‘Resonance’

Tinnitus, she said, and I backed away slowly, eyeing her suspiciously. Tinnitus would account for everything, she ended lamely, her palms up in the air. I left in a huff, swearing that she would get no money out of me and that I would never again waste my time on Western medicine. I don't know what exactly I had been hoping for – maybe to be told there was nothing wrong, after all? Maybe that the ringing in my ears, which had started when I was young but had been growing – in volume, strength, consequence – of late, maybe I was hoping she would tell me that, oh yes, I certainly had a very interesting situation here, one that she had only ever read about but never seen, and that we should bring in a specialist in ecstatic experiences right away. Maybe I was just hoping that she would tell me I was very special indeed.

I left her and went to the office of an academic. He parroted the doctor derisively, slapped me on the back and told me how doctors don't know everything – far from it! – but that he too wasn't a doctor and that he too didn't know everything. Far from it. He suggested strong coffee and fast talking and turned away to marvel at his massive, overflowing bookshelf.

I left him and went to the home of the village big man, who parroted both the doctor and the academic derisively. He said no good ever comes from book-learning; he said those types will just keep running in circles, yapping with their eyes closed like drunk monkeys. He suggested 'strong action', banging on my head with a stick or shouting at myself in the mirror, and hinted darkly at 'other methods'.

I left him and went down to the river, to a small grove of ada-jamir trees, where I listened to the locusts in the summer heat and drowsed peacefully. When I awoke I could hear the sound of a harmonium drifting down the water, one tone over and over, wilfully, like the instrument was stuck or the player had fallen asleep. I opened my eyes and walked up the path slowly, eventually finding a young girl under an old tree, still playing the same note, her eyes closed. I love that sound, that exact sound, she said when she heard me come up. My teacher says it's a G, and it's my favourite note.

I nodded and continued walking up the path. So it is, I said. G is a sound I know very well.

This is the first of a regular series of Himal's commentary on work by artists with the Kasthamandap Art Studio in Kathmandu. This painting, "Silhouette in Time", is by Erina Tamrakar, acrylic on canvas, 91×129 cm.

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