Kathmandu:

Eat slowly, don’t rush,” my mother used to scold me whenever I would eat hurriedly in my childhood. “You won’t miss your airplane to London,” As our Ryan Air airplane moved towards Stansted Airport, my mother’s face appeared before my eyes. It was an exciting moment. The night was starry. From the window I saw the illuminated landscape that had held my imagination for last four decades. Wasn’t somewhere here that Lear moved so majestically, and finally asked for the mirror to see his madness? Wasn’t David Copperfield escorted through these highways in those horse drawn carriages to the orphanage? Is this not the land of Pickwick papers and hard times? Would I see River Thames of TS Eliot’s wasteland and the fabulous London Bridge? London Bridge, falling down, falling down… as he imagined in his poems. Would I be face to face with WH Auden’s Unknown man? So many wandering thoughts came to swarm my mind. Balayat, the Great Empire, that our forefathers carried in their bones. And scorching sun of the Empire that never set, blistering lives of our people, burning their dreams. O how it became the fabric of our national legends and lore. Gandhi, Nehru, Jung Bahadur and Subash Chandra Bose.

Quite in accordance with our great expectations, the moment we landed at Stansted Airport we were herded into gangway reading ‘Others’ at the airport. Their ‘Own’ remained Irish, Scottish and EU citizens. We all lined up, African, Asians and supposedly humble looking people from the rest of the world. The women officers at the immigration desk were fast. But

the gentleman, grim official from Chekhov’s stories see-med fussy and I started imagining how I would tackle him. Was I afraid of him? Probably not. But I collected my sprits to face him. That moment I noticed I lacked something others had. My ‘Own’ held white forms in their hands. I recalled this was the slip that the airhostess had shown earlier “We need to fill this form,” I told my wife. We stepped aside and I went back to get the form. “Do you have one of these?” I asked a white guy, probably from a former Soviet Union breakaway nation, standing in the line. To my amazement, he instantly jostled back through the crowd at his back and came back with two forms. I was flattered as well as surprised to watch his readiness to help us.

The moment my turn came, I had two counters empty before me. I had a choice. I could either approach the grim clerk or go to swift English lady wearing a brilliant smile. For a moment, I staggered. In a fraction of a second, I chose more difficult path and resolved to face the male clerk. But the moment I reached the counter, my bag tripped and fell flat, hitting my wife’s legs. The officer checked our papers cautiously. ‘Dass, is that your surname?’

After a brief paperwork, he asked, “How long are you going to stay in England?’

“Two weeks at the moment. Have to go back to Amsterdam for…”

“Where’d you stay?”

“At a former student /friend’s?”

“What would you do here?”

“I’m a writer, a poet on a fellowship, you see.”

“Do you perform in London?”

“I’ve come to attend a poetry reading in London and find a literary agent for…”

“Who’s organising your reading?”

“Nepali community and some English writer friends.”

“But is poetry going to be for fifteen days?”

“No not at all, its’ just one day.”

“But what are you going to do for the rest of the time?”

Irritated, at last I gave up the game and said. “Please don’t ask me so many questions’. He looked at me, surprised. ‘It’s for the first time I have put my foot on the land of Shakespeare? I’m highly excited. I just want to go out and see the land of my dreams.”

A brief silence spread. The _expression on the stern looking man’s face changed dramatically.

‘Thanks, thanks!” He said hurriedly as an aside and I saw a smile break his aging face. Then as if he’d known all he wanted to know, he stamped our passports, and let us go. Opening my doors to the land that I had adored all my life.

‘Your Master was trying to tax you,” my wife teased me, sensing my vexation, referring to the colonial part of my early Indian upbringing. “Why do you become so upset in his presence? I have never seen you like this throughout the rest of Europe’ Since the Empire could never colonize Nepal, she seemed surprised at my exasperation. I did not reply. I picked up our attachés from the baggage claim ring and simply smiled. (The writer can be reached at yuyutsurd@yahoo.com)