When I was young and vulnerable, my parents and I were forced to leave the coolness of our hometown and move to the sweltering heat of Tarai. From Tansen to Tikapur, the journey seemed seamless—almost uninterrupted. But there were dangers that punctured the palpable joy of drifting. The harshness of the climate coupled with the callousness of strangers made for a jittering journey. Pausing at several places, living in temporary lodgings, finding odd jobs, we as a family stumbled from one flatland to another—always weary and wary of the unfamiliar land and faces.

 

Even the beginning seemed inauspicious. Revolting against his parents, uprooting himself from the land he was so devoted to, forgetting his sacred sense of belonging, my father must have mustered up some courage to say to himself: “Why remain attached to one dull, ashen hill, when the whole planet is reachable and therefore touchable?” My mother, a newlywed, and thus meek and mousy, must have nodded and quietly obliged.

 

As we transplanted from one dwelling to another, each one cheaper than the earlier, two things bothered my parents most. First, the climate. The scorching summer sun beat down upon us, hot and terrible thoughts blistering in our oven-like minds. When it was scorching hot outside, all euphoria of drifting started to evaporate. On the other hand, the chilling winter’s dampness soaked our bones; poisonous dewdrops fell from the eaves into our souls. Days, weeks, and years went by. We woke up, we toiled, we slept, and we dreamt of a better world.

 

Second, the people. A throng of conformists, the people who lived closest to the land, had strong and resilient feelings for their rootedness. Their inquiring eyes and cynical minds made us uncomfortable. We were outsiders; we were different. It’s hard to be different in a small town, especially as an outsider. Small-town mentality jeopardises an otherwise easy and happy life. From ‘You should close your windows when you go out’ to ‘What did you eat for dinner?’ to ‘Why did you leave Tansen?’—the questions kept stinging us. The overly-concerned landlords to I-don’t-give-a-damn vendors, the unfamiliarity of these people was at times a nuisance.