Parshu Shrestha

“Uncle, uncle, please come fast. What’s happened to my sister! … whoooo … whooo”

The small boy, hollering and wiping tears off his cheeks with the sleeves of his vest, his face pale with the expression of horror, came running to him. Ramesh had just arrived home from college, and had not even stopped his bicycle.

Ramesh stopped his bicycle hurriedly at its stand at his house’s front gate, and ran towards his neighbour’s house. The members of the family were running in and out in haste. The two youngest girls were screaming with fear while Mailee, the middle sister, was telling others to hide all the red clothes from the house, and Dhauli, the eldest sister, the suckling mother of a newborn baby, had turned as pale as hay, and trembling all over from her head to toe. Her tongue, twisted abnormally, had been caught tightly between her clenched upper and lower teeth, causing it to bleed profusely. Both her eyes had lost their focus.

It was a horrific scene with all kinds of screams and whines along with hustle and bustle. Each fleeting moment was as precious as jewel. However, the gate was closed, and other neighbours were rejoicing the eye-witness of all these scenes.

“What’s happening here, sister?” Ramesh asked to Bishnu Kumari, one of the gazers and his neighbour, a middle-aged woman, while opening the gate of the troubled house.

“It’s been only six days since she delivered the baby,” she said, “and we cannot touch her until she is purified.”

Bishnu expressed her belief in the Hindu custom that regards a woman impure until the ninth day of her delivery. She and her baby are untouchable until the naming ceremony of the baby is observed. Both she and her baby are kept in a dark corner of the house where nobody else can easily reach. Only after the naming ceremony, she and her baby are purified with gahut, the urine of cow, the holy animal in Hindu culture representing Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth.

Ramesh, a well-educated man, a lecturer of a college, did not have much faith in so-called traditions and customs. He believed that they should be updated and changed according to the pace of time and scientific development. Therefore, this could not be an excuse for him to run away from his neighborly duty.

Hearing the screams of the people in the neighbouring house, Ramesh’s wife, Ankita, and his mum came rushing through the gate. Though they were also a bit traditional minded, they would easily adapt themselves in a situation like this.

Ankita took the patient’s hands and started rubbing them with hers. Ramesh’s mother rubbed the girl’s feet with her hands, thinking that it would help increase the patient’s blood circulation. She also told the girl’s mother to fan cool air to her with something.

Meanwhile, Ramesh phoned to an ambulance driver of his acquaintance, and called him to arrive there as soon as possible. Within the next fifteen minutes, the ambulance was on the yard of the house.

They got the sick girl into the ambulance. Her mum got on the ambulance, but she looked at Ramesh’s mom hopefully, and asked her to go with her to the hospital. How could a good neighbour turn away another neighbour’s request? Ramesh’s mother could not deny the offer. She became ready to go to the hospital with the patient and her mother. Now the girl was half conscious and was crying with pain.

In a hurry, Ramesh’s mom forgot to take extra clothes or anything else with her. However, she managed to remain in the hospital to help the patient for a night as an attendant. To be an attendant in a hospital, where there are sick people everywhere, is really a nightmarish experience.

Ramesh’s mom came back home the next afternoon. She had half-sleepy eyes and rotten face. She spent the whole afternoon and evening in bed because she had not had any chance to sleep in the hospital ward, she said.

Dhauli and her mother arrived home two days after. The hospital had discharged Dhauli with prescription to eat nutritious food and some supplementary diet. Mailee revealed that her sister had been given only a thin gruel since she had delivered the baby because they saw the baby’s eyes turmeric yellow in colour and guessed it had had jaundice. As a result, apparently, the suckling mother grew weaker day after day due to the lack of proper nutrition and passed out that day with sudden low blood pressure.

Ramesh knows one thing for sure that nobody would have come for Dhauli’s help that day if Ramesh, his wife, and his mom were not there because the others were already unwilling to touch her as an impure person. She could have even died surrounded by the people with superstitious minds who would not dare help her. He felt proud of himself for lacking that back-warded mentality.

Mongoose, Dhauli’s elder brother, arrived home from abroad after two months. Like most returnees from foreign countries, he had no particular thing to do but play ludo the whole day. After a week, he started digging the drain in front of his house. Obviously, he dug it to the side of the road instead of his own land. He narrowed the road by almost three feet for the satisfaction of his greed.

Ramesh could not tolerate Mongoose’s mischief. As a member of the same society, he protested his act of capturing the public road. The others in the neighbourhood kept mum perhaps because of fear or shyness.

“Who will stop me?” Mongoose challenged Ramesh openly instead, “I will do whatever I want. You can try if you want to stop me.”

The whole area was full of the landless squatters like Mongoose. Therefore, getting any support from them in the debate or legal support from the administration would be a far cry for Ramesh. The idiot, on the other hand, was ready for any consequence with his foolhardiness for grabbing some more feet of the land. The logic in front of him would be vain.

Mongoose stopped talking with Ramesh from that day. He looked at the opposite whenever he walked past Ramesh’s house. It would not be appropriate for Ramesh to bow to Mongoose for no reason. Therefore, he also stopped paying attention to him.

Afterwards, Mongoose’s whole family stopped talking to Ramesh’s whole family. The two neighbouring families were supposed to be helping hands for each other, but they turned overnight into bitter foes.

Dhauli also stopped talking to Ramesh and his family members though they had not done anything wrong to her. She also started looking at another direction while walking in front of Ramesh’s house whenever she came to her maternal home. The ungrateful girl forgot so easily and so fast the help Ramesh and his family had done to her. At least, she should have been talking to Ramesh’s mom who was on her side a whole night while she was suffering! She had no reason to ignore her.

“Well, this is human nature!” says Ramesh’s mom about Dhauli, “Even then we should not run away from our human responsibilities whenever we are needed to somebody. We should think that there is God who will see everything.”

Ramesh wonders at his mother’s peacefulness of mind which has long been the source of her energy and happiness.

(Parshu Shrestha (1981) lives in Itahari, teaches English, and writes stories.)