परेवा_
After years of rebellion in those beautiful city aisles, elaborately decorated; in sizzling red hot blood, a Nepali commoner was freed from the cruel Rana regime in 2007BS and autocratic monarchy in 2065BS. The constitution declared freedom for all the Nepalese but it was for sure not able to ensure freedom for the bits of the anthropoid self masked beneath the identity of being a Nepali. True freedom can only be attained when one’s burden on this earth is lifted entirely; through the quiet inevitability of death. If and only if, an individual dares to express freedom openly, while the bits of air still stuck among his lungs then the human realm will grandly crown him, not with honour but with garlands of shoes and exile him as a pariah.
I was no different from others; caged, and my society was nothing but a grand exhibition of caged birds. As I grew up that slim cage became my horizon, every desire pressed behind the bars and every wish silenced by the bars. Unaware about the depth of this eternal universe I had decorated my elegant and “perfect” world amongst the bars. Once in a while the locks to the cage would open as opportunities but petrified by the grand crowning of the society I as others would ignore the fact, accept my fate and move on with the black-and-white society so colorful life. Perhaps the caged birds would watch, their hollow eyes tracing the victorious fluttering of those free souls who would proceed to carve their names into the wind. The sky stretched, infinite and indifferent but their wings would grow heavy with disuse, feathers dulled by the shadow of the bars. Jealousy hollowed them, not instantly as a rage but as a quiet rot, an ache which would nibble at the bone. Their dreams roamed around the shades of blue, only to wake up to the same vain darkness and the narrow aisle. When the lock clicked open, fear gripped tighter than iron. Fear, what if the vastness would swallow them. Fear, what if they had forgotten to fly. So, they stay. They wither. They become fossils of their own longing and the aisles echo with the ghosts of what could have been the wingbeats fading into the silence.
The lock would occasionally open, shaping various opportunities in different avatar through my short course of life. As the ordinary, I also would ignore these opportunities but that evening was not the usual. A sinister entity attracted me towards the beauty of freedom, intimidating me to unfurl my wings, oblivious and ignorant about the grand crowning from the society. It might seem irregular but for me this salvation was dressed as the rain yes it was as simple as the rain.
It was the month of Shrawan maybe the first week. The sky was overcast with heavy dark clouds growling, hungry to throw the rain into the damp soil. Since the earlier evening the clouds were taunting the earth. One moment they wept in whispers, softly kissing the parched soil; the next they hammered the ground like a conquest. The prolonged rain had drowned the potholes in mud just as the leaders had assured us with their vain promises before each election. The rain had held its breath, in a lars silence giving an illusion of the end which I failed to comprehend. Ignorant, I marched out along the city lanes delusional, without an umbrella. The societal rules and regulations carved firmly in my cerebral as soon as I fell into this sphere strictly prohibited me from indulging in any activity which involved being drenched and dirty in the rain (simply having fun). Just as a puppeteer the strings of regulations controlled me forcing me to walk from the sides and obliging me to avoid the potholes as if they were landmines.
All of a sudden the darkness digested the scattered lights and angry brooding clouds swept over the city. The dark clouds clashed as if they were a warzone while the earthlings below stood as silent, petrified spectators. Initially I tried to avoid every drop of the rain as if they would pierce through my skin and expose the stories of sorrow buried deep under. The rain grew furious fuelling an intense downpour which made it almost impossible to avoid the sky drops. For the first time, I saw the open locks not just as a way out, but as a form of mukti, wings that could carry me to freedom.
Amidst the fright of the grand crowning, I saw colors of countless shades dancing among the raindrops, colors which filled me an empty canvas, pixel by pixel, into a beautiful painting. The annoying screech and shrills of the rain now seemed as a rhythmic melody guiding towards the decorated path of mukti. I found a strange warmth amongst the clothes hanging as second skin. Beneath those dark, brooding skies, I saw the smiling faces of ploughmen as their ripening crops danced on the wind. That day, I saw a world so plain I couldn’t make sense of it, and so heavy I couldn’t even speak of it. It was right there yet it seemed invisible. That day, I didn’t find answers. I found movement. I found rain. I found myself.
The colors soon began to fade, and the shrills and screeches of the rain returned. The dilemma of the grand crowning struck me once again, and I quickly found a shed, pretending as if nothing had happened. I marched swiftly back to my cage, careful not to let any of the other caged birds sense what I had just experienced. Now all I can do is hope and rot hoping. Hope to fly again, spread my wings and fly endlessly towards the horizon. A Nepali was freed but freedom for the human beneath the Nepali is beyond imagination as long as the human society exists to ensure each one withers hoping inside the cage.
