The Day in Office, After Dashain

The first day in office after (three-day-long) Dashain holiday means replying to a question that comes from everyone you meet: How was you Dashain? Yes, I have already written about this in my blog last year. This time too the situation was not different. “Mine was black and white,” I replied to one. “Mine was colorful,” I replied to the other. UWB blogger Vishnu asked the same question over messenger. “I celebrated Dashain with Grand celebrations,” was my reply. “Grand Celebrations?” Vishnu was in front of me within a minute curious to know more about that. He was just above a floor, in the office of the Kathmandu Post. “I went to my home,” he said. His house is in Sunsari (I had to ask him about that because I was middle of something and forget about his hometown.)

I would like to mention one thing here. As I was busy updating comments on this website, Girsh Giri came in the office and started grinning, and at times, behaving strangely. Then he went to the windows and started posing like a kick-boxer- bouncing here and there in air. “Oh…set,” he was saying something like this. A minute later he was seated behind my chair and started checking emails. Before a web page opened up, he came near to my ear and started breaking the news. “You know what,” he said. “My mood is totally off. I am angry. I am sad.”

Why? What happened yar? I was now curious to know the reason behind is sadness.

“This morning I discovered that I have gained extra 5 kilos,” Girish Giri was saying this while looking at and caressing his belly. He was 90 KG.

“Oh…come on, Girish ji,” I tried to console him, smiling. “I think this is in deed good news. In a poor country like this where millions are deprived of good food, you are gaining weight.” Ha..ha. That’s was for fun though.

Working in the time of Dashain has its own challenges. For example, where to eat khaja in the afternoon? All shops are closed. No hotels near the office were opened except one that we discarded. Devendra Bhattarai, Girish and I ventured around and found a shop where we had
tea. Then we again went to New Baneshowr with Narayan Wagle for coffee. I eat Mushroom soup there. That gave me power to write two stories later in the evening- one about the Noble Prize winner Harold Pinter and the other about the family of record-breaking mountaineer Babu Chiri Sherpa.

Yes, for the first time I felt hungry even after eating rice. In my house, they put rice for me in a Tiffin box because I always come late from office. Usually, the food is sufficient for me. But today, it was not. That mushroom soup was not sufficient at the first hand.