La.Lit magazine is continuing its partnership with writer Samrat Upadhyay and Indiana University, Bloomington, USA to organize the fifth edition of Writing Nepal: A Short Story Contest. The deadline for submissions to this year’s contest is October 15, 2021.

As the hydra of the pandemic reared its head and cast its loathsome gaze across the world, a national lockdown was put into effect in Nepal, precisely a day before my mother’s 82nd birthday.

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.