Living the Life

so now that he's out of office, i guess he has time to hang out at my old university....

my new favourite song that speaks to my soul is called 'grace' by the restoration project. i'm not savvy enough to find a link for you guys... but here are the wonderful lyrics.

Grace.
I am not so far away
From the worst man I’ve ever been.
Take away my money
Leave me standing naked
With nothing to be better than
I would quickly fall away
What’s in you that let’s me stay?

Grace is a lover strong enough to hold on
Whenever I slip and I fall
Or I turn and run away
Cos I kiss and I curse
The same face that will bless me
All with love
Oh love will endure

Show me something
more than me.
Show me something greater
than I could ever be
And I would anchor on to the stronger tree
And finally grow instead of float
In all this fantasy baby

Grace is a lover
Grace is a lover strong enough to hold on
Whenever I slip and I fall
Or I turn and run away
Cos I kiss and I curse
The same face that will bless me
All with love
Oh love will endure...

if there is one thing i know about nepali people, its that there are two ways to make them angry quite fast.

1. by telling them that mount everest is in tibet. (ehem. no. it's in nepal. at least half of it. )

2. by saying that buddha was born in india.   he was born in lumbini, nepal!!

this is my current favourite bollywood song. the interesting thing about music and film in the hindi entertainment industry is that they are one in the same. all the hit songs come from movies and aside from movie music, there really isn't any other popular mainstream songs.

i really am a bollywood girl. i can be in the worst mood and someone can flip on the radio to a little kabhi kabhi aditi zindagi, desi girl, haule haule, or mastam mastam and i am just all smiles. i heart bollywood hindi songs.

oh, and an interesting piece of info: both thai pop star, tata young AND american rapper snoop dogg have both done songs in bollywood. snoop dogg didn't even come to india to shoot the song or the video, though. too busy i guess. ;)

my favourite new bibek expression: this is good for better, didi.

sometimes its interesting to check "why" people google their way to my page.

turns out a lot of people want to know how to get to salman khan's house. okay, here's a tip: go to the barista in bandstand, bandra , mumbai. turns out he chills there a lot and even if he's not there, the staff will tell you how to get there. next time i am in bombay, i think i should make a whole "map to the stars" post... or sell them on the street corners like in beverly hills... :)

wifi in bandra: uhm. nada. well, supposedly some place called "Wraps" or something behind Cafe Coffee Day on Carter Road has wifi, but when I went there it didn't work. i think that every branch of the fastfood chain "falafal" has wifi, though i don't think there is one in bandra. lokhandwala, yes. bandra, no. the best wifi place in mumbai is at oberoi mall or that other mall near hyper city in malad, but now i already forgot the name of it. this is why my boy arjun has been asking me if i have been smoking pot these days - "you are forgetting all things emma didi.. same like people who are smoking marijuana." nope, i'm not. just forgetful.

pokhara lifestyle: laid back, simple, beautiful.

other search engine visitors, i think you found what you were looking for... or i don't know the answer to what you were looking for. :)

things are 100% different now that i am in nepal from when i was in india. well, not 100% because i am still writing a lot, so that consumes a lot of my time, but everything else. i play mother/sister in the mornings and get my kids off to school and check their drug notebooks at night (i know, not something other mother/sister's have to do, but my house isn't normal). i listen to them play the guitar and tell "girl stories" during load shedding.

when there's no power or no battery in my laptop, i get to go down to the rehab centre since they are on a different power schedule. i type some more, charge my battery, and spend quality time with the girls in the centre. they really are girls. when the idea for a female drug user rehab centre first hatched, i guess i didn't realise the said females would be so young. they are just around 20 but still seem a bit like teenagers. one of the girls first started injecting about 6 years ago... that put her at 14 when she first starting shooting up. 14.

i look at the girls in our centre and it motivates me to do more. they are such sweet and lovely girls but its strange how they have the same sort of brokenness i remember seeing in so many of the girls i knew when i worked in thailand with prostitutes. a bit hardened over, afraid of love, and an overall aura of worthlessness. there are 42 girls on our waiting list, but we can only accept as many girls as we have resources for. right now that means we have three in the centre and space for 2 more to enter the three month program. i know there is an economic crisis going on in the world, but if you do feel so inclined to help our girls get off drugs and find some sense of self-worth that will last, then do let me know. $40 a month can help girl get clean and start her life afresh.

beyond the comprehension of most urban individuals, kathmandu, the capital city of nepal, is surviving on a mere 8 hours of electricity a day. 16 hours there is no electricity. no lights. no television. no computer. nothing.


nepal is a land rich enough in water to supposedly power the whole of asia if equipped with proper dams and hydropower technology (arundhati roy might write a book about the evils of dams if we were to do so...), but as it stands, the country has such an absence of infrastructure that it relies heavily on importing electricity from india. during the heavy rains of monsoon season (july-septemberish), nepal is not completely, but more self-reliant. come dry season, the majority of electricity used comes from the big brother to the south.


in the summer of 2008, when the bihar floods hit the north of india and the south of nepal displacing more than a million and killing around 2,500, the waters also took out the power line that brings us our electricity. without the line, we can't get electricity, hence, the dark.


our power outage goes something like this: 8 hours off, 4 hours on, 8 hours off. The city is sectioned off and a schedule distributed so that you know where and when there will be power. My Kathmandu apartment is in Group 4. Towns like Pokhara...well... I think its a little less organized, or I am just a little more clueless, because I have no idea when/where the power is coming.


the rich evade the burden of dark days and night by purchasing something called an "inverter". this device hoards electricity when it comes to the house owner's group. grab all you can when you can. the problem with this, is there is only a finite amount of electricity. there isn't more electricity to be had. the more the rich stockpile energy during their "turn" so they can use it when it isn't their "turn", the more hours the government will have to increase the schedule for others. it's just another case of the rich stealing from the poor.


we have the promise of "new nepal", but where is it? it's not just about having the infrastructure - but about having a community who lives together, and about breaking down the division that is in the most basic of amenities between two people living side by side. we have a maoist leader, yet the disparity is ever present in the seemingly simplest, clearest ways. when is nepal going to change? it probably won't, or probably can't, until someone makes a sacrifice.... because as long as the decision makers aren't feeling the pangs of the lack of infrastructure, well, then what's the motivation to change it?

this is the view from our street.  all those electrical chords...well, that may make you hate this pic, but its what makes me smile about it.... gotta love the nepali style... when you connect to the internet the man from the company just comes and puts a chord from your window and connects it to one of those manic poles... hehehee... i love it. classic.

i know a bit of time has passed since this happened, but i still cannot seem to get it out of my mind.  it just feels so unreal... the bombay terrorism - one of the events taking place at a venue i was actually supposed to be in that very night; and then the fire in santika.  santika was hands down one of my crew's most regular haunts in bangkok.  the fabulous thing about bangkok is that there are not that many places with cover charges, so even if we didn't want a full blown night of clubbing, we would still wind up popping in for a bit.  being so close to where i've always lived in bkk, this gianormous club was one of our regular hang outs. the club had this white eminem-esque rapper that would  grace the stage at a certain part of most evenings doing all sorts of covers and doing them well...  somehow we never grew tired of him or of the club as a whole. the bartenders as santika would do a lot of tricks with fire... before they remodelled, there would be times the whole railing around the upstairs would light up on fire for a few seconds.  as i am a bit afraid of fire as it is, it kind of freaked me out, but left crowds in awe most of the time... yet, pushing safety on new year's eve ultimately led to a big fire, killing about 60 people.  the even sadder thing is, many of the dead actually died because of the frantic stampede- not because of the fire.  it makes me so sad to see what can happen in a state of panic.  so, so heartwrenching.  god speed to the people who may still have memories of stepping on others... can you imagine living with that?  grotesque, no doubt, but real.  praying for healing for families, friends and others affected by the tragedy.

1. Botox sounds like a good idea.
2. Dealing with the chaotic nature of bureaucracy at the Bangladesh-Indian Border is no longer fun and exciting, but rather annoyingly monotonous and tiresome.
3. I’ve lived nearly 1/3 more life than a 20 year old.
4. a guy I went out with a few times told me I should use wrinkle cream to “prevent” wrinkles (ehem, I DO, thank you very much… and I am pretty sure you had a few more than me ;) )
5. I apparently only have less than a decade of natural fertile years left.
6. when I travel more people ask how many kids I have rather than if I am a student.. ( good thing the answer is seven!! :) )
7. I just don’t get the new 90210 at all.
8. 21 year olds seem to have way too much energy.
9. staying out past 1 a.m. seems like a chore rather than fun…
10. going out with a 25 year old guy is apparently considered "robbing the cradle".

what makes you feel old?

in south asia wedding season starts from end of november and goes right through til january.  while westerners may think there is a lot to do in a wedding... they have no idea!  south asian weddings can last an entire week with a number of events on different days.  i am in bangladesh to celebrate the wedding of a dear friend but the family i am staying with (unaffiliated with my soon to be wed friend) has been attending wedding functions day and night for a number of couples for the entire time i have been here.  between getting ready and organizing what to wear, just being a guest at south asian weddings can turn into a full time job during the season.... year after year, i think it might become exhausting, but for this week, it's been great fun throwing on lovely saris and parading around formal evening functions.