The Kulfi-Run
If you walk out of the Daayitwa office, turn left and keep walking straight for some 50 meters, you will reach a small corner shop where it’s written “ यहाँ खुवाको कुल्फी र मिठो दही पाईन्छ।” The shop is small, you’d obviously miss it if you aren’t looking for it, probably miss it even when you are. And that small shop is exactly what we went on a hunt for on our first official day at work. The kulfi was okay. It wasn’t bad but it sure wasn’t the best I had had either. Or let’s say, it wasn’t the best I felt I could ever have. It was just plain ordinary. Better than average, sure, but would never stand out in a crowd. In all its flavorful bite, there was still something missing, something intangible.
Aaryaa Subedi,26th September,2024,
I had read somewhere that incredible backstories can change the world. Maybe if I had asked दिदी for the kulfi’s origin and inspiration along with the kulfi, I would have loved it more. After all, it would be more than a dessert at that point, it would be a story, a living, breathing existence, one that would live on in me to be retold like this for years to come. Or, I would have just been disappointed if the story never had the “incredible” in it.
I do not have an “incredible” backstory either. I don’t come from nothing; I have never made the impossible possible; never been forced into boundaries I needed to break apart. The puzzle pieces of my life have always fallen right in place. The complete picture, however, has just been “nice”, praised by many, loved by all but somehow, failing to inspire souls, elicit emotions, create a rebellion. It is weird to say it out loud, narcissistic perhaps but life for me has always been perfect. But who knew perfect would be so......... ordinary?
Who knew, all that ego, all those achievements and I could not even meet the eligibility criteria to change the world?
It sure is interesting how one simple taste can send you into spirals as these. But it is also interesting how a sound can bring you back to reality. To me, this sound was laughter; the one that’s always ringing in the Daayitwa fellowship room; the one that’s constant through chitchats, work talks, or even rant sessions. The room is filled with achievers, changemakers, rebels. I don’t know their backstories yet, let alone whether it has “incredible” in it. But in the loudness of the laughter, somehow it does not matter. For in the loudness of that laughter, the voice in my head questioning my lack of incredibility somehow diminishes.
Groups like these are rare; the ones that do not need to be inspired, ones that are self- driven, ones that are wholly independent. On a logical, calculative note, this group has hardly anything in common: backgrounds, goals, values but put them in a room, the bond, thus forged is incomparable. Not the instant electric ones like those in works of fiction that go on to conquer the world but one that grows on you, molding itself to make space for each other. One they wouldn’t write books about but, in the moment, make everything right; one that makes the now......... perfect.
Incredible backstories may indeed be needed to change the world. However, changing the world is not always needed to be incredible human beings. And most times than not, it is enough. After all, the kulfi sure was ordinary but on a hot summer day, for a restless bunch like us, it was perfect and that was all that was needed.