It’s already 8 pm. I am working on my laptop which I have kept on the showcase at the counter of my readymade clothes shop. The only bulb lit in the room has cast a shade from over my head onto my laptop.

It’s getting late to be home, so I am in a hurry. My mother might have already prepared roti, curry, and pickle for dinner, and been waiting for us, my wife and me. However, I won’t be able to eat my dinner immediately after I reach home. I will have to practice some yoga postures before it. I have been doing it for almost two years, every morning and evening.

I was diagnosed with a serious problem in my backbone two years back. The doctor says that a nerve has been trapped at the left bottom of my backbone. It has caused great discomfort to me, especially for free movement of my body. I have been fragile and helpless since. There is only a slight difference between a paralyzed person and me: I look normal.

People who have never experienced lower back pain generally think you are cheating or idling to avoid work because you don’t lose hunger because of the pain. Your spouse may take it as your excuse for avoiding work. Your child will think you don’t love her because you cannot carry her in your arms or on your shoulders.

At the moment, I have got to finish the translation of at least three news stories from Nepali into English. The editor has told me to send them with some minute details so that they will be eligible for posting on his English paper website.

Parshu Shrestha

I also remember that there are two bags of exam paper from the college where I teach in the morning. There’s less than a week’s time for checking them all. I gasp for some fresh air because I feel suffocated.

It’s extremely cold outside. People have stopped walking in the street, and there is hardly any chance for any customer to enter the shop. However, I have not pulled one of the shutters at my shop down for I am still hopeful.

People in the neighborhood might be wondering what I am doing at this moment in my shop. They might think I have had a good business during the day. They guess I am counting money from my shop-safe, but my landlady may be counting the extra hours I am spending in my shop and consuming electricity so that she will raise the bill amount next month.

Early in the next morning, I will have to go to college and teach the students. They will expect, as usual, a good lesson from me. And I don’t want to compromise on it. I am afraid because I have not prepared myself for the lesson tomorrow morning. I am thinking of scanning the text from the book after dinner, but I am so tired that I am not sure if I will be able to keep myself awake until I finish it.

Lately, I have developed a habit of falling asleep as soon as I finish dinner and try to read something. I don’t know or realize when I fall asleep. I usually wake up at around midnight and feel much remorseful. This is happening almost every evening for the last two or three months. I collect my spectacles every morning from my bed and thank myself for not breaking them with my body weight during the night.

My wife, who is a little away from me, on a chair, is watching something on her mobile phone. Her earphones have helped her to be focused on it filtering the noise from outside. She laughs and keeps silent occasionally. I know she is reacting to the video she is watching. Anyway, she is absolutely enjoying her present moment.

The room is suddenly filled with a pungent and unpleasant smell. It’s the smell produced when somebody burns plastics in the fire. Not only the smell but there is also a very thick fog of grey poisonous smoke that is getting into the room through the ventilators. I feel choked. I need fresh air. I rush outside to see what has actually happened. I see that there is a fire kindled just ten feet away from my shop. Some men and women are enjoying the warmth of fire sitting around it. They have a heap of plastics collected from the market that day. Two of them are burning the plastics in the fire turn by turn. With each input of the plastic, the fire is roaring with flames and producing thick grey poisonous smoke which is being driven into my shop by the current of cold airwave.

The people sitting by the fire are hilariously talking. They have no anxiety and no care of anything else around, but I can’t join them. I am anxious about the condition of clothes in my shop. They will have smoky smell tomorrow! I will have to bear the loss. I am worried about air pollution. Nepal has already been declared as one of the countries having the worst air condition in the world by an international organization. Perhaps these people don’t know this or they simply don’t care. Why? Are they not worried about future generations? Don’t they love their children? Perhaps someone has rightly said, ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ Why could I not remain ignorant myself and share their happiness?

I shut down my laptop and pack up my things to go home. My present task incomplete, I get up with a heavy heart and dizzy mind. My wife pulls the shutters down and locks them. I hope I will stay awake till midnight to finish my task!