Phony Confessor: An Origin Story

My Band’s a minor YouTube sensation. I lead it and write the lyrics most of the time. Past few months, I haven’t been able to write past more than two words—Rebecca Maharjan. My words are nothing but empty shells now that the waves of her memories have left in the shore.

I feel empty, as empty as that shell on a shore that sounds like an ocean when heard because it is still in so much love with the ocean that once carried it, so much that it always sounds like her.

‘She is a fisherwoman’ is one of the most played songs of our band in the YouTube. We are called ‘Phony Confessors’. She was the one who coined the name. Before that we called ourselves ‘The Melodious Bananas’. I know the name sounds stupid. I, particularly, remember what she wrote about the name.

‘@Rebecca Maharjan
Dear Bananas,
You people are melodious but the name of your band sucks big time.
Yours
A True Fan’

‘How could anyone say that?’ I thought. It seemed so philosophical to me, to Nikesh and our drummer who doesn’t want to be named.

Rebecca Maharjan had a facebook id with the same profile picture that she had on YouTube. She and I had one thing in common, love for poetry. I searched for her poem in the group she and I were mutual members of.

‘He looked me in the eyes and I saw a flowing river in them. He was riding a broken boat to fish me out of his tears. He says he wants me to witness only his dreams that he has blissfully woven for me and not tears because he fears that I might drown in them. He is a fisherman who loves the fish to the extent that he would rather die hungry. But I am a fish who yearns to be consumed and become a part of him. I think we are in love. But not in the way the heaven had planned for me.’

After reading that, I fell in love with her. I scrolled and read every statuses, every poems and every essays that she had ever written. I became obsessed with her to the extent that I had started missing her without even knowing her in person. It was a strange kind of love.

That is when I wrote that song, ‘She is a fisherwoman’, which became a YouTube sensation within a week.

One day I came back from concert to find a mail in my inbox. ‘Rebecca Maharjan’, the name read. My hands started to melt into beads of sweat. I was so nervous that I had to ask my best friend Nikesh to open it.

“@Rebecca Maharjan
Dear Arahan,
I think you didn’t realize that you had flooded my facebook page with notifications.” She was right. How could I be so dumb? “I know that you like me. But I have liked you since you were a banana. I am sending you this mail because my horoscope says that I will find my soul-mate this month. I hope I am not wrong in giving it a shot. (I am going to kill that astrologer if you don’t reply to this message.)
Yours
Rebby”

“@ArahanTheBanana
Rebby,
I think that the astrologer was right in foretelling so because banana is a nutritious fruit and it gives you calcium.
Yours
Banana” I regret sending this e-mail. I have a very bad sense of humor, I agree.

“@Rebecca Maharjan
Dear Banana,
Does banana drink coffee?
Yours
The Astrologer Killer”

“@ArahanTheBanana
Dear Astrologer Killer,
No. But he likes JuJu Dhau in Bhaktapur Square.
Yours
Lassi?” Like I said, I have a very bad sense of humor.

“@Rebecca Maharjan
Dear Lassi,
I will be looking at my watch sitting on the stairs of the replica of Krishna Mandir @3 in the evening.
Yours
Who will still drink a coffee’

We met. She was much more flawless than her poems and exceedingly elegant than her essays.
What happens when a lyricist meets a poet?
They fall in love.
They hesitate at first but they do fall in love.

She got married to another Maharjan because I was a Christian--a Christian who would be of lowlier caste if he had been a Hindu.

She had married a devil, who called himself a man, who murdered a child inside her womb because it was a girl just like she was. She is in a coma and she is helpless. Her family abandoned her because she tried to run away from the home that was assigned to her. Her husband abandoned her because she tried to run away from the man she was assigned to sleep with.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even shed a tear when I first fed her a tasteless bowl of soup the chef at the hospital’s canteen carelessly brewed. The doctors said that the needles won’t keep her alive that I had to let the nurse feed her instead. I waged a war against the administration and won. But it is so hard to feed a person who doesn’t want to eat.

I don’t even choke when I sometimes forget and helplessly ask her to open her mouth because her jaw is so difficultly clenched. I would worry those days and not sleep because I couldn’t bear knowing that she is hungry.

But I am glad that I am not the only one in the room who thinks she is alive because the heart monitor next to her also believes that she indeed is. That makes two of us.

I brought her to Belgium where I now live. I have sworn to wait for her.

“You have to change the name of the band Arahan.”

“Why? It’s so philosophical.”

“No. ‘The melodious Bananas’ is no way philosophical.”

“Why not?”

“You should call yourself ‘Phony Confessor’.”

“What?”

“You always write love songs but you do not believe in soul mate.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t believe in Christmas but I believe in gifts and that
doesn’t make me a ‘Phony Christian’.”

“Shut Up!”

“I love you.”

“Shut up!”

“I think I will call Nikesh to change the name of the band.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

“Wow!”

That is the first time I confessed her that I loved her.

I wish she could hear me now.

Because I so need to tell her that I believe in soul mate now.

That she is my soul mate.

image source:pinterest.com