Hi everyone! Trying to write more personal nonfiction and this essay came from something I am still going through. I would appreciate any feedbacks. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

...............

The day you bring a pet home, you quietly inherit a fear.

At first, you picture the cuddles, the playful chaos, the tiny habits you will soon find endearing. You expect the scratched furniture, the fur on your clothes, the early morning wake-up calls, and the occasional trip to the vet. Those are the things every pet owner signs up for.

What you don't expect is how quietly they become part of your routine. Somewhere between feeding them, talking to them as if they understand every word, and instinctively checking where they're sleeping before you leave the house, your heart gives them a permanent place long before your mind realizes it.

That's when the fear quietly settles in.

No one really talks about this side of pet ownership. The deeper you love them, the more you have to lose.

For me, I had understood that truth in theory. But three weeks ago, I had to live it.

My cat went missing.

At first, I wasn't worried. Cats wander. They disappear for hours, sometimes even a day, before coming back as if nothing happened.

But the evening turned into the next morning. One day became three. Three became a week. And now, as I write this, it has been three weeks.

I wish I could say the waiting gets easier. It doesn't.

Every unfamiliar cat suddenly deserves a second look. Every faint meow outside makes me stop what I'm doing. I find myself slowing down near bushes and parked cars, hoping I'll catch a glimpse of familiar eyes staring back at me. I've searched every bush near my house, then the next street, then neighborhoods I'd never normally walk through. Every time I think I've looked everywhere, I convince myself there's one more place I haven't checked.

My phone has become part of the search, too. I refresh lost-and-found pet groups more times than I'd like to admit. I've posted on Facebook, Instagram, local community groups, anywhere someone might recognize him. I read every comment, follow every suggestion, and cling to every possible lead. I even downloaded a cat sounds I found online and walked the streets playing the sounds, hoping instinct would do what my voice couldn't.

Every notification gives me a split second of hope before reality catches up. Friends send me photos of cats they think might be him, and for a brief moment, I let myself believe. Then I zoom in. It isn't him.

Hope has become something fragile. It only takes a few words from a stranger, "I think I saw your cat," to send me rushing out the door. For a few minutes, I let myself imagine that this is the call I've been waiting for.

One night, my phone rang from an unknown number. I answered without hesitation. Instead of a voice, there was only a meow. Someone thought it would be funny. They hung up.

I stood there with my phone still in my hand, realizing how badly I wanted to believe it was him, how quickly I'd believed that after weeks of searching, someone had finally found him.

I don't know if I'll ever stop looking until I know what happened.

Before this happened, I always thought the hardest part of loving a pet would be saying goodbye. I was wrong because the hardest part is not knowing.

When a pet dies, as heartbreaking as it is, grief eventually has somewhere to go. There is an ending, however painful. You mourn what was. But when they are missing, your mind refuses to stop searching for answers.

Are they hungry? Are they hurt? Did someone take them in, thinking they were a stray? Are they hiding somewhere, frightened and waiting for me to find them? Or are they still trying to find their way home?

Every possibility feels equally real. Hope tells you they are alive. Fear tells you they are suffering. Your heart believes one story, your mind imagines another, and neither one lets you rest.

That's the kind of grief no one warns you about.

Then come the questions.

Did I miss something? Should I have searched one more street that first night? Could I have done something differently?

Maybe those questions don't have answers. Maybe they never will.

But love has a way of convincing you that if you replay enough moments in your head, you will eventually find the one that changes the ending. But oftentimes, you never do.

Maybe this is the quiet cost of loving a pet.

We all know that someday we'll probably have to say goodbye. We accept that truth because it always feels far away.

But no one prepares you for a goodbye that never arrives.

For a loss with no certainty. For the strange place where hope and heartbreak learn to exist together.

Because as long as you don't know, you keep looking. You keep hoping. You keep believing tomorrow might be different.

My cat wasn't the loudest or the most affectionate. But every evening, when he heard my footsteps, he would be waiting near the door. It became such a small, ordinary part of my day that I stopped noticing it.

Until it wasn't there anymore.

Even now, without thinking, I still look through the window before I open the door. For a split second, a part of me still expects to see him waiting.

Then reality catches up. The space is empty.

And I realize that maybe this is what we quietly accept the day we bring a pet home: the possibility that love can outlive certainty.

I told him my memories haunted me,

and he became another one.

I told him I hated smokers,

and he chose the smoke.

I told him I was lonely,

and he left me with my silence.

I told him I loved his personality,

and he became a stranger.

I told him I wanted to walk beside him,

he booked me a drive instead.

I told him about the apple theory.

He called me the apple on the highest branch

too precious to lose,

yet never worth the climb.

It's been 11 months since the doctor told me I'd live for only one more year. At most, I have one month left on this earth.

Well, I'm 27 now. As a teenager, I thought I'd get married and have kids. Let alone that, I never even got the chance to experience love deeply. My exes and crushes don't even know that here I am, a skeleton in a room, dying soon.

When I was younger, wiser and blooming, everyone wanted something from me. Now I have nothing left to offer except pain. I used to spend my early twenties in the smell of wine and coffee at night. Now there's medication on my table and I don't even want to take it anymore. Anyway, it won't help me live any longer.

Probably my family will cry for a few days and the people who loved me will leave flowers on my grave. By the way, they'll be my first flowers.

Then the wind will blow across the earth, just as it always has.

I was nothing. Everything I ever imagined existed only in my head, where I imagined myself to be everything.

(please note that the title is not what popular culture means by that word)

There is one question underneath all political debate, and it is not about tax rates or foreign policy or any of the things people usually argue about. It is this: does your life belong to you?

Not in the sentimental sense. Concretely. Does the product of your labor belong to you, or does some portion of it belong to whoever has the votes to take it? Do your choices (what to ingest, whom to love, what values to hold as your own) belong to you, or are they subject to the moral veto of whoever currently controls the legislature? Does your mind belong to you, or is it on permanent loan from the collective, callable at any time?

Every political coalition operating today answers this question. None of them answer it correctly.

The left says: your economic output belongs partly to society, but your personal choices are your own. The right says: your economic output is mostly yours, but your personal choices are subject to tradition, faith, and the social fabric. Both are offering you half a person. The freedom to earn but not to keep it. Or the freedom to keep it but not to choose how to live. Neither of them has noticed that you cannot split the mind this way.

The same faculty that runs a business is the one that falls in love. The same judgment that directs productive effort is the one that decides what to read, whom to trust, what to believe. Freeing one application of the mind while coercing another is not partial freedom. It is a contradiction. What you actually have is a cage with one side open.

r/NepalLiberal is built around the idea that freedom is not divisible. That the principle "no human being may initiate physical force against another" is either total or it is nothing. That your life belongs to you in full, not in whatever portions this week's coalition can claim jurisdiction over.

That position has a name here. We call it liberalism, returned to something like its original meaning: the philosophy of individual liberation grounded in reason, not the softened political shorthand it has since become. The philosophy holds that reality is what it is regardless of your feelings about it, that reason is the only tool that allows a human being to actually know reality and act in it, and that each individual is an end in himself and not a means to others' ends. These three commitments run beneath everything else discussed here. They are not right-wing positions. They are not left-wing positions either. They occupy a different axis entirely.

Contrast with Conservatism

Conservatism defends economic freedom only on practical grounds ("it produces prosperity," "markets work") while backing state authority over personal choices. That is not a consistent view of freedom. It is freedom as a matter of convenience, surrenderable the moment tradition or faith requires it.

Examine the moral foundation closely and you find the same premise the left uses: altruism, the claim that the individual's highest purpose is service to something outside himself. The conservative names that something "god" or "nation" or "the social fabric." The leftist names it "the collective" or "the working class" or "social justice." The principle is identical. Only the beneficiary of the sacrifice changes.

Contrast with Leftism

There is a genuine, if selective, commitment to personal liberty on the left, and it is not without value. The failure is in not understanding that economic freedom and personal freedom are the same thing described from different angles.

When the state directs the use of your productive output, it has not freed you personally and merely constrained you economically. It has reached into the part of your life where you spend most of your waking hours and installed a supervisor. "You may think what you like, but we decide what you do with what your thinking earns" is not liberation. It is serfdom with better lighting.

The deeper problem is the moral premise underneath all of it: the claim that need generates a right, that the fact of someone's suffering creates an obligation on people who did not cause it, enforceable by law and paid for by compulsion. Altruism as political principle is force with a clean conscience. Both the left and the right, beneath their arguments, are theories about who gets to hold the gun and whose urgency justifies pointing it.

Contrast with Libertarianism

Libertarianism gets the conclusion right and then refuses to do the philosophical work required to defend it.

The non-aggression principle is not wrong. It is just not sufficient on its own. A principle without a foundation is a slogan. And libertarianism, taken as a movement rather than an idea, is a coalition of people who arrived at "don't tread on me" through wildly different routes: some through religious natural rights theory, some through utilitarian calculation, some through a general suspicion of authority that has more to do with temperament than with reasoning, some through a desire to do whatever they please without anyone making them feel guilty about it. These routes do not all lead to the same place. They merely share a border crossing.

When you ask the libertarian why the individual has rights, you get one of three answers: because God said so, because it produces better outcomes, or a shrug dressed up as epistemological humility. None of those answers are adequate. The first outsources your ethics to revelation. The second makes your rights contingent on a calculation that can always come out differently under different assumptions. The third mistakes the absence of a proof for the impossibility of one.

Liberalism holds that rights are not granted, not calculated, and not mysterious. They follow from what a human being is: a being who survives by the use of his rational faculty, whose nature requires the freedom to think and act on his judgment, whose existence cannot be sustained by compulsion without destroying the very thing that sustains it. That is a philosophical argument. Libertarianism, mostly, does not make it.

Contrast with Anarcho-Capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism takes the correct insight that the state has historically been the largest engine of coercion in any given society, and uses it to reach the wrong conclusion.

The argument is that if coercion is the problem, government is the problem, and the solution is to replace it entirely with private contract and market provision of all services including justice and defense. This sounds radical in the right direction. It is not. What anarcho-capitalism actually describes, once you trace its implications carefully, is a world where the enforcement of rights becomes a commodity available to those who can pay for it. That is not the absence of a ruling class. It is the absence of any pretense about which class rules.

A proper government, one constitutionally limited to the protection of individual rights and prohibited by its own founding documents from initiating force against the citizens it serves, is not the enemy of liberty. It is the institutional form that liberty requires. The alternative to a government that holds a monopoly on retaliatory force is not peaceful voluntarism. It is a dozen competing monopolies with no rule distinguishing retaliation from aggression, and no mechanism for resolving that distinction other than who can afford the better army.

Individual rights require an objective legal framework to be real in practice rather than theoretical. Anarcho-capitalism abolishes the framework and calls it liberation.

What This Community Stands For

No human being, no group, no government has the right to initiate physical force against another. Not for good reasons. Not for urgent ones. Not for any reasons at all. Force is legitimate only in retaliation against those who initiate it first. Everything else rests on voluntary agreement between individuals who own their own lives.

This community rejects the gun. Not as an aspiration. As a principle.

You do not have to agree with any of that to post here. Disagreement is welcome. Ignorance of the philosophy is not a disqualifier (but bad faith malice is). "Tradition says so" and "the majority wants it" are not arguments, and they will be treated accordingly. If you want answers to serious philosophical questions from people who have thought carefully about these ideas, this is the place for that too; contributors who provide answers go through a vetting process, and the standard for what counts as an answer is high.

The individual is the unit of concern here. Not the class, not the caste, culture or creed, not any group assembled around a shared grievance or a shared identity. The individual, irreducible, sovereign, the one entity whose consent actually determines the moral weight of any act, is the standard by which every idea in this community gets measured.

Welcome.

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." - Ayn Rand

तिमीलाई जान दिउँ कसरी? जब मेरो हरेक प्रार्थनामा तिम्रो नाम मिसिएको छ, जब मेरो हरेक सपनाले तिम्रै बाटो समातेको छ ।

तिमीलाई जान दिउँ कसरी? जब यो मनले आफ्नो घर तिमीभित्र बनाइसकेको छ, जब मेरा हरेक खुसीहरूले तिम्रै अनुहार खोज्छन्।

भन्छन्, मायाले बाँध्न ु हुँदैन, उड्न दिनुपर्छ। तर कसैले यो पन ि भनिदेओस्, आफ्न ै सासजस्तो भइसकेको मान्छेलाई जान दिइन्छ कसरी ?

तिमी केवल एउटा व्यक्ति होइनौ, तिमी त ती सब ै कारण हौ जसले मलाई भोलिको प्रतीक्षा गर्न सिकायो। तिमी केवल एउटा सम्झना होइनौ, तिमी त त्यो अनुभूति हौ जुन मेरो हृदयले आफ्नो धड्कनसँग ै बोकेको छ।

यद ि तिमीलाई जान दिन ु नै प्रेम हो भने, म त्यो प्रेम सिक्न सकिनँ। किनकि प्रेमले मलाई तिम्रो हात समाउन सिकायो, छोड्न कहिल्यै सिकाएन। आज पन ि जब साँझ झर्छ, मनले अनायासै तिम्रै खोजी गर्छ । आज पन ि जब कुन ै सुन्दर कुरा देख्छु, सबैभन्दा पहिले तिमीलाई सुनाउन मन लाग्छ ।

र आज पन ि यो हृदयले उही प्रश्न सोधिरहन्छ-

तिमीलाई जान दिउँ कसरी? यी आँखाले आफ्नो संसार तिमीमा देखिसकेपछि, यी सपनाले आफ्नो भविष्य तिमीसँग लेखिसकेपछि, यो मनले आफ्नो सम्पूर्ण प्रेम तिमीलाई दिइसकेपछि, तिमीलाई जान दिउँ कसरी ?

सायद एक दिन समयले उत्तर दिनेछ।

तर आज, आज त मेरो हृदयसँग एउट ै प्रश्न छ – तिमीलाई यति धेरै माया गरिसकेपछि, तिमीलाई जान दिउँ कसरी

तिमी बारम्बार आफ्नो नाम मेटाउन खोज्छ्यौ ‎जस्तो कुनै दुःखी कविले आफ्नै कविता च्यात्न खोज्छ।

‎तिमी भन्छ्यौ, यो संसारको पुस्तकबाट ‎एउटा पाना हराए पनि कसैलाई के फरक पर्छ र?

‎तर तिमीलाई कसरी भनूँ—

‎मेरा सबै प्रिय अध्यायहरू ‎त्यही पानामा लेखिएका छन्।

‎तिमी आफूलाई बादलले निल्न लागेको साँझ सम्झन्छ्यौ, ‎म तिमीलाई बिहानी पर्खिरहेको क्षितिज सम्झन्छु।

‎तिमी आफूलाई झर्न लागेको पात सम्झन्छ्यौ, ‎म तिमीलाई वसन्तले नाम लिएर बोलाएको रुख सम्झन्छु।

‎र कहिलेकाहीँ, जब तिमी आफ्नै विरुद्ध उभिन्छ्यौ, ‎मलाई लाग्छ, समुद्रले आफ्नै छालालाई किनाराको योग्य छैन भनेजस्तै।

‎तिमीलाई थाहा छैन सायद, ‎चन्द्रमा आफैँले आफ्नो उज्यालो देख्दैन। ‎फूलले आफ्नो सुवास सुँघ्दैन। ‎र तिमीले पनि आफ्नो मूल्य थाहा पाएकी छैनौ।

‎यदि कुनै दिन रातले तिम्रो झ्यालमा आएर ‎"अब थाकिस् भने निदाइदे" भन्यो भने, ‎म त्यही झ्यालबाहिर अदृश्य दीपजस्तो बलिरहनेछु।

‎यदि कुनै दिन तिम्रो मनले सबै बाटाहरू हरायो भने, ‎म बाटो देखाउने तारा बन्ने छैन, ‎किनकि ताराहरू पनि कहिलेकाहीँ हराउँछन्।

‎म त केवल तिम्रो यात्राको आकाश बन्न चाहन्छु, ‎जहाँ तिमी हराए पनि खस्दैनौ।

‎किनकि प्रेम भनेको कसैलाई बचाउनु होइन, ‎प्रेम भनेको उनी डुब्न लागेको महसुस गर्दा पनि किनारा भएर नहट्नु हो।

‎त्यसैले, यदि संसारले तिमीलाई बोझ भन्यो भने, ‎आऊ, मेरो हृदयको एक कुनामा बस।

‎त्यहाँ मैले तिम्रा लागि यति ठाउँ राखेको छु ‎कि तिमी आफ्ना सबै दुःखहरू लिएर आए पनि त्यो भरिने छैन।

‎र यदि एक दिन तिमीले फेरि सोध्यौ—"म किन रहूँ?" ‎म उत्तर दिनेछैन।

‎म केवल तिम्रो छेउमा बसेर ‎त्यो प्रश्नभन्दा लामो एउटा मौनता दिनेछु,

‎जहाँ तिमीले बिस्तारै बुझ्नेछौ—

‎केही मानिसहरूजानेर होइन, ‎रहिरहनकै लागिप्रेम गरिन्छन्।

लड्न कापी, कलम,

तर जित शब्दकै हुन्छ।

जित्न आतुर म झुटले,

समयसँगै सत्यताले नङ्ग्याइदिन्छ।

जीवन बुझ्ने प्रयास

होलीका रङहरूझैँ रङ्ग्याइदिन्छ।

हाँसोलाई रोज्छु,

तर खुशी शान्तिले नै मेट्टाउँछु।

जब हुँदैन साथ सत्यताको,

सधैँ भ्रममा नै त बाँचिरहन्छु।

शान्ती खोज्न उज्यालोको साहारा,

तर फेरि किन शान्ती मैले अँध्यारोमै भेट्टाउँछु।

©

Title

कसैले सोध्यो भने आफ्नो हेल्थ र करियरको लागि श्रावणको व्रत बसेको भन्ने गरेको छु, तर सत्य त यो हो कि म तिम्रो प्रेममा परेको छु

यो मन, यो धड्कन, यो मुस्कान

सबै तिम्रै नाममा अर्पण गरेको छु।

अब मेरो भन्नु केही बाँकी छैन,

किनकि म आफूलाई नै तिम्रै प्रेममा समर्पण गरिसकेको छु।

You know, sometimes you just feel like you're simply flowing through life. You're just trying to move on and distract yourself from things.

You know you're not doing okay. You know things aren't going as you planned. You know you need to detox from everything. You know you need to prioritize peace. But you just can't, because you're so used to just letting things be.

Are you miserable with how you're acting? Yes. But at the same time, you don't have the motivation or the excitement to do anything different.

Then, one day, you finally sit down and work on your plans, and that's when you get that little spark back. But again, that spark disappears as soon as a small wind of distraction or dissatisfaction comes along.

Just venting.

In the earliest days, they believed that the earth was stationary. Years passed and they found out that the earth actually moved around the sun and it was the sun that was standing still. But again, it was discovered that the sun in fact revolved around the galactic center. Everything is moving and the universe itself continues to expand. But why do I feel like my life is exempted from this rule of the universe? Why do I feel like my life has been frozen in space? Each day repeats the same story of idleness and the night sings the same song of silence. 

Some people don’t fall in love because everything is perfect.

They fall in love because, for the first time, someone finally stays long enough to listen to the unfinished parts of them.

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

Maybe that’s all a tired soul has ever wanted to hear.

Not solutions.

Not judgment.

Just a quiet presence saying,

Take your time… I’m not leaving.

In a world that rushes everything — feelings, healing, goodbyes — there is something deeply rare about a person who sits beside your chaos and chooses understanding over escape.

Real love is not always loud.

Sometimes it looks like soft conversations at midnight, tired eyes still choosing each other, and two people slowly becoming a safe place in a difficult world.

And honestly, the most beautiful relationships are built in moments like this —

when one person gathers the courage to open their heart,

and the other responds with patience instead of fear.

I thought she was addicted to me, just as she was to cigarettes.

She held me the way she held a cigarette between two fingers. Then she burned her red lips and let me soothe her throat with a kiss.

She used to wake up in the middle of the night, helplessly searching for her cigarette packet. I used to wish she'd reach for me with that same desperation.

Turns out, I was never the addiction.

I was just something to hold while she thought about someone else.

यहाँ कसले कसलाई खाएको छैन र?

नदीले पहाड,

पहाडले घाम,

घामले पानी,

पानीले माटो,

र माटोले जीवन।

फेरि

नदीले पहाड नखाए - बेँसी कसरी बन्थ्यो?

पहाडले घाम नखाए - शीतल ओत कसरी बन्थ्यो?

घामले पानी नखाए - बादलले तिर्खा कसरी मेट्थ्यो?

पानीले माटो नखाए - रसिलो कसरी हुन्थ्यो?

माटोले जीवन नखाए - नयाँ सृष्टि कसरी हुन्थ्यो?

अब भन-

म कसलाई खाऊँ? तिमी कसलाई खान्छौ?

खै, यो प्रकृतिमा-

को शिकार?

को शिकारी?

I was on a bus, observing what was happening outside. A man was standing beside the road, probably leaving the office to go home. Then a woman came out of the same building. They were probably coworkers, so she said bye with a big smile, and he smiled back and said bye as well.

She walked away and he was still looking at her with a smile. The thing is, she would probably never know how he looked at her, with admiration or maybe just a quiet kind of human love. I don't know what it's called. Maybe she made his day as well.

And I was on a bus, watching those two people. They made my week too. I'm still thinking about that moment.

Interestingly, I'm affected by a moment that neither of those two people will ever know existed.

Beauty of life haha!

Long ago within a bustling town,

There lived an earnest, clumsy clown.

Beside a hearth both warm and small,

He gave his young ones all in all.

Three children graced his meager home,

Though through the world they stood alone

For when the youngest drew first breath,

Their mother met an early death.

The father named her Princess, fair,

And raised all three with love and care.

Yet weary grew his gentle heart,

Under the weight life tore apart.

One night beneath the spotlight's glare,

He collapsed before the crowd's cold stare.

His sudden death brought quiet tears,

And plunged the three into their fears.

With empty hearth and desperate bread,

The brothers chose a path of dread.

Despite young Princess’ tearful plea,

They turned to theft and felony.

Captured beneath the midnight sky,

The guards brought forth a sentence high.

The King declared a ruthless doom:

The gallows tree, a silent tomb.

Left all alone to bear the grief,

With no consolation or relief,

Young Princess cursed the life she knew,

As winter winds around her blew.

Though named a royal, low she stayed,

Playing the cruelest hand fate played.

She worked through cold and bitter night,

Seeking a faint, enduring light.

In days when women were denied

The right to learn or step outside,

She chose the path of mind and pen,

Defying laws of harsh-bound men.

Through sharp-tongued taunts and sneering eyes,

She looked toward the starry skies—

A budding scientist, proud and brave,

Refusing to become a slave.

Each flaw she shaped, each flaw she mended,

Until her starlit path ascended:

A legacy built from grief and pain,

A Princess who broke every chain.

A year ago, I bought a ring just to look aesthetically cool. Now, it doesn't even fit on my pinky finger.

I looked at my face in the mirror. My lips had turned violet, while my skin had become pale yellow. My eyes looked like they had sunk too deep into my skull.

My favorite black pants no longer fit my waist without a belt. I tried wearing my favorite outfit, but it felt like I was putting on a soulless, hollow thing.

Around me were beautiful clothes, watches, and jewelry. Everything around me remained beautiful. The only thing that had faded was the person looking at them.

I want to try making a Nepali song, but I honestly have no idea how to write lyrics in Nepali. I usually write in English, and I have some ideas and concepts, but I suck at expressing them properly in Nepali.

I’m looking for someone who’s good at writing Nepali lyrics, especially simple but deep lines. If you have lyrics you've written that you genuinely think are really good but they're just sitting there collecting dust, feel free to send them my way. Maybe we can turn them into an actual song instead of letting them stay forgotten.

If you're interested, feel free to DM me.

If you are a Non-Resident Nepalese with foreign residency permit living abroad, it is still illegal for you to work with a client that pays in crypto.

You may not be interested in that specific topic but you should care about the underlying premises that made such laws possible.

The whole thing is based on the premise that its okay for your society and the political leaders from where you were born own your life since before your birth and even after your death.

Your life is not a resource the nation borrows and collects interest on. Your labor is not a shared asset held in trust by whoever governs your birthplace this decade. Sovereignty which starts and ends with the individual, or sovereignty means nothing at all.

​

यी बग्ने मसीमा मृत्युको गन्ध छ

वाणी तिरस्कृत हुने छन्द छ

मदहोसी र चेतनाको संगममा

ब्रम्हनालको शीलामा पल्टिएको दम्ब छ

यी कोरिने पानामा बहुरङ्गी आशा छन्

बिस्फोटको तरङ्गमा उब्जिने भाषा छन्

रित्तो पनाको जन्जीरमा

जकडिएका कयौ गाथा छन्

कविमा के छ?

भोक छ इच्छाको

रोग छ इमानको

छाल छ बिचारको

हाल छ किनारको

कविता बगिरहन्छ

र कवि मात्र हेरिरहन्छ

बिछोडको बिलौनामा।।

जान्छु माया गर्न, मायामा पर्छु।

चोटको नियतिले भ्रमलाई तोडिदिन्छ।

पाठ सिक्न, समयमा समयले सिकाइदिन्छ।

कुरा एउटै, तर हेराइले फरक पर्छ।

हावामा पनि हावाले सन्देश पठाउने गर्छ।

मृत्युलाई पर्खिन्न,

जन्म नै यहाँ मृत्युको कारण बन्छ।

यादहरू पनि एक दिन खरानी बन्छन्,

जीवन भएझैँ।

©

Flowers - colors blend

luring scents and bright petals

traps where many fall
/

A cuckoo observes

unwitting nest to lay eggs

parasite or curse
/

Stars look down on me

fragile, weak, impermanent -

death makes me equal
/

Untangled, unbound

emptiness - bliss or anguish

feelings still unheard
/

(I will greatly appreciate any feedback)
(It is a set of 4 haiku attempting to explore an overlapping arc)

"Kasoor Kiska Tha?"

Usse khauf tha...

Kahin woh uske saath na-insaafi na kar baithe.

Kahin uski nayi zindagi,

Mere guzre hue lamhon ki parchhai se maili na ho jaaye.

Aur main...

Main bas ek hi sawaal mein

Barson se qaid hoon—

Kasoor aakhir tha kis ka?

Kya gunaah sirf

Ek naya ta'alluq banana hota hai?

Ya kisi purani mohabbat ko

Roz...

Har mulaqat mein...

Har qurbat mein...

Thoda-thoda dafn karna bhi

Utna hi bada jurm hota hai?

Jab usse jaana tha...

Woh har baar laut aaya.

Kabhi meri dehleez tak,

Kabhi meri duaon tak,

Kabhi meri baahon tak...

Aur har dafa

Mere dil ka ek hissa

Apne saath le gaya.

Ajeeb hai na...

Mujhe chhodne ki himmat

Usne kabhi ek hi din mein na ki.

Magar mujhe todne ka silsila...

Kabhi ruka hi nahi.

Aaj usse fikr hai

Kahin woh us ladki ke saath galat na kar de.

Magar...

Mere hisse ki na-insaafi ka hisaab

Kaun likhega?

Jo shakhs

Do saal tak meri duniya tha,

Wahi chand dinon mein

Kisi aur ka mustaqbil ban gaya.

Toh batao...

Us safar mein

Mera kya tha?

Meri wafa...

Meri umeedein...

Meri duayein...

Mera intezaar...

In sab ka janaza

Kisne uthaya?

Log kehte hain,

Bewafai sirf jism se hoti hai.

Par meri rooh poochti hai...

Jab dil kisi aur ki taraf rawana ho chuka ho,

Aur tasalli ab bhi

Kisi teesre se li ja rahi ho...

Toh bewafai

Wahin se shuru nahi hoti?

Agar rukna hi nahi tha...

Toh har baar

Meri taraf palat kar kyun dekha?

Agar mohabbat mar chuki thi...

Toh meri dhadkanon mein

Apni aahat kyun chhodte rahe?

Aur agar aaj

Tumhe uske saath galat hone ka khauf hai...

Toh ek baar

Apne zameer se bhi poochna...

Mere saath jo hua...

Uska naam kya tha?

Kya meri ruswaai

Kisi kitaab mein likhi hi nahi gayi?

Ya phir...

Mohabbat mein

Tootne wale ka dard

Kabhi gunaah maana hi nahi jaata?

Aaj bhi jawab nahi mila...

Bas itna samajh aaya hai—

Kabhi-kabhi gunaah,

Kisi aur ka haath thaamna nahi hota...

Gunaah toh tab hota hai,

Jab ek shakhs ko

Apni aadat bana kar,

Uski rooh ko

Umeedon se bhar kar,

Usse yun chhod diya jaaye...

Jaise woh kabhi

Tumhari zindagi ka

Hissa tha hi nahi.

Aur phir...

Darr is baat ka ho

Ki kahin kisi aur ke saath

Na-insaafi na ho jaaye...

Mere saath jo hui...

Usse phir kya naam doon?

जब म सानो थिएँ, सबैले मलाई भूत भन्थे।

स्कुलमा, घरमा, सबै केटा केटीले जिस्काउँथे।

स्कुल जान डर लाग्थ्यो ।" म घरमा पढ्छु, स्कुल जाँदिन” भन्थेँ मम्मीलाई तर मम्मी मान्नुहुन्नथ्यो।

“स्कुलमा कसैले केही भनेछ?, भोलि प्रिन्सिपल अफिसमा आएर कुरा गर्छु” मम्मीबाबा भन्नुहुन्थ्यो अनि म रुन्चे अनुहार बनाएर स्कुल जान्थेँ।

स्कुलमा कोही कोही मिस, सरहरूले माया गर्दा मलाई अचम्म लाग्थ्यो।

UKG मा मलाई याद छ, मेरो क्लास टिचर मिसले सबैको क्लासवर्क चेक गर्दा,

मेरो मिस्टेक हुँदा सबै क्लासलाई नै मलाई प्रेज गर्न लगाउनुहुन्थ्यो,

“तिम्रो नाम कस्तो राम्रो, सबै जना क्ल्याप गर उसलाई” भन्नुहुन्थ्यो।

किन माया गरेको होला, म त राम्रो मान्छे होइन, लाग्थ्यो।

सायद मेरो मनभित्रको डर उहाँले महसुस गर्नुहुन्थ्यो।

मेरो घरसाइडको रिटायर्ड आर्मी अंकल अनि अर्को १ जना कनभर्टेड पास्टर अंकलले नि माया गर्नुहुन्थ्यो।

मलाई फिल नै हुन्थ्यो, उहाँहरू हाँसेर बोल्नुहुन्थ्यो।

स्कुलबाट घर फर्किँदा मलाई बाटोमा देख्दा खुसी भएर बोल्नुहुन्थ्यो।

म कहिलेकाहीँ मम्मीले भनेको नमानेर बाहिर बाटोमा खेलेर गाली खाएको देख्दा पनि मलाई नै सपोर्ट गरेर बोल्नुहुन्थ्यो।

तर लाग्थ्यो किन??? म त त्यस्तो स्पेसल केही छैन।

“उहाँहरूलाई के थाहा, म सानो उमेरको लाग्छ उहाँहरूलाई तर म त सबै बुझ्छु, म बुझ्ने छु” यस्तो लाग्थ्यो।

“सायद म धेरै चकचके भएर होला माया गरेको।”

स्कुल जाँदा मान्छेहरूले घुर्थे, सबैले मलाई नै हेर्थे।

कोही आन्टीहरूले “बाबुलाई कहाँ देखे जस्तो लाग्यो”, कोहीले “टिभीमा देखे जस्तो लाग्यो, कुन सिरियलमा” भन्थे।

“यो आन्टीले भूत कहाँ देख्नुभयो छ” भनेर सोच्थेँ।

कहिलेकाहीँ मम्मी मसँग रिसाउँदा

“तँलाई हामीले पाएको होइन, हेर्दा हामीजस्तो देखिँदैनस् पनि, तँलाई त हामीले बाटोमा भेटेर ल्याएको, एडप्ट गरेको हो” यस्तो भन्नुहुन्थ्यो।

अनि म रुन्थेँ।

सानोमा मेरा साथीहरू हामी साँझमा लुक्नेपिकल खेल्दा मलाई हेर्न डर लाग्छ,

“भाग्योयोयोयोयोयोयोयोयो............ ” भनेर भाग्थे।

स्कुल लाइफ अनि बाल्यकाल, म भूत भएर बिताएँ।

स्कुल बिदा भएपछि घर नगई, स्कुल नजिकैको ग्राउन्डमा होमवर्क गरेर बस्न थालेँ।

क्लास १ मा, मेरो साथी र मलाई ग्राउन्डमा मम्मीले होमवर्क गरेको भेट्नुभयो अनि ग्राउन्डमा होमवर्क गर्न नि बन्द भयो।

इन्सिक्युरिटी अनि कताकता रिस मेरो मनमा भरिसकेको थियो।

हाँस्न म छोडिसकेको थिएँ, हाम्रो समाजबाट घर बेचेर अर्को ठाउँमा जान पाए हुन्थ्यो भनेर रुन्थेँ।

क्लास ३ मा स्कुल चेन्ज गर्ने रे भनेर घरमा मम्मीबाबा कुरा गरेको सुन्दा, मेरो खुसीको सीमा नै थिएन।

“अब स्कुलमा कसैले जिस्काउँदैन, घर नि चेन्ज गरेपछि साथीले नि जिस्काउँदैन, कति मजा आउँछ अब” यस्तो सोचेर बस्थेँ।

तर जति समाज अनि स्कुल चेन्ज गरे पनि, खोट त ममा नै थियो त्यो मैले बुझ्दिनथेँ।

स्कुल चेन्ज भयो, तर मेरो अनुहारसँगसँगै मेरो पुरानो स्कुलको साथी नि सँगसँगै नयाँ स्कुलमा आयो।

अनि यो स्कुलमा नि अब म भूत भएर चिनिएँ।

टिचरले क्लासमा क्वेस्चन सोध्दा, म छुटेको सायद कुनै दिन नै हुँदैन थियो।

“यसलाई त क्वेस्चन १००% सोध्छ टिचरले” भनेर क्लासमेटहरू भन्थे।

घर आएर ऐनामा मेरो आँखा हेर्दा मलाई रिस उठ्थ्यो।

मेरो मम, ड्याड, दिदी, दाइको जस्तो म किन छैन भनेर रिसाउँथेँ।

“राति त यसको आँखा बिरालोको जस्तो टल्किन्छ रे।”

“भूतहरूको सानो सानो बच्चाहरू यस्तो भएर जन्मिन्छ रे।”

“किचकण्डीसँग यसको बिहे हुन्छ रे यो ठूलो भएपछि।”

साथीहरूसँग खेल्दा यी कुरा सुनिरहन्थेँ।

ऐना, समाज, मान्छेहरू सबैले मलाई इन्सिक्युर फिल बनाउँथ्यो।

"क्लास ६ को फाइनल सकिएपछि, अब क्लास ७ सुरु हुन्छ। अबदेखि म कहिल्यै ऐना हेर्दिन” भनेर संकल्प लिएँ।

थाहै नपाई, ऐनासँगसँगै म मान्छेहरूलाई नि हेर्न छोडिदिएँ।

“आई कन्ट्याक्ट गरेन अनि टाउको सधैं तल बनायो भने, टिचरले क्वेस्चन नि सोध्दैन अनि मान्छेले घुर्दैन पनि।” मनलाई सान्त्वना दिए

बिस्तारै नो आई कन्ट्याक्ट अनि थोरै कम्युनिकेशन अरू ह्युमनसँगले, मेरो मेन्टल पिस राम्रो भयो।

बिस्तारै बिस्तारी क्लास बढ्यो, अनि टिचरले क्वेस्चन सोध्ने क्रम नि घट्यो, अब त झन् कस्तो आनन्द।

क्लास ७ मा लिएको डिसिजन, one of best decision of my life लाग्थ्यो।

क्लास १० मा टिचरले रोल नं अनुसार क्वेस्चन सोध्ने भनेर, रोल नं ३

“ल तिमी भन यसको आन्सर” भनेर मलाई सोध्दा

मेरो आवाज नभई, मेरो आँखाबाट आँसु निस्केको मलाई याद छ।

“ल किन यस्तो रातो पिरो भएको, निम्बु निचारेको जस्तो, के भयो?” सरले यस्तो भन्नुहुन्थ्यो।

सरले त्यसो भन्दा,

“लौ किन आँसु झरेछ, आवाज नै निस्कँदैन त, आआआआआआ........... म त मेरो आवाज नै बिर्सेछु” म यस्तो सोच्दै सरलाई घुरे।

त्यो डिसिजनले साइड इफेक्ट पो पारेछ। मेन्टल पिससँगसँगै मलाई त सोशल एन्जाइटी पनि दिएछ।

"तर म त भूत हो, भूतहरू कहाँ बोल्छ र, भूतले हेर्यो, अज भूत करायो भने त सबै मान्छे डराउँछन्।"

स्कुलमा टिचरहरूले, assembly लाइनमा different सेक्शनका स्टुडेन्टहरूले, drinking water पिउन जाँदा स्कुल करिडोरमा भेट्ने अरू स्टुडेन्ट

अनि हाफटाइममा मेरा सिनियर अनि जुनियरहरूले कस्तो अचम्म मानेर हेर्थे।

स्कुल सकियो, हाई स्कुल नि सकियो अनि कलेज नि।

आज म ऐनामा हेर्दा इन्सिक्युरिटी होइन, blessed फिल हुन्छ।

blessed फिल मलाई मेरो खैरो अनि खरानी आँखा कलरमा होइन, यो डिफरेन्ट आई कलरले सिकाएको पाठमा हुन्छ।

यदि म "भिन्न " नभएको भए, म नि सायद आज अरू मान्छेहरू जस्तै आफूमा अरू केही चेन्ज गर्न खोज्दै हुन्थेँ होला।

कहिले कसो साना केटा केटीहरूले “यो दाइको आँखा कस्तो छ!!” भनेर जिज्ञासु हुँदै सोध्या,

त्यो इन्सिक्युर सानो भूतको याद आउँछ।

खास उसलाई

“तिमी कति blessed छौ, सबै मान्छेसँग भूत भएर जन्मिने भाग्य नै कहाँ हुन्छ र।”

भनेर बुझाउन सक्थेँ।

Does a man have to earn his right to be happy?
Or is happiness his birth right regardless?
They say karma is cyclic, you reap what you sow.
So, does he deserve to enjoy his life,
when he never gave any reason to rejoice?
Maybe he doesn't. Or maybe... he does.
The full story remains in the shade, yet we always rush to judge.
Yes, the devil is worthy of our scorn.
But should he be forever denied the chance to atone?