‘Boat house’

I've always been confused by that look, because I can never figure out what it is trying to say. 'No fish again today?' she'd ask, and give me that look. 'No nothing?' I'd have to shrug, motion towards the clean, stark sky; purse my lips at the stream of dragonflies overhead, darning the air and glinting; indicate the smell of the breeze, flavoured by rock salt and ribbons. 'The ocean didn't want my nets today,' I'd say simply. It was like explaining the trajectory of rain. 'There were no tide pools, and the salt wind made the waves rip and tear. So Iooked up; I looked all around.'

There's another look that I love, but it's hard to take credit for such a thing. Sometimes, when the ocean has been good to me, I'll sneak up to her with my catch hidden in my lungi – and laugh and beat my chest when I show her, her eyes widening. 'You are very good,' she'll say approvingly, in anticipation, and I'll correct her: 'Lucky, perhaps – the salt wind was very harsh today, but the ocean liked what I had to offer.'

One talks constantly when in a boat, alone, buffeted, at sea – constantly but at an infinitesimal volume. 'Hey, hey,' I'll say in greeting to a landmark, or when a rope binds. 'Shh, shh,' I'll murmur to the live bait, to the gulls, sometimes to memories. Memories are also a constant in the boat, alone, at sea – good and bad alike, real and fake. They come out of the blue sky, clean and stark and fully defined. Sometimes I like what the sea has to offer, and sometimes I don't. But always – the salt wind, to scrub everything clean.

~ This is part of a regular series of Himal's commentary on work by artists with the Kasthamandap Art Studio in Kathmandu.