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by Nepali writer Abhimanyu Dixit

photographs of Kathmandu by Nepali photographer Deepranjan Dongol

- the scent of Kathmandu (this is not romantic and this is not a love song)

As always, she gets on her bike.

She does not like to travel in stuffed micro-buses.

No, its not the sex-crazed micro bus conductors,

they can be tamed with the support of fellow female passengers,

and its not the harassing passengers; they can be ignored.

Its the stink of sweat. Especially in the evening.

Why should she smell the toil and effort of everyone inside the micro bus?

She bought the scooter as soon as she could afford the down payment.

The first time she smelled it, the fresh smell of a mechanical pet. It took her 2 years in her new job, and everything was worth it.

Her scooter for her was her freedom. Red, fiery, and shiny.

She would always be careful where to park it. She would always have to find safer alternatives to her usual hangouts.

Her favorite was the New Road-Basantapur area.

She always went there to find her peace of mind.

This was a place where she could be by herself, where no one noticed her.
The area shone, especially in the monsoon.

The smell of fresh wet streets was inviting.

The faint smell of wet leather;

to many it might seem ugly, but to her, it was real.

She would walk below the restaurants, and smell dishes; from different countries, and imagine what kind of people were ordering them.

She would enter malls, never to buy something, but to look and absorb the scent of the huge fresh washed glass that forever separated her from this place.

With her scooter, she had other alternatives than Newroad-Basantapur.

She would go to Taudaha and Nagdaha,

small ponds around the rim of Kathmandu Valley with small temples.

She never entered the temples.

The fake smell of strong scented “Agarbatties”  never appealed to her.

She liked the Diyo- the traditional oil lamp which is never so demanding to be smelt.

But to reach Taudaha, and Nagdaha, she had to cross the busy streets of Kathmandu.

She did.

But it is never easy.

Cars, Buses, Trucks, and India made motorcycles run in the streets selfishly and dirtily throwing black-leftover-carbon-smoke that burnt with all the rage and hatred.

She always had to wash her pink nose mask if she wanted to keep it clean. They get dirtier faster than her underwear.

And she had to cross the rivers.

The sad rivers which the selfish people of Kathmandu dumped all their garbage and sewage in.

The holy rivers that all the Hindus worship so much.

The pink nose mask was never enough to save her from the strong stink of overpopulation and bad management when she crosses every bridge and sometimes, normal dumping sites of of the city.

Every-time when she goes out to escape and rides to Nagdaha and Taudaha, she witnesses an accident. Maybe small, like 2 bikes colliding with a scratch, and sometimes large like a huge Truck hitting a passerby or a bike. It would only be visual then. Blood in the streets, and sometimes corners- they never give out a strong stink of rotting meat only animals give out that stink, human blood has a different smell; for her, it was a horrific and fearful.

Human life has no value, if anybody got hit, the road would instantly be blocked by the locals demanding retribution- money for the family and justice for loss of life. They would burn tires-tires of big buses, or tractors; in the middle of the road, and burn effigies of the present leader in the government. She never liked the idea of justice from the streets, and never liked the stink of burning.

But she always finds her escape. The rim, the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. Her escape, her edge… from the selfish people, the mechanical menaces, her escape from the fake refuge in religion. This was one place where she could find peace.

She closed her eyes for a while. Taking a deep breath of the pond, the vegetation, the greenery. Twice she took clean breaths of the green. But on the third breath, she smelled something funny. Peach, and something very strong.

She looked around and saw it. There was a couple, romantically kissing each other, it was like everything she saw in movies, french, indian, everything mixed, they were very indulged in their embrace. They were so indulged that she would never be noticed even if she complained even if she shouted them to get a room, she would be ignored.

Her safe refuge was a teenage-making out-spot. There was enough room if she went away from the perfume. But for how long? One couple would mean there would be others in the shades, and behind the bushes.

She will find some other place to escape. She had to. If this was to be her life.

AbhiManyu Dixit
…………………………………………….

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Her white guilt dances sorrowful circles

Around the eastern landscape

dressed in HBO and western fashion trends

sort of like the bad guy from “tomorrow never dies”


But its a beautiful country. The people are friendly

she wishes it were pure pain

not this toxic mess

of bad blood dead words

diarrhea and food scarcity



But its a beautiful country. The people are friendly

Its like this

They have HBO, CInemax, Star Movies… like 4-5 english movie channels there.

He’s watched all of the highest grossing movies made in Hollywood. And there are so many like him.

It used to be Just BBC like 15 years ago…

But its a beautiful country. The people are friendly

Also TV series, and fashion, food everything channels…

that’s how the “western” fashion, trends,

and philosophies are communicated to everyone in this part of the world.


And that’s how Most Nepalis cannot even say a full sentence in complete Nepali.

They put in English words… and sometimes speak in more English than Nepali…

But its a beautiful country. The people are friendly

But its a beautiful country.

The people are friendly,

except the cities where its turning out to be like any city in any part of the world…

the villages are great.

Words by AbhiManyu Dixit, deconstructed by Monica Miller


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My favorite story about my man, Al Schackman, includes a snowflake appaloosa, a Belgian shepherd called Honeybear, 2 guns, a motorcycle gang, a honeymooning couple and a campfire.

My favorite story, the story I never get tired of telling, isn’t about Al’s 45 years with Nina Simone as her music director and guitarist. It isn’t about his years playing guitar for Harry Belafonte or supporting Martin Luther King through the civil rights era. It isn’t even about his famous ex girl-friends or his notorious mobster and drug dealing friends… Suffice it to say he never had a tame life except maybe when he was a studio musician in NY recording for ad agencies and “little known” bands such as the Drifters, the Isley Brothers,  and Benny King. It was then, and only then that he had manicures, smoked Pall Malls and played studio music, some solely designed to accompany jingles. He would sit in 3 hour recording sessions with a can of beer and a sandwich. They were paid well but the jingle music went totally against his creative sensibilities. He couldn’t wait for the sessions to be over so at night he could go to the clubs and play real music. That’s when jazz was very big everywhere.  they could play jazz in strip clubs in the village that were owned by the mafia, and there were many jazz clubs. they played in clubs from Harlem to Greenwich Village.

My favorite story comes after this. It comes after a gig late one night that Al looked down at his hands and saw a pall mall in one hand and a bowl of soup in the other. He put them both down and decided to move back to Big Sur, to Drop Out.

As well as continuing to go on tour with Nina Simone Al became an assistant foreman on a cattle ranch in Big Sur, part of the Big Sur Fire and Rescue team, and a kind of “deputy ” to his ranch boss and friend Walter Trotter. As we well know fire safety practices in California is of paramount importance and a large part of the “deputy’s ‘” duty was to keep an eye out for fires on the ridges and hills and investigate. One afternoon Al saw some smoke down in a canyon so he went down on his young  appaloosa horse Kiko to check it out. As Al, Kiko and his huge Belgian Shepard reached the small campfire quite a scene unfolded. There was a young honeymooning couple from LA who had come up to Big Sur to “get away” from the city- and had built a small campfire for a romantic night in the canyon. There was a motorcycle gang (who shall remain un-named due to possible retribution issues) who had come upon the young couple and decided to “have some fun” with them. The gang had the young woman and man pinned down and were poised to gang rape the woman. With a skitterish Kiko, a snarling dog, a savage 250/3000 rifle and an antique style frontier colt revolver Al demanded that they “back off” but the gang leader started coming at him menacingly. He wouldn’t back off so with a dancing horse and aiming mid thigh he shot the gang leader in the foot. That was the end of the assault on the young couple as the gang got back on their bikes and drove north toward Monterey. He got to a phone and the Highway Patrol was waiting for them at the bridge below Carmel Highlands.

Later that night Al went down to Nepenthe restaurant  to meet some friends. The young couple were there, having at Al’s advice checked in at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn in  for the night. The young woman shrieked in delight to the other tourists they had been telling the story to “that’s Him!

Thats the man who saved us!!!”

I guess its not hard to see why this is my favorite story about Al.

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I can smell the sea foam my love

maya k doree le- string of love across the sea

I can smell the rocks on the mountain side

maya k doree le, string of love, are you coming to me?

the flowers so delicate, so tremulous

they cling to the mountain as  my thoughts cling to you

maya k doree le, by a string of love are you coming to me?

I can taste your salt sweat, like the ocean between us,  are you coming to me?

is this string so tender that it brings me soft kisses?

maya k doree le, the string of love

Is the string so strong that it brings me your weighty firm flesh?

maya k doree le , string of love

is the string so piercing that it can shatter even the most powerful of obstacles?

vetiver roots hold back the tide

is the string so forgiving that it will displace shame and fear?

spikenard heals deep wounds

is the string so transparent that it outshines even the crystal mountain?

lemon drops purify

is this string so true that you will not forget me?

rose petals prepare the bed of love

give me your hands lover , that I might anoint them with spikenard

as Mary Magdalene annointed the feet of Jesus

give me your heart lover, that I might paint it with roses

when the string of love binds you to me

give me your wrists lover, that I might hold them with frankincense

when the string of love ties us forever

give me your body lover that I might own it in eternity

when the string of love cannot be broken

marry me lover my devotion is yours

the string of love is wet with tears and lemon drops

maya k doree le the string of love

is musky as sandalwood, strong as  vetiver grass, pure as lemon drops, devoted as spikenard, heartfelt as roses, sacred as frankincense, and vast as the sea,

maya k doree le,

the string of love, across the ocean, draws you to me.

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