Being Nepali

I reckon it to be a matter of exultation to be a bi. Excuse me for probably bursting your bubble, but I meant bi-national, bi-cultural and bi-lingual. The fact that I was born in a different country than the one I am living in comes with perks for sure. One of my absolute favorite part about it has to be being able to escape the stress that America slaps every person with, right smack on his face. Going back to Nepal becomes an event, prepared for with excitement and expectations. And if you go back with your parents, all your relatives will flock in to visit you, which in disguise ends up becoming an excuse to figure out how your parents can possibly help them to “America cheerna”.  The people that I can’t decipher how I am related to, even after my mother’s numerous attempts at forcing the “jeri jasto” connections on me, would come flocking in to “visit us”. And then there are others who never seem to find a topic of greater intrigue than bringing up how “gori or kali” and “dubli or moti” you have become. When one of them didn’t find me “moti”, which was contrary to her expectation, she lost it completely and said  "Chya, jasta ko testai raicha bichara. America gaera ta tanna khanu pardaina?”. It took me a while to come to terms with her intentions concealed under those remarks. I am aware of the fact that being called moti is not a bad thing in Nepal for it’s a sign of good health and prosperity but her presumably concerned remarks still did not go too well with the otherwise scrumptiously delicious food she had brought for us. I had lost my appetite somewhere along those “chyaa” and “bichara” in her remarks.

One thing I love about my family is we are not afraid to laugh at ourselves. It hopefully won’t be an exaggeration to claim that we all proudly inherit the humor gene. Even though my mother is the quietest one, she laughs at things that deserve to be laughed at.  One of the things that me and my brother enjoy riding on without pedaling the brakes is cracking jokes at our parents’ swell wedding pictures.  Our dad looks ridiculously skinny while mum could easily pass on as a model. We all laugh at how funny looking dad was and claim their wedding to be a well crafted trap against our beautiful mum. “Kura ta thikai garis timiharule. Tero mum le malai ramrari dekhekai theena bichara. Timiharuko mamaghar aako ek hapta mai engagement bhayo hamro”, admits my dad smiling. My mum says that the night my dad came to “see” her at our mamaghar, there happened to be no electricity. Damn “bidhut pradhikaran” ! When my mum entered the living room with tea and snacks on a tray, she was bowed down the entire time. She looked up for a brief instant to check out how hot my dad was but to her utter disappointment, the candle flickering dimly on the background was not of much avail. She only saw his sparkly white teeth glowing in the dark. It is beyond comprehension how these two people who hadn’t even seen each other clearly have sustained 20+ years of marital bliss and of course two beautiful kids. Ahem.

Away from the clinginess of your relatives, America hurls at you a horde of Nepali people whom you might have otherwise never came across with in Nepal. Some of them become important part of your lives and your social circle. Some of them downgrade themselves from being confidantes to backstabbers. P Kaka, as I address him, is the coolest Nepali man ever. I have never met someone his age to be so darn cool. I wonder how he was as a young lad. Until I meet some other older Nepali fella’s, P Kaka holds my titles of “Most humorous” and “The coolest” person ever. When P Kaka’s wife, N Auntie threw up all over my mum’s freshly imported gorgeous Tibetan carpet on my 19th birthday, P Kaka cleaned the whole mess up. He, then proceeded onto dancing in his all time favorite Nepali song “ Aamaile bhanthin dhara ko paani”, still holding onto a bottle of wine and drinking from it. N Auntie joined him in all the consciousness she had left of and the couple presented the best dance performance of the night. Too bad that the carpet was chastised again by the end of their dance and P Kaka was the culprit this time. Needless to say, my mum wasn’t a happy camper that night.  

Then there are confidantes-turned-backstabbers- the ones with only malicious bones all over their body. I find humor in anything and everything. In doing so, I find it less work on my brain to gauge why some people decided to act the way they did. When J Uncle went around saying bad things about my dad for a reason that I don’t even care to remember at the moment, I could see how upset my dad was. But J Uncle was also the same person who had ended up the relationship with his biggest well wisher, K Uncle, because his wife didn’t like K Uncle’s wife wearing the same sari at some party. “How can you take someone like that so seriously, Papa?” , I had intentionally forced that incident back upon my father’s recollection. He had laughed so hard at my comment. I had been successful at cheering him up because someone like J Uncle was not worth my family’s time. If he were ever to be diagnosed with Klinefelter's syndrome, I’d bet that one of the extra chromosomes would be for the vindictive nature of his.

There is much more to being Nepali but it would be a sin if I wrap up my ramblings without alluding to one thing that signifies all and everything Nepali. It is a bundle of joy wrapped up with spicy meat and vegetables in flour of love and steamed up in heat of harmony. Momos, the ultimate super power of food, brings together all Nepali people at times of joy and times of grief. My love for those cute little things knows no boundaries, for I have even planned on christening one of my kids as momo in the future. Even J Uncle shamelessly showed up at our momo party after all that had transpired between him and my family. He slurped the achar, devoured dozens of them and even took home a dozen more. Maybe my intense dislike for that man doesn’t only root on his character as a person but also on the fact that he had devoured my most favorite food in the world like a hungry vulture over flesh and vanished without anyone’s notice.

 

Last edited: 06-Nov-10 01:17 PM

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Last edited: 05-Nov-10 09:04 PM

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Is this a story? confused  

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