It was yet another inventive day, for Nepal was closed for a week or two. Nobody knew for how long one was supposed to stare at the same horizon from their rooftop. Everything seemed stagnant – the trees were where their roots always were, the cats lazed in the same spots on the numerous balconies of the neighborhood, and the tar from the road that was last renovated twenty three years ago smelled the same.
But the lifelessness of it all was destroyed everyday, that too precisely at half past eleven.
The kids would come out from their rooms. They would have just finished their dal bhat, for that was essential in the parents’ eyes, before they sped off to meet their friends. Each had their own weapons. Some brought their bikes, others chungi, and a few carried marbles.
The game started that day too, precisely at a quarter to twelve. There was a lengthy discussion about would be on whose team before starting the game of Bomb Blast.
Raju, being the eldest among the nine kids, started the game. He threw the chungi high in the sky and shouted, enunciating each word with the stress that it required, “Bomb. Is. Going. To. Blast!”
Not even a second had passed since his speech when the skies started to tremble and the cows started to moo. A faint noise from the distance was faint no more, and within seconds a group of Mao-baddies had gathered around them from all directions.
“Who are you?” a nine-year-old Mamata shouted.
“We are Mao-baddies,” said the young boy of nineteen, wearing cheap plastic sunglasses and a red bandana knotted on his neck.
“Why are you here?” an eleven-years-old Bibek asked.
“Because we want to play with you. We heard you call. Bomb is really going to blast now,” said the leader.
The parents had gathered on the rooftops.
A jingle started playing from out of seemingly nowhere. It sounded like it came from a radio from the bhootghar.
“Suchana. Suchana. Suchana. Be careful of kidnappers. They offer chocolates to lure you. Sometimes they come and play bomb blast too.”
Ishan Mainali 