This was the second time I came to Kathmandu, the first time was two years after the assassination of the royal family in their palace. There were still checkpoints in the city. For the first time, I stayed at the Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu out of fear (in 1984). I stayed there for three days to get to know the surroundings and realized that the center of Kathmandu city is right in the opposite direction of the current accommodation, I changed the hotel and came to Kathmandu Guest House and this time, the room I chose at the bottom of the courtyard was very cozy and quiet. This place was built to receive the guests of the Queen of Kathmandu and later it was turned into a hotel. For this reason, there were several rooms at the end of the courtyard with its purity, which were most likely for the queen’s crew and companions. For me, I wanted to spend two weeks in one place in Kathmandu. It was ideal to stay to find the soul of the city and its surroundings. I would open the door of the room and go to the courtyard to sit and read a book and drink a cup of tea. Until I got tired, I would go on foot from one side and look around, then come back and sit peacefully in the yard. This was the window of my room that opened to the courtyard and I was happy with the bunch of books that I bought from the bookstores in Thamel neighborhood and I was happy with each one until one day one of the hotel employees who was in charge of the tourism desk asked me. He asked: Madam, may I ask what you are doing in Kathmandu? I said how? He continued: You are different from everyone, you are mostly in the hotel and around the Tamil quarter, I used to look at you every day, tourists come here mostly for mountain climbing or hippies. You are not one of them, you are always alone and you don’t go out at night! I was stunned from whom he collected all this information about me! I answered, I travel to understand the culture. Nepal is a strange land and Kathmandu is the gate of seventy two nations that come here to see Everest. I really enjoyed my answer. I said good night and went to the room at the bottom of the garden.
The room was quiet, but the sound of construction workers could be heard behind the bathroom. The repetitive sound of shoveling sand was getting louder, mixed with a Nepali music playing on the radio. Nepali music is a type of indigenous music that has simple repetitive melodies. It’s not at all as complex as Indian music, but it has its own beauty, my joy was that with every song someone (maybe the man shoveling) would hum along with the lyrics every time I went to the bathroom or toilet or to it. I would listen or follow the same repetitive sound of Bill. Sometimes, when I was bored, I would put on a song by Kamkar and because my room was at the bottom of the yard and I had no neighbors, I would sing it loudly. For quite a long time, this was my job every day. I listen to the repetitive sound of shoveling along with the sound of the radio playing only Nepali songs and the man humming and repeating with it. He shoveled and moved the sand for hours. I don’t know from where to where? But this sound was like the soundtrack of the bathroom and toilet until the last day. Until the last day, I was carelessly collecting my belongings and belongings and reading one of Arslan’s works under my breath. My heart, my heart is like a train carriage with a thousand and one stops, each station is one… …)
Suddenly I thought someone knocked on the door, I shut up and listened, there was no sound, even the shovel man was listening! I realized that all these days when I was singing, he stopped working and listened! As I listened to his voice. Communication with another person from beyond the wall was very sweet for me, communication through sound! through music I didn’t have time to go to the back street and find him, it was late and I was going to the airport. But I am sure that he had never heard so much Kurdish, symphonic and Iranian music. Because in those years, Iranians rarely traveled there, and if they did, they would not stay in such a hotel for a long time. I think he must not have had such an experience! He doesn’t forget me either.
