A sea of people trying to earn some rupees by selling cheap butts here and there is encapsulated by the draws of hills of spruce and pine. The city of dreams—people flying to foreign shores, a general attitude of laze and a peculiarly hypnotic tale of people living calmly yet frantically chasing after more even when they have enough. This characterises a country humbled by its upbringing but desperately trying to discover its own new identity.

Streets where martyrs are honoured are flocked by martyrs in the making, screaming “Jindabaad!” in hopes that their mob mentality can overthrow the solidarity of the highest. They’re attacked by gas, hurled across by some men in blue, and poisoned with potency capable of eliminating the martyrs’ hopes and dreams, leaving them with bawling eyes, questioning their cause.

Along the road to the home of Buddha, thousands take the congested paths every day. Then there is mother-nature’s wrath—she effortlessly brings down a block of land and hurls water from the skies to the damaged path. Between a vehicle saying “Buwa Aama ko Aashirbaad” and another saying “Harek Mood ma Afno Pariwar ko Yaad Garnu” lies a vehicle with a casualty, flaring out violently with a loud, puncturing noise, trying to squeeze into the free road. It’s a desperate cause; the casualty has an inner time-bomb which ticks away, sucking life out with each passing moment.

During a meeting with a man in a suit who says, “Ma ta sahaar ko hun”, a desperate family from Nuwakot, whose only remaining asset is their daughter, is trying hard to make the decision between making their only kin a “sahaari” or letting her plow out all their land for the remainder of her days. Their desperation is fatal, but the man in a suit seems friendly. He tells the family that he wants the girl dressed up in red in a couple of weeks’ time, and he promises the family an escape from the fields and into the concrete where their feet will not prosperity and gratification, not knowing what lies ahead for their daughters. Yes, she will see new things. Yes, she will see a new city filled with new bungalows and estates that leave her in wonder. Yes, she will have new experiences—she’ll do her job and she’ll do it well, a job that she hasn’t done before, a job which will take up each and every part of her body, nothing like what she has experienced in the fields.

It is morning and a group of friends take a bus to Nagarkot—one of them is on his way to Putalisadak to study Physics and another is taking a detour on his way to his daily SAT classes which guaranteed to give him a score of 2000 or above. The last one is a graduate with some direction. He’s on his way to the UK to study at the Manchester School of Information—it’s not well known, only a couple of words about it in Kathmandu, and no information about it on the recognised and accredited list of colleges based in the United Kingdom. They stop off at their destination, sweaty as one could be travelling in a Deluxe A/C Coach. But it’s worth the wait, they convince themselves. One of the boys takes a muddy path out of the highway and heads into a village. He asks an older woman for some magical herbs that’ll send the boys flying into the stratosphere. It doesn’t cost much—they collect whatever they have from their pockets and get a one way ticket to space. One of the boys’ phone rings. It’s his mother, he says, “Mami, bharkhar aaye. Sir le class sidhyaunu bhayo, ahiley ekchin extra help linchhu ani ghar ai halchu. Bhok chhai dherai lagirachha, khana pakaera rakhnu hai!” As the call ends, the boys embark on their journey with the herbs. They’re all innocent. A day off once in a while takes the load off, but then, their innocence is exploited. The Physics teacher is plotting to run away with his money. It’s just another regular SAT centre, and all they manage to hand him is a meager 1300. And he flies off with his dream to foreign shores, eager, only to find out that the Manchester School of Information was indeed, too good to be true. And he flies back home, back to square one.

These fictions are unfortunate but genuine, all microcosmic in nature to the issues they condense—accounts of people thriving for and heading for some direction. But all they approach are dead ends. It’s in the fate of a lot of people living in Nepal to be unfortunate, something that seems to attract the country’s citizens. All that seems to happen to us is deemed unfortunate, but it is very real.

Marasini is an IB student at UWC, Mahindra College, Pune, India