SHIKHA


She stepped out of the shower. Her hair was wrapped in a blue towel; water droplets barely contained trickled down her neck and on to her bare shoulders. She scrutinized her body which had changed considerably since the last time her sister called her ?scrawny?. But, that was six months ago. Now, Shikha realized with a pang, she had again outgrown her lacy bra for the 2nd time. Which meant she?d have to buy a larger size and soon.

Shikha was the thin, quiet one of the two sisters. Neha was the vivacious child who went against all norms of their conservative upbringing. Neha was the one with the love letters from the boys in their school. Neha was the one who got the bluff calls and the flowers on Valentine's day. As for Shikha, she felt like a mere shadow in front of her lovely younger sister. Their mother always remarked how Shikha's big brown eyes did not quite fit into her small, narrow face. Her voluptuous lips often caused surprised looks from strangers. Their sanu ma would lament, if only they could fatten up her cheeks, she would be beautiful. Shikha had long before been de-sensitized to comments about her features and her thin body. She had learned not to care. But, she had also learned to fantasize about an ample body and a perfect boyfriend. Shikha was a dreamer. She was, an escapist who skillfully balanced her imperfect world with a perfect fantasy.

Neha, Shikha's younger sister was getting married in two months. To her mother's amazement, Neha had agreed to marry Binod, their father's friend's son, a family friend. Her family had expectations of Neha, to do the outrageous: to elope or to marry a Kuhire. It was, the family's way of bracing for impending disaster given Neha's track record of having dated beyond the acceptable Nepali caste, and color line. Shikha remembered an overjoyed mother rushing to the ?Hare Krishna? temple to offer prayers of gratitude, donations and flowers at the thought of Neha settling down with a ?good? huney khaney, Nepali boy. And, to one the whole family approved of.

As Shikha struggled into her jeans, she smiled secretively. Her time would come, soon, very soon. The email she had received from Jeevan assured her of that.


**********to be continued**********

Is this your own personal story?

It is good anyway,continue it till it completes!

:) NICE ONE

Very nice story. Nepali -Amrican Shobha De in making?

"Hey, Shikha, are you in there??"Neha yelled from the hallway. She walked in and threw herself on Shikha?s bed. "Katti padi rakhe ko bhanya!" "I really need your advice on the red saree mamoo chose for me. Red looks too pakhe bhanya! How about the pink---it?s a young and happening color, hoina ta?" Neha chattered.
"Why is it so important?" Shikha dragged her eyes away from the lecture she was preparing for her students the next day.
"Doesn?t anything matter to you Shikha? I mean, marriage, boys, life? I envy you. Mamoo and Buba have always set their expectations high on you. What are you going to do with your Phd. in Psychology anyways?" Neha was irritated by Shikha's obvious indifference to her wedding predicament.
"Neha, what?s bothering you? You have been nitpicking about everything. Is it saree or the groom?" Shikha scrutinized Neha?s irritation.
"My life is not as perfect, disciplined or smooth as yours Shikha. I am trying to make it so by agreeing to this marriage. I know it will be good for me ?and for everyone. Actually, I am lucky to have Binod. Just pre wedding blues!" Neha sighed as she hugged her knees protectively.
"Taipani daar ta lagcha. Anyways, come with me to the saree store tomorrow. Maybe we can spend some time away from home and you from university. Lately you?ve been withdrawn and if I am not mistaken, you?ve been putting on weight. I hope my wedding is not depressing you." She ended cheekily as she left the room.

Shikha turned back to Carl Jung. "The greater the area of unconsciousness, the less is marriage a matter of free choice, as is shown subjectively in the fatal compulsion one feels so acutely when one is in love. The compulsion can exist even one is not in love, though in less agreeable form."
Despite his, what Shikha called, vague and disputable writings, Jung did have a point there. Although, Jung, she felt was more of a social phenomenon than a scientist, he was as important as Freud in this particular class she taught on Ego and the Unconscious, at the university.
Neha, she thought, fitted into this particular Jungian notion of the unconscious compulsion to marry?unconscious motivation triggered off by parental influence, in this case. For Shikha, the notion of marriage held no psychological cohesion, just a symbolic one. In fact, the last 7 months of having Jeevan in her life, convinced her.

*********

Jeevan was her high school crush back in Kathmandu. A pimple faced, ponytailed, sixteen year old Shikha, kept it to herself. Jeevan was beyond her dreams because he inhabited every girlish fantasy. She could only watch with a knot in her budding chest, as Jeevan hung out with his buddies and graduated out of school and her life.

Seven months ago, Shikha met Jeevan again. This time during a conference she had attended in Boston. Cambridge was the perfect walking city in which to fall in love. Harvard square which began as a colonial village had enveloped her in its quaint 17th century structures. She had succumbed to his easy charm as she had to the surreal circumstances of their meeting at the Octoberfest. Two weeks and miles of walking around parks, through museums, libraries, bookstores and hours of cuddling in her motel bed, spurred him into purchasing an antique ring. It was a make-shift engagement ring she consciously accepted. Her feelings, she had no control over. The next day, they parted, he to LA and she to DC. Emails and addresses had been exchanged, the date was set for Jeevan to come to DC on December, for the New Year. He was in-between jobs. He didn't make it.

*****************to be continued**************

Wow what a good story by sitara di, and i can sense something real on it...Anyway Shikha and Neha ..good names...and it seems the attitude of these two is quite different!! Waiting for the next one!!

.
ani .. ani ?

great one sitara sis as always......................... Waiting for for more

:)
... ... ...
घोर पीडामा पनि
शिर अलिक उठाएर
नवजात शिशुलाई नियालिरहेको
सन्तुष्ट आँखा हो यो
कुनै पुत्रवतीको

शुभ्र, शान्त र स्निग्ध
शिखा मैनबत्तीको

(हाजिर गरेको)

long tyam no see सितारा दि।।।।
बल्ल पो थाहा पाएँ किन भनेर, यति राम्रो कथा पस्किनु हुन पो रैछ!!!!
ल दि अरु नि जावस् है चाँडै!
निर्माण

ए निर्माण, के बुझ्या हो यार?
मैले त भुपिको कविताको एउटा चानो मात्र टाँसेको है। अरु थाऽ छैन। शिखाभन्या हुनाले याद आएर टाँस्या।
कुरो त्यत्ती हो ।

के बुझ्नु हो त्यो कथा मात्र बुझेको हो।
कविता नि राम्रो छ है।:०)
निर्माण

Continued.......
Come New Year's, Shikha had not panicked nor had any reason to fear the worst. Daily emails and brief calls infused her life with an energy few could miss. She had always been the rationally calm one. Panic, however, did attack her, much to her surprise. Like a docile pet turned suddenly rabid, it wracked her mind and body when it occurred to her that she had missed her periods, more than a couple of them. Her erratic monthly cycle had never before been a source of worry until her bathroom scales and her tight lacy bras screamed for attention. By then, it had been too late. Shikha was 5 months pregnant.

"Pregnancy", a malady, she hoped would go away if she ignored it long enough. Her psychological disassociation with her body grew as did her bra size. The little beer belly, which Neha called teasingly, demanded loose shirts. Her face was still the same, except for her eyes which resembled big pools of molten lava seething with inner turmoil. Her lips trembled, always on the verge of a silent sob. Shikha knew she had to deal with the situation before she divulged anything to Jeevan.

Despite being a scholar of psychology, she avoided Freud except for when she taught class. His theory on psychosexual stages of development had been a grating thorn on her side when she was first introduced to him in her early twenties. In fact so riled had she been that she had submitted a meticulously written paper tearing apart the "The Oedipus Complex", "The Electra Complex", "Castration anxiety" and "Penis envy". Fresh out of Kathmandu, such theories had offended her very core. Applying Freud at the time of her psychological confusion would be chaotic, to say the least.


Shikha's need for mental release ended in her discovery of J Krishnamurti:"?Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It?s man?s pretense that because he has a choice, he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment or reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence??Thought is ever limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution."
Ironically, this very binding thought released her from her psychic fugue. A fugue she had grown up with and internalized throughout her adolescence. In her 7th month she finally came to terms with herself, her life and the fetus. She finally acknowledged an ownership. It was her baby.

***********to be continued*************

Sitara ji....

A touch-just a revisit
Once where it did hurt
Now just cursory -yes
this revisit, I wished
But deep it went-again
I wonder why-
Why tangles with enigma
Everytime it pierces me
And never goes thru.....
For once and forever
I want to rest with
Peace I sold long ago.


Ani ani....

Deepji,

The peace sold years ago,
I bought, with my very soul.
T'was a barter surely from hell,
for, angels drank your tears,
while devils dried my well.
Why? you ask...
does the arrow pierce,
one and not the other;
As stains from the past,
sprinkle every word,
the answer lies restless
while mute lies the sword.

Wah wah Sitara ji....maile tyasai bhanya ho ra ma Sitaraji ko lekhaiko ghayal matrai haina kayal pani ho bhanera...aba john galt bidama ho kyara...malai asthai niyukti garna
milchha ki...jyan diyera garchhu ni ma ta kam tha chha ki chhaina kunni......

Failed decipher
is the verdict
I was handed over
Did not agree
But neither can I appeal
Nor can I start over.

Aba agami anka manki premika jhyalma aune asha bokera tyai unko jhyal agadiko chya pasalma basda jhai tin kap chya ghutkyai sake...khai ta? yaha pani puranai tal hunchha jasto chha...khai ta?....

:) I'm in.

"Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It's man's pretense that because he has a choice, he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment or reward."

that's cool....

Great one...

Hjaur long time no see....how about bhet ghat or a small gathering as before.....MP Jiu will be in town soon after his graduation...hajur ke bhansinchha ni??