Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

Once she invited her entire class, 6-7 of us, to her apartment. I bought a flower bouquet for her and a toy bus for her 4-5-year-old son. I imagined how her son would not take his eyes off the toy until I handed it over to him, how he would jump up and down, beaming, begging his mom to open the box, and run towards his room to play with his shiny toy. On the way to her apartment, a classmate asked me if he could have the toy since I had two presents and he had none. I wasn't prepared to say no. I gave him the toy instinctively. I regretted it immediately, but there was nothing I could do. It was already gone, and he was holding it in his hands. Oh, how much I wanted her to know that the toy her son received was from me and not from this classmate of mine. The fact that she would never learn about the true gift-giver tormented me during the whole time I was there.

Now and then, her smiling face with short brown hair, her tall body, slightly heavy, wearing a sweater and skirt, resurfaces. I have this intense longing to meet her, sit with her, look at her one more time, and tell her what she means to me. I wonder how and where she is now. Perhaps she looks like one of those plump babushkas. Is she still in Kharkiv, living in the same apartment where I had been a few times? Or has she left the city like many others, fleeing from the ravages of the ongoing war? 

How can I forget her kindred, cheerful look, her always-smiling face, her constant effort to understand everyone in her class, her patience when I ran out of words to express myself, her interest in listening to my stories, and her visits to our hostel when I was sick and unable to attend classes? 

I have searched for her online multiple times. I have visited the university website looking for her name. I have sent a few emails to the university asking for her address. I have almost lost hope now. I doubt I will ever communicate with her. I don't think of that toy anymore; it doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is that there is a Russian language teacher of mine, (hopefully) living somewhere, unaware of the fact that there is her former student on the other side of the globe who thinks of her now and then, longs to see her, talk to her, and tell her that she was the best teacher he ever had.

The movie is about a young boy, Antoine, conceived by a young woman without a husband. Abandoned by both mom and dad, he is raised by his grandmother until her death, after which he comes to live with his mom, now married to another man, a kind and jovial type. The movie shows how Antoine deals with rejections at home and at school by mostly hanging out with his friend René, skipping school, and stealing money or items to distract himself from his worries. Their mischievous acts lead from one to another and cause more trouble for him, ultimately landing him in an institution. There is a scene where he is being interviewed at the institution, where we don't see the interviewer but only Antoine answering questions. Each of his answers reveals something of his past; he is allowing us to glimpse into his past one layer at a time. He has no complaints about anyone. He even smiles when he answers some questions. He doesn't even know what he is entitled to. He simply accepts whatever happens to him. The only time we see his emotions is when he is taken away from the city to the institution. He peers through the window of a van and looks at the streets, buildings, and the places he used to run around with René, and we see his cheeks wet with tears. The next time we see him sad is when a guard at the institution doesn't allow his friend to visit him. He is not only barred from the love, care, and guidance of adults and society but also from his only friend René. So, he runs away from the society that rejects him. We find him running towards an ocean, an empty vast field of sand filled with the sound of waves, with no humans in sight. The movie ends with Antoine turning his head to stare at us as if to remind us to be kind, caring, and, most importantly, to remember his face. And, it is his face, his piercing eyes looking straight at us that stays with us.

There were many, but to the few, I keep going back. The innocence of youth, the friendships, the black sea and its beach stretching as far as eyes could see, the songs of Rod Steward mingling with the sounds of soft waves, the encounters with strangers, and with it the hope and its weariness — are of the most precious recollections I have preserved in a deep and safe vault of my memory. They say the reason we (read and) write is to enter that vault that we hold so dear in our hearts.

As the semester approached, Saruman, a close friend of mine, proposed a trip to Alushta, a coastal town in the Crimean Peninsula, during the summer vacation. Our university offered a vacation package. I had never been to any beach town. I have not even seen the real ocean with waves swaying back and forth. The only time I had seen the sea was during the winter break when visiting the Baltic states the previous year. With its water frozen, it looked more like a vast frozen lake. Two other friends and I immediately signed up for the trip. Later I found out that Saruman’s girlfriend Katya and her friends too were going with us.

When Amora learned about our trip, she too wanted to come. The weight of her around my back over the two weeks, while my friends roamed without any leashes, felt too restrictive. I wanted to spend my time freely with friends and with gorgeous ladies I had hoped I would meet on the trip. I invented some excuses. When she realized that I wasn’t taking her no matter how much she pleaded, she stopped pestering me. Perhaps she knew her love was one-sided. I was too excited to notice her pain and agony. She, however, tried her luck, “Will you at least come to Moscow with me when you come back?” I responded as I had before, “You know well I would if I had extra cash. I need to survive the rest of summer.”

After the exams, we packed our bags and went to the train station, from where first we took a train to Simferopol and then to Alushta. On the way, Katya noticed my bulging pocket and asked about it. I took out the bundle of rubles I had received in exchange for 25 dollars. She asked if she could hold it. When I handed her the bundle, her eyes widened, and said, “I have never seen this much money in my entire life.” I looked into her eyes, and I knew she was not lying.

Upon getting to the rest house, a staff took us to a large room with 20-25 beds stacked in rows and asked us to pick our spots. I looked around and the hall reminded me of a shelter, where they hold refugees or people facing an emergency. Some refugees stared at us with suspicious eyes as if they had never seen brown people in their lives. Katya and her friends went looking for three empty beds adjacent to each other and when they found them, they dropped their bags and threw their bodies on the cushy mattresses, filling the air with squeaky noises. How could we spend our vacation with this pastoral crowd? Frustrated, we went straight to the property manager and demanded a separate room. After some bickering, we got a big and bright room with 4 beds and an attached bathroom.

The next day when I woke up in the morning, the sun was already out. I got ready quickly and went outside while the others got ready. The morning air was refreshing. The vacationers were coming out of their rooms, excited, stretching their arms. When everybody got ready, we went to the cafeteria for breakfast. I imagined some fancy food that people in the movies or magazines ate on their vacation sitting on a table in an open space, their sunglasses resting on their visors, the table filled with baskets full of freshly baked bread, plates with pastries and fruits, butter and jam cubes scattered in the tablecloth, jugs filled with lemonades and orange juices, the ocean in the background. The cafeteria was already crowded with the vacationers. Excited, I grabbed the tray and stood in line only to be handed a bowl filled with kasha and a piece of rye bread. The only consolation was that the waitresses were young and lively; one of them even smiled at me while handing over the food.

After breakfast, we gathered our towels and headed to the beach. The walk to the beach was about 10-15 minutes. It wasn’t a town in a French or an Italian riviera, but for someone who was born and brought up in a land-locked third-world country, whose every summer and winter vacations were spent playing with his siblings and cousins in the same courtyard in front of their ancestral house, the town Alushta was magical. I have always gloated about my past in front of Katya and many others, but I was far less unfortunate than her and her compatriots. They were honest, but I was too shameful and vain to admit who I was. The street was filled with the crowd in shorts and colorful swimsuits, walking in their flip-flops, their towels around their necks, chattering with excitement, men looking amiable, women a bit flirtatious, children running ahead of their parents, and grannies relaxed and even forgiving to our mischievous gazes. We joined the procession. It was clear they all came to enjoy, to forget about their daily travails and travesties, some maybe to amend their past, some to start afresh, some like us were coquets on a hunt for companionship and fun. Behind the crowd and under the spotless blue sky, the ocean appeared teasingly. We hurried towards the sea.

When we reached the beach, I gazed at the ocean and its vastness with awe and wonder. The breeze was mild and the waves calm. I dipped my hands in the water sensing some cosmic connection. I could now say I had seen the ocean and touched its water. We looked around and saw two prone bodies of young ladies reading books. We picked an empty spot next to them. After putting our towels and the cassette player down, we ran to the water to take a dip. After swimming a bit, we came back to our spot, put Rod Stewart’s cassette in our player, hit the play button, and lay down. My body with its sensors took in all there was in the air — the heat, soothed by the occasional breeze, the smell of salt, wet sand, and the songs of Rod Stewart intermingled with the sound of soft waves gently hitting the shores, the sounds of splashings, the occasional screams and laughter. When the heat would get unbearable, I would take a few dips in the water, then come back to lie again and listen to the same songs. Even now, after so many years, when I hear those songs, I am immediately teleported to the beach and I can see the youth version of us lying prone on the sandy beach, our skin peeled and burned, and next to us the cassette player playing the same songs, and further up the two young ladies gazing at the ocean.

While lying, I was summoning up the courage to talk to our neighbors. One of them was skinny and attractive and now and then she threw her glances at us. Finally, I went and asked her if we could get introductions (that's how all the relations in the USSR started). Her name was Eva. I asked what she was reading. Most of her responses went over my head. Perhaps she quickly realized I was too naïve and empty in my head. I sat with her for some time, undecided whether to invest any efforts in her. She too was from Lviv and stayed at the same shelter where Katya and her friends were staying. I went to water with her, but stayed at the shore, afraid to go too far with her.

Around noon, we came back to our room, took a shower, and went to the cafeteria for lunch. A girl from the cafeteria came to our table with food and said to me, “From my girlfriend over there.” When I followed her gaze, it was the same girl who smiled at me in the morning. When I finished eating my food, I went to the kitchen thanked her, and asked for her name.

After lunch, I went to our room and tried to take a nap. When I couldn’t. I went out for a walk. I heard someone calling my name and when I looked around; it was Eva, smoking a cigarette outside the building. I went to her. She asked if I would like to take a walk with her. With nothing else to do, I followed her around the property. She wanted to know if I had a girlfriend in Lviv or met anyone in Alushta. Something told me that she would know if I lied to her. When I mentioned to her about Adora and her wish to join me, she defended her by saying that she would have scratched my face with her long and pointy nails had I refused to bring her. She asked me to compliment her, and I struggled with my limited vocabulary. She wouldn’t get satisfied and pressed for more. I couldn’t tell what she wanted from me. Did she want company, a pet to play with, or a serious relationship (I knew even then that I was no match for her)? I had tried hard to look for any signs, but she was too smart to leave any. The next day, we went to watch a movie. In the theater, she held my hand all the time, and I was debating whether to caress and kiss her or leave her alone. In the end, I just let her hold my hand afraid she might scream or scratch my face if I attempted to draw her near and start kissing. I came out of the theater with sweaty palms. That was the last time I saw her.

The next morning, I asked the cafeteria girl to meet me in the afternoon. When she came to see me, she had pink lipstick on her thin lips. She filled the air with cheap perfume. We talked and sat on a bench. I asked her to go to our room, which she refused. I pulled her to my lap and started to kiss her, tasting her pink lipstick. I tried to fuddle her breast, but she put my hand away. Perhaps it was too quick for her, but I didn't have too much time. When we parted, she asked me to come to her place in the evening. Excitedly, I went to her place in the evening. The room was crowded with her friends from the cafeteria. They were talking about spending the night out on the beach baking and eating potatoes. Some of her friends left to steal potatoes from the kitchen. Eating baked potatoes sounded so dull and stupid. While they were discussing their plan, I told her that I couldn’t go out with them and so I left feeling betrayed. The next morning at the cafeteria, she came to me and asked if I was upset with her. I didn’t have time if she wasn’t ready to entertain me (and herself). What was she expecting from me? That I would fall in love with her and move to her village, marry her, give her loads of children, live with her parents looking after their cattle, their potato fields, while our children ran around naked, and she baked some potatoes? I looked at her and she was looking pitiful and seeking my grace. I told her that I wasn’t upset with her. Nothing was wrong. But I didn’t hold her hands, nor ask her to sit next to me, nor promise to meet her later and she probably sensed that she had already lost me.

There was a friend of Katya whose looks were alright until she laughed, which she often did, exposing her big teeth and gum from ear to ear. One could ask what was wrong with that. For me, it was a deal breaker. The prospect of getting up close to her pinkish gum was too repulsive to even imagine. That was why every time Saruman or Katya had signaled me to take her out, I acted dumb, unable to decipher their signal.

In the afternoon, we would go again to the beach and lie down listening to the music. In the evening, we would eat dinner at a restaurant and go for a walk. On one of those evenings, while walking in the main street, my gaze landed on an attractive lady dressed in fashionable clothes. I went to her and asked if we could introduce each other. I don’t know what she saw in me or heard in my voice, “Lena,” she told me. After talking for a while, we agreed to meet the next day at the beach. The next day, I left my friends and walked along the beach looking for Lena. I found her with her younger sister. I sat with them for a few hours and took them to the city to buy an instant coffee. At the store, the owner showed me two types of coffee — one local with a reasonable price and another a foreign 5 times the price of the local. The local coffee would have been just fine, but with Lena beside me, I picked the other and paid with a wad of cash. She held my arm tightly while walking back to the beach. I asked her a few times to come to my room, but she never agreed, and neither did she invite me to her place. But we did meet every day, all day for the next few days until the time came for her and her sister to leave the town. She gave me a tight hug and a kiss, a piece of paper with her address and phone number took my address and promised to keep in touch.

After spending a week in Alushta, we got bored and decided to spend another week in Yalta instead. So, we took the train and headed to Yalta. On the train, I met a young girl. After getting to know each other, I told her that my aunt lives in the USA, and that I would be heading to her after finishing my studies. She looked impressed and spent the rest of the journey sticking with me. When her station came, I asked her to join me at Yalta, but she left leaving me with a piece of paper.

After a week, we returned to Lviv. I had nothing to tell or show as trophies except for a few pieces of paper with phone numbers and addresses written on them. I went to Amora’s room and knocked on her door. She was ecstatic to see me and welcomed me with hugs and kisses. She didn’t ask me much about my trip. She was content to have me back. She started to cook dinner when I said I was hungry. After dinner, she sat on a bed and started to write letters to her family. I put my head on her lap pressing my lips at her belly and hugged her tightly. She put her notebook and pen aside and started to ruffle my hair. She was leaving Lviv for good in a week. I had known her for a few years, but we were together only for 3 months. I whispered, “I will come to Moscow with you.” The next week, I spent all my time with her. We went to the city for a walk, watched a movie together for the first time, and spent the evening in her room. The week went by quickly.

The evening of her departure came. All her friends came to say goodbye. We went to the train station; she went to Moscow and I to Kiev to stamp her diploma at the embassy. I arrived in Kyiv in the morning. I went straight to the embassy, got her diploma stamped, and returned to the train station, from where I took a train bound for Moscow.

In Moscow, I went straight to the Education Ministry where Amora was supposed to collect her return ticket home. I saw her coming out of the building with an envelope in her hand. When she saw me, she ran towards me smiling. We walked around the city holding each other's hands and went to eat supper before heading to my friend’s room to spend the night. On the way, she asked me if we could rent a room for the next night, the last of our night. Sure, I said. The next morning, we went to MISIS to rent a room for a night. Once we got the key, we put our bags in the room and left for the city. We walked around the city aimlessly, holding each other’s hands, stopping only to eat or to rest. We went to Red Square and walked around St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Moskva River, and along the banks. We went to Arbat Street and strolled watching the various artifacts displayed on the street. I wanted to buy something for her, but she wouldn’t let me buy anything. We then wandered into Zaryadye Park and sat on the bench for a long time watching the kids playing nearby. We bought and shared a bottle of beer. As the evening approached, we became quieter and dragged ourselves to the metro station. We hopped a metro towards Oktyabr’skaya. We found two empty seats in the corner and sat, avoiding each other's gaze, each lost in our own thoughts. I played in my mind tomorrow’s events — taking a cab to the airport, seeing her off, taking a metro to the train station, train to Lviv, the hostel, Amora’s room, collecting the items she left for me, and taking one last glance of the room before closing the door. Without Amora, the city, the streets, and the hostel, all felt quiet and lifeless. Even my friends, whose companionships I prized dearly, seemed distant, inaccessible. It struck me right then that I would never see her again. She wouldn’t be looking for me in the evenings, or at night knocking at my friends’ doors when I didn’t show up at her door nor opening the door with a smile in the afternoons when I would get bored or hungry looking for something to bite. This reality was too much to bear. Suddenly, I burst into tears. I found myself alone in a dark, bottomless pit. What is happening to me? I never thought I would feel this way. I wasn’t aware of my love for her, it manifested only in the form of grief. But why now — when she is about to leave? I wanted the night to go on forever with her beside me. She hugged me tight. I dug my head in her bosom. I wanted to melt in her body so as not to be separated from her. I couldn’t stop crying, and she kept hugging me without saying a word. Her eyes were moist. We were a miserable sight. We avoided the gazes of the other passengers by looking outside. The city was getting dark. The night, the last of ours, awaited us.

Socrates never wrote anything in his life. It was Plato who wrote about him or rather Socrates was one of the main speakers in his early writings. Socrates thought the writings were static and could be misinterpreted by readers. He preferred direct communication over writing. So, he went to town and engaged himself with his students in dialogues. He argued against sophists, for whom there was no truth or universal knowledge and everything was relative. He encouraged his students to seek true knowledge and was always asking “What is it?” questions. He focused his dialogues or questions on the ethical questions, virtues, and the true knowledge. One can only live one’s life virtuously when one learns the truth. He was executed for spoiling the youth of Athens.

Plato studied from Socrates and wrote on every subject of philosophy. No wonder, Alfred North Whitehead said, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” He combined and transformed all the previous teachings of Greek thought. He agreed with Sophists that knowledge of appearance is impossible, with Socrates, the genuine knowledge is concepts, with Heraclitus, the world of appearance is in constant change, with Eleatics, the world of ideas is unchanging, with Atomists, the being is plural (ideas), and with Anaxagora, the mind is distinct. The Pythagorean philosophy influenced him greatly. He took many ideas from it. Just like Pythagoreans, he believed in the human soul to be immortal and, as a result, attaining moral virtue was far more important than any material. He took the ideas of forms from Pythagoreans’s numbers (arche), which are ideal. Plato said that the sense perception does not reveal the true reality of things. Genuine knowledge can only be gained from reasoning. He is a rationalist. He said one can’t learn anything new (how can one learn anything — if he knows something, then there is no need for learning. If he doesn’t know, then he would never know if something he is learning is true or false). Hence, he thought that learning is remembering because all the truths lie embedded in our soul and when we learn, we are recalling those ideas or principles. All knowledge is reminiscence and all learning is a reawakening. Hence soul must have existed before its union with the body. The soul becomes possessed with a desire for the world of sense. It originally belonged to Star. If it had resisted the desire in celestial life, it would have occupied itself in transcendent existence, with the contemplation of ideas. As it is, it is condemned to pass through a stage of purification. The release of the soul from the body and the contemplation of the beautiful world of ideas is the ultimate end of life.

Man is just when he is wise (reason rules over impulses), brave (spirited past holds fast through pain and pleasure), and temperate (submit to authority or reason). For a man, a life of virtue, not pleasure, is the highest good. 

The mission of the state is to achieve virtue and happiness for its citizens. The state should be ruled by the philosophers and oppose private property. 

Aristotle, a student of Plato, wrote on several subjects. He is the first philosopher to divide the inquiry into distinct subjects such as mathematics, biology, zoology, political science, ethics, and so on. He rejects the idea of transcendency of Plato and claims that the form and the matter are not separate, but eternally together. According to him, our world of experience is the real world and the general knowledge is not only the facts but their causes or grounds. Without the experience, the truth would never be known and without being implicit in reason, they would not be certain. He tried to reconcile empiricism and rationalism. He explained the matter as the principle of possibility, whereas form is the principle of actuality or reality. The idea of the form is the mover and the matter the thing moved. Since form and matter are together eternally, the motion too is eternal. This notion presupposes an eternal unmoved mover. He claims the first mover to be the absolute spirit or the God, which religious thinkers borrowed heavily to prove the existence of God. For Aristotle, God has no moral virtues i.e., he is not generous or loving or just; he is pure intelligence. God is free from pain and passion and is supremely happy. He is everything that a philosopher longs to be. Aristotle claims that the man, who poses the reason, is the final goal of nature. The highest good for man is to manifest its peculiar essence. The eudaimonia or the pursuit of happiness, for him, is the primary objective of a man and the highest form of happiness comes from contemplation. He believed an ethical man has the faculties of intellect, wisdom, insight, temperance, courage, and liberality. He advocated for the golden mean: courage between foolhardiness and cowardice, liberality between extravagance and avarice, modesty between boastfulness and shamelessness, and so on. The justice, for him, is giving each man his due. Society’s role is to make man virtuous and happy and the state is the goal of the evolution of human life.

“You will have to go home. We will call you back when the job market gets better,” the messenger said.

“We just had a baby. It’s not that easy to leave everything, ” I replied.

“Sorry, I can’t help you there.”

“What if I decide to stay here?”

“In that case, we will have to cancel your work visa. You will be out of status.”

I knew I was going to lose the argument. The messenger must have been told not to use emotions, but the prepared script when dealing with me or my situation and he was doing it pretty well. What would I do if they canceled my H1B visa? I couldn’t stay without the status. I would have to then leave the country. Oh, how unfair! I had everything — home, family, friends, job and I left everyone and everything and came here thinking I would work at some great companies, learn from the pioneers, and return home with some knowledge. My dreams suddenly became murky and unreachable. Everything had changed after September 11. The booming industry of the dot-coms collapsed and so was the company I was involved with. Reena was lying down next to our three-month-old daughter. Mom and sister were outside in the living room, perhaps hoping something good might come out of the phone conversation.

I will report you to the authorities if you threaten me. But I didn’t utter those words.

“Give me some time to prepare.”

I hung up the phone.

“What happened?” Reena asked.

“I am going for a walk,” I said.

I put a jacket on and left the room. Mom looked at me, expecting some news. My sister avoided the gaze and busied herself in the kitchen.

“I am going out for a walk,” I repeated.

I went to my car, opened the trunk, lifted the cover, and pulled out the cigarette packet under the spare wheel, and put it in my pocket. I looked up to make sure Mom was not looking at me. I walked to the main street and turned left on Brook Street. The air was crisp and chilly. The sky was clear and the streets were flooded with the sunlight. I kept walking the narrow roads, engrossed in my thoughts. The conversation with my employer kept coming back. I have to find a way out. I was already out of the project for 3 months and I can’t expect them to keep sending me paychecks. How sometimes I wished they would forget about my existence, but their payroll would keep sending me the paychecks. How can I leave the country? I turned right on Dewing Avenue. How would I tell my family that we all are going back? No, I can’t do that. What would all my friends and relatives say or think when they see me back home? Probably they would laugh at me and take solace at my failure. I turned left on Mt. Diablo Boulevard. I can’t return as a loser. I lit a cigarette. Oh, how good the first puff is! I dragged another puff. I looked back to make sure Mom was not following me. I checked my pocket for gum and finding the packet there, I went back to my thoughts. Further ahead, I made a left turn followed the Shore trail, and arrived at the Lafayette Reservoir parking. It was early morning and there were no cars in the lot. It was quiet. I sat on the pavement and lit another cigarette. I looked around and there were trees everywhere. Perhaps a trail starts from somewhere, but I had no desire to explore the area. If only I could find a job…I would give everything, I would work 10-12 hours per day, even on weekends if necessary. But with this job market, the chances are so slim to find even an opening. There are perhaps thousands of engineers looking for a job. Why would they hire me? They would rather hire their citizen or someone with a green card. I don’t even speak English well. But I can work hard and with less money. I need to buy a lottery. If I won the lottery, I would apply for a green card as a businessman and buy a house here in Lafayette. Why not? It’s a beautiful town with so much greenery. People are so friendly here. I crushed my cigarette and pulled the gum out of my pocket. I walked home ruminating on the possible solutions.

In the afternoon, I called Sarju and asked if he could talk to his employer. Sarju called me later in the evening with exciting news. His employer had asked for my resume. I immediately sent my resume to his employer, thanking him for the opportunity. All day long, I kept checking my email expecting a response. I did the same the next day. In the evening, I asked Sarju if he had any news for me. I sent another email to his employer asking them to contact me if they had any questions. There were no responses. The silence was ominous, but I kept telling myself to have patience. Finally, I got a call and found out that they were no longer interested in me.

I went out for a walk. From the reservoir parking, I called Prajesh and asked if he could talk to his employer in Texas. Later in the afternoon, he called me back saying that the employer was interested in meeting me in person first. I was ecstatic. I called Suresh, who was living in the Dallas area, and told him that I would be visiting the area soon. He sounded excited and said that he would be looking forward to my visit. In the evening, when we sat for dinner, I announced the good news.

“But I have to travel to Texas first for an interview. They will transfer my visa and then find a client for me. I may have to stay in Texas until they find a client. I think it would be easy if you all went to Nepal and stayed there for some time. I will call you immediately after I find some project.”

The next day, I called a travel agency to book flights. We applied for a passport for Shrija. The day before their departure, a few of my friends came over and together we stored our bed, mattresses, dining table, chairs, sofa, computer desk, TV, VCR, crib, and stroller in the Public Storage bin, leaving only some utensils and blankets for the night. The next day, I drove them to the SFO airport. I could see the worries in their eyes, but I didn’t have time to think about them or their worries. Once they went in through the security gates, I left the building asked someone for a cigarette, and started smoking. I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me smoking, I thought.

I drove back to Lafayette. I had to put the remaining few items in the storage unit, leave the apartment key to the manager, and get the security deposit. As I hit the highway, I pressed the play button and it started U2’s latest song — “It’s a Beautiful Day…”. As I drove, a flurry of sensations came over and overwhelmed me. I didn’t know for how long I would be alone driving from place to place. Probably my employer would soon be cancelling my visa and I would be out of status. The worried faces of mom, sister, and Reena came back to me. When would I be able to play with Shrija again? I found tears flowing down my cheeks. How did I end up here? Why me? I had never felt so sorry for myself in my entire life. I was sobbing. I looked sideways to make sure no drivers were looking at me. I wiped my tears with my sleeve, but the tears kept flowing. I looked at my face in the rare view mirror. The whole face seemed puffed up.

When I arrived at the apartment, I put the blankets, plates and pots, computer, books, a bag with my clothes, a pillow, and a sleeping bag in my car. I washed my face and went to see the manager and gave her the key. How lucky she and her family are, I thought. Her daughter’s head appeared sideways from her back. I waved at them and left. I sat in the car and looked at the apartment building one last time before leaving for the public storage.

Later I drove to San Jose to Kiran’s place. In the evening, I printed out the route from MapQuest and spent the evening chatting with friends, who came over to see me off. The next morning, I left for Texas. After 4-5 hours of driving, I stopped somewhere near Bakersfield, sat on the roadside, and ate the fried rice Upasana had handed me the previous evening. As I ate, I thought about the friends I had left in San Jose. I kept driving till late afternoon and stopped somewhere in Arizona when I saw the Motel 6 board. I went to the town and ate something at the fast food restaurant before going to the motel. I left the motel early morning in the dark.

During the drive, I would listen to music and keep my prized CD collections nearby in the passenger seat. Now and then I would switch the CD. I would drive three to four hundred miles before lunch. After lunch, I would drive another few hundred miles and stop at Motel 6. On the third day around the afternoon, I reached Dallas, Texas.

I drove straight to Suresh’s apartment. The excitement to see him was uncontainable. He came out of his apartment and we hugged each other. When I saw him, I forgot about all my worries. It was a single-bedroom apartment. Udaya and his roommate slept in the bedroom, while Suresh slept on the sofa in the living room. We chatted for a while. Later I called Prajesh and fixed a time for the next day with his employer. We spent the evening with more talking and drinking beer. I lay down on the floor, next to the sofa, on my sleeping bag, and continued talking with Suresh till late at night. The next day, I went to meet Prajesh’s employer, who asked about my background, work experience, and skills. After talking for about 30 minutes, they agreed to sponsor my work visa. It was such a relief. I didn’t have to worry, at least, about my status, I thought. We both agreed to look for projects. Later in the evening, I called home and shared the good news. After 2 weeks, I got a call from a company from Oakland. They had interviewed me in the past. They didn’t hire me then but kept me on the list in case new positions would open. When they called me, I was so happy. I flew to San Jose, borrowed Sarju’s car, and drove to Oakland for an interview. I met the team and talked about what they did on their regular hours. Everyone was friendly and kind. How lucky I am, I thought. In the end, the manager came to meet me. She had a blank face and I worried. She said she had bad news, which only reached her that morning. The budget for the new position had been stalled. I didn’t know how to react. She seemed sorry to make me drive to the office. She didn’t know that I flew from Dallas. I was thinking about what to tell Sarju and Suresh. I was feeling sweaty and had a slight headache when I went to the parking lot.

As I drove the car, I felt something was wrong. Was it because of what happened in the interview or was something wrong with the car? I stopped the car and came out to survey the situation. I saw a flat tire. How did that happen? Oh, where would I go to fix it? I called Sarju and told him what had happened to his car. I took out the tools, spare tire, and manual out from the trunk and started reading the manual. Using the wrench from the toolbox, I tried to unscrew the bolts. They were too tight for my hands. I cursed and pushed hard. I finally unscrewed all the bolts. By the time I unscrewed my head was about to explode from the headache. I drove around the neighborhood and asked someone for the tire shop. The street, with abandoned cars and trash, didn’t look safe. Finally, I spotted a tire shop. It was a relief to see some Indians running the shop. Later when I was back in Dallas, the manager called me again and apologized for making me drive to the office. This time, I told her that I had flown from Dallas. She asked me to submit the receipt for the reimbursement.

After about a month, Suresh and Udaya suggested I work at the convenience store until I could find a real job. Perhaps they thought I could make some money while I was looking around. I was well aware of my limited funds, but I couldn’t for a moment imagine myself sitting behind the counter and selling beers, cigarettes, chips, or lotteries. I sensed my time had come to move on. I had been in contact with Amrit, who was living in Denver and had asked me to stay at his place multiple times. So, I informed Suresh and Udaya about my plan and with a heavy heart left for Denver.

I drove on I-35 to Oklahoma City, then to Wichita, and, taking I-135, to I-70 to Denver. The drive was long, about 880 miles. No sights lured me to stop, except the signs of fast-food restaurants. Due to detours and several wrong turns, it was already late night when I arrived at my destination. I was tired but felt warm and cozy to finally be at Amrit’s home. I took refuge in their guest room.

In Denver, my daily routine changed. Once Amrit left for work, I would go to his home office, log in to job hunting sites, search for the positions, fine-tune my resume and cover letter, and apply for a few selected positions. Bhauju would call me around noon to eat lunch. After lunch, I read books or articles on the technologies or skills the jobs were asking for until I heard Amrit's car in the garage. Then I would close my books or computer and join Amrit’s family. Soon, I started receiving responses and requests for interviews. I would prepare for the interview and join the call. Sometimes I would know right away, even during the interview, that I had messed it up. I would hate myself for not knowing the language. After every call, I would reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Whenever I got depressed, I often went to my books; they were my refuge. I also walked in the neighborhoods softly repeating the answers to the common interview questions. There would be 2-3 interviews every week and that gave me some hope.

In the evenings or weekends, Amrit would take me to places to cheer me up. Sometimes, I would go with Amrit to pick up his son from school. He would buy him kids-meal at McDonald's. His son would play with the toy leaving the food untouched. How Sunita and Reena were excited when I took them to McDonald's for the first time. How we filled our cups with coke when we learned that the refills were free.

Then came the call from a company in LA. After the phone interview, they wanted to meet me in person. In the evening, I told Amrit about the possible opportunity in LA and my plan to leave the very next day. Amrit asked me to come back if things didn’t go well. I knew I wouldn’t be coming back, but I nodded. How did I get so lucky to have a friend like Amrit? The next day early in the morning, I left Denver.

The freeway was empty and the night was still lingering on. The city was quiet, its residents still in their beds, dreaming. Soon they would be waking up indolently with the sound of their alarms, their shower taps first sputtering, then producing a pitter-patter sound, their coffee machines gurgling and hissing, their garage doors squeaking and shaking as they rolled up, their cars coming alive with the sound of the engine and leaving the small clouds up in the air as they leave the driveway, finally disappearing into the freeway.

Was this ordeal necessary? Did I enjoy it even a bit? Did it do any good to me? My answer back then was no to all of these questions. Years later when I looked back, only then I understood its meaning and significance. It’s always during the hardship, that one experiences moments of kindness, which alone makes the journey worthwhile. It’s like the memory of an old grandma I met on the train on the way to Lviv. She was watching me for a while before calling me and handing me over a bundle, what looked like some food, wrapped in a newspaper. I was surprised. How did she know that I hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day? I was telling her that I was fine and my station was next. But she would not listen and I had to sit next to her. As I opened the bundle, the oily paper revealed a piece of roasted chicken. I don’t know how much she thought about it afterward. It was a long time ago and she is probably dead by now. But I just couldn’t forget it. The torments I went through when I found out that there was no restaurant on the train and the constant thought of hunger that kept me awake till late at night were too much to bear. The only thought that kept me going at the time was the idea of eating as much pizza as I could at the pizzeria outside the train station once I arrived in Lviv. If I hadn’t been hungry, I wouldn’t have met the grandma. Would I rather go through the torments just to receive her kindness? Why not? The torments are long gone, but the memory of her kindness has been with me all this time, comforting me now and then.

As I passed the downtown and came to the suburb of Denver City, the buildings gave way to the plains and the prairies. It was spring already and the trees in the distance looked green, their stems probably filled with new coming buds. The animals in the prairies probably are coming out from their hibernation and the bugs and the insects from their diapause, some from underground, some from burrows or tree bark, and some from the eggs left by their parents in the previous year. The migratory birds must be flying home from the south, filling the air above with their song of spring. I rolled down the window, and stretched my hand out, sensing the cold air in my palm, the sleeve of my jacket fluttering and sending the cold spring air to my face first and then through my nostrils to my lungs, from my lungs to my entire body. The orange sky appeared on the rearview mirror, signaling the dawn of a new day.

Humans must have thought about the world and our role in it for a long time. For most of history, their curiosity about the objects they saw on earth, in the sky, about the natural events, about birth and death, and about the afterlife were answered by stories or myths. When one’s life is consumed with staying alive, searching for food, and saving your clan from predators, there is not much time left to ruminate on the universe. One satisfies oneself with the answers one finds in the rituals or in the mythology. One such is offered by Hesiod, a poet and myth-creator, in Theogony written in 700 BC. According to him, it was Muses, the goddess of inspiration, who inspired him to outline the creation of the universe. There was chaos first and from it came the night, and the day and the earth, and so on. Hesiod, a rationalist, thought the human mind was too weak to understand the world.

Thales was the first Western philosopher. He gave an answer, which is not based on a myth, to the question of being and becoming. He claimed that the world can be perceived through our senses and the single arche (substance) that the world is made out of is water. He reasoned that water can be in solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam) states and it is this transformative property of water that gives rise to various lives and objects we see in nature.

Anaximander, a pupil of Thales, looked around and couldn’t believe that water alone could be the arche of the whole world. How is a stone made out of water? He said the world is made out of an infinite number of eternal substances, as many objects as we see in nature. He also floated the idea of evolution and claimed that humans evolved from the fishes.

Anaximenes, a student of Anaximander, stated that there can not be an infinite number of elements. The number has to be finite. Per his account, the arche is air and the motion of air is responsible for becoming or changing (of matter). The soul is air, the fire (Sun and stars) is a rarefied air, the water a condensed air, and it is further condensed, it takes the form of the earth.

Xenophanes, a theologian rather than a philosopher, claimed that everything is made from God. The God is one, omnipresent, and permanent. It doesn’t move but makes everything move. God and the world are the same thing.

Pythagoras delved into form and relations. He too believed in Thales and Anaximenes in that the arche is finite. For him, it’s the number. Numbers can be applied to anything. It can be applied to any object — dot is 1, line 2, figure 3, solid 4, and so on. The numbers are finite and determinate and are the candidates of the primordial substance. He believed that thought or intuition is superior to sense or observation. “Thought is nobler than sense…Objects of thought more real than those of sense-perception…Mathematics is… the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth”.

The subsequent philosophers started to doubt whether both being and becoming are possible. For Heraclitus, there is no being, but only becoming. The objects we observe in nature are an illusion. There is no single arche as Thales or Pythagoras has suggested. Everything around us is changing constantly. He wrote in short aphorisms. To him, the only permanent is the law that defines the movements, changes, and opposition.

Parmenides opposed Heraclitus’s idea and eliminated the concept of becoming. A rationalist, he reasoned that in the process of becoming, something must arise either from being or non-being. A non-being can’t become a being. If it’s a being, then it is not possible for that being to change into something else. We can not think of nothing. Non-beings are not possible to think of. The being and the thought are the same thing. What is not present, can’t be thought and what can’t be thought, doesn’t exist. The change we observe in nature suggests that something must change to another or something must come from nothing, but our reason doesn’t support that. The change we see in the world, hence, is an illusion; everything is permanent, and fixed.

The next philosophers tried to reconcile the ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides, the riddle of permanence and change, and the question of static and dynamic. According to those philosophers, there are no absolute changes, but only relative changes. Empedocles claimed that the universe is made of earth, water, air, and fire, and love (attraction) and hate (repulsion) are the causes of change. He talks about the transmigration of souls. Anaxagoras came up with the idea of seeds. He looked at his own body and thought about how the same element could be blood, nails, hair, skin. There are as many seeds as objects. The mind outside of the element plays the role of change. The atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, declared that everything is made of atoms and they are indivisible, impenetrable, and invisible different only in form, weight, and size. The empty space is the non-being. All bodies are composed of atoms and empty spaces. The origin of any object is through union and the destruction through separation.

Athens was a prosperous city and its citizens enjoyed the free-speech and the democratic society it offered. The sophists, the traveling teachers, came to the city and taught Athenian citizens how to win arguments and become successful in politics. They were humanists and for them, “Human being is the measure of all things”. They didn’t think about the world or its nature. They thought it was beyond them to understand. They were relativists and they put their efforts into teaching rhetorics, the art of speaking well.

He thought he had always been a dog lover. It was always he who had asked for a puppy. It was always he who had played with his puppy. It was always he who had taken his puppy to the vet. And, it was always he who had cried when his puppy died.

He was 10 years old when his father brought home a Himalayan sheepdog, and they called him Bhote. One day, when he came home from school, the home felt quieter than usual. He left his school bag in his room and went upstairs looking for Bhote. Not finding him in his usual hideouts, he went downstairs and out in the courtyard, calling his name. The ensuing silence worried him. Had he gone out in the street and got lost or, worse, killed? He went inside the house and ran to his mom. She came towards him, and he didn’t like what he saw in her gloomy eyes.

“Your uncle needs him more than us,” she said. “He will be guarding his farm animals and the house. You can meet him when you visit your uncle’s house in your winter vacation.”

He ran to the toilet and locked the door from inside. Tears flowed from his eyes. How would Bhote feel when he can’t find him? Who would he play with? Who would take him to the vet when he gets sick? Would Bhote remember him when he visits his uncle?

Later, he would ask everyone who had been to his uncle’s farmhouse about Bhote and just like any proud parents, listen to Bhote’s stories and how he hadn’t allowed anyone to enter his uncle’s house. He would imagine Bhote, standing at the gate, defiantly, barking at the entire village and chasing every wild animal away. He would never see his Bhote; one morning outside his uncle’s house, he was found dead.

Fast forward 25 years. When his mother told him over the phone, with a sob in her voice, that their dog Hanuman had died, his reaction was a mere shrug. He didn’t feel anything as if she were talking about someone else’s dog. Without Hanuman on her side, she would be lonely, he thought and felt sorry for her.

It was a present from one of my patients, his brother-in-law had told him when he carefully pulled out a brown puppy from a toiletry bag and handed it to him. He held the tiny creature carefully with both hands, sensing the warmth from his body. They would name him Hanuman, after a loyal companion of lord Rama. He would follow him around the house, teach him to climb the stairs, play with him on the balcony, and laugh when he made high-pitched barks frolicking back and forth. He would hold him tight with his left hand and feed milk with his right hand as if he were his baby. He made him a bed next to his. He would wake up at night to feed him and play with him. In due course, he would take him to the vet to get all the necessary shots. In a few months, he would get a job and their lives would take different turns.

He would leave for the office in the morning and come back home late in the evening. He would eat his dinner and go back to his room and read the books he had brought from his work. There is so much to learn, he would say. Even on Saturdays or holidays, he would shut himself in his room, typing on his computer or reading the books from work. Hanuman would spend most of his time sleeping on the balcony and following his mom when it was his meal time. He would go to the balcony to pee or poop. He got used to being around in the house alone. When he reached adolescence in 8–9 months, he displayed higher energy and became rebellious. In the presence of young kids, he would be intolerable. He would hold their knee and perform the act of humping. These acts disgusted him. Whenever he caught Hanuman in the act, he would grab him by his neck and drag him outside to punish him for his unpardonable sin. He would hold him tight, his face pressed against the floor, and hit the slipper continuously on the floor near his face producing a loud pattering sound, letting him go only when he was tired. Hanuman would run away and hide under the table.

When it was time to bathe Hanuman, he would be the one to hold the leash. Hanuman neither liked water nor the leash. Hanuman would be furious and attempt to bite him. How dare you, he would scream. He would hold the leash tight, making Hanuman uncomfortable, while they poured cold water over him. Almost every interaction with Hanuman involved a punishment. They avoided each other.

Every once in a while, he would think of Hanuman and go upstairs looking for him. Hanuman would be sleeping on a floor and, as the footsteps neared, he would raise his head, looking suspiciously at him, and finally closing his eyes, letting his head fall off slowly to the floor.

He would get married and leave home with his wife. He would have two kids. He busied himself looking after his family. When he called home, he seldom asked about Hanuman as if even the traces of Hanuman were erased from his memory.

Now that his kids have grown up, he is not needed at home as in the past. He goes for long walks and says hi to others on the trail. Some come with their dogs. Sometimes they stop and talk about the weather, the trail, or their dogs. With COVID, more and more of his friends adopt pets. He congratulates them on their new family member. When they meet, they talk about their new companions as if they were talking about their kids. The lack of memories of his pet in the past keeps him quiet and torments him when he is alone.

He goes online and reads about the various dog breeds. During dinner, he floats the idea of getting a pet. His children get excited, but his wife opposes the idea. They first try to convince her with reasons; they beg her; they kowtow to her and finally; she gives in. They draft roles and responsibilities documents assigning each of them some responsibility. They look for a puppy online. They call and leave messages to various kennels. A breeder from Paris, a two-hour drive from their home, responds positively, and they immediately send her the payment as an advance and fix a date to pick up their puppy. They go online and read “How to prepare your home for a new puppy”. They order crates, beds, bowls, treats, food, toys, leashes, collars, toothbrushes, and training clickers. The day before the pickup, he assembles the crate and the playpen. On that day, all of them drive to Paris, meet the breeder, and pick a puppy. They take some pictures together and drive back home, excited. He picks the name Leo after his favorite soccer player. They spend the whole afternoon and evening playing with Leo. He sleeps on the sofa next to Leo for the next two months. In the beginning, he wakes up a few times at night to change his pee pad, feed him, and play with him. He takes him to the vet regularly. When he works from home, he comes out from his office room a few times a day to play with him. Sometimes he takes Leo out in the backyard and throws the ball for Leo to fetch. Sometimes Leo runs with a toy around the house and he runs after him, shouting, pretending to be chasing him. When Leo is 4–5 months old, he takes him for a walk in the morning and in the evening. Leo loves going out, sniffing every grass blade, and leaving his marks everywhere. Leo would wait for him at the bottom of the stairs in the morning or sit next to the main gate peering outside through the glass pane when he came home from work or sitting outside his office room when he worked from home. When he comes out from his office room, Leo runs to get his toy and comes to him with a toy in his mouth.

It is a spring morning, and the sky is clear and blue. He goes to the backyard to read his book and Leo, as usual, follows him and lies down next to him, touching his leg. He reads a few lines, but something distracts him. He looks at Leo’s youthful body, lying next to his feet, soaking up all the sunlight. He scratches Leo’s back gently, which awakes Leo, who then turns his head lazily and stares at him, exposing his belly as if inviting to scratch it. How peaceful and calm Leo is of any events of today or tomorrow, he thinks. He probably doesn’t even realize one day he will get old and weak. He won’t be able to follow me, go out on our morning and evening walks, won’t even care to sniff the grass, leave his marks, or about the neighborhood dogs. He may lose his memory and not even recognize me, this house, this backyard, and the neighborhood. He may suffer from pain and groan all night, unable to sleep, his sorrowful eyes begging to ease his suffering. I may have to take him to the vet to put him down. What will be his last passing thoughts? Will he be in peace knowing he was beloved all his life? I hope he does. I really hope he does. How I will look at Leo’s lifeless body, whose entire life, from childhood through adolescence and into old age, has unfolded right in front of my eyes? How will my kids and wife cope with the grief? The void he will leave will be too pervasive to escape, the silence too deafening to avoid. I will need to learn to live with the void, with the silence. But this time I will have memories, the memories of Leo, our story of tears and laughter, the summation of my salvation.

“Do you have any plans for the evening?” Sailendra asked.

“I am meeting Raamesh. Just the two of us,” I responded.

As he sped his motorbike on a semi-circle road next to Shahid Gate, my mind veered off into the thought of my meeting with Raamesh. I wondered if he had finished working on his new book, a draft of which he emailed me to read a year ago. Would we talk about it, and if we did, should I be telling him how I felt when I read it? Would we finally talk about our families, about his daughter, about my daughters, about his relations with Poonam or mine with Reena, about the new things we have explored and learned to enjoy? Would we have time to reflect on the lives we’ve lived so far, or would we dwell in the past, as we have always done in the last 10–15 years?

As we passed the New Road gate, the sight of the Educational Enterprise bookstore right below the Mahankal temple brought back memories of past visits to the store. I suppressed my sudden urge to enter the store. Ah, Tundikhel, my refuge of the past! I used to come here after school every day, run barefoot, forgetting about everything — the school, the (bad) grades, the homework, the scoldings, and the only thing I cared about was how to trick an opponent and score a goal. There, the bus stop — where a bus would come every morning, seize us, and hand us over to the school.

“Without water, Ranipokhari looked like a landfill last time I visited Nepal,” I remarked to start the conversation, to which Sailendra grunted a few words in reply. Soon, we passed Bahadur Bhawan (now the Election Committee office) as I knew it as a kid. How Raju, the rich kid, Surya, and I used to skip classes in school and come here for a horse ride. Raju would be riding mostly, and Surya and I would be sitting on the grass waiting for our turns. Soon we arrived in Thamel, and Saroj was already there waiting for us. We went to a cafe and ordered some coffee. Saroj asked us if we were free to join him for drinks afterward.

“I am catching up with Raamesh in the evening,” I said. “It’s just the two of us meeting today.”

I don’t know why I kept saying that last sentence.

Just when we finished jotting down our plan for the backpacking trip, I got a call. It was Raamesh. I asked him when and where to meet. He mentioned that he would be going to join his friends at a bar and proposed to meet after my trip. Did I just get ditched? How can he do this? I lifted my head and saw Saroj staring at me. He probably read my face and even heard what was said on the phone. To hide my expression, I turned around. All I could say to Raamesh was okay, fine, okay. How I wish I were alone so that I didn’t have to confront Sailendra and Saroj. I hung up the phone, and before anyone said anything, I announced that our meeting was postponed for another day. I kept staring blankly at my phone to avoid their gazes. While leaving the cafe, Saroj inquired about the call.

“I was not a priority,” I replied and tried to regain my composure.

A part of me wanted to call Raamesh and tell him what he did was hurting. But I also didn’t want him to see my suffering. On the way home, I called all the other close friends I knew from Lviv. Their caring voices soothed me to some extent. I was still bitter when I got home.

Whenever my mind drifted to the faraway land called Lviv and the memory of youth tormented me, I often thought about the time I spent with Raamesh. The first time I saw him was at the train station in Berlin. He was with a few other guys. When a friend of ours approached them asking if they would consider exchanging their US dollars for his German marks, it was he who rejected the proposal. He was loud, confident, and brave — everything I was not.

The next time, I saw him was at the train station in Lviv. We were at the station to receive students from Makhachkala, and he stormed out of the compartment door. He came to Lviv to study medicine and I to study computer science. I used to visit Pramod, my roommate from the prep course in Kharkiv, who lived in the same hostel as Raamesh. Soon I noticed they became close friends. Pramod would come to us with him, and when I went to him, they would be together. I liked how they were carefree and enjoying their days. I envied their lifestyles.

Soon, we started to hang out together, and I too became close to him. We both had a predilection for music, movies, cigarettes, and strong black coffee. He used to have a cassette recorder, and we would record any album we could get our hands on. Soon his classmates, Miguel and Dennis from the Philippines, and Masud from Bangladesh, started to invite me to their parties. My friends, mostly from India, from my hostel too started inviting him whenever they held parties. We would be seen together smoking cigarettes, drinking beer at parties or in the park, making spicy fish curry and eating with rice, listening to country music, practicing guitar, or, when drunk, standing in the corridor and singing continuously the same song repeatedly until we got bored with our acts.

The ride to the Carpathian mountain on an open metal chair hung from the thin wire with a metal rod, the whole transport setup looking as old as my grandma’s dowry, was still preserved in my memory as vivid as if it were from last year. The sky was gray and dark, the air crisp, and the ground white from snow. As I ascended the mountain, the alpine trees flowed slowly under my feet. The front view was obscured by the fog, and the only sound audible was the squeaking and screeching of the grandma’s chair with occasional screams from the riders ahead and back.

On our way to our cabin, we ran to warm our bodies. We spent the evening drinking Georgian wine in a cozy, warm dimly lit bar. We liked both the taste and the effect of wine so much that when we left the bar late at night; we bought the whole 3-liter wine bottle. Only when we were out on the street, we realized we were too drunk to carry it. We rolled the bottle on the ice and sometimes threw it in the snow. It was during those acts I mistook the bottle and shouted in ecstasy, “I found a camera.”

The trip to Baltic countries was equally memorable. We planned to walk around the city all day long, eat at expensive restaurants, and take the night train to travel to the next city. Our first stop was Riga. I don’t remember much about Riga except the feeling that I was walking in a beautiful and historic city. Next, we headed to Vilnius. In Vilnius, after the city walk, we went to watch a movie. When we came out of the theater, the sight of an absolutely stunning young lady bewitched us. She was with her friends to watch the same movie we had just watched. We followed her as if we were worker bees following their queen, stood in line behind them, bought the tickets, and went in to rewatch the movie with the hope that she might throw a glance at us. Her power over us was so overwhelming that none of us dared to go near her. We left Vilnius with a souvenir of her face imprinted in our hearts. In Tallinn, we ate our lunch at the Maharaja Indian restaurant and later in the evening went to the beach and saw flickering lights coming out from the tiny houses on the shores of Finland.

Our trip to the lake house to celebrate Dennis’s birthday ended disastrously. In the beginning, everything was going well. Some of us were drinking beer, and watching the lake, and some were barbecuing. Dennis got drunk and went to a cabin to take a nap. We saw a lady running towards us shrieking and crying. We learned from her that a fistfight had broken out with the locals in the cabin we rented for the night when Miguel hit a local’s head with a beer bottle when asked to lower the volume of the music he was listening to. When we arrived at the scene, a man with his face smeared in blood dripping from his head was leading a Ukrainian mob to our cabin. We hid Miguel in one of our cabins and tried to calm the situation. To our dismay, the bodies flew in various directions, the walls of the cabin creaked and fell, and the bottles flew in the air. I saw a guest of ours, an ex-army from South America, come running with barbecue skewers still in his hand, and he started to fling them at the mob, lacerating someone and leaving a large X sign on his chest. Some of us were still confident that we could calm the crowd and were standing not far from the mob. That’s when the lights went out, and everything became pitch dark. Pramod standing next to me whispered in my ear not to do anything, and I wondered what could I possibly do when I couldn’t even see anything. Slowly, the vision came back, and I felt a pain in my jaw. The blackout, as it turned out, was the result of the blow to my left jaw. One by one, we dispersed and went to hide in the unused cabins with lights turned off. At night, we left the cabins quietly and went to the woods, where Dennis’s girlfriend’s brother was waiting in his car to haul us to our homes. I heard later that when they woke up Dennis to leave the cabin; he was still drunk, oblivious of the incident, and unwilling to leave without celebrating his birthday party. For a few weeks, we avoided going to the city for fear of encountering the mob.

After finishing undergrad, I decided to spend my last month watching the World Cup football with my close friends. In our revelry, there were 15 of us camped in 2 rooms, each with a TV. Each one of us contributed $5 to the fund, earmarked for barbecue and beer for the final game. We would start our day at 3–4 pm, eat our food around 6 pm, and talk about our teams or past results until the games started. We’d watch games, eat dinner around midnight, watch games till 3–4 am, and sleep for 10–12 hours. Once Argentina, my team, lost in the round of 16, and Germany, Raamesh’s team, lost in the quarter-finals to Bulgaria, neither of us cared which team would win the title. On the day of the final match, some of us went to the bazaar to buy meat and some to the park and stores looking for beer. In the evening, we started drinking beer while having a barbecue. By the time the final game started, we were so drunk that we spent the entire time shouting and more drinking. The next day, hungover from all the drinking and screaming, quietly we sat and watched the game from the recorder, ending our last month with a whimper.

I left for Nepal in the summer of 1994, and he did in the summer of 1995. In Nepal, we were occupied with our work and family. We rarely met. After getting married, I came to the US. Whenever I visited Nepal, he used to visit our home. Later, we would meet with common friends from Lviv at a restaurant. We would eat and drink, recall the funny moments from the past, laugh, get drunk, and then `say goodbye. We didn’t ask how each of us really has been or about our daughters, or about our relations with our wives, or about the persons we have become. I felt we were slowly drifting away from each other. We only knew who the other was in the past; we didn’t fully know who the other had become. What if one of us got bored talking about the past? Would we still meet? If so, what would we talk about? A few years ago, when I was in Nepal, I expressed my concern in passing. I was elated when he called me this time and fixed the date for our meeting.

The postponement of our meeting left a bitter taste. He did call me a few times afterward, but each time I was with either my friends or relatives. I couldn’t tell if he was calling me just to say hi or to see if I was free in the evening. And I couldn’t muster up the courage to ask. As my departure date came closer, the prospect of meeting with him was getting slimmer. I wondered if our relationship too would get stale, not because we did anything bad to each other, but because we did nothing.

Perhaps we both felt the call from each other. Two weeks before my return, he called me again, except this time, without any lingering hesitation, we set a date and venue for our meeting. He was waiting at the bar when I arrived. We shook hands, hugged, shook hands again, and looked at each other, brimming with joy. He shouted for beer. As we gulped down Barhasinghe beer, we started our conversation on his recent book, then moved to literature, to our kids, our lives, our new interests, our retirements — the phase we both looked forward to. We kept ordering more beer. We talked about the girls we had crushes on or about the girls who had crushes on us, about our past loves, what we have gained, and what we have lost. We shared our secrets and our regrets. The waitress kept bringing beer. We would have continued if only we didn’t have to go to our cocoon, but it was getting late, and, unlike in our past lives, we had to go our separate ways. As I sat in a cab, I wondered if I would still have liked him as my friend if we hadn’t met in Lviv, and my face lit up with joy.

They handed each of us three roubles and put us on a train bound for Kharkiv. When I heard the name Kharkiv the first time earlier that day, it gave rise to an image of a snow-covered suburbia with grim factories, each exhaling dark smoke under the gloomy sky — a scene I might have burrowed from an old Soviet movie I had watched in the Russian Cultural Center in Putalisadak. “The Nepali community there will soon find you a bride,” a senior remarked when I told him where I was going (only later I would learn the political motives in encouraging or discouraging the newcomers going into certain cities). Sanjeeb, my only traveling companion and a good friend, had left for Kyiv that evening. Hari, Shankar, Pramod, the other three newcomers, and soon-to-be my roommates, and I shared the compartment on the train. As the city of Moscow and its outskirts flowed further away, I vowed to stay single and focus on my study.

It was my first time away from home. I didn’t know how to interact with the outside world. I looked and behaved like a schoolboy. I was born and raised in the same house my dad and his forefathers owned. I hung out with the friends befriended a long time ago. In our neighborhoods, no locals went looking for new friends and it was always outsiders who stretched their lands and said, “Parichaya pauna?” (Can I have your introduction?). I became that outsider then and needed to learn that craft.

We arrived in Kharkiv the next morning. A lady from Kharkiv State University was at the station to take us to the hostel. The air was damp and cold even though it was only September. I found the city wet. It must have been raining all night. The roads were wide and clean and the buildings tall and identical. She took us to the hostel. Once inside (the hostel), we went to the fifth floor and checked into our room. It had 4 narrow spring beds on 4 corners of the room and a side table (tumbuchka) next to each bed and a common armoire. There was a small speaker hooked to the ceiling and, when powered on, always played classical music. In the front, there was a big window overlooking the woodland on the backside of the hostel. I opened the window to let the fresh air in. As cold air hit my face, I surveyed the lot. The ground was wet and blanketed by brown and yellow leaves, fallen from the surrounding trees, then bare and soaked by the rainwater, their tiny branches and twigs shivering in the cold wind. I wondered where and how my friends were and if they too missed me. I would move to Kyiv next year, I concluded.

Each hostel floor had a long corridor with rooms on opposite sides, one common kitchen and study room in the middle, and two restrooms — one for boys and another for girls on the opposite end of the corridor. The shower (douche) and the laundry rooms were on the first floor. There were students from South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America, from Eastern and even Western Europe (Portugal and Greece). In the evening, the corridor was where all the actions took place. One could hear languages and music from every corner of the world, see the colorful dresses of African tribes, smell and taste the exotic cuisines from the Arab world, and witness the hospitality and culture of the faraway lands one had never heard of. It was our mini world, where we shared our stories and dreams using more with our hands and expressions than with our limited (Russian) vocabulary. We were both participants and observers of the Soviet experiment.

The first year was to prepare us for the university by teaching the Russian language. In my class, the other students were from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Congo. They assigned my roommates a different teacher. In the room opposite us, lived 3 Greek students and one of them was Tchamis. He was charming and always greeted me with a smile. He went to the same class as my roommates. He used to come to our room to consult on his homework with my roommates and I couldn’t help but stared at him listening to every word that came from his mouth and would interject a remark whenever possible. Sometimes I made tea for him so that he would stay longer with us. Who doesn’t like attention with affection? Soon, we became friends and he would come to our room to chat with me. I would be in his room for hours. We talked about our days, about our family back home, and about the life, we had left. He learned some good and some bad Nepali words, and I Greek. He taught me a Greek song that I would sing softly at night many years later to lull Shrija and Cloe to sleep. In the morning, we would go to university together and in the afternoon we would wait for each other outside our classes to come home together. We were inseparable. If only life were so simple…

The winter came. The days became shorter and darker. The snow covered the streets, the buildings, and the parks. One evening, I met him with a girl in the corridor. “My girlfriend from Greece,” he said. I had seen her before. She lived in the same hostel and had a loud voice. He was proud when she hold his hand. After the event, he disappeared for a few days. When he reappeared, she was with him always as if glued firmly. I went to his room a few times, but, in her presence, I felt awkward. His visits to our room became infrequent. I started going to university with my roommates and came home alone. I would see them at the university or on the bus and they would smile and wave to me. When bored, I would visit my classmates from Ethiopia or Sudan and often found myself lost in thought. I would leave the room wishing their affair to end.

Hari missed his family and the comfortable life he had with his family. He used to regret coming to study at his age. The love letters that came from Kathmandu used to lift Shankar’s mood for a few days. On Friday evenings, he would go to the study room with empty sheets and come out after a few hours, drained, with pages smeared with his heart’s contents in red. Pramod would call in sick, lie down in bed wrapped in a warm blanket until our departure to the university, and then wake up leisurely, dress up and leave the hostel. He would go to the center (city) and walk all day visiting stores and buying anything he found useful. As the competition grew in my class, I focused on my studies, mostly to remain my teacher’s favorite. Each of us was learning to live without the people we loved.

The summer was approaching. The snow had melted. The days were getting brighter and longer. With green buds on the branches, the trees became alive again. The children played in the park. The babushkas came out to sit on the benches. I learned to cook rice and curry and wash cups and plates without breaking them. To study further, Pramod and I were going to Lviv, Hari and Shankar were staying in Kharkiv, and Tchamis was going to Kyiv.

It was the last day of our preparatory year. The results of our finals were already out. Everyone was excited about the upcoming vacation and most of the students were going home. It was time to celebrate our friendship. Of some I had photos, and the rest were only in our memories. In the evening, we opened a bottle of vodka. I went to every familiar room to say goodbye and in return, I got a drink and a hug. As I came out from one room to went into another, my legs became unsteadier, my vision blurrier, my attitude more outgoing, and my memory of the event scantier and sparser until it went all dark.

The next morning, I found myself sleeping on the floor. My bed was broken from, what looked like, an accident (Later I learned from my roommates that it was from my incessant jumping. Did I?) The events from last night slowly emerged. I remembered going to the Afghani room, Sudanese room, Ethiopian room, Congolese room, and Greek room. I remember entering Tchamis’s room, he and his friends sitting on the beds, open suitcases on the floor, me talking about his unfair treatment, how I used to love and care for him and how he ignored me sticking with his girlfriend as if she were a glue, his friends avoiding my angry gaze. Oh, what did I do? My face became hot and my head hurt. The memory agonized me, but it was too late. I couldn’t take those words back. Maybe it served him right. Didn’t he deserve to know what he had done to me? Now that he had seen what he had done to his once best friend, I was confident he would come, shake my hands, promise to stay in touch, and hug me. I too would apologize for last night’s ranting and would tell him that the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me during the last year was his friendship and I would always be grateful. I stayed in my room waiting for the knock. Every sound of an approaching footstep would perk up my ears. Shame and guilt stopped me from going to his room. I walked into the corridor making him easier to find me and went back to my room leaving the door open. The knock never came. Tormented, I lay down on my broken bed and stared at the ceiling. Hari, in passing, mentioned that Tchamis had left for Greece early that morning. I turned my head to face the wall.

After hiking religiously in Southern California, mostly on short trails, for several years, it was time to try something different. Just in the stories we often read, I wanted to be alone in nature, free from alarms and reminders, from books and magazines, from news and social media, to sit idly, watch some bugs crawl by, take a nap under the rustling leaves, or lie down in the dirt after a long day of the walk and watch the night sky, or wake up in the morning with the sounds of birds singing. Along the way, if I am lucky, I would meet new people from the new world, listen to their stories, laugh with them, peek at the world through their eyes, and come home with some everlasting memories.

Having come from Nepal, I always look for opportunities to explore its remote regions. With two-thirds of its land covered in mountains and hills, it offers many breathtaking trails. After reading about popular trekking routes, I decided on the Annapurna Circuit. The trail connects landscapes ranging from the tropical (760 meters) to the arctic (5416 meters), gaining almost 5000-meter elevation, while crossing tribal communities with unique cultures and traditions. The whole circuit takes about 18 days, but those pressed for time take the popular 10-day route from Besisahar to Jomsom and then fly back to Pokhara. I could take a month break in October, fly out to Kathmandu, celebrate the two most popular festivals Dashain and Tihar with my folks, and squeeze in a hiking trip in between. I informed about the plan to my close friends and relatives, expecting none to join me. Then came Covid-19 and with it the travel restrictions. The trip had to wait.

The vaccines came out in late 2020 and vacation pictures appeared on social media. I booked the flight to Nepal for October 1, 2021. A few weeks before my trip, Dipesh, a good friend of mine from SoCal, and a regular hiker showed interest to join me. After sharing each other’s plans, we agreed to meet in Kathmandu for further planning. He was going to spend some time with his folks in Biratnagar, then join me in Kathmandu before the trip. Once in Nepal, Saroj, my nephew, and a long-time college friend Sailendra also joined our team. We set October 20 as our start date for the trip. Dipesh booked his flight to Kathmandu for October 19. I arranged a guide and a porter and Saroj booked transport to travel from Kathmandu to Besisahar, the trailhead of our trip. As part of the preparation, we did three short hikes in and around Kathmandu valley. I also played soccer a few times. During the last game, I bumped my knee with another player and the pain stayed for 4–5 days.

A few days before our trip, the weather changed. The blue sky first became grey, then dark, and wet. The murky clouds enveloped not only the valley but also the various regions of Nepal. There were reports of downpours, followed by the news of landslides in the eastern and western parts of Nepal. I avoided the news the same way kids avoid the incoming object by closing their eyes. When I opened my eyes, the rain was still there, only with greater destruction. When my phone buzzed with calls and messages to reconsider my trip, I worried and sought more information. I called our guide thinking he might know someone who had been to the trail recently. He calmly suggested taking the dirt road, which went all the way from Besisahar to Mustang. The idea brought relief. On Oct 19, none of the flights were taking off from the Biratnagar Airport. Dipesh sat at home all afternoon with his cell phone in his hand, his backpack on the side, ready, waiting for a phone call from the airport staff. He even devised a plan to take a night bus to Kathmandu in case his flight got canceled. In Kathmandu, we were thinking to delay our trip by a few days. Finally, his flight took off late in the afternoon and came straight to my house from the airport. We raised our glasses filled with beer in celebration.

The morning of October 20 was clear and bright. Saroj came on Mahindra Scorpio, our transport to Besisahar, picking everyone on the way. After eating breakfast, six of us left Kathmandu. I prayed silently for the clear weather. On our way, we stopped for tea and lunch and arrived at Besisahar around 5 pm. The town was small with bustling streets and was at the base of hills with patches of hamlets on both sides. In the evening, we went out to see the market and bought flashlights, an extra battery, and some plastic sheets to cover our boots and backpacks in case of rain. We also looked for a ride to Chame, a village about 40 miles north of Besisahar, and got some numbers. We came to the hotel, had our dinner, and went to bed early.

On the way to Bahundada

I woke up at night a few times and heard the rain outside. Was the rain signaling me something? I got up around 5 am and I left the room with my camera. Once outside, I sat on a chair, soaked in the lush vistas. I greedily took pictures of my surroundings. Soon everyone came out. Saroj called a driver and fixed the price for a ride to Chame. We ate breakfast and loaded our backpacks in our new transport. When we were about to leave, a phone rang and the driver picked up the call. The driver told us about the last night’s landslide in a nearby village which destroyed the section of the road but offered to drive us about 2–3 miles north. We asked him to drive us as far as possible. After 15 minutes of driving, the driver dropped us on the side of the road. Ahead was the collapsed dirt road, sunken from the ground, broken into multiple pieces with a pile of debris on one side. One by one, we crossed it on foot. Once on the other side, we rode a bus to Bhulbhule.

Our trekking started from Bhulbhule. Each of us with 20–30 lbs of backpacks on our backs walked on the dirt road along the Marshyangdi river. The road sometimes disappeared, and we walked on the banks of the river. Early in the walk, we hit the wet pathway filled with knee-deep mud. Some of us walked around it, but Dipesh took his boots off and trudged thru’ it, and came out with minor scratches on his legs. The waterfall on the right greeted us with its loud high-pitched sound. We took some pictures and moved on. On the way, there was a restaurant with a well-maintained flower garden. We went in and had tea and biscuits. On the way out, we washed our mud-stained boots. With clean boots and fresh vigor, we headed north sharing each other’s past. After a steep hike, we reached Bahundada in the early afternoon and stopped for a lunch. The village was on a pass and offered a gorgeous view of surrounding hills and villages. We ate locally grown guavas while waiting for lunch. The food was fresh. After taking a short rest, we descended the narrow and slippery trail. I felt discomfort in my left knee. As we kept walking, the discomfort grew into pain. I borrowed a knee cap from Saroj, but the pain did not wane. In the late afternoon, we were tired and looking for clean and comfortable rooms to stay in for the night. I cursed myself silently for playing soccer before the trip. I poured out my frustration at Saroj when he decided to walk further ahead to Shirchaur. After crossing several villages on the way, we arrived at Shirchaur. I was exhausted, more from the negative thoughts racing through my mind than anything else. I was not ready to return home yet. I stretched my leg and put a cold pack on my knee while sipping Advil. Saroj and Sailendra were spraying Move on their backs. I wondered if I could reach the summit.

In the morning, I took a few Advil before we left the hotel. Soon we arrived at Jagat. The sky was clear and the air crisp. The sun had showered the village with its warm rays. The jovial and friendly behaviors of locals sitting outside of their houses painted in bright colors produced a much-needed reinvigorating effect. We stayed at Dharapani that night. I took my Advil and Saroj applied the spray on his back. Sailendra was feeling better.

As we walked towards Chame along the banks of the river the next morning, we saw the abandoned houses, once homes to locals, without roofs or walls, naked for everyone to see their bare and basic possessions. We walked in sadness. We arrived at Chame around 2 pm. The air was cold. The hotel was clean and the staff friendly. Saroj and Dipesh lay down on the benches to give rest to their backs. We sat next to the heater for several hours drinking tea. When I went to our bedroom upstairs, my knee felt light to my disbelief. The heat did it! Unable to contain my excitement, I ran up and down the stairs to confirm what I was experiencing. In the evening, I sat next to the heater again while others negotiated with a driver to take us to the Lower Pisang.

The next morning, the driver didn’t show up. We instead made a deal with a tractor driver — he would take our backpacks to Dhukkurpokhari and we would have lunch at his restaurant. Without the backpacks, our backs and legs got a much-needed break. We stopped by the famous apple farm in Bhratang and tried local delicacies. We arrived at Dhukkurpokhari in the early afternoon. The village had about 7–8 houses painted in bright colors. The sun was high, and we sat on the terrace to eat our lunch. The hotel owner arranged a ride for us to Manang. As we drove off through the open steppe, I recalled all the hurdles we faced and, for the first time, saw the possibility of crossing Thorong La pass. The driver took us to the local lake before dropping us at Manang. A Bollywood movie was being shot in Manang and the village was busy hosting the movie crew. We stayed at Hotel Yak. We spent our evening in the dining room talking to the cyclists, who were also planning to cross the Thorong La on their bicycles.

The next morning, I got up before sunrise and went to the terrace to take pictures of the mountains. The whole Annapurna range stood before me as if posing for a picture. Later, we went out looking for a coffee and bumped into Anupam Kher and Boman Irani, two popular Bollywood actors. Someone in the crowd mentioned that Parineeti Chopra, a movie actress was leaving the village, and we sprinted to the bus station to have a glance at her. She was already inside the vehicle and all we saw was her driver and the bodyguard sitting in the front row. In the afternoon, we hiked the local trail and stayed in Manang to acclimatize.

Manang

During these long walks, we touched on many topics — philosophy, religion, science, literature, and music. We talked about our weaknesses and strengths, our likes and dislikes, and things that make us happy, sad, angry, ashamed, envious, and content. We shared our ideas on how to make Nepal a better country. Some of us wrote and recited poetry. We dwelled on century-old questions about God and ourselves. To explain the purposes of our existence, some people turned to faith and others to science. We shared our deepest thoughts and confided our fancies and sorrows. Saroj and I had heated arguments a few times on topics no one cared about. We would not apologize to each other, but our eyes would. He is someone I could get mad at without the fear of ever losing him. He kept recording our activities, interviewing us now and then; he was going to produce a vlog.

The next morning, we left Manang and stopped at Leather for lunch. While waiting for lunch, we played carrom board. After lunch, we took a brief rest before heading to Yak Khadka. We reached our destination around 4 pm. The village had only 4–5 houses. The terrain was quiet and remote. After a short hike, we sat next to the heater and sang old songs of Narayan Gopal. Our audience for the evening was a couple from Colorado. At night, snowflakes drifted in the air.

The next day we left for Phedi. The landscape was barren and rocky. We walked listening to the music. The blue sheep were grazing on the slope full of scree. We walked carefully, watching out for falling stones. We arrived at Phedi in the afternoon. The trail from Phedi to High Camp was steep and treacherous. We arrived at High Camp in the afternoon. The air was thin and cold. Everything was white. Some mountains were below us. Later we went for a hike but returned almost immediately as it was too cold. We were tired. Saroj and Dipesh still had back pain. The rooms were dark and small. We ate Tibetan bread with garlic soup at 6 pm. I got hot water in the pouch and took it inside my sleeping bag. I used it to heat my knee and every part that was shivering from cold.

Upper Camp

Where is this yearning, this restless itching to hike in the remote and unfamiliar terrain for days, putting oneself through psychological and physical pain, sometimes even risking one’s own life, come from? I used to think only a fool would leave the comfort of his soft and warm bed for a cold plank. Once, when we were still young, Sailendra told me about his 4-hour one-way solo hike to Manakamana and I felt pity for him. Is it an act roused by peer pressure from social media? Is it for the rush of adrenaline, the pure bliss that gets released while walking on a narrow steep ridge filled with slippery scree, or reaching the summit after a treacherous trek? Is it to recreate the youth, one without routines and responsibilities, whose loss I have yet to recover from? Or is it to create a legacy for others to see long after I am gone? The night seemed to drag on forever. An unknown fear was tormenting me.

At 4 am, the alarm woke us up. I was tired and light-headed. I put multiple layers from top to the bottom. After packing our bags, we went to eat breakfast in the tea-house, which was already crowded with morning hikers preparing to leave for the summit. We ate what we could. It was still dark when we left for the summit. The snow covered the trail. We turned our headlamps on and followed our guide in silence. We needed to climb about 1500 feet to the summit before noon. I surveyed every footprint left on the trail by the earlier hikers before putting my foot on it. We walked listening to the crunching sound of the snow. Only my feet and head were warm, everything in between was cold. Now and then, I would cover my lower face with the headscarf. For a while, I would feel the warmth from my exhaled breath, but soon I would feel suffocated and remove the scarf to let the air flow in. I thought about all my warm and thermal hiking clothes and wondered whether to laugh or feel pity for myself for leaving them at home. I remembered my mom, who despite my objection thrust a warm fleece beanie into my backpack, and the same beanie was keeping my head warm. In the darkness, the mountains, visible only as faint silhouettes, gave the impression of ominous monsters, creeping up on us from every direction, and the howling sound of the wind their whispers picking their next prey. In every step, I saw only traps. I was on the enemy lines with no ammunition at my disposal and there was no way to turn back. It was only a matter of time before I would crumble to the ground. Why didn’t I believe in you, God?

As dawn broke, the surroundings became visible. I turned back to look where the other folks were. The sun was rising above the mountain peak, revealing the grandeurs of the Annapurna mountain range. The mountains were so close, that I could touch them if only I stretched my hands. All around us, there were mountains, defiant yet tranquil, older than any sages or scriptures, offering the wisdom of the land to those who are ready to receive. I took out my phone and started recording, imagining the reactions from Reena, Shrija, and Cloe when they would watch the recording. Sailendra, who only did three short hikes with me in Kathmandu, was walking steadily with no complaints. Dipesh and Saroj, who suffered from back pain since the start of the trip, were carrying their load and walking quietly along with our guide. On the way, there were resting huts, and we would go inside to rest and recharge. We also met the cyclists on the trail. In LA, I would ascend quickly bringing my BPM level to 170–180 just to show the cyclists that I am not their weaker sibling, but here their act of bravery only humbled me.

“There it is!” cried Saroj.

I raised my head. A shack was standing on the left. I almost dismissed it thinking it was just another resting hut on the trail, but something on the right pulled my attention. There it was! The shrine, the sanctuary, the Thorong La Pass spreading its invisible limbs wrapped in the colorful Tibetan praying flags, ready to embrace me. The sight immediately restored me and I became a new man. I took out my phone, pressed the record button, and approached it. The site was beaming in the bright sunlight against the backdrop of the snow. As I came close, I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes became moist. Was it a tear of joy for achieving what once looked unthinkable? Or was it a tear of sorrow, knowing that our adventure was ending and that soon we would disappear into thin air?

Saroj appeared holding his phone and asked, “How do you feel?”

“Mission accomplished! I fulfilled the dream I had for 2 years!” To hide my tears, I went to the hut, where the locals were selling tea.

Despite the long and difficult walk, everyone’s faces were lit up with a smile. Those who came to the summit earlier congratulated the newcomers. There were cheers, hugs, and high-fives. We were the spectators and the players, the givers and the takers of the attentions, the praises, and the encouragements we all sought. The comradery we felt during those moments was communal. After tea, we took individual and group photos in front of the Thorong La sign. As the adrenaline wore off, we prepared to head south, to Muktinath. The Sun was high and warm. On our descent, we found the trail mostly dry. On the horizon, tiny man-made structures appeared as dots. The mountains, now farther and taller, were serenely waving at us. Slowly, the tiny dots took shape. We were heading back to civilization, to those shapes, to hide in our cocoons.