Scarlet Writes

My name is Kamala. My father named me after the flowers he'd grown in our terrace, in an aluminum bowl that my mother used for washing clothes. Kamala grows in mud water, usually pond water but my father, who loved plants and gardening, grew Kamala in our terrace. He took pride in every petal that unfolded and he loved to show it off to our guests. He was proud of the Kamala he grew in a bowl but never so of the child, his own. So when I returned home from literacy classes one day when I was 7 years old, he told me that I never needed to go back to study. I cried, refused to eat for days, begged and pleaded to my mother to talk to my father to send me back to class. They didn't budge. I was 12 years old when I was married off to a 16 year old boy who lived in our neighborhood. My husband ran a small shop in Patan. He sold threads and buttons and scissors.  I gave birth to my first child at home, a daughter, when I was 14 years old. I lost three of my children to unknown disease...

The Magical Door It was Monday. I had set an alarm for 6:30a.m. but I only woke up at 7:15a.m. after snoozing the alarm clock thrice. The small, narrow window in my one bedroom apartment hardly let any sunlight in, thanks to the massive gurudwara right in front of the only window in my apartment. On weekends, I’d always draw the curtains close and sleep in until late in the morning. The room would always be dark and the gulli that I lived in was also very quiet and far from the hustle-bustle of the main chowk.  I woke up and checked my phone to see what time it was and hurried off to the toilet to get ready for the day. I lived in an old building and the apartment I shared with my best friend was converted from a terrace into a shabby living space by the miser landlord and rented out to young, miserable college girls like me who had no source of income and survived on petty pocket money sent by our parents. The place was livable in a sense that it protected us from the rain and ani...

It was 7p.m. when she reached home. She unlocked the door to her apartment and hung the key on the keyholder above the shoe rack. She carefully put her shoes in the bottom shelf of the rack and took out her indoor slippers from the top. She put her handbag on top of the coffee table and went to the kitchen. She washed her hands before she put a cup of water to boil on the stove. She added a spoon of tea leaves. She opened the door to the verandah and went out to pick some mint leaves from the flower pot. She rinsed the leaves and put it into the water boiling on the stove. She poured the tea into a mug and carried it to the living room. She lay a tea coaster on the table and put the mug on top of it. She unbuttoned her pants and unclipped her bra and sighed as she sat down on the couch. She looked around and closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the taste of mint in her mouth and silence surrounding her. This was a rare moment for her.  Usually, she picked up her son from his schoo...

During our family trip to Jhapa back in December 2020, chora was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to be hospitalised for about 5 nights in a community hospital in Birtamode. I was scared, shocked and more than a year later, I am finally gathering some courage to look back at the whole event and refelct on many life lessons that the whole eposide taught me. Let's begin with how our day exactly started on the day of his hospitalisation. Chora woke up mulitple times at night but had no fever. I remember at one point telling my husband that he was breathing very fast. He was fussy but otherwise, he had no other alarming symptoms. He had a runny nose the day before and that was that. He woke up in the morning and vomitted all the milk as soon as he finished drinking it. His respiration wasn't normal and we took a tempo and rushed to a local community hospital. The hospital had one pediatrician and around 20 to 30 patients waiting outside. It was crowded, people weren't wearing m...

 Dear Chora, You are soon turning 3 and the most adorable thing you say these days is 'I love you'. You love to hug us tight and tell us that you love us. I wish you always learn to tell everyone you love how much you love them. I am writing this letter about labor today. I hope that I am able to teach you how important hard work is and that there is no alternative to hard work in life. Somebody very close to us, when he was a kid, would come home from school, keep his dirty clothes in place, wash his hands and feet and complete his homework before he'd do anything else. He'd always put in his best efforts into his work and I always wished that I'd be able to raise my kid to do the same. The level of commitment that he showed for every task he performed was awe-inspiring. Hard work doesn't necessarily mean toiling hard physically. It means to respect our work and our responsibilities towards it and to do it sincerely most days of our life. Of course, we all have...

  Dear Chora Last night when we were reading 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein, you said that the tree was sad. I never explain the texts for you or translate it for you to understand because I think it is important you learn to interpret what you read and add your own meanings to it so when you said that the tree was sad, I was very pleasantly surprised because it meant you were starting to understand the emotions of the characters in the books that you read. I may do a lot of things wrong but I know for sure that deciding to read to you everyday has been the best decision in life.  I am writing this letter about books today. I started reading books when I was in high school. I started with Sidney Sheldon and other crime thrillers. It was a good start for me because it kept me hooked. Then when I was in college, I started reading Paulo Coelho and other books that my brother would buy for me. I'd borrow some books from his shelf and read them. It is only after college t...