What else do I need?  Every day I pack, lock my suitcases in the morning before leaving for my office and unpack every evening when I am back.  I will check out from the hotel tomorrow for 2 days and I will again check-in.  The mobile phone has been the most used item so far, even when there is no internet. As it has photos, Whatsapp messages that I revisit, and emails that I read and reread, delete some, and reply to. Whenever I am connected, it syncs...

And she said, "Give me my Baba!"

खै शहर भनूँ वा गाउँ ? व्यवस्थित सडकहरू, मुख्य सडकमा बात्ती, निर्माणाधीन ठूल्ठलाभवनहरू अनि कुनै बेला गौरवमय इतिहास बोकेको । सहायक सडकहरू कलात्मक रूपमा ढुङ्गा छापिएका , युरोपको कुनै पुरानो शहरको झझल्को दिने। युद्ध वास्तवमै पीडादायक हुन्छ । अब शान्ति हुन समय लाग्छ , र सर्वसाधारणको दुःख काे सीमा छैन । प्राकृतिक रूपमा ज्यादै सुन्दर र मौसम एकदम अनुकूल, र कफीको त कुरै नगरौं ।  सरकारले इन्टरनेट काटे पछिको अवस्था अर्कै छ । फोनमा कुरा हुन सक्छ तर इन्टरनेट बिना यताको वास्तविकता दुनियाँलाई थाहा छैन, कुनै पनि पत्रकारलाई प्रवेश दिइरहेको छैन । सत्यलाई छोप्न सहज हुन्छ जस्तो छ । हालको युग हल्लाकाे युग हो, जसले सामाजिक सञ्जालमा कब्जा गर्यो, बाँकी संसारको लागि त्यहि तथ्य हो ।  म होटलमा बसि भोलि वा जहिले इन्टरनेटमा पहुँच हुन्छ, तब यो ब्लग प्रकाशित गर्छु भनि बसेको छु । र म झ्यालबाट नौ लाख तारा हेर्दै छु । आकाश सफा छ । शायद केही माइल परको विस्थापितहरुको क्याम्पमा बसेकाहरु पनि ती ताराहरु हेर्दै होलान् । भोलिकाे अनिश्चितलाई मनभरी बोक्दै डर र त्रसलाई बिर्सने प्रयास गर्दै होलान् । परको सैनि...

Typing the blog offline - and as soon as I'm online this blog will also go online. I am thinking about what should I do when I don't have internet. I have so much free time. I can read, I can write - not only blogs but real writing on paper. I can listen to music. I can ....the list goes on. Do I do all those things? I doubt but one thing is for sure that I am NOT doing is that I will not be spending time online. :) Now, I don't have pressure to be online and check feeds, but this takes away my capacity to be in touch with my loved ones anytime. Maybe it's human nature that we worry more when our ability to be in touch is taken away. Before, it felt like the internet is around forever, for all, everywhere. We have almost forgotten those days. We often do not miss to appreciate days without the internet. But really? Not having an access to the internet for a few hours, I have started to feel its importance - it's been just a few hours.  This is a real pai...

'Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo' is an Italian expression from a movie, which means 'the good, the ugly and the bad'.  The Hollywood version of the movie was 'the good, the bad, and the ugly'. Italy is the same to Ethiopians as Great Britain to Nepali. Nepal was never colonized, so Ethiopians proudly say. Ethiopians fought hard to keep away Italians from colonizing the country. My il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo version is little different. Being in Ethiopia, I have all those three stages at once. Il Buono - It is always good to see new places, and not as a tourist. Knowing culture and meeting with new people and listening to history firsthand, are all part of 'il buono'. Additionally, it always feels good to do my portion of global issues, although it may be small. Also, I collect stories so that I can tell them to my kids and family. And do I mention my pay? 😁 Il Cattivo  - Being away from the family  is 'il cattivo'. It sucks. It is painful....

  Every morning I take a walk around the area. There are parks, high rise buildings - many of them are under construction. The wider road, with trees on both sides, chain of vehicles, functioning traffic lights and big public buses are exactly what we were told what development looks like. The city mayors of Kathmandu in 1990s vaunted it. And I had been believing this until I visited Scandinavian, where I see one or two-story buildings, narrow two-lane roads with wider cycle lanes, and almost no overhead crossings. Scandinavian countries, no way, meet Nepali definition of 'development'. As per the Kathmandu major's definition, Addis is a developed city. The roads are wide with overheads, and no dust on the street. There are pizza hut and McDonald's. And this morning, there was no water in my hotel. I called reception. A few minutes later, a water tanker delivered water to the hotel. I came to know that there is no sufficient city water in the hotel. As a Kathmandu dwell...

Meeting Lucy is one of the 'to do' things in Addis Ababa, as strongly suggested by many. So, I planned to meet her. I was excited and I was nervous. What should I wear? Should I take a taxi or walk? I finally decided to walk and planned a rendezvous on a Saturday morning. I checked Google Maps and found that it would take 50 minutes to walk. I left the hotel at 08:00. I didn't want to be late. On the way, I passed a market, wide busy streets, the African park, the Unity Park, and the Prime Minister's office. I walked as suggested by Google Maps. I see a local market and footpath book stores. There were many books stores and Obama's book - the promised land - seemed to be the best selling. The book reading is perhaps the symbol of the modern Ethiopian Renaissance after the 80s famine. I reached way ahead of the schedule. I scaled the distance in 30 minutes. I waited for half an hour - watching the people pass by, watching the people pray in a church. Finally, the clo...

I decided to resume my blogging (monologue). I will be publishing my old blogs soon. It is important to capture the experiences when they are fresh, I feel my recollection of old Afghanistan days has gone mild. Let me have my Ethiopia experience live. Additionally, it is always fun to share how I see the world. And here we go..... I came to join a new job in Addis Ababa on 1 March 2021. Ethiopian Coffee has always been on the top list followed by Ethiopian food. Let's talk about travel first. The Kathmandu airport was a mess. The PCR report has to be signed at the airport by an official, who probably is only obeying orders from higher authorities to do so. The top officials perhaps did not think enough that this would create havoc. There was a long winding queue at the entrance and who knows some 'super spreaders' might have been around. The rest of the journey was nice, except for the pain in my neck while trying to get some sleep. The hills around Addis Ababa airport remi...