My endogamous family chart    

is composed of trees and                  

occasionally, almost rarely, shrubs.

To dig for quahogs, to feel their edges like smiles

 in sea mud and pull them up into a bucket.

My country cries over 

burnt flags,

borders,

the birth lore of gods,

not the bodies of desecrated dead girls;

My country says I am a Goddess. 

What are you hoping to get out of your appointment?

‘To provide service, help the community.’

How is that going so far?

‘We are doing our best.’ (Scrolling through his phone.)

This past year was an exercise in equanimity. Forced indoors under lockdown, quarantine or ‘shelter-in-place’ orders as governments scrambled to contain Covid-19, many of us eventually found ourselves on edge, listless and irascible. By the end of the year, we were spent. In such trying times, we turned to indulgences and sought comfort in that most maligned of disciplines – the arts.

These words echo Kunwar’s sadness at not being lucky enough to read queer stories, but with his memoir, he has paved the way, signaling to queer writers that their stories are equally valid. Kunwar sings a song for me, and for all those queer individuals who have been waiting like caged birds for someone to come along with a heartfelt lullaby.

A name doesn’t mean anything. Nevertheless, many people grab hold of their name and use it as a fertiliser to grow things like identity. What is interesting, though, is the soil the fertiliser is applied to, the soul – what makes you a human being.

Episode 8 of the La.Lit podcast is online! Assistant editors Itisha Giri and Niranjan Kunwar discuss Niranjan’s book “Between Queens and the Cities” published by Fine Print Books. You can order your copy of the book via Thuprai and Kitab Yatra, and via Amazon.com for those outside Nepal.

“Jai Grihasti!” The couple and their teenaged daughter Shrijana chimed this cheerful and familiar greeting in unison, their palms joined in a namaste. They’d incorporated this practice into all their trainings to promote the most basic principle of permaculture – “The home is the heart of the farm, all hail to this engine!”