LEAVING ANA


“So, how would you rate the concert?” Suman Joshi nonchalantly asked his cousin, pushing his wheeled suitcase towards the parking lot of Westin Hotel where the annual Nepali convention had ended a day earlier.

“I thought Sabin Rai was pretty darn good. He’s got a stage presence, a nice vocal, and his songs sounded melodious. It puzzles me though why he emulates Bryan Adams like a parrot. It’s a shame.” Amulya Joshi, an amateur musician himself, passionately critiqued one of the performers from the night before.

“The drive to the airport is not that long, is it?” Suman switched the topic without willfully grasping he had done so. He sounded amnesic and unwitting to the premise of his own question he had posed 15 seconds earlier.

“Is it just me or we were just talking about the concert last night? That was small, even for a small talk.”

“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry. It’s this Monday morning syndrome. It’s a ritual I go through every seventh day. Even after 13 long years in this country, I never figured out the way to overcome Mondays. I got this thing I need to present to my clients next week. The ideas are floating in my head, but my mind keeps on throwing me a runtime error.”

“Recompile it once you are in New York. Airport is no more than 10 or 12 minutes. … I hope you had a good time Suman dai. When you arrived, you looked like you could use a break. Knowing vauju, I am sure she would have enjoyed it here.”

“I had a great time, honestly. Your vauju not being here had a lot to do with me having a great time. You are a great host. Thank you … But I could do without this hangover right now.”

“The hangover is one for the road. It’s a long trip to New York.”

No sooner had they arrived at the aisle where Amulya had parked his car, he shrieked in anger and shock. “GOD DAMN! Someone slashed my tire.”

“Holy crap! See how badly … I can see the wheel rim.”

“I know who did this … those lowlife yahoos from Dallas who scuffled with those thugs from New York last night. They did it.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I saw one of those New York hoodlums drive the same car like mine. It was the same color. Those Dallas crooks must have slashed my tire thinking it was his. These freaking felons. These sociopaths. These god damn good for nothing losers. These bullies.”

When Amulya kicked his car in kosher frustration, Suman said, “If you are kicking it because you ran out of vocabulary, you have not used ‘hooligan’ yet.”

The two cousins waited for gratis assistance in rage, dismay, and rage-and-dismay-induced laughter. Their cell phones with dead batteries abode in silence in their pockets. No more than three minutes had passed; a Jeep Liberty slowed down and stopped right next to them. An amiable man from the front passenger seat uttered a single-word interrogative sentence, “Trouble?”

“Flat tire.” Amulya upped the ante with two words.

“You guys have a plane to catch or what?”

“I am local, but my dai is flying to New York.”

“We are heading to the airport. We will drop you off. Hop in.”

“Are you sure? I hate to be a burden.”

“It’s not a problem at all. Let me open the trunk for your luggage.” The driver of the Jeep volunteered.

“I feel like crap leaving you here like this. You’re sure you want me to go?” Suman asked Amulya.

“Don’t worry about me. I will call the tow truck. I am off today anyways. Give me a buzz when you are done with your check in.”

***********************************************************************

“I am Nirmal, this is Dipesh, and that’s my wife, Pratibha.” The man in the front passenger seat introduced Suman to everyone as soon as the car started rolling in the parking lot.”

“Hello, hello, and hi. I am Suman Joshi.”

“Where are you flying to Suman ji?”

“New York. How about you guys?”

“We are heading back to Houston … So, how did you like the convention?”

“I thought it was pretty good. I was surprised, for all the good reasons, by ANA’s evolution since the last time I attended. I met some old friends after many years, renewed some old friendships, I had a blast.”

“Now I have been to four of these … it always hits the ground running on the first day, but kind of runs out of steam by the last day. One day too many, maybe? I am not saying it was bad, but it could be better.”

“There is no panacea for people’s expectation. It won’t be right to dwell on shortcomings in a mega event like this.”

“I agree,” Dipesh, who was driving the Jeep, added, “I would say, on the cultural front, the new generation seems to be making adjustments much more swiftly than we did.”

“Half of the girls I saw had a tattoo or two. They were all smoking and drinking. Everyone knew the beats to ‘Milkshake’ and ‘Hips don’t lie’. I am sure they all make a perfect sandwich and fries. They sure have adjusted well.”

“Nirmal, seriously, your nostalgia is overrated. The generation before us just did not know how and what to experiment with. If these young women want to experiment the way Nepalese men always have, let them. If flipping burgers gets them through college, shouldn’t we be applauding that? How conveniently we forget our hardships.”

Suman Joshi quickly observed that Dipesh and Nirmal were of opposite extremes in every faculty. Dipesh was tall, handsome, tolerant, and marginally friendly. Nirmal on the other hand was short, stocky, mildly opinionated, and extremely friendly. The ride to the airport became longer when Dipesh made a wrong turn when they exited the hotel.

“You don’t see that as vulgarity?” Nirmal pursued.

“I don’t wait to judge people; I get busy participating. When I participate, I become one of them. When I am one of them, how do I patronize me? Hey, I am pro-tattoo as long as it is not carved on my body.”

“That brawl that halted the concert, the security, and the cops—none of that bothered you? You’re telling me you don’t see that as vulgarity. You were not embarrassed as a Nepali?”

“I can see why some see that that as a fly in the ointment,” Dipesh punctuated, “But I don’t live to count the number of times my breathing is interrupted by my hiccups. I live because I can breathe.”

“You may think I am trying to fit in here, but I agree with both of you,” Suman filled in, “Though I fancied their energy and passion, I wish some of those young people were more restrained. Sometimes being loud is just being loud, it has no other purpose. Then again, opinions, when mixed with alcohol, can be quite strong.”

“Very well said,” Dipesh cheered, “But that is not limited to just young people. Old people, when drunk, are as righteous and loud.”

While the three men impulsively and vivaciously talked about the pros and cons, the beauty and the ugliness of ANA, Pratibha in the back seat, sat quietly. With the exception of one faintest of smiles when they were first introduced, she had not otherwise played a host to Suman. Though her body, strapped in the seat belt remained motionless, her mind was somewhere else. Either she did not want to be where she was at that moment, or she did not want to be where she was headed.

“How did you like it Pratibha ji?” Suman made a courtly attempt to receive her in the conversation.

Though her lips did not curve sharply, she forged a charity smile and said, “I go with the flow, I had fun.”

As soon as she said that, she looked startled, her eyes opened wide, she let out a gasp of panic and screamed, “DIPESH, WATCH OUT!”

*******************************************************************

Dr. Parimal Shastri and a Centinela Hospital administrator slowly walked towards Suman Joshi. They looked somber. When they were face to face, Dr. Shastri gently tapped Suman’s shoulder and said, “Please sit down.”

Tense and unsettled, Suman obliged. Dr. Shastri sat on the chair adjacent to Suman. The administrator who was carrying a file with him, took the seat across from him.

“I have a very bad news,” Dr. Shastri paused while he maintained the eye contact with Suman, “He came with a broken neck. There was massive internal bleeding. We did our best, but we could not save him. I am extremely sorry.”

Suman started shaking. When the hospital administrator stood up to help him, Dr. Shastri raised his palm, politely signaling him to wait. They gave him couple of moments to gather himself. When Suman could not compose himself, Dr. Shastri once again patted his back and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Is there anything we can do for you?” The administrator added.

Suman tried to stand up because he was too shivery to sit down. Once he stood up, he realized his legs were too weak because of the tremors his nervous system bore. He felt a spasm that flapped him like huge waves of undulations. He immediately sat down and started sobbing for the dead man whom he knew for only 20 minutes.

“Who is dead?” Suman Joshi suddenly realized, he did not even know which of the two new acquaintances he was grieving. The question startled Dr. Shastri.

The administrator who knew more about the accident, quickly clarified, “Mr. Giri is dead.”

“Who is Mr. Giri? I met them this morning. I only know them by their first names.”

The doctor and the administrator glanced at each other in surprise. The hospital administer checked the file in his hand before answering. “Mr. Dipesh Giri is the one who passed away.”

Suman Joshi sat in silence for a minute. “The other guy, Nirmal, how is he doing?” Suman did not have a clue what was to be expected of his inquiry.

“He broke a bone in his leg. He has suffered some other injuries, but we expect him to fully recover.”

“You guys will have to excuse me.” Suman gingerly assembled all of his broken emotions and walked towards Pratibha, who was sitting in the waiting room some 40 yards away.

When Pratibha Dhungana saw Suman Joshi’s face, she started sobbing. She figured out something terrible had happened. Suman sat on his knees, and murmured, “He’s gone.”

Pratibha did not cry loudly, but she continued to sob. She then leaned towards Suman and whispered something. Suman responded in whispers. Everyone in the waiting room was gazing at them. Moments later, when they stopped whispering, Pratibha asked for some water.

Suman was filling up a small plastic cup from the water-cooler near the waiting room, he heard a man scream: “Stop her. Someone stop her.” He looked at the direction and saw a Hispanic man run towards the window.

*******************************************************************

A Traffic Death Causes an Unwarranted Suicide

By Henry Jastrzab and Raymond Saunders, Times Staff Writers
July 5, 2007

A Nissan Murano speeding at 85 MPH slammed into a Jeep Liberty at Sepulveda Boulevard exit near Los Angeles airport early Monday, killing the driver of the Jeep.

The Murano, trying to cut off another car in the same lane, lost its control, spun, and wound up overturned on top of the Jeep’s hood. The driver of the Jeep, identified as Dipesh Giri, 33, died at the hospital four hours later. The passenger in the front seat, Nirmal Dhungana, is recovering from shinbone fracture and other injuries. The driver of the Murano, Bruce Sanford, suffered some serious but non-life-threatening injuries, and he is expected to leave the hospital in three weeks.

There were two more passengers in the back seat of the Jeep, both of whom initially survived the accident without any injury. All four people in the Jeep of Nepalese origin were returning home from the annual convention of Association of Nepalis in the Americas (ANA) at Westin Hotel near the Los Angeles Airport.

A twist to this mishap that unfolded at Centinela Hospital has made this tragedy much worse. According to Bret Dunn, the spokesman for the hospital, Mr. Giri was pronounced dead at 2:17 PM. His death was first notified to Suman Joshi, the third passenger in the Jeep, who walked away from the accident unscathed.

“What followed after we announced the death of Mr. Giri is quite bizarre and needlessly tragic.” Dunn said.

According to Mr. Joshi, he did not know any of the other three passengers in the Jeep until that morning. Mr. Giri and Mr. Dhungana had offered him a ride to the airport after they spotted him with a flat tire at the parking lot of Westin Hotel, the day after the ANA convention ended on July 1, 2007.

When the doctor informed him of Dipesh Giri’s death, since he did not know anyone else who knew the deceased, Joshi says he walked up to the fourth passenger in the Jeep to deliver the news. The fourth passenger was Mrs. Pratibha Dhungana, 29, the wife of the other surviving passenger, Nirmal Dhungana. She too had survived the accident with only a minor bump on the head.

Mr. Joshi was so traumatized, he says, he could not clearly convey to Mrs. Dhungana what had just unfolded. “When I talked to Pratibha, ‘he is gone’ is all I could say.” Joshi recalls.

When she heard Mr. Joshi’s vague account, Mrs. Dhungana mistakenly assumed that it was her husband, Nirmal Dhungana, who had died from his injuries. Several witnesses in the hospital waiting room confirmed that Mrs. Dhungana whispered some indistinct words to Mr. Joshi before asking for some water in English. When Mr. Joshi walked to the Water Cooler, Mrs. Dhungana opened the window and jumped out the window. She landed on her face and died on the spot.

“I should have told her clearly that it was Dipesh Giri, who had died, not her husband. I should have thought it out before talking to her. I should have been more coherent.” Mr. Joshi, 37, who works as a Software Engineer in New York, regretted.

Nicolas Kauslick, who was parking his delivery van when he saw Mrs. Dhungana jump from the hospital window said, “It was so surreal I could literally see all the emotions in her face while she was free falling.”

Nirmal Dhungana, 34, who is grieving the unwarranted death of his wife refused to talk to us. Some of his closest friends told us that he has no family in the US, so once he recovers; he intends to return to Nepal for good.

Dr. Parimal Shastri, who performed the surgery said, “I hope I am wrong about this, but this tragedy could have been triggered by our South Asian Hindu culture that overemphasizes spousal commitment.”

The LAPD has the jurisdiction of the crash site. A spokesperson for the LAPD said they will file reckless driving charges against Mr. Sanford, the driver of the Murano, for causing the fatality.

Eight people in the hospital waiting room witnessed Mrs. Dhungana’s suicide, and they all corroborate each other. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Sherriff’s office spokesman said the suicide case will not be further investigated.

********************************************************************

Amrita Joshi read the Los Angeles Times piece on the accident twice. She read every word, every sentence and every paragraph as if she were to take a test on the subject later. After folding the newspaper and placing it on top of the coffee table, she asked her husband, “You want to live with this lie for the rest of your life?”

Suman Joshi did not pay attention to his wife. He kept on working on his PowerPoint presentation. When the wife repeated the same question with the exact words, tone, and zeal, he minimized the PowerPoint window and said, “Why do I get this nauseating feeling that I made a huge mistake by confiding this to you?”

“Do you even have a clue why am I concerned?”

“I do.”

“Tell me why am I concerned?”

“You believe that Nirmal Dhungana will always hold me responsible for his wife’s death. That bothers you.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“I can live with that. Chances are I am never going to meet the guy in my life again.”

“If you tell Nirmal Dhungana the truth, he won’t have to live with the guilt that he did not do the same for his wife.”

“Put on your thinking cap and listen … Nirmal Dhungana’s wife was cheating on him with his friend. When I told that woman Dipesh Giri had passed away, she asked me three times whether it was Dipesh or Nirmal. When I repeated it was Dipesh Giri, she jumped off the building. How do you think that husband will feel if he finds out the truth?”

“LA Times says she whispered something to you before she asked for water. What did she whisper to you?”

“She was whispering what I just told you. She asked me three times who had died, Nirmal or Dipesh. I said Dipesh three times. Dipesh was much taller than Nirmal, so to confirm, she asked me whether it was the ‘tall one’ or the ‘short one’. That was her fourth question, her fourth whisper. When I said ‘the tall one’, that was when she asked for water.” Suman Joshi uttered every word as if he was teaching his wife a Sanskrit mantra.

“Was she wishing it was …?”

“I am sure she was. She did not even bother to do ‘eeni meeni mini mo’. When you have a husband and a lover, I’d assume one would at least consider ‘eeni meeni mini mo’. She was certain whom she wanted.”

“God, how did we get here? What happened to our values?”

“What values? It was always the same. Only phrases have changed. We used to call it ‘poilo jaane’, now it is ‘cheating’ and ‘affair’.”

“Morality has gone down the drain.”

“Morality has always remained constant; fear is the variable that dictates our actions. I agree our fear has subsided to some degree. Morality weighs in when there is a conflict between ‘what feels right’ versus ‘what feels good.’ In the absence of fear, we choose what feels good. That’s what Pratibha Dhungana did. She chose what felt good.”

Even though Amrita agreed with her husband wholeheartedly, she did not pause to give him a round of applause. “This woman killed herself because her lover was dead, not her husband. Nirmal Dhungana needs to know this. He should not be mourning her for the rest of his life.”

“It’s not your place to play judge advocate on Nirmal Dhungana’s behalf. Let him live with the memory of a loving wife who cared enough to kill herself. Nirmal Dhungana is already a sad man; he does not deserve to be bitter.”

“But, that’s not the truth,” Amrita emphasized, “While you are lying to make that man feel great about his dead wife, he must blame you for her death. I guarantee you he blames you for her death.”

“I said I can live with that. As for truth, it is just an empirical concept. What you and I know is our truth, what Nirmal Dhungana does not know is his truth.”

Hi Sum off.

I have the urge to write to you again. Doubtlessly you are the best writer in sajha and I think you are the smartest of us all. Still I feel like your writing has improved to some extent, with every new story you post in sajha.

As you have admitted yourself that you love compliments, I would second to what nepalonmymind had to say; for your own good cause. When you publish a book, if you have at least two stories out of twenty-two attributed to positive female characters instead of having none, you will have more chance of being a best-seller. I don’t only wish you to be a very good writer; I want you to be a very successful writer too. So you better dare to compromise with your convictions (on woman).

Having said that, I can assume why you don’t know where they exist. Poor men- us! We value them so much that we have to end up in disappointment most of the time.

I hate replying to my old threads, but there is a reason why I am compelled to make an exception here.

Writing is the only pure thing I do—and yes, I am passionate about it. So, when people tell me you are better than this and that, ‘falaano’ and ‘dhiskaano’, it really hurts me. I am here to share, not to win. You can only be creative when your competition is you; because you can only be better than you. I have always felt, best compliments come as arguments in RE: to the content of what I write.

Now I am already here, let me thank those whom I have not thanked …

Cerine,
You said you found the story funny. You must have been watching a funny sitcom while reading this. What were you watching? There is nothing funny on TV these days.

Captain Saaheb,
I can’t help myself but be mesmerized by the elegance of your words even when I involuntarily twitch from a minor disagreement. Though sometimes too politically correct, I always find you polished and deferential. I don’t want to sound like Peter Parker’s uncle Ben, but listen to me: With talent comes responsibility. You need to take your writings beyond commentaries, seriously.

Where I don’t agree with you is … in my hearts of heart, I believe this is a purely act-driven story. Dwelling on one character, who utters just eight words in the entire story (“I go with the flow, I had fun”), might not do justice to the rest of the real world who got the news from the LA TIMES. You are smart enough to decipher what I mean.

By the way, I usually click on the login ID of people who are kind to me and see how else they moonlight in Sajha. Your homepage impressed me. (Actually, I had written, “I was impressed by your homepage.” The stupid MS-WORD kept on complaining—passive voice vayo re ke.)

If anyone is interested, click on Captain’s login ID. When you flow to his homepage, click on the tab that reads “Top 10 Posters”. When I saw how frequently some people contribute in Sajha, I could not help but ask myself: Who are these people borrowing time from?

SunnyDev – I have never given you the compliments you deserve. You are fair to every writer in Sajha. You never make it personal; you always talk about the content. When you are a critic, even if you are the best one judging the work of the worst there is; you are still not bigger than the work itself. You seem to know that.

It drives me nuts when people ask me who my favorite actor is. Because I only have favorite performances, I don’t have a favorite actor. If you have a favorite actor, you are not going to be neutral when you watch him perform. Your neutrality and sincerity as a reader makes you important. And I have no doubt in my mind that your comments here mirror your personality.

You said:

“Toward the end you made Suman saintly guarding Nirmal from more painful truth. I thought, it was not human trait to live with false indictment. Later I realised that; satisfaction of being pivotal in bending the truth is human.”

Correct. But, why did he confide that to his wife? Maybe he was not confiding the truth to his wife, maybe he was just telling her: “I am a great man.”

IMI,
Ke chha vaai haalkhabar? I thought you abandoned me. I was not in LA. The only ANA I have attended is the one that took place in my backyard in 2002.

Foolsparadise,
Whenever I am stressed out at or by work, or by other stuff in life, I read your comments that you posted in my ‘Kaavre to Thimi’ final part. I have gotten compliments in life, but I don’t know why those 13 lines always cheer me up. I must have read it about eight times already. Every time I feel susceptible to my vulnerabilities, I click on your comments and go: “Someone believes in me.” I cannot thank you enough for those words. It boosts my morale so quickly and so emphatically. I am going to be very busy next couple of weeks, but when I write, I promise I will write about one great woman. But, did you not feel like Mangala Devi was way too conflicted to be a villain? And, Pratibha Dhungana was way too non-present to be the same?

Thank you so much for reading.


[In the end, we all live of natural causes. It’s all relative. Four hundred years ago, people thought they were living in the present.]

You all have a GREAT WEEKEND!!!

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“I said I can live with that. As for truth, it is just an empirical concept. What you and I know is our truth, what Nirmal Dhungana does not know is his truth.”

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So cogent.....!!!!

Thanks for the info on Haddock! Great stuff...I was truly amazed. His homepage on Sajha is "bangin" like an adoloscent's myspace page.

BTW, Never realized that sajha had those counts for the # of posts one makes, etc. Saw my name in a couple of Top 10 posters (I never ever thought I posted that MANY posts)! And another hilarious point...One of them was on the Top viewed Sajha Threads: The # 13 on the list reads, "Nepali Models POKA" . Now, ain't that something we should all be proud of!! hahahahahaha

Thanks for info Sum_off. Man, I need to slow down it seems..

Sum Off -

If you've ever followed any of our N-Land (now Cafe-N) threads, there is a long running joke about SNDY's nose being as long as a "ghiraula". Please spare me the need to join her for rhinoplasty with such generous comments. You are pretty polished and deferential yourself I must say. As for politically correct, I sense our interpretations and understanding of that phrase might be different because to me it implies a certain fear of expressing thoughts freely but perhaps you have a different interpretation.

Thanks for clarifying where you are coming from with the story. It's always great to know what a writer was thinking when writing. I am sure it will come as no surprise to you that writers and readers often look at the same story and characters and events conveyed therein very differently. When a reader has read someone a couple of times, they tend to take up much more from a story than what the writer wants them to because they see the events in the bigger context of the writer. Perhaps they shouldn't be and your point is well taken.

"When I saw how frequently some people contribute in Sajha, I could not help but ask myself: Who are these people borrowing time from? "

LOL!! I have stopped asking that question since I found myself on that list


Have a good one.

PS : Thanks for increasing the hits on my home page. I owe you a cuppa for that :)

Capt. saab, mero naak ko baayan yaha pani?? LOL..I'd never seen your homepage even after 13th episode..he he..kya khatara..LOL..I'm no. 1 raicha..at least kehi ma ta no. 1 bhayechu..I'd like to thank Sajha, my parents, my husband, my son and all my friends..LOL.. aba ali badhi bho...I really should retire now, while I'm at the top..:)

yup sndy, head n shoulder above the rest....Maybe you should hibernate for a month or two before you go out on a rampage again.

Laterzzz!

SNDY - Don't listen to Samsara, this place will be as quiet as a cemetery without you around

Hey there Samsara - Hope all's well with you.

Sorry for the digression, Sum Off. I'm out now.

Samsara, I seriously need to..Capt. saab is just being kind k..I'm not this talkative in real life, I promise

Nice job Sum_ Off dude...........Hope to read more from u in future..................

hey sum off....awesome post!!!!

always enjoy reading your stories. i just hope nothing like that happens in any ANA.

Keep em rolling over and over again!!!!!

(i meant the story, not the vehicle)

:p

Nearly missed this one. Where is sum_off thesedays?

अरे तेरिक्की, यार यस्तो दामी लेखेको छौ सम _ अफ जि कि साला जिन्दगी तिम्रो लेखहरु मात्र पडेर बिताई दिउ जस्तो लाग्छ के कहीले काही त।

!