GundrukiPatra : An Introduction

A new iteration.

In many ways, I was uniquely privileged to have unsupervised internet access as a young girl growing up in Kathmandu. I do not remember the first time I logged into Tumblr.com, but it would ultimately become a haven for the myriad of aspirations I had - both material and beyond - that seemed just out of grasp as an unmoored and hormonal teenager in a far-flung country. What I also did not know was that Tumblr would be the first of many social media platforms that instilled in me an inclination for curation - or perhaps this was just a function of traversing through an internet that preceded algorithms. I was soon creating sets on Polyvore.com (RIP) with my best friend, and translating the eye that Tumblr helped me develop through the images other people had taken, into photographs taken on my iPod Touch, edited with just the right VSCO filters and settings and posting them under the #vscocam hashtag on Instagram.

Needless to say, I am far away from my teenage years now, and even further away from the world that shaped it. But two constants remain - my Tumblr account, where I can go to any point in time since 2011 and see what caught my eye at that moment, and an almost natural inclination to distill my current circumstances and state of mind through a curated assortment of text, images, and music. As I near the end of my 20s with several of my online iterations behind me, and a keen observer of those of others that I admire, I was inspired to bring a new iteration to life - one that is resoundingly in my voice and one that I am hoping will reshape the ways in which I have learned to dream, think, aspire, and be in community - in real life and online. As a nod to the oldest daily newspaper in Nepal, the Gorkhapatra - I am calling this newsletter GundrukiPatra - after the last online iteration I had, which some of you first came to know me as, and one that opened my world up to so many new friends and ideas.

GundrukiPatra is a monthly digest of curated finds that I wish to share with the world across six key areas - long-form content, film, music, art, a wishlist item, and a concept - and my perspective and takeaways from an intentional consideration of each, on an internet that otherwise makes it easy to find and consume media for the sake of consuming it. I do not know where this iteration of my voice will take me, but I am hoping this will be a new, engaging journey in self-expression, and a way to document wherever I am in life as I encounter different subjects of meditation.