Dear Nepal

I hope this letter finds you in the best of spirits. No. Hope isn’t the right word. Hope is timid, and expresses neither conviction nor promise. I’d rather pray than hope. A prayer has faith, a cosmic push towards a better future. And I am not sure about the best of spirits either. How do you carry the idealistic burden of keeping high spirits despite life destructing catastrophes? So I pray. I pray this letter shares some of your pain and restores faith in the struggle that is life.

Sitting miles away from you, I just felt the ripples of the doom that was cast upon on you, and it was heart shattering enough. The feeling of ground shaking beneath my feat, the sensation of walls shuddering against my back, the realization that my home, my safe place, wasn't a safe place after all, brought me face to face with the fragility of life as we know it. It is funny and horrifying at the same time how for a couple of days I could not sit at one place without flinching at every movement around me. I would periodically check the ceiling fans, chandeliers or mirrors for a sign of aftershock. The long crack on one of the beams in my house, that wasn't visible till a couple of days ago, now threatens me and mocks me for my erstwhile plans of adorning that place with decorative lights. The memory of sitting in a corner, shivering with fear, and waiting for the tremors to stop still gives me sleepless nights. My mind inadvertently draws safety plans and I evaluate all feasible options to take my family to a safe place in case of any emergency. On the outside, all of us wear a mask of nonchalance and share the stories of our experience with the earthquake like last night’s episode of a thrilling television series. But on the inside, we fear and question, ‘Are we close to the end yet? Is this how everything will go to dust?’

And to think what you must have gone through sends chills up and down my spine.

Everything we aren't paying for, we tend to take for granted. Even breathing is acknowledged only after we've paid hefty medical bills or bought travel packages that took us to escapades away from our workaholic milieu. We are so caught in our struggle to make a living, to own enviable status, to resolve puzzling relationships, and most of all, to plan for a future, that we forget how breakable our present is. The money we've been striving for is abandoned in a locker when we run out of our shaking establishments barefoot. The disagreements and the priorities that had once created an emotional vacuum between us and our loved ones dissolve in the anxiety of knowing if the other one was alive to answer our call. A mere shimmying of the tectonic plates shakes away all the delusional notions of pride, and we are left with an uneven breath.

Such unfortunate events have happened in the past, and sadly, are inevitable in the future as well. Sooner or later, in one way or the other, all of us are destined to meet our end, no matter how impossible or frightening it may seem. Till then, all we can do is see life, feel life and support life. That is all we truly have, that is all we truly miss. If only the warring countries, sects and races could see how less these man made differences actually mean.

Nepal, your story has left us with the lessons of compassion, gratitude, and the value of life. We cannot imagine or replace the torment that you have been through. However, we are trying do everything else that can help rebuild what you've lost, in matter and spirit. If only all the love that the world is sending you could magically heal your wounds.

Praying for anything that can bring you respite.

Yours