An Overlooked Memory of a Rainy Night

Recently I watched a reel on Instagram that asked a question—what was the best memory of your trip, is it the ones you preserved with a camera, or the ones left unpreserved…

That thought stayed with me since the few days I came across the reel. My organic memory started to fetch a sweet-old-trip-memory while I was doing a code review, another when I was folding clothes, one more when I was tying my sneakers for a morning walk. None of these memories exist in a silicon chip or the-good-old-paper. They are not the heightened experience of my travels. Rather what they had in common is—ability to evoke a pure sense of nostalgia. Particularly I do not want to relive the exact moments, but thinking about those moments feels right, feels ecstatic, maybe one day I will be a mom who would retell this memory to a kid who would look at me astonished, “maa, were you romantic?”

This ordinary, overlooked memory is one of a journey from Pokhara to Nagarkot. Your father, sorry, ah, I am not talking to my kid here… My husband and I waited for hours in Pokhara airport to catch a flight for Kathmandu from where we were supposed to take a jeep to Nagarkot. Forgive us, we were noobs when we planned it. It was the season of the cyclone. And Pokhara airspace becomes unpredictable due to the slightest turbulence in nature. The flight was cancelled. Samudro contacted our trek guide Terence, who kindly came to the airport with a jeep, driven by his friend. The plan was to go to Nagarkot directly from Pokhara. The sky was already dark, almost half an hour left before the sunset.

A journey in darkness, heavy fog in front of our jeep. The sound of heavy downpour. Nothing to view from the window, except occasional trucks illuminated by colorful lights. It was an evening to stay under the blankets, sip warm tea, and not particularly do anything, maybe reading a book while absent-mindedly listening to the crickets. We were mentally tired after the daylong waiting and staying in a state of uncertainty.

Occasionally stopping to use the restroom, putting on the sleeping eye mask… that evening is constructed in my memory with these disconnected dots. We were carried away… and the ordinary memory that I wanted to share is about a stop we made along the journey.

It was about ten or eleven in the evening. We were riding on the pot-holed sinuous roads with zero visibility for hours. Terence decided it’s time we should eat something. The jeep parked beside a roadside restaurant. This is the memory…

The restaurant is a typical highway restaurant. It looks the same wherever you go in South Asia. Lighted signboards sponsored by some coke company. LED lights blinking on and off. A few trucks parked nearby. An assortment of cigarette packs stacked on a booth, and a lonely lighter hangs above. The popular selling items are displayed on the top shelf of a glass showcase. Whole fishes the size of a palm are fried golden brown and placed on a round tray. Circles of crispy fishes, layered on top of each other. The dead, crispy eyes directly projected towards the customers… On the wall, a large banner saying catchy phrases, and a picture of young people seeming to enjoy a bottle of coke…

The usual sound of the place—waiters taking orders, shouting to the cook, the sound of fish sizzling on an age-old dark flat pan the size of a small table… all drowned by the heavy rain. Drowned are the usual energy of this place. The waiters and cashiers are enjoying their leisure. The few people who are sitting, are taking shelter from the heavy rain, waiting to get back home. The only thing that is still active—is the blinking of the LED light—marking so and so HIGHWAY RESTAURANT, so and so coke, so and so catchy phrase.

We took our seats at a table. Settling into the damp and the cold. Terence and his friend sat on another table beside us. They gave orders for them in Nepalese. Within a few minutes, two plates, where rice is spread evenly across the whole plate, arrived. Arrived, the complimentary daal. Keeping a gentle gap of two minutes, and thus invoking a longing for the main dish, arrived the plate of fish curry. Four-five fishes picked out of the display tray were dipped in a curry gravy and heated before being served in front of the customers. Each customer urged that the one sitting opposite the table take the bigger size fish. The body language of eating a meal together in South Asia is almost the same.

Terence was cautious about us. They are immune to roadside food, while we are foreigners to their land. We happily accepted what he recommended for us—which is dry bakery items. We munched on it alright, but I had a sudden craving for tasting the fish. The lonely waiting food, heated before it was served, could give me a purpose to sit on a wooden bench and listen to the heavy pour amidst dark, while freight trucks were crossing the street.

Samudro needed to wash his hands, after finishing his food. So he looked inside the hotel, to spot a wash basin. Instead he was directed outside, there was a tap in the open, which was redundant due to the rain water pouring with an equal force of a tap. Saving here and there, we went back to our jeep, dry here and wet there.

An unnamed restaurant,

an unlit night,

a hidden craving,

and a rain with a force of might

carried us away…

memories went dot dot again, disconnected…