Random hits on the keyboard

Yenya Punhi (Indra Jatra) has started, and somehow it now feels like the festival season has arrived. One more festival, among many many.  For me, Yenya Punhi is not just another festival on the calendar. It is one of my favourite times of the year. The stories, rituals and traditions of Yenya are deeply connected to Newar culture, and they have shaped the way Kathmandu celebrates, remembers and tells its own story. What I love most is what happens to the city. People come out. The streets of Kathmandu become lively. There are drums, music, chariots, processions and crowds everywhere. The city suddenly feels alive in a completely different way. And then there are the characters of Yenya—the Living Goddess Kumari, Bhairab, Ganesh and the many traditional processions that carry centuries of stories with them. In the morning, I ran around the city; Swet Bhairav wooden fences are open. The god is open for a week. Yosin has been erected. The festival has begun. The living culture that I...

I have completed 1,000 miles this year. I am not a big fan of the old metric system of miles. I prefer kilometres. But 1,000 miles sounds much cooler than 1,609 kilometres. So, I am going with miles. I did it. And yes, it feels like another proud moment. I did some math. It is only a little more than '6 kilometres a day'. Six kilometres! That sounds minimal when you look at it that way. Still, somehow, it feels good to think about the whole distance. The compound effect is amazing. I run on alternate days, so it is about 12 kilometres per run on average. Some days are different. On Friday, I ran 20 kilometres. I had no plan for a long run, but as I started running, the distance slowly added up to 20. And then I went to the office afterward. It was a happy Friday. I have been thinking about what this 1,000 miles really means to me. Perhaps it is simply an example of 'showing up, no matter what'. Six kilometres on an average day. Sometimes 20, sometimes less than 10. Some...

After a few years of running, I have made my run not only about the distance, the pace, or the time on the Garmin. I weave stories out of it. I like to create little stories from my runs. Some come from my daughter. Some come from the streets of Kathmandu. Some come from my memories. Some are simply things I notice along the way. These little stories make my run interesting. They give meaning to the kilometres. They make the journey lighter. Take today's run. As we all know, the distance is never fixed. But when Garmin showed '13.99' km, I stopped it. Why? Because my daughter wanted my run to end at .99. I had actually run another 700 metres before reaching my destination. But I stopped the Garmin at 13.99. I could have recorded 14.69 km or more.  But then I would have spoiled the story. Sometimes, it is these little things that make running fun. A few days ago, I was running along the Bagmati River. I went out and came back along the same route. This happened because of an...

I visited Nuwakot just after the flood. The flood site is not an easy place to visit. The mud and debris have completely covered the town. The Bidur town that once stood along the riverbank, with its houses, shops, roads, and familiar settlements, had been devastated by the flood. The settlement had simply disappeared. The Trisuli was still flowing, but it had changed its course. The riverbed has, according to locals, been elevated about 15 to 20 meters from its original position. The number of human fatalities and missing people is unbelievable. The number continues to rise. Locals say it could be around tens of thousands. Perhaps the exact number of people will never be confirmed, as in some villages, all families and neighbours perished in the flash flood. Almost everyone we met had a story. Someone had lost a relative. Someone was still waiting for news. Someone had survived by luck, instinct or an escape within a few seconds. The locals would begin telling us what happened, and su...