Dipika Kohli
By Dipika Kohli
You take enough left turns, and naturally, you’ll find you’ve made a loop. Full circle.
This is me, today: I’m writing from a creaking laptop (any day now it will refuse to turn on but I am loyal to it until then), at one of my usual spots, a little bakery with great coffee that’s quite inexpensive in comparison with some of the hipster places. The owners had these babies when I discovered it around 2018 or so, as we lived not far then, too. I’d stopped coming because the kids were too loud. But the babies became toddlers, and the toddlers grew to school age, and now, here I am again, while they’re not. Nice and quiet.
It’s better later, though, when the regulars who come for their phone-cally workdays go. (I think they’re about to.) Before, I brought my bicycle. I came up two hills from Sansam Kosal, joyfully making the big turn around the roundabout, waiting at the turn where the light is so, so long. I’d park with great anticipation for some uninterrupted writing time. I’d take it. I’d cycle home. But these days I just walk over, as the new place is two streets away, and I’m far more leisurely than I’d been then, too. A school is across from us. A lot of teachers come here to get away from it, I’m told by one, and the students used to come in groups but now they go to the cooler, hipper place next door. I have not been inside.
I have a relationship with the people next door to that, too, who run a photocopy shop. They know what I’m up to when I come in. Double sided A4 sheets they’ll not even ask me anymore, just simply print them off for me, and photocopy a set of one or five. I’ll cut and sew and sell then. Zines. I’m making zines in Phnom Penh, these days with a few others who are part of my internet community, Cojournal, gathering to ‘talk’ from around the world. This happens in four-person telegram groups. We are talking and writing and sharing and I’m editing and publishing and printing. Isn’t it nice? We are having a good time.
While I sit here, the regulars are not leaving. They are getting into a fight. Oof. But I can understand the feeling both sides are having.
In a few days, we’ll be moving, yet again.
I’ll not be at this place this much, after that, I’m sure.
But I can let go of the usual and regularness. That’s okay. I can find a new place or three to go, to write in, and meet new people to connect with, either ambiently or really engage with. From next week, I predict as I walk around, I will be in a phase of wanting to discover again. I don’t have to move to a different town or country. I really like this feeling. Of new things. Anticipating new possibilities is kind of my thing. Change for the sake of change used to seem frivolous, because people liked to tell me it was. Why don’t you settle down? Why do you wander so much? But I know now that I had to do what I had to do.
Movement is part of my whole entire way of being, because discovery and co-discovery is what I love. Arriving full circle is a way to verify all that. It was right. To go, to move. It is right to look around and keep looking around. I do what I know to do. What I love to do, what others see that I can offer. I write. I talk to new people. I invite them to join ateliers, and meet each other, and we co-create, on the spots. We make zines.
I found this out last summer in Sapporo, to ‘get away and think about the big picture scheme of things’ after coming to terms with accepting that going to the United States (to visit, to repatriate to) could not be possible for… a while. In Sapporo, ‘Small Joys’ and ‘Speaking in the Spaces’ were the zines.
It was a great deal of excitement for me to get to do something I like doing, on the road. It works well for me, this template. Go and discover. Invite and connect. Co-create. Publish, repeat. It’s a nice way to keep doing my lo-fi publishing projects going.
Even in Japan. Even in Singapore, last month. I just got back and am processing it all. It’s been a little bit of a trip. Little India in Singapore… it called up a lot of emotions for me. There was one story that I have to tell you, for sure, about dusty chappals.
For now, let me finish packing. We move tomorrow.
Dipika Kohli is an author who is based in Phnom Penh. Discover her books at kismuth.com and other projects at dipikakohli.com.
