August 11, 2019

For much of my life, I have hoped I’m nothing like Mamu. But away from her, here in Chiang Mai, most days and many moments, I have hoped that I'm a little like her. Today was one of those days.

I made my first attempt to fix myself some lunch. I decided to cook bhyataa kein and some rice. It turns out, I didn’t buy very good rice, so eating it was an ordeal. I cannot read Thai, and I picked a packet which had a photo of a happy and healthy-looking family. But the rice didn’t live up to the photo when I served it to my lone self. Mamu has often said I’m just like Baa when it comes to rice. If it doesn’t taste right, it’s not rice. Anyway, I couldn’t salvage the bhyataa kein, even with its history of contempt, and it made me miss Mamu sorely. I wish I was as good a cook as her.

August 12, 2019

It started to rain as I sat down to write and, now, I’m distracted by what I see. I see a frangipani tree in my neighbour’s yard. It’s branches stoop over my side of the wall and the flowers fall into my backyard. The wall is covered in creepers on this side. And very close to my window are hummingbird plants. I call it the hummingbird plant because Mona called it that when she first saw it. I don’t know what it’s really called. But these plants are the reason I chose this house, out of half a dozen I looked at as soon as I arrived here. It seemed to me that no matter how bad things got, while I’m here, this plant would watch over me. They look like nurturers. Like guardian angels. Fierce in their massive leaves and beautiful in the fiery, fleshy flowers.

So, that’s the scene from my writing desk. This is the desk I’ve set up for my stories in the smaller bedroom. This room feels cosy and right. I sleep well too . I think I’m the kind of person who can be happy in small, cosy spaces. I hate large bedrooms. I can’t sleep in
them, because they have a way of making me feel vulnerable. But I also like wide open spaces; without them, I’d feel claustrophobic. Such a bag of contradictions I am.

Anyway. What I like about this house is that it feels like it knows me. Yes, that’s what it is! It feels like this house knows me. It’s quiet. It carries a warmth. Most days, I walk from room to room, just surveying the house, admiring it and loving its presence around me. This is the house of my own that I always dreamt of. A house of my own, with my porch and my pillow. Sometimes, when I say I don’t understand what brought me here, Bea reminds me that it is because I had to experience a house of my own. Maybe she is right.

During moments when I’m miserable and when I want to cry over a hundred things, I think of how lucky I am to experience this—a house of my own in a world where women and girls are denied the right to personal or public space. For a woman to have a space of her own is still a privilege, eons on from the days of Virginia Woolf.

Actually, I was reading Mrs Dalloway this morning and more than immersing myself in the book, it seemed like I was looking for a way to while away. I was pausing between reading to make images of the book for my Instagram. I have too much time here. In total contrast to how little time I had in Kathmandu and how I was running around the house all the time, if not around the city. Maybe it's life’s way of asking me to rest. And yet, women-kind have been pressured by this world into internalising guilt so much, that I’ve become conditioned to think of even resting as a burden.

August 13 2019

There’s nothing here except the sound of my typing and the rain against the leaves. It’s a perfectly beautiful moment, watching it rain like this. Sometimes, I think I’m beginning to see the truth in Bea’s words. She says things are falling into place for me and everything moving in order to make my living alone a possibility.

I paused to look out the window at the rain again, just now. I can see my immediate neighbour’s house. They have wooden windows like the old houses in Nepal, which makes their house stand out.. Then there’s a pink house at some distance on the other avenue. And next to mine are two houses, one a modern solid house and another one, an Italian cottage, exactly like the one I live in. No idea who lives in them. But the Italian one has a mango tree—it’s branches spreading out under my roof. When the fruits ripen, they fall into my yard, and if I look out, I can always see bees and several species of birds picking at the fallen mangoes. It’s a bit like waking up to a dream, when I come upon these things some afternoons after a nap.

On the front, across the street are big family houses. The one opposite mine has two children and their extended family occupies the house next door, so the two big houses have their gates wide open all the time—as though welcoming all the children in the neighbourhood. There are a couple of other houses on that row, all occupied by Thai families. It looks like I’m the only non-Thai person in this neighbourhood. I imagine this is the middle-class community.

A woman from the house across asked me on my second day if I wanted to borrow a bicycle. Other than that, no one has spoken to me. We have no means of speaking to one another because of the language barrier, so I just smile (I’ve bought a book on Thai language, however).

August 16, 2019

I came home this evening to find that someone had removed and stuffed my prayer flags into the
tree trunk. Maybe it looked weird to my neighbours. Maybe I need to start locking my gate. It upset me a little and so I’ve moved the flag behind the house. I can see it from the kitchen now.

Yesterday, I came home to a cat. A beautiful black cat, asleep on the washing machine. But the sound of my arrival frightened it away. I tried to be quiet and later left it some food, hoping to lure back some company, but it hasn’t returned.

August 17, 2019

This house is so perfect. It’s off-white. The walls, the curtains. The furniture is light brown. It’s exactly what I’d have designed if I could have. Mamu would like this house just as much as I do. But she would not approve of my minimalist lifestyle. She would fuss over how many spices and how many household items are lacking to make my house a home. And in some sense, I guess I have turned out to be very different from Mamu. I’ve done everything in life that she didn’t get a chance at doing. But in her own way, maybe choosing a life inside the home was her way of making it possible for me to come thus far. I could never be her. I’m not made up of sacrifices and selflessness like she is.

August 18, 2019

Maybe it has been Mamu’s greatest fear too, that I should turn out to be like her. And maybe she’s spent her life trying to avert it.

Read the first and second part.