Leaving Kathmandu

I felt I'd spent far too long in Kathmandu. To start with, for the six months before I'd arrived I'd been in Goa and hadn't actually completed a piece of work. I compensated myself with the fact that I arrived there knowing very little about computing and had spent the time reading and learning.

I had arrived in Kathmandu with the plan to write a fourth novel and maybe a piece of non-fiction, which I would also make into a web page. I remember of the flight over I got pretty scared of crashing (as usual) and I promised myself (or something else) that I would at least do the novel.

After five months in Kathmandu I had done none of it. I arrived from Delhi with an HTML book and spent the whole time writing my web page. Previously in Goa I had written up an outline, basically of my life philosophy, kind of a path to happiness, meaning it to become a letter to my Mother. After five months it was a web page, I'd submitted it to all the search engines, and done no 'real' work at all.

As is often the case, I started to get depressed as a piece of work finished. My room was full of stuff I wanted to sell, I was still carrying my typewriter, which I didn't need and could barely lift. I was scared because my Indian entrance was refused and now I'd have to go to Pakistan, which had a coup the day I received my visa. There had been a holiday in Kathmandu for ten days and there was no time to get the business cards I needed for a submission of Ambrosia, my last novel. I had managed to send nothing home because the G.P.O. staff hardly ever bother to turn up. I'd spent the whole time without homeopathy because no one knew where the pharmacy was... and no one was visiting the web site even a month after I'd submitted it to all the directories.

One night it was all too much. I felt so awful that I fell asleep praying, feeling overwhelmed with problems. In the morning I woke up feeling much the same, but as I walked to the restaurant for breakfast I became reflective. I looked at all the people around me in the street and considered how they too are all looking for happiness. By pure chance (or not) then what I'd written on my site could be exactly what someone needs to read and they would be guided to it. This was why I had written it. It didn't matter if it failed because it was the intention that counts and if someone's meant to find it then they would do so.

I found myself praying again (I don't know to who or what), I'm not sure why; I never usually do. I just considered all my problems and let them go, resigned them in the faith that whatever happens is meant to be, even if it's in a way that I don't understand. I simply gave all my worry up.

I got to the computer centre and there was an e-mail from someone who said they had 'stopped crying long enough to read almost every word I had written, thank you so much'. I started at the screen and had to read it a few times to believe it. It wasn't just that a stranger had written that, but that I had received it at that specific time. I felt as though it was an answer from the universe.

Soon after I passed a stationers by chance. Everything was closed because of the holiday, but this one was open. I asked about if they could make the business cards in a day, and after much phoning around he said OK. He led me out to a computer centre where someone designed them on an Apple. When I saw him, with an ageing computer in a bare wooden room, I sighed, thinking I'd have to put up with whatever he did, but it turned out he was very competent - the cards looked lovely. While I stood there I glanced out the window and saw a small sign that said 'Homeopathic Medicines Available Here'. I couldn't believe it.

When the proofs were ready I crossed the street to the pharmacy. I went through a wooden doorway that looked like it was from the Middle Ages and far too small. I climbed up some rotten wooden stairs and the pharmacy was a tiny room behind bars. It was go small I had to be stooped the whole time I was there; it was actually like a cupboard. I summoned the old man (who may also have been there since the Middle Ages) and wrote down what I needed. He had shelves with hundred of dark bottles of various sizes, the labels were so old they could barely be read; yet he did indeed have all I needed.

He started making out the prescription and a little girl came in as the room filled with the smell of alcohol which mixed with the old wooden odour (much nicer than the disinfectant of an allopath). While the tiny bottles were completed the girl lined them up to make a wall. I paid about a dollar for ten bottles, including something for my fear of flying, and as I tiptoed down the creaking stairs, bent low to avoid the ceiling, I was thoughtful.

Then, at the computer centre where I was working, I mentioned the typewriter to the friendly owners; it turns out they help with a scholarship programme and could take it to a village for me.

Wow, I was on such a roll, I went and collected all the things I wanted rid of from my room and sold them in two hours.

From hell to heaven, in a day all my insurmountable problems were solved... should I pray more often?