The one I know as me

Born in Bhojpur in the year 1982 to a peasant family, I was reared up in Jhapa as my family migrated there in the year 1986. Though I never had a strong scholastic performance, I was deemed fair since I would pass even if I didn’t properly study. It was the biggest government school of the realm, where I was admitted. I always used to bunk school. The greatness of the school had certainly allured many students, and the volume of occupancy had greatly disabled the teachers to monitor every student.
I used to walk out ‘to go to school’, but I used to doss my time off along the then gritty road of Chandragadi, rummaging through the garbage under the ‘paan Pasals’ (beetle shops) in the quest of thrown match boxes. The more colorful the boxes were the higher value they would carry in our game of ‘Khap’. I would walk home as the watch tolled ten with other regular students.
After early lunch, I would be sent to graze cattle to the bank of Deonia River, into which I would plunge fearlessly in the scorching sun of May, letting my cattle rip on the pasture which juxtaposed the river. They would often trespass the private land of Antare, who would punish me for my recklessness. I would arrive home fatigued and jaded, eat supper, and just go to bed to slumber, if not sleep, with my grandmother, on whom I’ve always doted.
With the apparent unruliness I never got noteworthy grades in studies.
After SLC, I went to Mechi Multiple Campus, where I majored in English. I took to reading before very long. Though my major was English, I read bulks of Nepali novels, which I burrowed either from college library or from the personal library of Mr. Ratnamani Nepal, a pedantic fellow of our settlement.
I failed the first two years of Intermediate of Arts (IA). I knew the loopholes were within myself, but my parents insisted that I pursue a good job in one of the gulf countries. I joined Intermediate of Commerce (I. Com.) obstinately against my parents’ will at the same college. Meanwhile, I began writing what I then called pseudo-poems, and diaries addressing a figment in Nepali. English had always been bugging for me even if I did have a fair stock of vocabulary. I couldn’t write anything of value in English!
After I succeeded in I.Com two years later with fair percentage for the ‘skimming’ man like me, I was asked here in Kathmandu to try to invade into the United States of America. Both I and cousin Deepan did to the nines to ‘score fine’ in TOEFL despite my non-English grounds. He scored 593 while I sufficed within 513. As a result, I wasn’t granted a visa.
I went back home, and started Bachelors of Business Studies (BBS). Three months after Deepan’s invasion into the states, he sent me what he called ‘a few grands’- 25000 Nrs- hefty sums for the skint like me.
I was ambling along Newroad, at a loss as to how I could squander the ‘a few grands’, I luckily came across second-hand books scattered on the pavement just in front of Nepal Airlines Corporation Building. I picked every book written in English, and paid what Deepan might have said ‘five and half grand’ (Nrs. 5500) while the book vender squinted at me jarringly. Ransacking the book stuffs, I caught the bus home the very next morning. It was the turning point in my English knack.
As the years drained away, I started writing diaries, did the exam, wrote poems and composed letters all in English. Additionally, I started writing stories and articles in English about two years ago. My past wanderings and hooliganism now serve me with great ingredients for stories. As of late, I hunger for books more than anything else- both scripted in Nepali and English equally, and I can phrase my experience both in English and Nepali. Besides, I edit an English medium monthly magazine, ‘Society and Life’ and teach General Educational Development (GED) at Himalayan Open School. On the top of every thing, I want to become a storyteller, and I’m working on an anthology of my stories.