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रेगिस्तान डायरी [Registan Diary]
A mix of journalism and literature, Registan Diary chronicles the despair of Nepali men and women who have migrated to the Gulf. Based on Bhattarai's year in Qatar, the book consists of 50 real-life stories of Nepali migrants living and working in various countries of the Gulf. There is no need to embellish here; the lives of Nepali migrants who have been duped and exploited plumb depths deeper than any fiction could.
208 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2012
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January 10, 2019
A beautiful but sad-faced camel peers out from the jacket of journalist Devendra Bhattarai’s memoir Registan Diary (Desert Diary), giving readers an inkling of what is to be expected from the book. Indeed, the pages within are choc-a-bloc with sad stories of Nepalese citizens who have been compelled by circumstances, often economic, to travel overseas and indulge in menial labor. Yet, in the end, the stories end up celebrating a beautiful thing: human life. And this is why this work is as soothing and thirst-quenching as an oasis in the parching desert it describes.
The author has included, in this work, fifty incidents he experienced or noticed while he was stationed in Qatar in the course of his work. He has clarified right in the preface that he does not mean for this work to be taken as a guide book of Qatar or a sociological investigation. While he may only have set out to inscribe those people and incidents that he considered worth writing about, he has given readers, especially Nepali ones, a host of information about the place. We are exposed to a totally new world where lakhs of our fellow citizens emigrate in the hope of finding better work. ‘The Middle East’ (or Khadi) is a term much heard in our nation but never properly explained, perhaps because of its inclinations to remain tightly wrapped up within itself.
However, this work changes that, if only be degrees. The author takes readers on a virtual tour of the Middle East, particularly Qatar, introducing us to hitherto unknown concepts like khabuj (bread), pataka (identity card) and sulemani (black tea). It is fascinating to attain glimpses of a new language, a distinct lifestyle, a culture even – that too in an easygoing manner, where the information is woven so skillfully into the tale that one learns new facts without any difficulty. The author tells us of a place where camels are crowned as beautiful and handsome and take home cars worth thousands; where water is much more precious and expensive than petrol, where littering in public places can cost you a whole month’s salary; where one has to masquerade as a electrician while working as a journalist.
The author, with the nose of a journalist, senses and presents stories where the rest of us would have probably seen nothing. In the process, he lays bare the pitfalls of foreign employment : of a son not getting leave to cremate his mother; a wife eloping with someone else in her husband’s absence, young girls tortured by their employers, a husband and wife living in the same city but unable to meet due to their strict employers. Mostly the author talks of the horrors and hardships and extreme heat, of young shepherds passing away in their sleep due to the fluctuating temperature, of innocent people duped by their own kin. While the rest of us only see those in foreign employment raking in the moolah, the author delves into the tragedies they have to bear, often to earn just a pittance.
However, all is not miserable, for the author takes care also to include those tales that are encouraging, heart touching and inspiring: of a father holding no grudges towards his work as it lets him educate his children in a private school; a Nepali discovering a life partner in far away Africa; Nepalis coming together, irrespective of their backgrounds, to celebrate Dashain in Qatar. There is the innocence of a Nepali chef who hastily informs that the pictures of the actresses stuck in his diary are not ‘his girls’; and the satisfaction of a noted Nepali director sipping camel milk. In his attempt to reveal the middle-east, the author has also revealed his own self and particularly the journalistic breed that sees a scoop in the happy and the sad; the special and the mundane.
The strength of the author’s writing lies in his descriptions. He is especially talented in describing people – he does so in such apt and precise terms that it leaves one craving for more. It is to his credit that he has abandoned traditional modes of description. He chooses the most striking characteristic of a person, and states it in such a distinct manner that it almost seems to be a process of defamiliarization. His words like ‘sapana koralna’ (hatch dreams) and ‘khieko kera’ (worn-out banana) impart a pleasant rural flavor, a refreshing change from the usual recurring descriptions.
The best accounts in this memoir resemble well-scripted stories, they are so free-flowing and smooth. But the worst ones are jerky, repetitive, and filled with the author’s wisecracks at his acquaintances whom his readers will neither know nor care to follow. They will be popular only among the coterie of his friends, and it is advisable that he keeps it limited to them. Also, within a single narration, there are sometimes abrupt shifts in subject matter, without proper warning, so that for a few paragraphs the readers will not know what the author is talking about. There is a place to practice the technique of stream of consciousness, and a travelogue is perhaps not the best place to do so. The author would also do well to tone down on the romanticization part, which almost reaches an irritating hyperbole at times. In some places, he seems to incorporate irrelevant and far-fetched instances or examples just to induce laughter. This on-your-face coarseness and insensitivity does not match the tone of the work and particularly the vulnerable people it represents.
It is most commendable, however, that the author has managed to devote so much of his time and efforts not only to expose the realities of the Registan life, but also to help and support them as much as humanly possible. He has not been able to completely resist portraying himself as a messiah of sorts. But by the end of the work, noting the positive changes he has attempted to make in the lives of less fortunate fellow beings, his personality will grow on readers. Just as the book will grow on all readers who wish to know of the plight their hard-working friends are undergoing abroad, and who, just like the author, feel that this is a topic to be raised, written and read widely about.
The author has included, in this work, fifty incidents he experienced or noticed while he was stationed in Qatar in the course of his work. He has clarified right in the preface that he does not mean for this work to be taken as a guide book of Qatar or a sociological investigation. While he may only have set out to inscribe those people and incidents that he considered worth writing about, he has given readers, especially Nepali ones, a host of information about the place. We are exposed to a totally new world where lakhs of our fellow citizens emigrate in the hope of finding better work. ‘The Middle East’ (or Khadi) is a term much heard in our nation but never properly explained, perhaps because of its inclinations to remain tightly wrapped up within itself.
However, this work changes that, if only be degrees. The author takes readers on a virtual tour of the Middle East, particularly Qatar, introducing us to hitherto unknown concepts like khabuj (bread), pataka (identity card) and sulemani (black tea). It is fascinating to attain glimpses of a new language, a distinct lifestyle, a culture even – that too in an easygoing manner, where the information is woven so skillfully into the tale that one learns new facts without any difficulty. The author tells us of a place where camels are crowned as beautiful and handsome and take home cars worth thousands; where water is much more precious and expensive than petrol, where littering in public places can cost you a whole month’s salary; where one has to masquerade as a electrician while working as a journalist.
The author, with the nose of a journalist, senses and presents stories where the rest of us would have probably seen nothing. In the process, he lays bare the pitfalls of foreign employment : of a son not getting leave to cremate his mother; a wife eloping with someone else in her husband’s absence, young girls tortured by their employers, a husband and wife living in the same city but unable to meet due to their strict employers. Mostly the author talks of the horrors and hardships and extreme heat, of young shepherds passing away in their sleep due to the fluctuating temperature, of innocent people duped by their own kin. While the rest of us only see those in foreign employment raking in the moolah, the author delves into the tragedies they have to bear, often to earn just a pittance.
However, all is not miserable, for the author takes care also to include those tales that are encouraging, heart touching and inspiring: of a father holding no grudges towards his work as it lets him educate his children in a private school; a Nepali discovering a life partner in far away Africa; Nepalis coming together, irrespective of their backgrounds, to celebrate Dashain in Qatar. There is the innocence of a Nepali chef who hastily informs that the pictures of the actresses stuck in his diary are not ‘his girls’; and the satisfaction of a noted Nepali director sipping camel milk. In his attempt to reveal the middle-east, the author has also revealed his own self and particularly the journalistic breed that sees a scoop in the happy and the sad; the special and the mundane.
The strength of the author’s writing lies in his descriptions. He is especially talented in describing people – he does so in such apt and precise terms that it leaves one craving for more. It is to his credit that he has abandoned traditional modes of description. He chooses the most striking characteristic of a person, and states it in such a distinct manner that it almost seems to be a process of defamiliarization. His words like ‘sapana koralna’ (hatch dreams) and ‘khieko kera’ (worn-out banana) impart a pleasant rural flavor, a refreshing change from the usual recurring descriptions.
The best accounts in this memoir resemble well-scripted stories, they are so free-flowing and smooth. But the worst ones are jerky, repetitive, and filled with the author’s wisecracks at his acquaintances whom his readers will neither know nor care to follow. They will be popular only among the coterie of his friends, and it is advisable that he keeps it limited to them. Also, within a single narration, there are sometimes abrupt shifts in subject matter, without proper warning, so that for a few paragraphs the readers will not know what the author is talking about. There is a place to practice the technique of stream of consciousness, and a travelogue is perhaps not the best place to do so. The author would also do well to tone down on the romanticization part, which almost reaches an irritating hyperbole at times. In some places, he seems to incorporate irrelevant and far-fetched instances or examples just to induce laughter. This on-your-face coarseness and insensitivity does not match the tone of the work and particularly the vulnerable people it represents.
It is most commendable, however, that the author has managed to devote so much of his time and efforts not only to expose the realities of the Registan life, but also to help and support them as much as humanly possible. He has not been able to completely resist portraying himself as a messiah of sorts. But by the end of the work, noting the positive changes he has attempted to make in the lives of less fortunate fellow beings, his personality will grow on readers. Just as the book will grow on all readers who wish to know of the plight their hard-working friends are undergoing abroad, and who, just like the author, feel that this is a topic to be raised, written and read widely about.
Displaying 1 of 1 review