Chandra K. Panjiyar

The ongoing teachers’ protest and the state’s inability to effectively address their pressing concerns have undermined, or is at least about to undermine, the final examination of +2 students.    

Sometimes didi would talk about rain, but with immense restrain, as if she were talking about her secret lover.

“The army men would pierce me with nails, dip me in freezing water, torture me with electric shocks, molest me, and rape me,” she said. “They tortured me in every possible way.”

After enduring wounds that were to take several years to heal, this Himalayan nation marched into the light of what seemed like a beacon of prosperity: Nepal became a democratic republic. The century-long monarchy had received its fatal blow.

"I know these things," said Sweta. "I feel these things more acutely after death. I know the cuckoo sings because it remembers the days when it was a human. I know, mai, I know. We dead feel these things."

On occasions like these, the question of whether god exists or not retreats behind the more profound, pressing experience of truth, the truth that all nature, both animate and inanimate, everything, belongs to one cosmic reality.

The soft features of her face, brought out by even gentler snow, were dissolving into me. “How is snow in Nepal?” I heard H. ask. “In the Himalayas it must be beautiful.”  

“It’s the meat she gobbled up last night,” her aunt put in, cuddling the baby goat she had in her arms. “I mean it’s alright to eat a lot, but why grind bones that are hard as rock.”

Death gave a bewildered look, as if he himself had forgotten what was in that sac.

Teary and sad, her eyes distant and withdrawn, Eleena addresses her fans in a pleading tone, “I don’t know how the court matter got out. But instead of publicizing it on a large scale, please ignore it.”