Contemporary Nepalese Short Stories By Saran Rai: Contemporary Nepalese Short Stories By Saran Rai

Contemporary Nepalese Short Stories

By Saran Rai

Dedication

To all the characters of this anthology , dead or alive …

Contents

S.N. Title Translated by

1. Grandson Translated by Saguna Shah

2. Is Life a Play Translated by Bidur Rai

3. Passionate Love Translated by Bidur Rai

4. Blackboard, Chalk and Duster Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

5. Ramesh Bahadur Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

6. Deathbed Confession Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

7. The Poor in the Cursed Age Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

8. Continuity of Sin Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

9. The Soggy Wheat Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

10. The Heartless Heart/The Displaced Heart Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

11. Recluse Sage Great man Translated by Bidur Rai

12. Another Ray of Sunshine Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

13. The Endless Light Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

14. An Old Leaf Translated by Chiranjivi Baral

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Grandson

People even cry observing themselves or different parts of their body. People indeed live with a very sensitive soul. I have survived innumerable ups and downs, lived through the storms and the turmoil without heaving a sigh. I never gave up and fought with utmost valor, saying, “I am not unmanly to cry.” But, today all of a sudden, gazing at my hands, palm and the body, I am crying. Their mere sight gives off an acerbic taste. Seeing such withered condition, tears stream down from the eyes.

The hands rest before my eyes. There is no difference between them and those my father had forty years ago; the wrinkled sagging skin. The beauty of youthful hand has disappeared. I remember father. As I gaze at the mirror, I find many of similarity between his face and that of mine; my visage too has turned out to be like that of my old father’s. My heart fills with immense love for him and I start to show compassion for myself as I resemble him. I have become old. Alas! The old age has effusively seeped into my life.

Old age!

During the old age, physical disability and loneliness appear as twins.
There is nowhere to reach, no destination but the travel continues. Nothing left to achieve, no ability but having to keep on the effort. The phase of reaching the end, beauty, strength, youth, courage, compliance or the period when all the lively beauty seem to desert, a nudged feeling of reaching closer to death. It is painful to think of having to leave this beautiful earth. But this is the ultimate truth, a cycle, a rule. Nobody here, is immortal. Death gulps down every single being. The premonition of death itself pierces the heart. We have to die; we have to leave this earth. My father died, my mother passed away and all the ancestors have died. Now it’s my time; I have to leave space for the future generation.

If I would get to live one more life …..I dream. But has anyone got two lives ever? I too am a setting sun beside the hills, a flickering oil lamp…I have to go.

When I am engulfed in the frightening solitariness the feeling of death has bequeathed, my grandson in his baby step comes muling mono syllables seeking comfort in my lap. As he does this, I feel radiance piercing through the dark gloominess that clouds my heart. I forget my old age, loneliness, despair and start seeing the bevy of future generation in his face.

Grandson!
Isn’t this a continuity of my life? Me, then my son, grandson, great grandson and so on…..I feel they are the chain of happenings. Somewhere from deep within beams the sunrays. Tears dissolve in the eyes. From the image of a father I transform into myself and then to my budding grandson, unknowingly. Even when I am no longer there my remains, a part of me or my children will continue living in this earth. I am filled with a sweet sensation, enthusiasm, happiness and pride starts bursting inside me .

Grandson! Until few years ago, I despised being called a ‘grandfather’. The same happened to one of my friends, he has mentioned in his memoir about how his blood boiled at the mere mention of ‘grandfather’. But after the birth of one’s own grandchildren, the word ‘grandfather’ seems to have become saccharine and natural.
My granddaughter frequently addresses me ‘kopa, kopa’ (grandfather, grandfather) ! In this addressing there is a relation which gives an idea about a growing family tree. I am satisfied with this. After the birth of my grand children, I have started taking great pleasure in their innocent world. The songs that had been long forgotten have found its rhythmic voice and I begin singing unintentionally. I can still sing and dance in a youthful manner in their naïve world. I rejoice and feel that a harmonious life has begun once again. The grandchildren are truly lovely; perhaps that is the reason people say one loves them more than their own children.

I wish to see my grandchildren to be the most satisfied. When my children beat and reprimand them into sobs, I feel bitter and helpless. Rebuking my son and daughter-in-law, I take them into my lap. And when they find solace into my embrace, I forget the world. I forget my state of being ill, unhappy and in pain. I feel like I am the happiest man on earth.

Whoever could stop the time, shield or keep it under control? I wish I could play with these innocent grandchildren till eternity, wish they seize to grow and our curious loving playfulness continue forever. I wish they always play with me. Life be filled with greenery , but it won’t happen.

We grandparent would be enthralled to see them. We would forget all our worldly grief and be ready for any challenge. In due course of time, my wife had to be separated from me. Looking at my grandchildren, I came out of the utter suffering from her untimely demise. Old age and disability kept piling on. Despite living with my family, I have become a loner. The authority of being the ruling figure of the family and the comfort has come to an end, the social, economical, cultural and political indulgences have condensed. Such life outside the home has come to halt.

Sometime friends dropped in. But because of the cold approach they receive at my home, they’ve stopped coming over. I too have stopped going to them. I feel I too have seized receiving the warmth and hospitality and am now used to living within the confines of my room.

Where should I be going? What can I do? I wish I could help my son, who I raised working all my flesh and bones. But my physical disability becomes the gap. I wish I could suggest him with the knowledge, skill, tactfulness that I have gathered with decades of experience. But the experience I have, the knowledge and skill, nobody wishes to pay heed to. It seems to them like old fables that have no use. Me, a useless old man, my advice are unnecessary restrictions for them. Perhaps, this is called ‘the generation gap’.

The living expenses have hiked. Regardless this one desires all the glitter. One cannot afford to look deprived than any of the friends. I know the expenses for party, club, wedding, electricity, water, cable, and school fees are unbearable. Apart from sitting in the corner and gazing, what is there that I can do?

From bearing the expenses to taking decisions, I am never asked. Now, I have stopped bothering about these things. I repeatedly read books twice, thrice in my room. If my grand-daughter who has now started understanding stories comes to my room, I tell her folklores and stories from Panchatantra and Aesop’s fables. Story-telling gives me immense pleasure. When the flow of story-telling is disrupted by my persistent cough, my grand-daughter becomes annoyed.

“Don’t sit near Kopa , you may get infected with cough and other disease,” I hear my daughter-in-law shout. Even though it pierces my heart I act not to have heard anything. I do not have the audacity to retaliate.

“I will stay at home and not leave Kopa,” was shouting grand-daughter. With bag and trunk packed, my eldest grand-daughter is sent to a boarding school. Along with her muffled cries, my eyes brim with tears, alas my little grand-daughter is taken apart from me.
My grandson fills the void she left. He comes to my room with his childish playfulness. Those, such as tearing my books and copies, destroying my spectacles and soiling the bed. However, these mistakes seem trivial in his playful company. He sits with me, plays and laughs. I love him dearly. When he is around, I tend to forget everything and long for his togetherness. A certain kind of blissful contentment is there which every grandfather may have felt. That experience can be felt only by those who have lived long enough to be grandfathers. I take pride in becoming grandfather and I smile.

My son take my and grandson’s pictures in different poses. My son even shoots a movie of us. When I look at those pictures in the camera, I feel overwhelmed. I say, “please have them all printed.”

“I will save them in the computer. Will print them later altogether,” my son replies. But I have never seen them printed ever.

Time flies like wind ; flows like the river or like time. Like the landslide resembles my old age, going downhill day by day. Each day I am becoming weaker and lesser able. Now that my grandson has started spending his time with his play group at the Montessori, I feel no friends to talk to and play with is somehow disturbing.

One day all of a sudden, my son and daughter-in law bring new clothes and ask me if it fits me well enough? I feel happy at the prospect of being in their thoughts.

“Old age homes, orphanages and hospitals are practically purposeful. People living in old age homes do not have to face any difficulties.” My son says.

“The little amount of pension that you get is insufficient to survive there so we have managed whatever amount you need extra.” Daughter-in law adds.

“The nature of my job is such that I have to travel frequently. Your daughter-in law too has found a small job for her. There will be no one to look after you at home. The old age home ‘Maanav Sansar’ will be better for you so we’ve decided to take you there tomorrow morning,” son concluded.

How easily they said. The meaning of new clothes unveiled. I felt like falling. Now I have to leave this house. My approval is meaningless as they have already decided to send me away. After breaking the news of seemingly 12 rectors earthquake, they went out.

Ah! This house, this room! My wife and I had built it with great perseverance and desire. It is in this house our children grew up. Today they have become competent and able enough to load me with their decision. Is this the technical, cultural and social change that new age has brought along? Now I cannot call this house my own. Apart from accepting their order, I have no other choice.

This is my house, my room, my bed. From tomorrow onwards nothing will remain with me any longer. I won’t be in this house. The decades that I spent my conjugal life in, will no longer be with me. Alas! I touch the walls and bed like I felt my wife while she was alive. Like a traveler asking for leave, teary eyed I look intently, I look at the room, the bed and everything else. Tears flow like river but what significance does it have? I feel everything in the room and kiss them, disillusioned and utterly saddened. I cannot sleep whole night, I think—the house, room, bed; today is the last day .

Whole night I look into my wife’s photograph and mumble,” Shovana, all this remains only until today. You are lucky that you could breathe your last on my lap in the same bed. But me ? I wished to die in the bed that you breathed your last. They deprived me, my tiny wish cannot be fulfilled. I talk to her photograph whole night, as though Shovana were alive. I look at our picture that hangs from the wall and decide to take it along, “where I did not get enough space to live till my last, there shall not be any respect for you .”

I remember the folklore ‘Doko’(Nepalese big bamboo basket carried on back). When the father carries the grandfather to throw him down the cliff, the grandson says, “do not throw away the doko, I will need it to throw you.” Hearing this old man’s life was saved. Like in the story, had my grandson been older; would say, ‘let’s keep kopa in the house.’
In the morning I get ready in new clothes. With the few belongings much less than what my grand-daughter who went to boarding had, my son and daughter-in law get in the car. I too sit. I look back to the house longingly. The thought of leaving the place where I had lived all my life makes me cry.

In death there is separation. But the one who dies does not have to feel any kind of sorrow. But I am being separated from my house, family and everything else while I am still alive and this is the reason why I am forced to feel the ache. It was like dying while I am still alive and everything being snatched away. Like in death, everything is being estranged.
“Bye-bye, the house that gave shelter to me and my family bye- bye. May peace and prosperity prevail with my son, grandson, great grandson!”My heart blurts aloud , loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Son, I want to take a picture with my grandson.”

“Why do you need it? There will be no space in the walls at old age home. The grandchildren will come to meet you frequently.”
Now there isn’t any wall to hang my photo. I do not want any photo. Sitting in the car, I ask my son for the last time, “will my grandson really come to see me ?”

Translated by – Saguna Shah

Glossary

Manav Sansar: (the human world) Old age homes, orphanages and hospital for old aged

Panchatantra:The Sanskrit Fables

KOpa: grand father ( Rai Bantawa Language, Rai Bantawa :Indigeneious people of Nepal

Doko: Nepalese big bamboo basket carried on back

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Is Life a Play?

He, or my husband, spouse, adorable darling, seems to arrive at home, tired completely, seeing him in such a mood, I smile at him with a pleasant face, as if to welcome him. He, too, smiles like a mechanic, dramatic and artistic smile. If the smile is realistic and natural, it appears to be equal to an elixir. This is my life that awaits anxiously a sweet smile, the springing from the core of the heart. It is matchless, priceless, enticing, pleasant, spontaneous, natural, and what not. I always have cherished a dream at my heart and make several attempts such that I can bring that smile on his face. At least once, I wish I could and give the same.

I am the one who is living among my spouse, son and daughter in law, daughter and son in law, grand children, friends and relatives. I guess, I am living alone like Robinson Crusoe. I am unable to hold a dialogue with anybody at home, and have failed to communicate regularly. Nobody has understood me. I am all alone and have had to live, burying my pain, desire and dream of my own into my heart. I am, and look hollow, empty yet go on to live a meaningless life_ an artificial, unreal, melancholic life where there is no eagerness, enthusiasm, and cheerfulness. I had not got what I wanted but I got what I do not deserve. I always experience that I am wandering aimlessly in the world where artificial, mechanical people live today.

It must have been a different life that I could live in a comfortable manner.

Yeah! The fact is that he seems to be happy to see me during a three-decade long conjugal life of ours. He appears to be cheerful while living together. While he departs, he looks dejected and sad. It looks as though he is trying whatever he can to please me. For me, like a spouse, he treats me like a spouse does and fulfills all the responsibilities. However, all he does is that he only pretends to be happy, to laugh, and to be cheerful. I guess he seems to have done everything.

I do not think that his smile, laughter, cheerfulness, activity and responsibility all appear to sound real and natural. It looks as though he was acting as an actor in a theatre. Utterly artificial! He pretends to be so he is dramatizing.

In other words I am only a mute spectator, who is watching a show in progress. I am his spouse as a just spectator, who, more like a principal character in a play, takes delight in his dramatization while watching his acting.

*** ***

Suddenly, a scene of the event that resulted in our life many years ago reels in my psyche. He and I are the beautiful youths, who were in love. I thought I could not live without him. Neither could he. Therefore we, who fall in love when young and emotionally strong, are tied in nuptial bond. Tied in such a bond, I had thought our love attained the success. He, too had said so. Our love and dream came true.

With the passage of time I mothered three sons and a daughter. By now, I am fortunate to be with daughter-in-law, son-in-law, along with grandchildren.

As others see us, we look like ideal couple and we are worthy of jealousy.

People remember that we are ideal couple, who abundantly receive conjugal love and live a happy, successful life. We are highly grateful since we have received a kind of love we deserve. However, is the reality the same? Experiences ? I ask myself.

We were so happy a year after the marriage that the very year was sufficient material for us to imagine and live a whole life. We would laugh together, and weep together. We were one. We were in unison with our body and soul as if two of us merged into one.

Gradually our love began to wither and lose its importance as we fell prey to a practical life. Where did we mistake in love? Why! Why did this happen in love? The belief that our love could be immortalized ended in a smoke instantly. We were busy finding faults at each other every other day. Just as we loved each other passionately, so we hated, quarreled and argued hotly in a proportionate manner. Tolerance has its limit because it has crossed the boundary. Quite unable to tolerate, I left home in one evening. He went on to say, “Do not abandon this home. Never ever come back home if you leave.”

I took no notice of what he said. I left home just once in contempt. The following day, I returned to home. Shaking with anger, he asked, “Where had you been to? Who did you spend the night with and come home?”

“I’ve stayed with Menka, a friend of mine and I am right back now from her”, answered I humbly.

“Menka or Bishwomitra? Did you spend the night and have a frolick with that chap Ashok?” roared he intently.

Ashok was a young man who liked me before marriage. How dare you doubt my character? I boiled with humiliation and flew into fury. Angrily I said, “My mind, my body …. That’s my pleasure. If ever I sleep with him, what more can you do to me?”

“I will oust you from this house. Get out of this house immediately!” He forcefully drove me out of home and shut the door against me. Again he did not allow me to enter the house.

A human heart! I wanted to see him suffer with jealousy but I was not expecting the result of that kind. I had not made any relation with another man. He was trying to insult me, accusing me of developing the extra-marital affair with the other man. After that, the only way left for me to do was to knock at the door of the society, court and police station and to make an appeal for justice. My kins, friends and neighbours all busied in the mass discussion, meeting and negotiation so that both of us could reconcile and live together.

I could ever divorce from him at that time and live separately. The reason behind the inability to take a decision in divorce is that I was pregnant with a two-month baby growing in my womb. For that matter, a reconciliation was made between us in the end. As others see us, our conjugal life keeps on the track again just like a completely wrecked vehicle that restarts. Thus our conjugal life ran in its own course.

A stretch of a three-decade long time has elapsed today with the twinkling of eyes. Ah! How swiftly decade-long conjugal life passes! He and I have spent it. Love rests on conjugal fidelity. In fact, faith, which is the strong basis of a happy married life, has shaken off, eroded and withered on its own. We made a false pretention of living a happy married life as if filled with love and faith. We were dramatizing a practical, but a happy married life so that the others would think that we were happy.

*** ***

I have been questioning myself for a long year today. Have I received pure love? Have I tasted it? Have I savoured love, pleasure and sweetness of life that one receives from the opposite sex? Have I ever experienced the real taste of happiness and sorrow? I guess consciousness and belief that is deep seated in the psyche might automatise life, revitalizing it. However, I do not know exactly how the human like a listless machine is transformed into a dramatic character, more precisely a heartless, unreasonable being.

After our reconciliation, our conjugal life seems to have run naturally just in a glance. I was doing all the family duties as a spouse had to and am doing the same. Like me, he continued to fulfill the duties and liabilities as a husband and now does it.

We both as a husband and wife are living together. We are exhibiting cordiality, love and duty between each other. But, we are far from being satisfied with love . I feel that the way he loves me makes me think he is merely acting like a husband-character in a play, who has some obligations to fulfill the family needs. Actually he appears to be happy in my company; it sounds as though it were true and sincere, but it is artificial. Why, why do I feel so repeatedly although it is felt unconsciously from the bottom of my heart. Because of that, I feel that my life is like a burden, heavier than the universe. This makes me think and feel that my life is unsuccessful. When I cannot control the volcano-like feelings, in despair and grief , I have, over many times, asked, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing and at other times being sentimental, “Are you happy and contented with me?”

“Yes, I’m. I’m happy”, he always replies, “who on earth can receive all the things which a man expects to get from a woman other than me?”

I guess he still is lying. He is dramatizing. I tried to give him what I had to – love, submission, happiness – as a woman. Since I took him to be my beloved, wife and the first man, I tried to do to the best of my capacity. However, he does not seem to be happy, and satisfied with me. He pretends to be happy, cheerful and contented; he acts as if he is. It is a farce.

The bitter feelings and experience during my life have shattered and drained away not only mine but also his life . I think all the time that a small mistake taken just in momentous excitement could make life desert- like, listless and dry. With the attention and caution not to err in life, it rather goes on to become artificial and dramatic, more and more. This shallow artificiality of life is changing my self-respect into the autum-like season. Why am I thinking so?

Like in mathematics, suppose I married another man? What if I married nobody. Did it make any difference to the present life? Suppose that marriage has nothing to do with reality so it is futile to imagine so. Nevertheless, the mind changes its direction at any time. As I compare life I lived it bleeds my life intensely. If only I had lived life like that!

Would life again be like before? Would life once again be caught up in hyprocricy and artificiality? Oh, no …. What on the earth am I thinking about? Why should I bother in vain in matter of little importance, high ambition, intense desire, illusion of perfection, quest for unlived experience, oasis in life and so on? They are the sources of sorrows in human life, I suppose so.

Considering whatever we have got in life, it is best to live actively in the human world. Thus we are just acting as if we are faithful lovers and real characters of the real world.

I have not really plunged myself into the depth of his heart. Neither have I read him and his mind. He was my first beloved. He only remained as a husband after the unnatural argument and quarrel erupted between us. I have not yet understood my spouse’s mind as he and I loved each other before marriage. How unfortunate I am! It is quite difficult to understand the man’s mind.

Perhaps I have not been able to be dedicated fully to him. He and I are not united both in hearts and minds. The mind is strange. It has its own place. It does not allow me to do unwanted things at all. Neither can I also regard him as my lover. He's acting as an artificial lover, or it may be that I am in illusive. The picture or image of the human love and the world which I have imagined is unreal and illusionary. Who has received the true and unconditioned love in the transitory life of the world?

While I remember the dry, meaningless life I spent without love, I feel like crying now. It so happened as it happened. One cannot restart a new life once it is already spent. It is not a matter of improving life just as one cries, laughs and repents. I have almost spent my previous life like a drama where I am an actor, acting different roles. As we are aged, we are still dramatizing before the others – to appear so, to be happy and to be loved profusely.

I am acting like a woman who is constantly in love with a man and has to dedicate to him. Since he is a husband, he is playing the role as a man who exhibits love, takes the responsibility, sacrifices and dedicates. In this world, all the people like in a play take the part as lovers, husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, friend or foe in an artistic manner. Everybody is acting here. Thus, being caught up in the seas of illusion, people keep asking – what is reality?

When one does not live a life of purity, the heart sinks and drains away. An amount of blood, tear and pus flow from the sore of the broken heart. It aches, but it is difficult to cry, due to pain. Why not act if it benefits oneself and the others under the pretext of living happily? Why shouldn’t I take the different part of characters as in a drama of human life? Maybe my husband is acting a devoted darling husband in spite of his unwillingness. Tut !… tut! … this is a poor life. O! how so poor and helpless this life is! The dramatic art has elapsed as a joke in the course of acting.

Is life such a drama?

Or is the world a stage for the humans to dramatise the unreal art of incomplete life?

Translated by - Bidur Rai

Glossary

Kukhuri: Nepalese weapon

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Passionate Love

Man does not achieve in his entire life as desired.

He had desired that he would be able to continue a happy but conjugal life supported by strong grip of love. However, that desire that was built upon one's mind and fantasy shattered and broke like a tower.

The untimely demise of his young, loving spouse on earth has darkened his dream world completely. A wonderful, green-looking garden has turned into a desert-like land. He does not find any meaning in his life. It sounds absurd and meaningless at all. He has an unspeakable grief, feels pangs of separation, and his heart aches terribly. How cruel death appears before him! Death now silences only when it snatches his beloved wife. It is invisible. It looks as though nothing has happened yet.

His spouse’s death compels him to think deeply that a splinter of his half-existence has thinned into air. Her death empties him completely. He is weak, feeble, half-vacant, and desire less. He is saddened and grief-struck. When he cries bitterly, with a son over the dead body of his wife, kneeling down, the people who attend the funerals begin to sob and tears roll down their checks without their knowledge.

He hiccups and sobs continuously.

'Alas! The baby is in great trouble. Tut-tut…!' people there pour words of sympathy. The child whose mother dies is an orphan who gazes over his mother's dead body confused. The child begins to weep as he learns that either he sees his father weep or he sees the dead body of his mother.

He begins to weep bitterly, now loudly, haltingly. People with dicky heart melt and sob softly because they can not control their emotions. Women wipe out their tears with an end part of shawl. Meanwhile, a neighbor of his, young Samdok weeps bitterly, more loudly than the funeral mongers, kneeling and bowing near the corpse.

His wife's demise has also grieved and shocked Samdok. Almost mad and frenzied, he weeps with a loud shout, which was reverberating an entire village. Overwhelmed by emotion, he leaves a sigh of relief and can control his emotion when he sees a young neighbor in times of distress and grief. His wife's death has deeply shocked and saddened not only the whole neighbors but also Samdok.

In fact, his wife is not only darling and beloved alone but also dear and near to the neighbor. Samdok and neighboring women that cry over the death have justified this living example of how important and friendly she was before her last breath. 'Yoyokma was really an adorable figure in the village.’

Yayokma!

For a moment, a pretty woman Yayokma of the living world stays in his memory. How long is it since they were tied to the nuptial bond? His wife passes away just as the marriage completes it’s sixth wedding anniversary. Yayokma, badly wet and soaked through in the rain, had come and it was a little late. That was just an excuse for the event. She had a persistent fever and a bad cough. Fever on her forehead and over the body persisted. While she was rushed to hospital, the doctor on examination diagnosed her with the last stage of 'pneumonia'.

Unfortunate was Yayokma whom he loved more than his life from the core of his heart. She, like the moon, beamed and was bright. He wanted to lodge her in fond memory, and wished her to remain before his eyes. She was also fond of her spouse, and was mad in love. Seeing the married couple in love, people would say, "What perfect pairing!" He had achieved what a man should get from a woman. In addition, he gave her what a man could in his life. He took it to luck because she was endowed with beauty, virtue, skill, conduct, behavior and youth. He had thought that he was the happiest man that ever lived on earth when an off-spring was born to them. However, all of a sudden, what went wrong with this? What a nasty joke God played on these couple!

Yayokma is already dead. Nothing is under his control. He wants to complete the death rite with pomp and show as far as his capacity can hold. A number of the funeral-goers transport the dead body to the cemetery after all the arrangements- death rituals and shroud-have been made.

A single file of funeral procession! The whole villagers have flooded to attend the burial. As a matter of fact, capable of being sympathized by the villagers, he has sat beside the corpse, dejected and grieved. Samdok also sits next to him.

The death mongers and undertakers are preparing a funeral pyre. The large log and plank of firewood have piled up. It looks as thought funeral pyre has been arranged for a famous person. They're engaged in the possible form of the job. The aged in small groups keep gossiping.

"Yayokma appeared to be really a virtuous, tolerant and dutiful woman! She was so sweet that anyone can't stop loving her."

"Yes, of course! But she meets pre-matured death. Now how will the infant ever live and grow up? Alas! that unlucky orphan is unable to suck the breast!" All and sundry centralizes their focus of conversation only on the life and death_ Yayokma's life and death. Everyone is guessing "Is this life?" Quite unable to convince themselves, people feel discouraged and make unexpressed plea. May the parentless child grow up well!

While he is lost in the oceanic pains, he overhears "Yayokma, forgive me, please! You've died because of my fault. If you had not loved me so passionately, you would never have turned up at home so late, soaked in the rain.” Sobbing, Samdok spoke in a thin voice, quite audible to the corpse.

'Yes, what are you saying, Samdok? What is it that I hear now?' he feels startled and gazes at Samdok, who's shedding tears while looking at the dead body with eyes fixed.

Holding Samdok by his hand, he drags him a little further on, he asks, "What were you saying?"

"Forgive me, dear elder brother. I'll disclose the matter clearly after Yayokma's death ritual is completed".

“What clearly ? You shall speak if alive.” He lifts his Khukuri up and was about to slice up, aiming at his neck. Samdok asks for an apology, bowing head down his feet," Let the ultimate death rite be complete. After that, do whatever you can".

He hurls the Khukuri at a little distance. He hugs Samdok vigorously and weeps bitterly, and so does Samdok. Weeping together, both move towards the corpse.

Together both kneel down the body of Yayokma over the pyre. He ignites the flame of fire after completing the rite. The pyre burns and a flame engulfs the dead body. Again he takes Samdok afar and goes so that the others cannot hear their talk. He squats on the ground and Samdok is seated, too.

"Listen, Samdok! Yayokma is dead. Her body is burning. Now you swear in the name of the burning dead body and reveal the truth. What kind of relation was there between the two of you?"

He sinks his eyes into ground without any speech.

"I am questioning.." he roars like a thunder.

"What …? What…?"

"What relation did you have with Yayokma?"

Tears spill from Samdok's eyes as if a river was flooding. He shouts at Samdok, who remains silent, staring at him like an animal ready to pounce upon its prey, "Speak the truth, with an oath of the burning corpse."

"Have it in your way. We were both in love. Yayokma was my first love."

"Did you establish an illicit relation between you like different man and woman?"

"I never lie. You bade me swear over the burning corpse. We had a physical relation the day when she returned, soaked and wet thoroughly. That was the last meeting of ours. She had come to me with my earnest request. I could not live without her. Neither could she? Had she been alive, we would have tied in nuptial bond. Forgive me if you can because I swear you before the burning corpse. Otherwise, do as you want …."

"One more query, whose child is this, yours or mine?"

“It was only Yayokma who could tell the truth. If you do not want to bring up the child, I am ready to look after that heirloom.”

"You, rascal! How will you ever look after when I'm alive as his father?"

He hushes up Samdok with two hands and then he sits, plunging himself into long meditation for several hours. Samdok had thought that he would thump him forcefully. He is mentally prepared to face the consequences, come what may. However, like a man lost in dream, where, how and what he was speaking, he speaks to himself in a thin voice, staring at the burning corpse and says, "How strange? Amazing! What deception is it? Is it man's imagination or love? I thought she only loved me, and only me. Does love split into two parts? It can never be divided into other small parts. There can be two gardeners tending only one garden of flowers. Similarly, love can have two shareholders and partners but the love that both get is merely undivided. Yayokma's love was undivided and unconditioned. I had received her love, which was not divided and was deep. My love for her was unconditioned, and undivided. Where have I mistaken in love? Love and gratification! How is that those who are in pursuit of such things are least concerned about the place, time, morality and situation? Weak human character! How fragile are people in acquisition of love and gratification? Having ignored the husband, off-spring and society, Yoyokma is among people who are engaged in love and sex. Man is a creature that hankers after the desire. He is ready to pay every possible price for the mental satisfaction. Is that only her guilt ? Greedy for love and gratification, she slips and forgets…

"She wanted boundless love but without her knowledge she ran after love. Is love like an amoeba, too? When a nucleus divides into two halves, two amoebas emerge. like amoebas, she kindles boundless love and her love is not inexhaustible when she pours on me. Thus, she exchanges love with Samdok. Love grows when exchanged with many. She, of course, does not distribute surplus love. Why? Why had Yayokma done this? Sacrificed her love? Now I neither analyze nor discuss nor evaluate her and her deeds. Does anyone find the merits and demerits of the beloved one? I accept as it is. Moreover, she is dead. Everything the beloved shares with and the beloved are pleasing. Thus, my deceased darling Yayokma's beloved Samdok, too occupies a space in my heart. Were she alive, we could possibly snatch her. Is the beloved simply an object, which is snatched and then captured? Now she has vanished into a thin air. The only thing that remains left is her memory. Only a lasting memory of hers has remained with me, Samdok and the world. She is survived by an off-spring born from the biological parents – 'our child as a symbol of love”.

He mutters indistinct words or so for a long time. However, in the end, embracing Samdok, he says, "Samdok, Yayokma is now dead. Now it is no use questioning her character. Perhaps you gave her love and gratification she needed when alive as I could not. I was mad in love with her and I still do. If she had told the truth, I would have consented and arranged the matrimonial ceremony in a grand style. Albeit, you and me, two of us, were left alive to mourn in fond memory of Yoyokma. We experience the same kind of pangs of separation from her. Her memory will stay on hearts and minds for good and all. Both of us share the sufferings for losing her and we have been the two experience of her memory”.

At times Samdok, eying at him and at other time gazing at the burning pyre, is listening with his mind fixed.

Translated by_ Bidur Rai

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Blackboard, Chalk and Duster

A teacher's day-to-day chores are to write on the chalkboard, rub it clean and get blanketed with chalk-dust. His fingers look like sticks of chalk, with his everyday writing with chalk. White chalk-dust keeps on falling on his hair like a flurry of snow. A pair of eyes in his face covered with chalk-dust look round and gaze fixedly on the blackboard. The letters are rubbed out. He is teaching in a loud voice, a duster in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other, his voice getting louder and louder each time.

This is his world. Every individual has a small world of his own. Everyone wants to make his world beautiful, enjoyable and large. Snow continues melting in the Himalayan range, but it is never finished. Likewise, a human mind never goes blank. Snow must melt into water. Memory is the beauty of life as it keeps events alive. He who is remembered by a large number of people is great.

The beautiful letters written across the chalkboard are rubbed out again. Can anyone imagine there were beautiful letters just a minute ago? The piece of chalk gets shorter and shorter, with it being rubbed on the chalkboard to make the meaning clear to students. The teacher looks pitifully at the stub of a chalk that has been too short to write as if it is the butt of a cigarette thrown before one is satiated. He throws away the end of the chalk. He thinks he himself has, like the stub of a chalk, been thrown out.

He tries to compare his own life with the piece of chalk and finds they are similar to some extent. The chalk has met what it was made for, but he cannot make out what he was created for. He tries to trace the purpose of his creation on the cheerful visages of students, who are hopeful for the future. He looks at the sketch he has drawn on the blackboard. What was, he cannot know for sure, he worn away for – a blackboard, a chalk or a duster?

He stares, purposelessly, at the classroom, the students, the green lawns and trees seen through the windows, in deep contemplations. A gardener is putting his heart and soul into caring for flower plants and weeding in the garden. The flower is beautiful to everyone. However, its beauty overshadows the blood, sweat and tears of the gardener. Would people like the flower if it gave off the smell of the sweat of the gardener? Whispers coming from a corner of the classroom wake him up to the reality. The classroom is his world. In a more apposite term, it is his battlefield. A piece of chalk, a duster, the blackboard and his voice are his weapons. Students' ignorance is his enemy and his success to make them understand his ideas is his victory. He starts teaching again. While teaching, he feels as if he is the leader who is delivering a speech in a bid to toe thousands of people in his line. He also feels as if he is a father advising his children. He considers himself an actor standing on the stage for performance. He finds completeness in himself while he is standing in the classroom.

He has a chalk-stick and a duster in his hand, a blackboard behind and pupils – they are all ears – before him. He thinks he is thousands of miles away from the pain-stricken and scarcity-hit world of reality.

"Father, buy a frock like Sarala’s for me. Ok?"

"Blue pants for me."

"Don't forget to bring the medicine the doctor has prescribed for me."

Frock, pants, medicines and countless other needs. A teacher has a limited salary. In this materialistic world, he must translate everything into materials. He must show his feelings through material goods. He loves his blood and sweet, but he must be able to transform the love into frocks and pants. When he returns home, he hears hacking cough of his bedridden wife. It is the will-o’-the-wisp to expect her to make tea when she doesn't see the medicine in his hand. The old father, not to talk of the children, looks slunk as he has not bought tobacco for him. He fears if the son of a teacher fails in study. He pretends not to have the knowledge of real world's reality.

The teacher rubs out the sketch drawn on the blackboard. He can rewrite and re-rub it out, but he cannot rub out his destiny written on his forehead. He turns round the head to look at the students in the classroom as if he is searching for his lost identity. Some students are busy taking notes, while some others are looking through the window to the girls passing by. He projects his voice to draw their attention. He is used to teaching in a loud voice. He bellows and screams. He is burbling like a lunatic. Like a cascade, he himself cannot understand what he is babbling about. The classroom is filled with a burst of laughter. He thinks he has been ridiculed. He becomes cautious, “Am I really mad?” He goes on giving examples to make the subject matter clear, his voice louder each time. When he shouts at the top of his voice, he finds that there is no difference between him and a street vendor. The only difference, if there is any, is that the former shouts inside a room while the latter shouts outside.

Maybe because the blood has circulated in the old body with the loud yell he feels young. He reminisces about his student life. Some of his school colleagues have been ministers; some others are either doctors or administrative chiefs, whereas he is still among students, careworn like his pupils. The students he had taught have been heads of different offices. Some have become owners of multi-storied buildings, but his status is the same old.

Today, he has remembered the ambitions he had in his school life. How high the ambitions were! The reminiscence wrenches at his heart. He is a heart patient, and heart pain is common for him. He looks out through the window. The sky is overcast. It is going to rain.

He tries his utmost to make his ideas clear to his students. If he fails to make them understand the subject matter, they can never understand it or they will never get an opportunity to understand it. The future of all the students in the classroom depends on his hard work. He is shaping their future through knowledge. His words will be meaningful only if he can make his students understand the subject matter; or else, his knowledge is useless. He knows it very well. He keeps on speaking loudly, his veins in the neck ballooning.

The school bell rings. As usual, he comes out of the classroom, with chalk-sticks and the attendance register in his hand. He feels his throat dry. He drinks water, carries some of his old books under his arms and rushes back home. It may rain. So, everyone in the street is walking fast to reach their destinations. When they see him on the road, they smile at him. He observes his body to know if anything is wrong. There is a dusting of chalk dust on his coat and shoes. He dusts them off, but it does not shake off. He remembers the frock, pants and medicines. He searched in his pockets for money, only to find them empty. He returns home empty-handed as he has to.

He finds the people on the road still laughing at him as if he is a cartoon strip drawn on a blackboard with a colorful chalk or a blackboard with many cartoons at which everyone laughs. He is the blackboard, chalk and duster. He steps ahead fast to dodge the mocking eyes of the people.

Translated by – Chiranjivi Baral

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Ramesh Bahadur

He is neither bewitched by the beauty of Rupasi, nor by her youth. It is a mere need of love. He had pleaded Rupasi for her true love. In the very beginning, her love was seemingly pure.

"Ramesh, I'm head over heels in love with you. I'm only yours," Rupasi sweet-talked him.

Ramesh replied soulfully, "I'm also living just for you."

Those were the days, which have become a dream-like past.

Ramesh forgot everything and fell in the illusion of love with Rupasi. They tied the knot. In the beginning, though the rope of the conjugal life was as strong as the chain of iron, later it snapped as if it was made of dry grass.

"There is no salt; nor is there any oil for cooking," she shouted in a harsh voice from inside the kitchen. He exclaimed with bitterness that he married a wicked woman – she was rubbing salt into the wound. On the other hand, Rupasi, a poor creature, had dreamt of living in clover and in the lap of luxury, which has turned a pie in the sky. She failed to keep Ramesh sweet. With poverty resulting in fighting like cat and dog day in and day out, the sweet nuptial relation turned sour. There was no option left for him. The only safe release, he thought, was 'divorce'.

As Ramesh got lonely after divorce, he was on the lookout for his old mates so that he would make his life as joyful as before. He found that all the well-bred and courteous friends were busy making their ends meet. He resolved to live the rest of his life with friends, but fell into the trap of good-for-nothing fellows. He ended up taking to drink as a result of his constant connection with the corrupt lads.

Ramesh resorted to going to pubs for drink. There he enjoyed flirting with Phulmati. He was misled again. He thought it would be out of harm's way to marry Phulmati, a more outspoken and amorous than Rupasi, and settle down with her. He considered her as his own beloved and wished that she was right under his nose all the time. He would have to go to the pub to see her. It means the more he saw her, the more he drank. Phulmati had already nestled in his mind and heart. Ramesh had proposed her for marriage, which she had been evading with a wry smile. Poor Ramesh fell of his chair when he came to know that Phulmati eloped with a lahure He realized the world is absurd and dreary.

Though Phulmati deserted him for keeps, drinking habit didn't. He turned more alcoholic than ever before. He incurred heavy debts as he drank like a fish at all times. He was rendered alone in the world, with no one to look after him or no one for him to look after. A little property he had inherited from his parents was running out.

One morning, Ramesh, who usually would wake up late in the morning, rose early. In a cool and gentle morning breeze, with the rising sun spreading its red rays over the village, as he looked, with a clean sheet, through the window of his room, at the bank of the nearby river, he was taken aback as his gaze fell on a girl crushing stones turning her head. "Gosh! Is that Phulmati?" he muttered.

He dismissed the thought as he convinced himself that Phulmati had already reached the military barrack in foreign land. Ramesh could not help going to the river bank to see the girl.

"Who are you?" he mustered courage and asked the girl, who was Phulmati look-alike. The girl lifted her eyes and darted a glance at him, with clear look of perplexity on her face.

The girl was new to the village. In a while, Ramesh came to know that the girl, having run away with a man who was managing to eke out a living by crushing stones on the river bank, was giving a helping hand to her husband as the latter was bedridden. As the couple was homeless and had fallen on hard times to eke out their living, Ramesh, driven by an unknown motivation, offered the newly married couple a shelter in his house. Cutting the cost on alcoholic drinks, he extended monetary help to them. Unfortunately, the husband of the woman did not restore to health. He died after a few months, rendering her widowed in the alien village.

The woman was wailing in mourn. So was Ramesh. He knew for certain she was an expectant mother and she could not dare to return to her own village without her husband alive. Ramesh, who himself was in a sorry state, helped her as much as he could. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he could not put up with the pain the woman was suffering with the demise of her beloved husband, the only breadwinner. Grieved by the bereaved woman in the wake of her husband's death, Ramesh stopped drinking alcohol so that he could help her more.

Ramesh was invariably worried about the condition of the woman. She gave birth to a baby girl in time. Ramesh landed in trouble to find a mid-wife. The new mother's health went on deteriorating. On the twenty-second day of the baby's birth, the woman also died, rendering the baby parentless. Ramesh tossed and turned all night, crying his eyes out, because of the death of the woman.

Agreement was not there, but the woman put the responsibility of bringing up the infant on his shoulder. Poor Ramesh, playing the role of a mother, cradled the baby tenderly in his arms and bottled-fed her. He had no time even to think of drink – due to the snare of the illusion of love or the feeling of duty.

A middle-aged man is crushing stones, a baby girl keeping herself amused beside him. He bottle-feeds her every now and again and resumes the crushing. The clack arising from the crushers grinding stones into pieces has created a musical pattern in the ambience. Sometimes, the crushers jeer at the man, and warn him, "Brother, it will be an uphill task for you to rear this child without her mother."

He replied, "God has given me a heavy duty to bring up this child. I will not shrink from getting hitched if a woman is needed to nurse this baby. Ramesh Bahadur is my name."

As he said this, laughter from the fellow crushers rose high, boomed and died down in the air above the sandy bank.

Translated by – Chiranjivi Baral

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Deathbed Confession

He dared to shoot at me, and vice versa. It is not important to ask 'who opened the fire first'.

It's a civil war. He and I are armed adversaries to each others. Though we were friends in school, it bears no meaning now. Presumably, we fired off shots at the same time.

Like him, I was quite off balance when I saw him all at once. The gun in his hand could have killed me as 'kill your enemies and save your life' is the rule of war.

Both of us had received bullet injuries. He was hiding in a pit while I was camouflaging myself in bushes and watching his every activity.

He was strong. His friends and some others came and carried him away. He had seen where I was hiding. They could have killed me if he had shown me to them. However, he did not let it happen.

Helpless, injured and alone, I am waiting for death. All apprehension would end if he had finished me off. What is the value of the life of a person like me? My death would have been memorable if I had been killed in a war against foreign invaders. Unlucky, I am fighting a war against the people of my mother country. Shame on my military life!

I would not have harbored any remorse if my strength, bravery and military life had been used for a good cause, and I would die an easy death.

What can I do at this moment? I can only reminisce about my past, appraise my whole life, regret and shed tears. Time is running out. I can only live in the world of imagination for a few hours of the rest of my life, and I am doing.

How beautiful my birthplace is! I feel cool when I remember the breath-taking beauty of my village. My poor innocent mother! She was living in abject poverty. She had a hope to live fairly comfortably with the money I would earn. My mother ! My poor mother!! I become motionless when Mother comes in my mind. It breaks my heart. It causes me pain more than a bullet injury. Like Mother, what has become of Phulmaya, my wife? I can only heave a sigh of pain. Sigh, anguish, pain, agitation, restlessness…... Are they the ultimate achievements of life? I wonder if I must remember my small kids.

Even if I remember them and bless them, it has no meaning. What's the use of blessings when I will be in this world no more to support them?

Anyways, the sun will rise and a bright day will come. Won't the light of the sun and its warmth fall on my children's body? Rays of the bright sun will certainly fall on the shanties of the poor. I wish to see the shining sun. I pray the fog and the mist would lift and the damp night would end.

Will my villagers be sad to hear my death? They are sure to feel bereft because I was brought up by them. They may not be that dejected because, for them, I am fighting for protecting hurdles to their happiness. I cannot be a martyr as I have fought for the sake of some money. No one will sing a dirge for me nor will anyone offer flowers on my body. No one will be worried about the death of an innocent, anonymous , helpless soldier.

I have realized that the death in this quiet and secluded place is interesting. Not a single soul is here to care for me and express sympathy. I am lying in a pool of blood. I am waiting for my death, staring fixedly. My death is a low death. I am dying a shameful and anonymous death.

I had not been so ugly-minded and cruel before I joined the army. I remember how emotional and sensitive I was when a puppy was killed by me in vain. Can I make it rise from the grave? No, I can't. I was of the opinion that I had no right to kill others if I could not give them a new lease of life.

One can join the army only at the stake of intelligence, wisdom and kindness. I used to be too proud to see the villagers taking fright at me and my gun. During security check, I struck terror into the common people with anger, threatened them and felt boundless joy to see them miserable.

I was stimulated to shoot the gun anytime it came to my hand. During patrol, I suspected every one as a rebel. I had an illusion that all others were assistants of the rebels. Once I had opened fire at the villagers who had gone to the jungle to collect fodder and dry wood. Three of them died on the spot while many others received bullet injuries. Next day, the news came in the radio and newspapers that rebels were killed in an exchange of fire. I was promoted. Though I was perplexed in the wake of killing innocent lives, the promotion instilled high spirits into me.

Many events of this kind took place in the military life. More people were killed in the 'search operation' than in exchange of fire. I never forget the eyes of a pregnant woman who was among those I blew away. Her eyes, as I ruled out her motherhood, often ask me in my sleep, "Why did you commit the crime of depriving the baby in my womb of its right to be born?"

I used to think that I might be killed as I killed many others. I also thought that I would have to murder many people before I was finished off. I was so crazy about war that I could not think about anything, but the chances of killing others and being killed. I was made crazy about war. Perhaps, all the war-dedicated soldiers have the madness of this kind.

What is my crime? I am a soldier in the army who fight war for money. Guilty are those autocratic rulers who made soldiers inhumane, animalistic and cruel and used them against the people of their own country. Soldiers are disciplined and obedient like robots. They are dutiful.

I am still not dead. Why is my wait for death getting longer? Nothing would come in my mind if I died. It may be that I have not snuffed it so that I will be a little wise at least before death. I have remembered all my neighbors, villagers, kith and kin and friends.

He fired at me. He was a rebel. He wanted people's government and a complete change in the state policy. He could have killed me. But why did not he do so? Is it that he wanted me to burn in regret before death? The people would have rushed me to hospital for treatment and saved my life if they had been on my side. But as I am said to be siding against them, I am held in contempt.

He may have been taken to hospital by the people; or he may have died on the way. If he has died, 'Up with Brave Martyr' may have rented the air. His body may have been covered with flowers and garlands. I pay my last respect to him from here.

No, he may be still alive. There may be a crowd of people visiting him in the hospital. All of them may be respecting him as a freedom fighter. He may be surrounded by journalists and they may be taking his photos.

They may, if he is able to speak, be asking him how he received bullet injuries and who shot at him. Can he name me? No, he may not take my name, but he may tell them that a hired soldier had shot at him. He is a winner. I am a contemptible character; I do not want my name connected with him.

With the death approaching near, my thoughts have become free. An army man has no personal view. As he follows order and discipline, he does not work with his own discernment. However, my mind has started working now.

Time moves ahead; it cannot come back. Regressive forces try to turn the clock back. Their obstinacy has caused the death of the innocent people like me in vain. I am a regressive soldier. I did not quit the job and I am paying the price now.

All my colleagues were people's children. They resigned from the job and went to work hand in hand with people. All they did was right. It is traitorous for the people's children to fight against the people of their own country. I was a traitor, so I am waiting for a disdainful death. People will spit me in disgust as they have this right. I wish my body would be thrown into the river before people spat in it. Is it possible? Does it make any difference if you spit the corpse? Does it have any meaning worrying after death? However, at the last moment of my life, I have unbearable anguish when I surmise that people will hold me in contempt. This anguish is a thousand times more painful than a physical pain.

I am still not able to die. Is there rebirth? All nonsense! Man is born once only. If he does good works in this life, he remains alive for ever. What about the people like me? They are born and die, and everything ends with the death. The end would be interesting if it came without notice. Though I want to kick the bucket, I am still alive. What can I do in this eleventh hour of life? I am trying to obliterate the pain of bullet injuries through reverie. I am sure to die, but I wonder why the death has hummed and hawed.

It is a good fortune to think freely and act with our own discernment. I am availing myself of this opportunity at the last moment. That is why, this has become the best moment of my life.

This is the last moment of my life. The worldly feelings of love, affection, hate, greed, avarice, sin, anxiety and hunger are going to leave me. How light I am! I feel as if I am going to wander high in the limitless sky.

I could not, or was not allowed to, live the way I liked. Though I was always confined to others' interests and their rules, it is the first and the last time that I have been free. It has occurred to me that death is pleasant. Death is great. I am requesting the death, which frees us from all kinds of troubles, to come early and take me away.

I am bidding last adieu to all. Goodbye nature, trees, air, soil, plants, sky, water, humans, all living beings, atoms and minute particles. I wish all well. I am highly elated. I am going to be insensible eternally and embrace death. Now, it is useless to agonize over what is meaningful or meaningless. The ultimate truth of this worthless life is death. I am dead; I am at rest.

Translated by – Chiranjiwi Baral

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The Poor in the Cursed Age

Life is an amalgam of trifles. Joys and sorrows of life hang on the petty events. However, when we are deprived of even the trifles, we are, and will be, distressed. Life is to, with the feeling of pain, do day-to-day chores, be seemingly engaged in one thing or the other and get the mixed taste of joys and sorrows by hoping for the settled future. In the course of living the life, we are disheartened, and there is a sea of sorrows when our kith and kin fail to understand us. Sometimes, we feel as if our heart bursts out. We feel as though we tear the chest open and chop the liver into thousands of pieces. Nearest and dearest are the ones who hurt our feelings. The closer they are, the more pain they inflict on you. It is the nearest people who cause intolerable pain in you. If all the people toed your line, everything would be in order. However, the time is cursed. We are helpless. What can we do to bring the situation back in track? As I am not a man with supernatural power, I cannot do whatever I want. I am an ordinary man. I am like a leaf that flows down with the current of time. All the more, I can't stand the way my beloved Sushila can't understand this situation.

"You did nothing in your life. You can't do anything either," she took me to task for no apparent reason.

Her attack of words is more severe than the bomb that rips through your heart. Am I dispirited, destitute, meaningless, cowardice and dead? Is my life redundant? What have I done for whom? I worked day in day out like a beast of burden for my wife, children and family in the prime days of my life. I am going to be old as more than half of my age has passed, with hair growing grey. Teeth have started to fall off and I am getting weaker by the day. For whom have I fritter away my beautiful youth? Who did I use my valor, physical strength, wisdom and power for? What made me so miserable now? If I had used all these means for myself, what could not I have been?

I vent on ire when my own Sushila belittles me. I feel as if each of my activities is rendered incomplete by her insulting remarks. It seems as though the rice in a bronze cooking pot remains uncooked because water in the pot boils over and puts out the fire. I recount over three decades of my marital life with her. The pages have turned. I critically examine all the events of my days.

The years have flown so fast. I feel it was yesterday when I got spliced with Sushila. Her physical beauty had prompted me to marry her. I would have to marry any girl in the world. So, I don’t regret tying the knot with her. I cannot count how many times she wounded and got me down by hurling insulting remarks at me and gave a kick in the teeth. On my part, too, like a wounded lion, I hurled abusive words at her countless of times to hurt her and I made her cry. We were mired in a verbal war almost every day and night. In the beginning, her sarcastic taunt would make me toss in the bed like a fish out of water. I thought I would go mad or leave home for good or become a saint. As time went by, I mustered strength to cope with her unpleasant remarks and meanness. I withstood her meanness on my own. I am using the measures until today.

Many a time, I had thought of resorting to divorce so as to get rid of her uncouth manners. One day, I had threatened her 'to divorce and live apart'. "Return to me my youth first; then I will split up with you. You have exploited my beauty and youth, and now you are threatening to give me a divorce," she shouted at me aggressively. I admitted defeat reconciliation as I love reconciliation. Though her win in the row was painful to me, the more intense the exchange of barbs, the happier the feeling of being husband and wife.

Mostly, the reconciliation would be in the dead hour of night. Next morning, our conjugal life would become sweeter. It looked as if a dusty mirror has been rubbed spotlessly clean the next morning. Consequently, I have a family where sons are unruly, daughters-in-law are uncultured and grandchildren are rude. I have not got a chance to unload the burden of the family responsibility and take a back seat. I even cannot see the prospect of the hand-over as long as I am alive.

All the people carrying out the obligations of domestic life are cursed like Sisyphus. The prime days of life flit while clambering up to the top of the mountain of life and sliding down, and up and down again, as they must manage money for salt, oil, loan, interest, land revenue, water revenue, electricity bill, tax, telephone charge, installments etc. We are perplexed when the chances of getting released from the household chores in the old age are nowhere in sight. Sometimes, I wish I would live in the primitive age of the human history. This is just a daydreaming. I have no way but to wake up and smell the coffee. Keeping this reality in mind, I have been soldiering on the responsibility.

"Why could not I do anything? Why have not I been successful like others?"

These questions make my heart heavy. I could never be extraordinary, crafty and canny. Filled with honesty, faiths and principles, I could not trespass certain norms. Honesty did not let me secure my position in the sponsored intelligentsia and move with the time to fulfill my vested interest. I could not lose my weight and turn my nose up at my dignity (at least for me). An idealist – that I think it is far better to live a self-respected life in poverty than to kill your heart's call to amass wealth – I am living in fear in society. I never chose to be an autocrat myself, nor did I support autocracy. Is my progressive attitude to life is the root of the disorder in my family? I compare my past with others'. What is the use of the comparison? Some of my colleagues have moved on to higher things than me. I am down in the dumps when I spot them at the top of the stairs of success. Yet some others are far down at the bottom. I think, I am at least a number of steps ahead in the stairs. I am relieved to see them. I am agitated soon. Things are not always what they appear to be. I could not and cannot do anything in my life. Even in my wife's eyes, I am a good-for-nothing husband. I try to pore over my past and look over what mistakes I committed and when. What is the use of looking over them? I have spent my life this way or that. A certain period of life has slipped away and has become past. Life has slipped through my fingers. Why should I correct errors when I cannot restart my life from the scratch? Life is not like an unpublished poem that can be written, checked, rechecked, erased and rewritten if it does not interest us. Bygone days can be recollected and a long breath can be taken. We can be dejected and regret for failure. We can say, "Poor me!" We can pass the buck of failure to others. I have followed the suit. So has Sushila. She and my children put blame on me and complain that my failure to provide them with as much money as they are satisfied is my weakness.

My children were deprived of quality education. They repeatedly expressed their frustrations, "Why should we study if we don't get any job?" They said my weakness was that I could not afford to make them doctors and engineers. My inability to amass wealth to let them live in the lap of luxury, to manage the household expenses and waste the money as they wish has been my weakness.

"Don't stay idle. You must do something in your life," I advised my children.

However, they threaten me, "Shall we resort to carrying guns for rebels and go to the jungle?"

I quiver with fear when I hear the warning of going to the jungle. What a heart rending situation it is for the innocent and helpless parents and relatives whose sons and daughters, who could support them in their old age, have already taken up guns and gone into the jungle or have been killed in rebellion or in army! How unbearable their pain was! Going to the jungle or joining the army is okay because something is better than nothing. However, it needs courage and sacrifice. Taking up guns is next to impossible for those who stand on their fathers' feet and land up in addiction. Urban mixed culture cannot give birth to a courageous man who can push himself into fire. The youth who can sacrifice for prosperous future are good sons of the soil. Prosperity relies on their good work and devotion. I had hoped to be the father of good sons as such. However, my children have fallen prey to the meaningless modern absurd culture. I am the failure guardian of the failure children. The weakness is mine. Why was I unable to raise them under autocratic norms in the family?

The country has been suffocating under the sizzling sun. Nothing is in order. Infrastructure has been blown up. Feeling of insecurity prevails everywhere. Anyone can be killed any time, with extreme anarchy. Industrial activities are in a mess, business activities are put to a grinding halt. There is no production in the farm. Economic progress is reduced to zero. Development has turned into destruction. Financial transactions are nowhere in sight. There is no profit. Everyone is incurring loss. Poverty is getting more and more intense. Respite is nowhere in the horizon. Economy is frail. State coffers have been misused in importing arms and ammunition. The country is in a measurable state. The time has been cursed. Am I, a weak creature, alone responsible for my failure to do anything remarkable amidst such chaos and disorder? Guilty are those who contributed to this standoff. However, I still cannot console myself with such reasoning.

"You have been unable to do anything," Sushila bleats.

"Who did it all? You always stand in my way whenever I try to do something. A wife should spur her husband on and support him," I defend.

"Didn't I support you? What a hellish life you would have if I had not supported you? I have helped you throughout my life, and now I have become old, you see. Think a while please, what have I not done for you?" she retorts.

"You worked not only for me, but also for yourself. Do I only have the belly? Don't you and children have?" I argue.

"Are they only my offspring? They would be yours if they were good. You put blame on me when they are not able. The plough goes not well if the ploughman holds it not," she explains.

"Ok. Enough is enough. I am cowardice and incapable," I try to end the endless argument. The meaningless debate may trigger high blood pressure and mental stress. I turn aware. My wife, who I have lived with for 30-odd years, does not understand me. I spurn taking stance with the half-witted wife and compromise. I have always adopted compromise as a measure to run my family life, which is seemingly intact until today. Otherwise, it would have broken down long ago. In this old age, it must not, by any means, be broken.

Sushila feels an amazing victory. "Isn't it too much that I frequently looked down my husband?" she seems to regret and casts a loving glance at me. This kind of her love melts me and my whole life is moving like a stream. Is it my illusion or do all have the same family story?" I ask myself.

Sushila, who has helped me in joys and sorrows, is the dearest of all to me in the world. She has wounded my heart, but she has healed it much more than she has hurt. It is the life. We should push on with it by hook or by crook despite weaknesses or mistakes. Life is more beautiful as we don't know how long we live. Whose life is as wished at a time when guns and bombs ruled the nations? It may be that the time is to blame. The time is painful and people born out of time are pain-stricken. The weak and humble lives might have their fate altered if we could change the time.

Translated by – Chiranjivi Baral

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Continuity of Sin

Thoughts are not always positive. Like positive thoughts, negative ones can flow fast in different layers of mind. More importantly, negative thoughts give us the creeps. There is hardly any person who does not harbor negative thoughts. In the present situation when fear has gripped all, with cases of nightmarish violence, chains of heinous murders and frustrations, gloom and despair pervade every nook and corner. It seems as if a man is born to meet an untimely death when I see that so many people have been murdered across the nation each day.

Murders have not only taken place inside our country. Many people who have gone abroad for foreign employment have also been killed. The merciless murder of 12 Nepalis in Iraq has woken up the insensitive Nepali people to their plight. In protest and anger, an angry mob took to the streets. They vented their ire on the offices of manpower companies and newspapers. Two were killed in police firing in an excited mob in Kathmandu. One of the dead was going to tie the knot with a Japanese girl in a week and jet off to Japan. But death is mysterious; it comes unnoticed. Curfew was clamped. Tension-gripped Kathmandu returned to normal. The murder, violence and destruction in and abroad dealt a blow to all Nepali people.

Amid that horror, Okendraman began to think about death, albeit unwillingly. Death is an unpredictable truth. All of us have to die. Every living organism is doomed to die though it is uncertain when, where and how. He is too old. He also will have to leave this worldly love. We all know we must die one day. In spite of that, people act as if they are immortal because they must do. How does this world run if all people are indifferent to the worldly affairs and remain passive, thinking that they take nothing with them at last? Death is sure to come. It is inevitable. 'How do I die? Where and when?" Okendraman thinks. Death has varied forms. People die of illness long after they are bedridden, or they die on the spot in accidents, or rebels or enemies gun them down.

If Okendraman was asked to choose one of the types of death, he would wish to die while speaking in normal state of mind, with a short-time pain. He might also wish that he would, surrounded by his family members, friends and relatives, die at his own home in his own country.

"Okendraman, what you are thinking about?” He asked himself in fear. How painful, frightening and unpleasing it is even to think of death!

Okendraman is, if we see him from the point of view of today's people, is a successful man. Though he was born in a remote village, he is counted among the well-off and famous neo-rich. Politics, business and social work move around the neo-rich. Their constant efforts are aimed at gaining power and making the government dance to their tune. Money pours in when you have power. He had, since he joined politics, known the secret that power and politics can be kept under our control with the money amassed by using power and politics. Some people may have been in politics for various reasons, but he joined politics to amass wealth. His involvement in politics for the past couple of years has resulted in his acquaintance with policymakers, administrative chiefs and powerful persons in different sectors. He seemingly left politics, but he indirectly took up the reins of politics. He got his work done whichever party it was in power. He remained the indirect controller of politics. In a short period of time, he succeeded in scaling the peak of power and wealth.

Okendraman had, in his home inside a big compound, been wearing a gloomy appearance for many days. Time hanged heavy for his drivers – Bhadra Bahadur and Harka Bahadur. They would have to be in alert, for the boss would call them any time.

"What has happened to our boss? He has not gone anywhere for long?"

"Why should he go out? Money is pouring in. Things are in order."

"As far as I know, our boss is going to stop looking into household affairs. I have heard that he is going to hand over all the responsibilities to his sons and enjoy retirement."

While they were talking, they were suddenly asked to go somewhere. They sat on the driver seat. Okendraman and his wife sat in one vehicle and two servants in another. The vehicles moved off and stopped in front of a modern luxurious hotel. His youngest son Ojaswa was being involved in a ding-dong and vandalism as he drank too much. Okendraman was shocked to see the scene he had never imagined – that his son was in a disgusting state. "Is he my own son?" he asked himself in confusion because he had been rude to everyone and off his head. He was using course language. There were some wounds in his body. They took him under control with great difficulty and lifted him into the vehicle and brought him back home. What a pity! Their youngest son has fallen into addiction without their knowledge. He has fallen prey to drug addiction.

"What was our sin? God has meted out such a harsh punishment," Shreelaxmi, Okendraman's wife, complained, heaving a sigh of pain.

"Every sin brings punishment with it. Due to ostentatious lifestyle in the city, so-called modernity and money, we forgot our village. I aimed to earn money by hook or by crook. I went to great lengths to amass wealth. I abetted people to import drugs for money, but it is going to devastate me and my family. I am a sinner. I am going to be ruined due to the greed of wealth." Okendraman said to his wife, patting her with his warm and loving hand. "See, our drivers Bhadre and Harke are more successful than us. Their children are well-mannered and pursuing higher studies. Their children follow their advice. Their family life is happier than ours. We are cheated: we are deceived," he added.

In a bid to correct Ojaswa's habit, they tried their best, but in vain. He was spoiled even more than before. It put a lot of stress on them. Shreelaxmi lost her confidence. She fell ill. She was not restored to health. His enormous wealth failed to bring a smile to his beloved wife's face. She wasted away more and more by the day; and one day, she died, leaving him alone. In the wake of her death, Okendraman saw a dark chapter of his life ahead.

It has been a couple of years since Okendraman's eldest son split away from his parents and started living separately. Though the youngest son was ruined, the eldest son Ojhendraman was carrying his reputation. He was not only worried about his spoiled brother but also left no stone unturned to correct him. He kept him in a rehabilitation centre. Though engaged him in business when he slightly mended his ways, he ruined the business and returned to his habit. Old habits die hard. The tug of war between the two brothers was on. As his brother was ruined, Ojhendraman alone had taken on all the responsibilities to look after the business. In the wake of his wife's death, Okendraman was, leaving all his work, living like an ascetic. He had no shortage of material wealth. But he lost all his interest in it. Aversion to worldly affairs was getting thicker and thicker. Lost in frustration, he forgot to bring even the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. He was only waiting for death.

One day, Okendraman suddenly conked out. Ojhendraman rushed him to a renowned nursing home in the capital. Radios and newspapers hit the headline with 'Social reformer Okendraman hospitalized'. Very soon, there was such a big crowd of his well-wishers coming to visit him in the hospital that it looked like a pilgrimage site. Army and police personnel were deployed to control the mass. The administration managed to inform the crowd the latest development of his health in regular intervals. Journalists were jostling and shoving to collect the latest news about Okendraman's health. People in the crowd were saying that the health minister came to visit him and he has just returned, and the home minister is coming. Industrialists, businessmen and big men of the town had, in order to fulfill their duty, come to visit him and returned. People, at the nursing home, at chowks, in the lanes and in the streets, were talking about him. Every nook and cranny of the city was reverberated with his talk. He was the talk of the town. There were commentaries that Okendraman was gentle, kind, generous, wise and benevolent. Ministers and high-ranking officials were praising his virtues. They were reflecting how he gave them donations in elections and helped them achieve the coveted posts. All owed a debt of gratitude to him for his benevolence, and they were musing how they could return it. There was a competition to offer him help. Ministers misappropriated the ministry fund and civil servants embezzled money under different headings to extend him financial help. A bunch of workers were ready to donate him blood or offer him any help.

Ministers thought, "He helped me win the elections through financial and other supports and tricks, and now I am a minister. I have earned millions of rupees. The time is ripe to help him back."

"I have gained this position due to his recommendation and power. If he had not recommended my name to the minister I would never have reached this post. I have earned wealth and fame due to his help," high-ranking officials thought. "I need his help for my further progress. If only I could influence him at this time of need," junior staff were mulling over.

"I am working in his factory and now I have to return his generosity. He had helped me when my wife was ill. We can expect help from others only once, not twice. He is my boss and he will be a great help in need,” a worker thought.

"He helps us in need. Our benevolence to him will be paid off," another one cogitated.

"The time has come to strengthen relationship with him and make progress in trade, business and industries," traders, industrialists, businessmen and common people thought.

All of them were thinking about Okendraman differently. Though they were seeking their own advantage, they were ready to help him. "He is out of danger, we are investigating the cause of his pass-out," doctors involved in his treatment informed the visitors about his health. People from all walks of life were wishing his quick recovery. Religious devotees organized devotional rite, offered ritual worshipping to God for his good health. A mind-boggling sum of money was collected for the great sacrifice. Devotees thronged the site and all offered prayers. The organizers earned name, fame and money. Political activists and students took out rallies and distributed pamphlets demanding his further treatment abroad. Non-governmental organizations urged their sister organizations and INGOs to extend monetary help for his treatment. A number of volunteers showed readiness for his treatment. Ojhendraman also applied physical force, political power and all legal or illegal means for the sake of his father. He was testing whether practical knowledge of his father was developed in him or not. In the name of his father's treatment, he was developing rapports with people and whetted his knowledge and skills. Day by day, he was getting more popular and powerful. He was securing a vital position in society.

After some weeks, Okendraman's health improved. He was discharged from the nursing home. Doctors recommended that he be taken to Bangkok or England or America for further treatment. A grand party was thrown to celebrate his homecoming. Different factories sent their products in abundance and businessmen managed a large sum of money for the party. There were food and drink items galore. There were alcoholic drinks, meat, fish items and other delicacies aplenty. The house and its compound were bedecked with lamps and other decorative items. Okendraman was seated on a throne-like high chair with due respect. All the rich people, ministers, high-ranking officials and renowned figures of the town turned up. The party ambience was filled with new introduction, chats, feast, dances and music. Detail description was beyond words. After some time on his seat, Okendraman preferred not to stay there – maybe he was worn out or frustrated. He sat up to leave the place, but he was not allowed to go without speaking a few words. He gave a short speech: "I would like to thank all my well-wishers. I don't want to live my life any more. I wish to die in my own country. I would also like to request my relatives and well-wishers not to take the trouble of my further treatment. Thank you."

The program hall echoed with a round of applause for his weighty speech. "How great he is! What patriotism!" sycophants praised him. Though Okendraman walked off the program to another room with distress and frustration, the party continued the whole night. Some of them drank like a fish while others ate to the full and returned home. Yet some others shook their leg throughout the night. Anyways, they fully enjoyed the party.

Okendraman did not budge from his stance to get treatment in the country. He refused to go abroad though everything had been managed to take him to the foreign well-equipped hospital. Ministers had already sanctioned money in the name of financial help to political victims. Non-government organizations had managed the hospital and doctors. Passports and visas had been issued to five persons on the pretext of attending to the critical patient. Businessmen and industrialists had already managed a huge sum of money for his treatment. Rameshwor had assumed the responsibility for those arrangements. When everything was had been arranged, Okendraman threw a spanner in the works, saying he would not go abraod. What is the way out? All were on the horns of a dilemma. Everyone was trying to convince Okendraman, but in vain.

Two months passed in a bid to convince him. Day by day, he ate less, talked less and grew thinner and looked more pitiable. All who had seen his attractive personality and glory were astonished to see his condition at present. It was natural for them to be wonderstruck because a lion had looked like a drowned rat. He often thought what he gained from the world of material wealth he had created and what he had lost. He thought that he had sowed good culture and wished to see the continuity of the cultured world, but he has realized that he had sowed the seed of poison which is extending its branches. Now he is reaping what he had sowed: he and his family have fallen prey to this. Where are the excitements, joys and motivation of life that he wished for? He cannot cry because it does not bring the mess in order. The destructed things cannot be repaired. He cannot laugh. At a time when there is pain in mind and heart, how can he laugh? He knew well – love, intimacy and affection shown to him were not genuine. Everyone wants to be great by showing false affection and love. His son Ojhendraman has also participated in the race of false love in order to be great.

It is said that grief is the cancer of the heart. Okendraman fainted again. Like 'where there's a will there's a way', everyone was going to get their wishes fulfilled. The process to jet him off abroad resumed. Ojhendraman wanted to show off in society by spending millions of rupees in his father's treatment. Ministers wanted to send him to the foreign countries using government fund so that they seemed great and powerful. It would fulfill their self-interests. Industrialists and traders were of the view that the time was ripe to show unity of business fraternity and wanted not to let the opportunity slip through their fingers. Okendraman had, for the past few years, experienced too much of shock, torture, stress and hassle. First shock – his youngest son had ruined his life; second shock – his daughters turned a modern doll; third shock – his wife died. It had become his fate to live among many shocks. Bad things went befalling him which he never imagined. Things happened against his will. The unlimited wealth which he had accumulated with tricks and conspiracies at his own risk became the main cause of his mental agony. With the advent of the unlimited property, peace and happiness disappeared. He was not able to give enough time even to his wife. He never got time to enjoy with his family. Running after money, his youth and the whole life frittered away. What did he gain at the latter part of his life?

Okendraman was soaked from top to bottom with the rain of selfishness. He was a wily old fox. He would know how the wind was blowing and make strategies accordingly. He would go to any extreme for money but he would cover up his bad deeds with false colors. He used to say – "Man has a stomach. So, those who have a stomach cannot be selfless." It is your practical knowledge to show them a carrot and lead them to the pit for your advantage. Man is by birth selfish. He had countless acquaintances. They were seemingly his friends, but they were not friends in need. His belief that his friends were selfish as he himself was selfish come true. Only his true friend could understand his mental shock, pressure, stress and pain. He could not get sympathy, love, reassurances and encouragement at the time of need. He was all alone after his beloved wife's death. Gradually, he became mentally weak and unhealthy as he lost his strength to bear up mental shocks.

He could expect nothing from his spoiled children. He was like a machine only to manage their expenses. He is not sure whether it was his weakness or the weakness of society not to have taught the children manner, culture and the course of life. Man is not a machine. Feelings of love, pity, affection and sympathy are the colors and modes of life. As he failed to fill these colours and modes in his life, family and society, he has been deprived of these human attributes at this time of his life when he needs them most. He could not get these attributes from his friends as they were all selfish. When he could not get any help to allay his agony, he felt his life was very insipid, tasteless and pitiable. He knew he was doomed to endure shocks. He tried to feel liberated and insensitive. But unhealthy mind gives birth to unhealthy body. His body picked up new diseases never seen before. Even his body went out of his control.

Okendraman was hospitalized again. He suffered a heart disease. There was also a tumor in his brain. He had to undergo heart and brain operations. He had no desire to live more as the desire to live had died long before. He wished to have a 'mercy death' if possible. But he was moved mechanically like a puppet by Ojhendraman and the selfish group of people he had formed. The process of diagnosis and experiment was constantly on. Particular doctors, and certain laboratory, pathology and hospital were in his destiny. His body was not under his control. There was no dearth of money. Doctors were carrying out tests of blood, urine, phlegm, skin and many others. On the one hand, there were heaps of medicines, vitamins, fruits and nourishing food; on the other hand, there were doctors, nurses, injections, saline and tablets. Two doctors and four nurses were, turn by turn, attending to him continuously. Renowned specialists made visit every now and then and some foreign doctors were also invited for his treatment. His body turned like a dummy. Doctors and nurses were frequently pouring. They again came and went back. They were so busy that it was difficult to know doctors, nurses and medicines. No one knew what medicines were being administered for what disease. They were so busy – some were injecting medicines others were injecting saline into his body, while some others were taking out blood samples and yet others were taking urine to laboratory. Okendraman knew nothing as he was senseless. Two months passed in pain, anguish and confusion. Amid monotonous activities, routine meals, medicines, tests and the crowd of visitors, he did not know who came and went. All had come to visit him in the hospital, but his youngest son Ojaswa. What is he doing? It cut him to the quick, but he could not speak his mind. There was no one who would listen to him and feel sympathy. No one had time to understand woes, pains and feelings of others. All the people involved in his treatment were guided by their own interests to fulfill their duty. He had become a job for some and business for some others. Their business would run smoothly if he could be prevented from dying. If he died, a large section of society would get no work. They had focused on saving his body, not his feelings. His heart had endured tortures and woes in various forms. Now was the turn of his body.

Five persons – Okendraman, Ojhendraman, his daughter-in-law, Rameshwar and his wife – went to Bangkok. Okendraman started receiving treatment in an Intensive Care Unit of a reputable hospital in Bangkok. Again the boring process of treatment started. The rich patient had gone to hospital with a bundle of dollars. They applied every possible means for his treatment. The hospital took the responsibility of his treatment. Ojhendraman and other members of his team went out for wonderful jaunts in Bangkok and spent a couple of days. They were not concerned about returning Okendraman back home in Nepal after complete recovery. Their only concern was that if he was dead, their enjoyable trip would be incomplete. The big hospital averted his death and recommended them to take the patient to America for further treatment. Preparations to take him to America had been made in Nepal. So there was no problem. After a two-week stay in Bangkok, they flew off to America.

Okendraman was to undergo head operation in a New York hospital. The operation was successful. He started walking slowly as if he was walking in sleep. He was fed a lot of food and made strong and energetic. He would eat meals like a robot, sit and stroll, but there were neither smiles in his lips nor tears in eyes. There was not any one to talk to. His sons and daughter-in-law were busy roaming. When his body would be strong enough, he would undergo another heart operation. He was fed a lot of food. Like a sacrificial beast, his heart operation was carried out after he was made strong. Needless to say, the operation was successful as it was carried out by world renowned doctors in the most powerful country in the world. Despite the successful operation, his health problem flared up again in other parts of the body. As he felt difficulty in breathing, he was kept alive on the ventilator. He was entangled with different types of machines and wires. Some of them were measuring blood circulation rate while some others were measuring his heartbeat. In this way, his body remained alive for a month. It's destiny! When chances were slim to return to his good health, his body was allowed to die. His mind and body were declared dead. The news of his death spread in Nepal like a wildfire.

"When will Okendraman be brought back?"

"We must attend his funeral procession.”

"Why should we go to the funeral procession of the sinner?"

"How is he a sinner? All the people in the town are going to join the cortege saying that he was a social reformer."

"To sow the seed of trouble in society and give troubles to others is a sin. Those who can go to any extremes for the sake of money are the causes and sources of sin. They have made the world full of tears and polluted."

"If so is the case, there are many people, almost all, who commit any crime for money are all sinners."

"That's true. We all are more or less sinners. The quantities, types and degrees of sin may vary. Those who deliberately give troubles to others are great sinners.”

"Okendraman was a great sinner because he would egg on people with belly to be selfish. He was the leader of the sinners who developed and expanded the net of selfishness and created a sinful society."

"Is is possible to find a selfless man?"

"We may not find a completely selfless person but there are some benevolent and generous people who try to give up selfishness."

"Okendraman has also done many works for the welfare of people."

"His works were meant for earning money and fame in society by pulling the wool over people's eyes. So, they don't come under benevolence."

"It's no use flogging a dead horse. He has died."

"Poor Okendraman! He had wished to die in his own country, but he died in the foreign land."

"He had died in the country long back. He had died on the day when the feeling of responsibility to his country and other human attributes like love, kindness, affection, sympathy etc disappeared from his mind."

"No, he had died at a time when he started running after money at the cost of his life, thinking that money was everything."

"Money is an amazing thing. Unlimited wealth doesn't let a person live in peace and pleasure; neither does it let him die a happy death. If he had been poor, he would have died peacefully among his relatives in his own country. Though he had already died, his body also couldn't get peace. His body received many wounds, holes and cuts for treatment and ended, finally. His body endured injections, cuts. He underwent surgeries, tests and many experiments. A rich man's body is a 'guinea pig' for investigation, tests and experiments that are carried out at his expense. In this sense, the body of a rich man unknowingly contributes to development of the health sector. However, money does not only inflict pain on our mind, it also hurts our body even after death. Great fools are they who run after such deleterious money. Ha ha ha ha."

In this way, people were discussing various issues. They were giving their positive and negative comments on life and the world. The process to understand and experience life is on. Everyone is endowed with rights to experience and understand life on their own way. Those who knew Okendraman well expressed their views and opinions about him for the last time. Okendramans are a small ring of a long chain of sin in society. People like Okendraman can give birth to selfish groups of people like Ojhendramans or rebels. Anyways, one Okendraman died. Let's see now how his last rites were performed.

Okendraman's body was brought to Kathmandu. The body was taken, amid a crowd, to the office of the federation of industries and commerce and placed for a few hours on the premises of the office for the last honor. Thousands paid their last respects to him with abir , flowers, garlands and khadas . After that his body was taken to cremation ground, with huge crowds following the procession. Traffic was snarled due to the crowds of corteges and observers. There was a sea of mourners. The prime minister, ministers, leaders of political parties and people holding high positions also came to the cremation site to pay their last respects. Modern brass band music was played to honor him. He was cremated with high respect and bogus show. The cremation attendants returned home after last rites were complete and they deleted him from their mind for ever and ever……….

And, all of them again participated in the continuity of sin.

Translated by – Chiranjivi Baral

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The Soggy Wheat

A farmer makes a good fortune if his crops flourish. However, as the rice crops failed to grow best this year, the farmers have pinned their hopes on wheat. They have no way but somehow to manage the annual household expenses, meet their children's yearning for palatable food and beautiful clothes, pay their school fees, pay off the principal and interest of loan and so on with the money they earn by selling wheat. They are eagerly waiting to see how much wheat they will have this year and what its price will be. Like farmers, the luck of tractor owners and threshing machine owners has linked with the wheat crops.

Running after the rumor that a tractor would make a big profit, I put up my arable land as collateral for loan to buy a tractor. I thought, "Why should not I invest in a thresher when I buy a tractor?" So, I bought a threshing machine, too, in a loan. After that I have landed in a vicious circle of financial crisis as I have to spend the income from the tractor on paying installments of the loan and its interest, giving the driver his monthly salary and buying diesel, grease and repair parts. Now, like others, I have pinned hopes on wheat. There is a fierce competition among tractors and threshers. I am sure to face difficult straits if I fail to make profit this year. I am a bit apprehensive.

Sometimes, a strident, cacophonous and grating sound also gives us much pleasure like a beautiful piece of music. It has occurred to me now why people wish to hear such cacophony. I have nailed down why people of a bus park vicinity are unwilling to budge from their stance not to shift the bus park from their area though they are well aware of the fact that it causes air pollution, sound pollution and produces unhealthy waste. I have come to know why the hurly-burly and the hubbub of the bus park area have given them such a pleasure like music. I now feel the same pleasure when I hear the irritating thunder of the tractor and the thresher. The thundering sound produced together by the two machines is linked with my heartbeat. I can stay loose and have a good night's sleep. When the sound of the machines dies down before the work is completed, l am choked as if someone has clobbered me with his fist on my chest, and I rush to the spot where the two machines are working just to know why they stopped to whirr.

It is said that a drowning man will clutch at a straw. I have taken the tractor and the threshing machine as the last straw. This year, I will earn at least 300 maund wheat as the threshing wage on a pro-rata basis, if not more than 500, and make up for the loss I have incurred the whole year. My plans to clear the loan and bail the family out of the dire straits are linked with the rumbles of the two machines.

My hopes that the tractor would bless my house with prosperity and happiness would go up were dashed when the tractor gathered dust as no work was available. I thought I bought the tractor in an evil hour.

There is no peace in the country. The tractor would be busy if there were lots of development projects. I paid the driver his salary though there was no work for him. I had bought the thresher, like the tractor, because I thought it would get work at the time of wheat harvest, only to add to the loan.

Even the tractor failed to generate any profitable income. When there was work, there was no diesel; when diesel was available, there was no land to till. The tilling season flew with no work. I had decided to gain profit from the thresher and make all necessary preparations in advance. I tried my best for early preparations. But the tractor played games with me at the time of harvest. The tractor went inoperable. It was too late when it came into operation after a couple of days. Despite delay, I took the tractor to the wheat field. The wheat belonging to my neighbor had already been threshed before I reached there. I got a work in a village beyond the river. The tractor which was carrying the thresher could not move ahead halfway, on its way to the village. The tube of a tire was punctured. It was one day late when the puncture was mended resulting in one day loss in the total earning days.

The thresher got to work on threshing wheat. A number of farmers requested me to get their wheat threshed. I was quite at a loss while making a list of the farmers and their turn. The machine was threshing at a full swing; wheat grains were falling off the straws and the pile was bumping up. The collective sound of the tractor and the thresher was giving me a musical pleasure.

"See, there is chaff coming with the grains," said the farmer.

"The wind may have blown the chaff and mixed it with the grains," I defended.

"But they are coming to excess," he added.

When I examined, I saw the chaff in the grains was more than I had imagined. I got the thresher checked and found out that there was a big hole in the filter plate. It was a serious problem. It had to be welded. The filter plate, then, was taken to the nearest workshop for repair, only to find that the shop was closed. 'Nepal Bandh' had its effect on the workshop, much to my embarrassment. The machine was then taken to the city for repair. Irony was that the thresher that was to work in the wheat field was rolling along the city road. The wage quantity was on the wane. I returned from the workshop having had the filter plate welded. I saw someone else's thresher working with a loud sound in the wheat field where my thresher was supposed to work. I was shocked. "Fortune did not smile on me," I consoled myself.

There was no dearth of work. Another farmer requested me for threshing. "Is the road operable? Can our tractor move along the road?" I asked him. "Of course it goes. I have got it repaired and terraces have been made plain. We have collected wheat produced in four bighas of land in one place. Neighbors have also wheat to get threshed," elaborated the farmer.

"Make necessary preparations. The thresher will come soon," I assured him.

After having tea at the house of the farmer whose wheat had been threshed, I proceeded towards the field where the tractor had headed. The tractor had fallen into a brook. The more we tried to remove it from the there, the deeper it sunk. "I am an unlucky man. What a bad luck!" I cursed myself silently. "Dream on! You have threshed the wheat of four bighas of land."

I had no way but to call another tractor. It was already dusk before the mired tractor was released and the other one arrived. I asked the farmer to bring the wheat, of the four bighas of land, on this side of the canal and took the thresher to some other place for work.

The thresher worked in fits and starts. It took it more than two hours to thresh the wheat that had to be completed in an hour. It has consumed more than double the fuel than it usually does.

The wheat stalks and sheaves are all wet in water and shrunk. It seems the machine has difficulty in threshing. "A heavy rain had soaked the stalks but we dried them in the sun," said the farmer.

"What's the use of drying the bundles without untying the string?" retorted the labor.

Anyway, the machine completed the task of threshing with difficulty though the stalks were wet and damp. I still had a hope to get the wheat stalks dry. Every farmer would say, "I have dry wheat sheltered in the tent."

But all the wheat sheaves were of the same kind – damp and wet. It was irrelevant to expect profit at a time when the tractor consumed excessive fuel. Despite profit, the tractor and the thresher were getting work. The harsh cacophonous sounds of the tractor and the thresher have still given me a pleasure of music.

Brownish wheat grains are falling off the thresher. The labors are putting the bundles of wheat into the machine while farmers are bringing the sheaves from the field. The grains are piling up. Some workers are constantly measuring the quantity of wheat grains packing them in sacks. The farmers' investment in the wheat and hard labor is going to be paid off. They are eagerly congregating around the thresher to know how much wheat they would have this year. Farmers are the workers who sweat more blood than others. They nourish birds and rats, besides human beings. Great are the farmers.

Farmers become happy as a lark when they harvest the crops produced with their labor. The brightness appeared on their face while threshing is attractive, enchanting and sweet to watch. I am always keen on seeing this happy look of the farmers. I forget the troubles the tractor and the thresher have given me when I see the signs of satisfaction on their face.

There is a big stack of wheat meant for threshing, and a smaller one at the side of it. I look into the eyes of the poor farmer who owns the smaller stack. His dreams are interwoven with that small stack. The wheat bundles of the poor farmer are put into the thresher. The poor farmer's turn comes after the bigger stack is finished. Small and thin seeds of wheat are dropping off the machine in small quantities. His wheat crops did not flourish this year. It can hardly help him return the investment. Wheat farming is very expensive. It flourishes only when we till the land, sow high quality seeds, use fertilizers and irrigate on time. For all this, one must have strength to invest. The dreams of that poor farmer, who is unable to make a required investment on wheat, are shattered like mine. I am a bit blue.

I returned home in the dusk leaving the thresher behind. When I reached home, I saw some people waiting for me. I knew they were rebels. We exchanged our words and views. We served them evening meal, but we could not manage a good place for them to sleep.

"We don't get so much love and respect in the house of a feudal as in a plebian," they vented their spleen on me and left the house. I thought my days to live in the village were gone. I was sandwiched between crippling debts from the bank and creditors. The land that was used as collateral for loan to buy the thresher and the tractor was going to be put up for auction. I had bought the tractor and the thresher with a hope that I would pay off the loan with the profit they made. I had emerged as an owner of the machines in loan. Now I was accused of being a feudal. Oh God! I am a feudal! I feared possible physical punishment. I cursed myself for biting off more than I could chew.

I know who feudal lords are. I thresh their wheat. They have healthy and plump wheat grains falling off the thresher, whereas a poor farmer produces wheat grains that are light and thin. A feudal's face becomes bright with smiles when he sees his grains. On the contrary, a poor farmer's face gets more wrinkles when he sees his small and thin grains. Is it just to call me a 'feudal' in the circumstances when, like farmers, I don't get the return of sweat.

The soggy wheat stalks are completely dry in the sizzling sun. The machine is smoothly threshing. I gee workers up to fling themselves into work. Wheat grains are piling up. Other farmers are eagerly waiting for their turn. There is no dearth of work. My shattered dreams start to regain their shape. Optimistic, I brave for any hurdle that may come on my way. There was no option but to face innumerable troubles created by the tractor since I bought it. Suddenly, the sky thunders and black clouds hover over me.

"It may bucket down," the farmers are frightened, "the wheat may go to the pot if the rain dampens them again, and it causes the prices to plunge."

No one is more powerful than nature. It rained cats and dogs in a day of Chaitra. With the wheat getting wet in the downpour in the dry season, I was disappointed. My mind was soaked to the skin more than the body. The bundles of wheat crops were all drenched. The thresher stopped running and I was deprived of the musical pleasure the sound gave me. I ran off the field to find a sheltered place to protect myself from the cloud-burst.

Translated by- Chiranjivi Barai

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The Heartless Heart

Death of the father makes one a half orphan; death of the mother orphans one to the full. Although the mother is alive and well, her son is like an orphan. My daughter-in-law has no concern about her child. My wife is filled with pity. Though she is ill, she pours all her love and warm affection on to her grandson so that he does not feel lovelorn. She feeds and takes him to sleep on time and cares for him. She is scrupulous that there is lack of nothing in his upbringing. When we brought our children up, we had, of course, a tacit expectation that they would care for us in our feeble old age. The expectation and dream have shattered. Nevertheless, the grandmother wishes the daughter-in-law would look after the grandson, if not us.

Poor innocent grandchild! He feels loneliness for want of mother's love. Childhood is the golden age when everything is new. A child experiences, learns and understands new things, puts them into memory, perceives them appropriately and expresses them in words. A child experiences good and bad things; feels love, affection, disdain, mockery, hate, discrimination and differences; and expresses them naturally. In this virtuous and pure age, they smile, laugh and make the ambience cheerful if they are pleased; they yell to protest and vent ire if they are unhappy. They need love of their parents, family members and relatives most. This is the age to lie down flat on mother's lap and smile, laugh and cry.

"I am thinking of telling the son about her. She goes out of the house on the pretext of taking tiffin to her child in his school," says my wife.

"What to tell him? They may think the parents have tried to break the relation of husband and wife. We may be questioned in vain," I say to her. After all, I am also averse to the daughter-in-law for her disobedience and rashness. While we were abroad, she would come home late. Our mother herself took pain to prepare food. Mother had told us that she had not come back home for some nights. I had dismissed it as a petty issue.

While we were here, she would return in time in the evening. However, she has been coming home too late for the past few days. No different is the son since he does not come home before 10 pm. It's too much. The daughter-in-law has not come yet. I call my son on his cell phone: "Daughter-in-law has not come back yet; neither have you. The children's plight is measurable."

"She has gone to her mother's house. She will come back tomorrow only," replied the son over the phone after a while. I guessed he replied us after asking her on phone. What should we say? The daughter-in-law should have been under the son's control. He himself has no concern about her. We cannot leave the old mother and the grandchildren famished. My wife, who never knew weariness, supported me in ups and downs. Today, I'm in this position and able to stand on the foundation of my belief and view because of her support and company. She has never deviated from her duty till the date. She prepares food for her mother-in-law, me and the children. "I had expected the son and the daughter-in-law would look after us in our old age. On the contrary, I am looking after them," she expostulates.

"What can we do? Time has turned modern, and women have been free. The daughter-in-law cannot be the old generation woman like you, who is confined in the kitchen," I soothe her, with a feeling of bitterness.

"Our son is a henpecked man and cowardice as he cannot bring his wife under control. He doesn't work. He has also spoiled his wife. He let her follow fashion and made her a blind follower of so-called modern culture," she adds.

"But how?" I ask.

The daughter-in-law has been depraved since last year. I had reported the son: "The baby is too young. Don't send her away from home for the meaningless six-month/three-month training." He turned his deaf ear and sent her for training. He sold earnings and bought a scooter for her. He has no job, and hence no income. Why did she need the scooter? He bit off what he could not chew. It's like casting pears before a swine. After he bought the scooter, she rode to every nook and corner of the city. She was not able to stay even a second at home in the day. She has stopped coming home even at night.

"When an ass kicks you, never tell it," she remonstrates. "There is nothing to groan when the son said she had gone to her mother's house. Our son, a mug, is tied to his wife's apron strings. He doesn't know his wife is cheating him."

"She may not have been faithless yet," I try to assuage her anger.

"She has already been unfaithful to him. Neighbors have come across her many a time in hotels and restaurants," she spills the beans. "I think, she has fallen in love with others. She is playing with them or they are playing with her. Where is she disappeared the whole day, otherwise? She is a shameless hussy and adulterous. She returns home in the evening, tipsy. She has blackened the image of our family. She is not worried about the baby."

"You should not say this," I try to make her calm. "We are blessed with the grandchild, so we have to thank the daughter-in-law. She has given the children for us. The granddaughters have grown up. The grandson is still young. He will grow bigger soon. What else do we need?"

"What an innocent husband! I'm quite staggered. You say what else we need. What is not needed?" she retorts. "Shouldn't she look after us as she is our daughter-in-law? Shouldn't she care for our mother? Shouldn't she look after her children? Shouldn't she take care of home? She must have looked after the baby son, if not home. The baby boy is in my care. I will, by any means, take care of my grandchild as long as I am okay. Even if that adulterous woman elopes, I won't grow my grandson weaker than others."

"I admire the very boldness of yours. However, you often fall ill. What can we old people do? How long do we live? We will die tomorrow, if not today," I still try to calm her down.

"How pessimistic you are! Never trouble till trouble troubles you. Our grandchildren should not feel parentless as long as we are alive. We cannot get rid of our responsibility just because we fear death. We must fulfill our moral duty despite illness. We must take care of our grandchildren by hook or by crook," she shows her stance.

She is absolutely right. Now we cannot confidently rely on the daughter-in-law. The son just butters us up and advocates her. Her lovers have begun calling her on the home number. She has connected herself to Facebook and Internet in her cell phone. I also spend hours in Internet, Facebook and in literary networks. I have met hundreds of litterateurs in the Internet and Facebook. The computer has been a useful tool for me. Although we can learn new things and knowledge, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, chat and video games have also become means to spoil children. Her cell phone is seen attached to her ears 24 hours. Every now and then, she looks at the screen of the cell phone. I don't know who she talks to on the mobile phone. How busy she looks! She has ceased to take care of the house. She is always looking for the chances to evade work, bringing one or the other pretext to escape. She is untraceable all day long once she slopes off.

Old age! We are sexagenarians–worn out and enervated. We cannot do what we wish to do. We are worried how we can look after the grandchildren and the octogenarian mother. We are bothered about how to keep the family in order.

"After all, this is the modern age, with feasts, get-togethers, birthday parties, dance parties, various meetings and celebrations galore. Today's daughters-in-law, unlike those of our time, snub to be boxed in by kitchen work. We know only about our daughter-in-law. Time has changed and all daughters-in-law have moved with it. The elderly people in the neighborhood are facing the same plight," I add, but my wife is pouring her heart out rather than listening to me.

"Neighbors know what is happening inside the house more than we do," my wife spills out her resentment. "The daughter-in-law has tainted the fame of the family. I want her to go abroad rather than be a woman of evil reputation. Our son has vicious anger. The situation will turn worse and shameful if he beats her to death. Let's talk to her. Let's send her to the foreign land if she agrees," we discuss, with unbearable agony in our hearts.

"But who will look after the grandson?" she asks.

"Has she cared for him even when she is here? She is away from the house the whole day. She does not come back home even at night. We can't say anything against her." I explain.

We fear our children in the ripe old age. We have no way but to follow what they say. The older we grow, the weaker we become. However, we have more responsibility and worldly love than before. When I was single, I had love for myself only. With the number of children and relatives growing, I have more love and worry for them.

The daughter-in-law is issued with a passport. She seems to be slightly corrected because she has done household work as before. We talk with the son and agree not to send her abroad as we hoped that she would shake her habit. We are worried how our twilight years could be safe. If the son and daughter-in-law took care of the house, my wife and I would feel free and complete, in the rest of our life, the work that we have not been able to yet. However, I end up in 'keeping a dog and barking oneself' situation. They are in haste to send the baby son to Montessori School. Despite our objection, the grandson is sent to school. He spends the whole day in school. After he returns home, he searches for parents calling, "Mother, Mother". He looks sad when he sees neither his dad nor mom. He looks really sad. The grandmother changes his school dress in no time, stroking him affectionately.

The grandchild's feeling of loneliness renders us unhappy. We cannot say why we feel so. All our dreams have remained incomplete – we did not achieve what we had wished for; nor did we get what we had searched for. We had hoped our children would fulfill our dreams. As they failed to live up to our expectation, we have counted on the grandchildren. We find the continuity of our ephemeral life and dreams in the grandchildren – just the continuity of dreams.

I had read that one son and daughter-in-law living in the USA called up on their old parents to the USA. As they were living in the country like ours where old parents depend on their sons, they left for the USA. The son and the daughter-in-law both were doing jobs. The son worked in another city. A man called Jackson, a US dude, was staying with them as a 'paying guest'. He would help them in shopping, cooking, taking children to school and some household work. Though the old parents had taken everything for granted, they could not stand the illicit relation between Jackson and the daughter-in-law. The mother was filled with anguish when she saw them sleeping together. Poor parents, who had wished to see a daughter-in-law utterly faithful to her husband like Sabitri! When they reported the shocking news to their son, he dismissed it as a 'minor event'. The old parents could not swallow the utter indecency. In the declining years, they returned, in frustration, to their own country as they found it hard to assimilate into the different culture and lifestyle of that country.

Old cultures, lifestyles, traditions and customs are being replaced by new ones by the day. With the advent of new ideas and practice, old people like us have become outdated generations following old and narrow ideas. The mother-child bond is always absolute and unchanging whatever the age and civilization is. Mother's love and affection makes the life of a child comfortable, wonderful and beautiful. Is not she a mother who gives life to a child and shapes its future by protecting it from hurdles, difficulties and pains?

Can a job-holder mother, in the modern age, give up the leisure time she has achieved with great difficulty for the sake of her children? Nowadays, children are like mass-produced goods. Right from the age of three, they fall in the cruel hand of the teachers of Playgroup, Nursery and KG grades. To live in suppression is their first learning. Their first face-to-face is with fear, horror and terror created by the teacher. They can neither smile nor cry naturally. How is natural development possible under the shadow of fear and terror?

As the kids in school are like soldiers, who collectively show unquestioning obedience, and have pressure to sail through exams at any cost, time is nowhere in sight for them to show child obstinacy on mother's lap. Why do parents have to worry about all-round development of their little ones after they have handed them to day-care centers and Montessori schools? Poor modern day kiddies! They are deprived of the taste of natural life.

My grandson cannot be an exception. My wife and I wish he had natural development and enjoyed adequate love of his parents. Our wish only is not enough. The daughter-in-law has blindly imitated modern life. Modern generations put own desires, interests, self-existence, identity, self-satisfaction, personal life and individual freedom on the topmost place.

We are filled with dismay to see the change. In compensation, we give him grandparents' love – as he is deprived of motherly love – but in vain because nothing in the world compares with mother's love. We are again downhearted.

Since one person's income is not enough to run the family, the husband and the wife both have started working, albeit in compulsion, unwillingly. Must not they look after their children in the name of earning money? It is insensible.

When women go outside for work, they return home tired; and hence, unable to give proper care to their little ones.

"After all, she is disobeying us. Is it sensible for her to enjoy, taking no responsibility of her kids, her personal freedom and luxury just because I'm taking care of her kiddies?" my wife asked indignantly.

"It may not be luxury. If our lifestyle goes up once, it cannot come down easily. She must fuel her scooter, earn for her daily expenses and look no poorer than her friends. She may have been searching for a job," I say to her, with a little sympathetic tone.

Her activities are affecting us, negatively rather than positively. I am shouldering her responsibility. The extra duty has also come on my shoulder as I have to help her. I have carried the family burden like a beast of burden. My heart's desire to hand over, in declining years, new generations my life-long experiences, knowledge and skills through literary writing is going to go up in smoke.

"Where has mother gone?" asks the eldest granddaughter.

"Why do you ask me? Phone your mother yourself and ask her," answers the grandmother.

"I have called her quite a number of times, but the line's not connected," she explains. The eldest granddaughter can help her granny in some small household work. Though the youngest one likes, like her sister, to help the grandma, she is still too young. The grandmother has a great hope that both of them will give her a helping hand after a few years.

The daughter-in-law has not come home for three days. She might have gone to her mother's home. The son, too, is away. He inquires about her when he comes. He calls her on her cell phone. We overhear the phone talk.

"Where are you?" the son asks.

"At the airport," she answers.

"Why have you gone to the airport?"

"I'm going abroad. I have already been 'in' in the airport."

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you ask me?"

"Would you agree with me?"

"You should have, at least once, asked me for permission."

"………Take well care of the child."

"Don't talk about the child. Okay, you will leave by any means. Don't shed crocodile tears. Have a safe journey. Don't cry."

"…………."

"I don't need any money you will earn. I would have seen you off at the airport had you told me."

"……………."

My wife and I are shocked to hear the news. We feel as if we are going to conk out. Job opportunities in the country are nil. Why would she have gone to the foreign land if there were jobs galore in our own land? What a surprise! What a mockery of the modern age! Can a daughter-in-law go abroad, leaving behind a nipper, without taking permission from any of her family members? The grandson has become an orphan though his mother is alive. We are worried how he will be brought up.

People are heartless. The gaudiness, artificiality and material prosperity has displaced the heart of a man. In search of personal happiness, individual freedom, ambitions and self-centeredness, and in the blind race of modern material prosperity, the heart of a mother has ceased to be motherly; a mother's heart is her heart no more.

It brings a lump to my throat. It's too early to deduce whether or not the daughter-in-law will return home. Even if she comes back, it will take years. By then, the grandson will be too old to sit in her lap. Cruel time will have killed the trace of the mother-child relation.

My grandson is going to be like other children who are parentless despite the fact that their parents are alive. My eyes mist over though I try to choke back agony. We grandparents and our son gulp back the tears and pains and gaze at each other in dismay. Translated by- Chiranjivi Baral

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Recluse Sage Great Man

‘Manav Sansar’ is a small world for the aged, old to easily live a life and to await death. There are child center, old resting shelter and hospital. There is the availability of the context, environment and physical infrastructure in order to generate the creative work of art. Different old people are living toward the last phase of their lives on earth no matter how voluntary or compulsory. They quite share different types of disposition, perspective and activeness, and are extremely distinct from one another. If one makes a hair-splitting analysis to understand all these aged, it can create a stunning, interesting and pathetic tale of their lives they lived at the different stages and at the same time pains and sorrowful nights untold and unfilled so far do not remain unexpressed.

I get to that place with the curiosity to know the Recluse Sage Great Man residing in the very ‘Manav Sansar’, always under severe meditation.

I see a host of the old people. It looks as if they are discussing on some serious subject. I wait, remaining aloof and distancing myself for a short while.

“Is there a Recluse Sage Great Man too?” I call an old man and ask him.

“The Sage, the Great Man are present,” the old Dhanpal replies.

“Can you call up him and bring him here?” I ask. “Not right now, a debate terminates in half an hour. After that, I can call up,” answers he, eying greedily.

“If so, I want to chat with you and spend half an hour’s time. Do you have a spare time?”

“Certainly, I do. But who is it? Why do you want to talk to people like us, whose days are numbered and have shorter time than required,” he asks.

“I am a freelance journalist. I want to publish an introductory report of The Recluse Sage Great Man in the magazine “ Shantipur”. I think spending half an hour would be good in a conversation with you.”

“Yes. I am ready.”

“How come you have lived in this old man shelter? I want to understand_ do you have a family with some kinsmen like son and daughter, son and daughter-in-laws, spouse and relatives or not? How is the management in this old man shelter? Are you satisfied here? And in your opinion…?”

“O my god! What an arrow of questions at one time! You as a journalist want to know everything at one go if you have gotten the chances to ask. Just ask in turns with patience.” He is a jolly man and laughs heartily ‘ha…ha…ha…!’

“Ha…ha…ha…’ I can’t help laughing. He is light-hearted, staying calm and serious before him would make me uncultured, asocial and informal and for fear of being ridiculed I laugh and say, “Journalists like us have the habit of flinging a shower of questions _like the rain. It is our responsibility to find out the fact with the shooting of the tangible questions. Do not get angry or laugh. For now I will ask you only one question. Ha…ha… ha…

‘Ha…ha… ha…’he also laughs. When we laugh, we are far away from the tensed world and instantly land into the tense-free environment of intimacy, amicability, and selfless love of a friend.

“How did you come to this Manav Sansar to live here?”

“How did I happen to come and live here? It is a question associated with my life upon which I’ve had reflections several times and understood _life is a game. Playing and frolicking, I’ve traveled to this stage… the last part of life from where no point of return is possible. You might feel bored when you hear a tale of listless life.” Being grave and serious, he looks at me.

“No, I don’t. If so, I’d never have picked the topic, questioning you. Tell everything that has happened without concealing it. Maybe it is a raw material for the magazine.”

“It’s me…” He looks up on the far horizon. It looks as if he was lost in thought of the past and lived life long ago. He coughs and clears his throat. Then he begins to narrate it _ “Well I…”

All of a sudden he seemed to be lost elsewhere. He held up, stopped as he spoke and hid his face behind me turning on the other side. For a while, I notice his shoulder shake. Why did he turn round on other side? Does he want to hide his anguish or does he begin to cry, lost in his past memory? He turns towards me after a moment. Blinking his eyes, he begins as he laughs. “How much of it shall I narrate that to you? How much shall I conceal? I can’t decide so I’m confounded.” He walks a little further in the pretext of my sight and comes into my vision.

Like before, he has experienced a feel of freshness within him. He begins to narrate a tale of pathos: “Every time I narrate the past of my own, almost repressed in my psyche, the scare still scratches my heart and aches awfully like it is prodded again. However, I have a feel of a strange satisfaction whenever my heart aches. I narrate this tale of my own sufferings repeatedly (if someone is ready to listen) and do so quite often. While I narrate it, it draws me back to my past impossible to reverse and at the same time I stay under illusion. I feel bad when I realize how futile and meaningless life appears to be. I get disillusioned in life. If ever I weep while narrating, do not consider me as a weak and useless figure. Now I am adept in narration of the tales of my own like a tape-recorder or CD that rewinds. What aging means to all is the past beyond the amendment and rectification once lived through and the last phase of one’s life in which he recalls, retells the past, laments and rejoices.” He glances at me.

“Yes, do tell me. I understand.” I say, “Don’t worry. In case you behave abnormally, cry and laugh, I would not mind. Pretend that you’re acting the so-called, ignorant spectator in a theatre.”

I look at a group of the old people seated in a circle. Still they are engaged in discussion with the different gestures. Therefore I am not in a hurry. I busy myself in hearing what Dhanpal says.

“I was not that strong as I look like a stout man now. The sense organs of mine were not developed completely. To do some work properly I needed the other’s instructions. I could not do on my own. I was almost half silly and had no confidence of completing the assigned job at all due to inferiority complex. My parents were very poor. Siblings were many in number. When I grew up to be big enough it was quite impossible to make two square’s meal for all the children all of whom were freely left and sent on the roads to begging. Like the fledglings and nestlings that can fly on their nests we used to wander walk around every corner of the village city Road Street and homes in search of food.”

“I happened to be a rickshaw puller growing up as a street-hawk child. After I became a rickshaw puller and could eat good food I grew up very young…” he went on to say. There the discussion among the old has ended. Getting up, all walk away. Interrupting him in the middle of the talk I tell him “They might have terminated their discussion. They are walking. Please call and bring the Recluse Sage Great man here.”

“Don’t you listen to all I say?” he asks.

“I will listen some other day” I tell him.

“No not now I will end my talk in a few seconds. After the talk is over would it not better to see the Sage ,Great man in their room?”

“If so that’s fine” reluctant I say.

“I, like a non-stop bus, will wrap up my talk just soon. He began to give the background. A marriage proposal with a refugee young girl came to a poor rickshaw puller like me a son of the great poor. The fact that I had earned nothing but the clothes on my body was reported. The girl agreed. We married each other. A son was born to us. After the son’s birth Sarala was not satisfied with me and unhappy. After that, she developed the extra marital relation with a rich widower. She made illicit relation with that man. The neighbors counseled and warned them, however they were caught red-handed and then brought to the police station. Sarala then eloped. With me remained a small son Samden. I educated Samden from a Boarding school with the money I earned, pulling a rickshaw. Since he was good at study he became a doctor on a scholarship. The son, a doctor, married a bride as my daughter-in-law of a noble family. And then…”

He stopped. But I am filled with curiosity and ask “What happened next? Where are your son and daughter-in-law now?”

“I lived together with them for some years. On that occasion I grew strong and healthy and learned to read and write back then. Since then my dumbness has healed. They have gone abroad. The grandsons and granddaughters are also born to them I hear that. Until they return, they have left me in this old shelter home. Years have gone by so I think they never will come back. By the time they come back I will have died if they return. Ha… ha…ha…” He laughed heartily.

I laugh too. But I feel restless and impatient and can’t stop telling so. I say “How ironic! How life cheats! You have done everything and faced several difficulties to bring up and educate him. But now they live in a foreign country rather than look after you…”

“Let’s now go and see them. Please you move ahead.”

The two old have sat in a small but neat room. Both stand for a warm reception to see us with much curiosity in their eyes. I implore “Please be seated. I, a journalist from Shantipur Newspaper, want to see the Recluse Sage Great man”.

“Take a seat. You are meeting the three of us one at a time” an old man reports.

“Who are three of them? How is it so?” I inquire.

“Recluse, sage and great man are all three of us. While we live and walk together people pronounce our name simultaneously. In so doing, many of them are under illusion that a single person attaches all of these names.”

“Which of you are a recluse, sage and great man?”

“The one who you followed just now is a recluse. His wife eloped when he was young. Then he bred his son educated and made him an able man facing hardships and living in poverty. Knowing this, people have called him a recluse” the old a former speaker remarks.

“Ah! confused terribly, I am looking for him thinking that to be one. If I had known you were a recluse I would have listened to the tales of yours in much detail.”

“So what went wrong then? I reported more or less a short account of that. To add spice to it, adjust it as per the taste and make it sound poetic is the job of the listener.” A recluse Dhanpal says, “If a listener has no feelings, the detailed narrative sounds uninteresting. When a listener has the capacity of turning feelings, imagination and tale into a work of art, the event retold in brief is interesting. Ha…ha…ha…”

“Ha…ha…ha…” we all laugh. The style he uses in narration and the way he laughes provokes laughter in all of us.

“ Now which of you is a sage? And the great man?”

“ Guess, Who’s who?” a recluse says.

I look at both. On their face are seen some seriousness, time-eroded tyranny, and secular impact. One of the two is short. Pointing him, I call, “This is a Great man.”

Ha…ha… ha…” we all burst in prolonged laughter which shakes the room. The room if walled with low proportion of cement would have cracked.

“That’s the correct guess. The principle of compensation and the people’s habit of turning thought into fun might make compensation while addressing the low profile figure as a great man, ha…ha…ha…”

Laughter! Laughter that is hearty relieves people’s tension and brings intimacy among people. This creates a power so that they develop intimate relation .Thus I begin to consider them as my close relatives. Frankly I ask them “ How did you happen to arrive at this Old care center? What have you experienced in life yet? And do you have any?”

“Lo and behold. Again you are asking many questions at one time,” the recluse reminds.

They burst into a prolonged laughter after the reporter alludes a saying_ “Quite naturally who quits one’s die-hard habit? It’s like a new bride licking a spatula in Nepalese culture”.

“ Ha… ha…ha… Let’s not laugh now. If we go onto laugh we waste time without our knowledge. Let’s come to the point,” the sage says.

“ Now retell a tale of your life you have lived and experienced until today in turns. That’s what I have come here for”, he implores.

“Okay.” They both narrate it together. They look at each other and begin to give an account, “ You, Go ahead.”

“ No, no. You do it first.”

“ Who’ll first try it? Let me think of a way-out. Both decide to take turns on the coin toss_ heads and tails. Agreed?” Recluse Dhanpal tosses a coin that drops on the ground. “Heads”, yells the sage.

“ I win the bet”, shouts the sage like a gambler. “Now listen to my past and life of pains and sufferings. I was an aggressive, young man. I was a heavy drunkard. One night I get drunk and reach home very late. I turn on the light. What do I see to my utter surprise? A stranger is sleeping with my wife. Overpowered with anger, I attack both with a Katti (short sword). But what a surprise! Strange! Intense emotion died down suddenly. Fury calmed down. My hands could not move when the Katti held in my hand fell on the floor. Both run off. Their lives are spared. This stops me from becoming a bloody murderer. However betrayal and pain from within me erupt like a volcano and I walk away, leaving home automatically and with no definite destination to reach yet. I turn out to be a sage as I wander. Having walked many miles, I have arrived at Manav sansar, a halting place for the old and weary. That’s the end of my tale and is all about life”.

He gazes at us .“This much is left out of life. This sage may have remembered that like him I will shed a few drops of tears out of sympathy after the sad story of life has been narrated.”

“ You hard-hearted, insensitive man do not weep”, the sage says.

“ I don’t weep like you, you know. Why should we depreciate life we have spent in tears? That was life so we should be proud remembering it”, the Recluse says.

“ You rascals! You, do not quarrel like cats and dogs before the journalist. Do not expose your inner beast-like nature”, the great man roars.

Both remain quiet. After a while the sage says, “ Great man, it is your turn.”

The great man opens a chest. Inside the chest lies a portrait almost color of which has faded. He takes out that. Showing us that portrait, he says, “This portrait is a big satire on my life.”

There is a young man, a pretty woman and a child like a cute doll on her lap in the portrait.

“This portrait was enveloped within a small letter which was mailed on my address. I felt like tearing it into pieces as soon as I received it. I was about to tear it but my conscience stopped and spoke_ ‘ Do not tear. Keep it. It will be of great use some other day.’ I did not tear it and kept it. Later, it turned out to be useful”, the great man continues to say.

“ How did you make use of it?” I asks with curiosity.

“Puspa, the then spouse and I loved each other passionately and such love is seen in every newly married couple. I thought I could not live without her. She kept thinking so. Being a son of the rich, I did not have the financial difficulty. Happiness, prosperity and peace prevailed in the family members. Minutes and minutes ,day and day , month and month and years ….Thus years passed by gradually without my slightest knowledge. In the five, six or eight years of time, the married life turned into frustration, grief and boredom in absence of the offspring. Now then I hate Pushpa blaming on her as infertile woman.

In her later life she also did not unleash her mouth. The family feud continued every day and night. I felt hurt deeply in the neighboring village when I heard the remark ‘You’re without a son.’ I poured that anger over Pushpa and blamed her for that. It was her fate that she got beaten every day. The in-laws of his insulted and ignored her calling her as infertile. She became feeble and fragile because of pains and grief. One night I thrashed her and ousted her from home.

Afterwards she left home; I don’t know where she went. I didn’t bother to look for her. The neighbors suspected me whether I might kill a wife and hide the body but the maternal side could not take any legal fight in the absence of the concrete evidence. I also panicked and had great fear if only she committed suicide. Nearly three years after she went I received a letter which contained this portrait. She had written in a letter_ ‘I am fertile. There stood beside me my husband and our son seated on a lap. You are impotent and cannot give the son.’

I am shocked and grieved at this biting remark as though hundreds of bees stung me and hundreds of pointed niddles pierced my heart. She avenged her insult and injustice sending a photograph that tell the happy life of hers and left no other way to prove my impotence. Am I impotent?

I almost ended my life though. My inner voice shook me off. You, do not produce an evidence of your liar and cowardice, committing suicide. You also show her the proof with a son from the remarriage.

Certainly I’ll show that whore. But with the passage of time the desire to remarry vanished in the thin air. If only I could not produce the son even from remarriage…I was terrified at the spell of the medical test at hospital. On examination the truth would be revealed. Really I was incompetent, was I? What’s the reality? In fact I wanted to abort the truth without the knowledge of the fact. This photo aimed a big satire on life because Pushpa eloped showing that photo. I cannot disclose the truth in the society as a proof. I am alone fighting my own battle against conscience and was living life with pains at heart.

After that, I diverted all my strength and energy in an attempt to amass wealth. I made great money with all my might. I served my parents until death. I was utterly lonely after their death which created the void in life. My kins--brothers and cousins—had been living with the expectation of getting the shares in my property after my life was gone. Rather than distributing the hard-earned property, I donated that to Manav Sansar. Consequently, I am living here peacefully and happily. I am awaiting easy death and ready to embrace death heroically like other old people. The rogue recluse has called me ‘great man’ instead of calling me as short person in insult. Now I’ve inherited the title as great man. Who can become the great giving away the slightest, dismal thing like property?”

The recluse, sage and great man have different personalities yet there lies friendship and intimacy among the three persons. Seeing this strong bond among them, I think they are not separate but they are one. I cannot divide them into three pieces, separating one from the other and I don’t want to, either. I make resolutions to portray the three men as a recluse, sage and great man united as single in the magazine.

Translated by Bidur Rai

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Another Ray of Sunshine

“Have you ever cried in secret?”

She asked. What a heart-touching question! It stirred up sad memories of secret cries that had been forgotten. None of my private moments has left me dry-eyed. Is there anyone who has never cried in secret? What's the use of it? Don't you cry when your heart is broken?

I am lost in contemplation when the questions of this kind come into my mind. They bring a lump to my throat and render me speechless. Silent, I darted a glance at her and found that she was staring at me. She looked as though she was taking a trip down memory lane.

Her real name was something else, but after her song 'Juni' was a super hit, her stage name became Juni-Uni. Juni-Uni was a craze and celebrity in the world of music and songs, with her fans, well-wishers and followers spreading all over the globe. In the world of glamour, she earned name and fame, and money was pouring in. Whatever she did – whether she laughed, talked, danced or sang – created quite a stir. She was always a subject of concern for her countless curious well-wishers who longed to know what she was doing. Millions of her fans clicked 'Like' on her Facebook page. Social network sites like Twitter, Facebook, Blog and Google were filled with comments about her. There was hardly any day when newspapers, radios and televisions did not play her records and write about her. So, she turned out to be a renowned celebrity.

Juni-Uni reached the peak of her public career. She had, in her public life, never been seen in tears. She lived amid fanfare, pomp, glitz and gaiety. Her song still echoes in my heart, and I can't help thinking about the life she was living.

Her voice was the gift of nature. She was so wrapped up in singing that, with zeal and eagerness, she did not realize what was going on around her. Her fans were increasing by the day not only because she was nice in voice but also because she was the paragon of beauty. She would be surrounded by her fans wherever she went. She had to look happy all the time in order to entertain the fans. Connoisseurs commented that, on the basis of effect on audience, her song Juni was the 'opposite version' of 'Gloomy Sunday'. Many listeners of Gloomy Sunday had resorted to committing suicide; so the song had been banned and all of its records destroyed; whereas, Juni was reported to have made audiences exalted and encouraged them to live more. Popularity of the song was increasing. We were never satisfied listening to it in that the more we listened, the more we liked it.

Was the singer of such a powerful song, who stepped up to the peak of success of name, fame and wealth through the stairs of singing, equally successful in her personal life too?

What does a man need in life – money, fame and work or satisfaction, joy and love? Juni-Uni was besieged by her fans anywhere she went, and blossoms of praise were showered on her. Those who had heard her songs once would jostle their way through the mob to look her and feel content just to have seen her. In a weird and wonderful way to welcome her, well-wishers would chant ‘Hail Juni-Uni’ in praise. She always had to have a big smile on her face amidst the crowd of people who wanted to have her autograph and take photographs with her. She was invariably besieged by journalists, fans, lyricists, musicians, political leaders and actors, but did she achieve all she was aching for?

I remember, once she had said to me, “I have achieved everything in one world, but I haven't even seen the other world, let alone achievement, I am wishing for.”

“What kind of world is that?” I had asked her.

“The world which I haven’t experienced, but I always pine for it. My inner mind wants to reach that world. I wish eagerly to be there,” she had said.

“These words coming out of your mouth are so lyrical that they must be searching for music.…I can't make head nor tail of what you’re saying,” I had said.

Since then I realized though Juni-Uni was, seemingly, so full that she might spill over, her inner world was empty. She had an empty mind and a mountain of dissatisfaction causing her pain and chasing her.

She had passed through peaks and troughs. Like the course of a river, sometimes she was a high cascade, sometimes a deep and still pond, sometimes a torrential stream, and mostly, she flowed down like crystal water. Some people enjoyed and slaked their thirst just by looking at her. A good many people liked her. She was empty inside despite residing in countless hearts. She knew impalpable pain, agony and distress was filling every inch of her heart.

We were only two in the room. She had already bolted the door. She said, “I want to cry my eyes out for hours for the last time today before you.”

“Why must you cry? Why is it the last time?” I asked her, but unknowingly tears came to my eyes as I was used to crying.

There is hardly any secret occasion when I have not shed tears. Whenever I am alone, I remember my son and weep. Though I try to control myself, the memories of the son come flooding back and make me wail. It’s the mother's heart. Still I have hope he will return. It will remain intact until his whereabouts is known. If he had attained martyrdom in People's War or was killed in war or succumbed to any disease right before my eyes… I would have sobbed my heart out for some time and forgotten… or consoled myself saying that it was inevitable destiny. He had, before he left the house, said he would return, but he had not come back for so many years.

It is not confirmed whether he is dead or alive. He has neither written nor phoned up us. In the present world connected by the web of information and communications, his whereabouts is not known. A phone call and a letter I had received years back are reminders of him and means to reduce me to tears. Really, where is he? Why did not he come in contact? Many mothers have, like me, been weeping buckets in memory of their disappeared sons. I couldn’t control myself. Tears streamed incessantly down my cheeks and dropped off the chin. I ignored it and let them roll down. I thought, “Let the helpless mothers’ tears come down!” There was no eyewitness of my falling tears, except Juni-Uni. After all, it was she who prompted me to cry…

She was also weeping. Like mine, tears were, dampening her cheeks, going down her chin to the breast. We didn't need to tell each other the reason why we were in tears; both of us knew our pains. Had we made an agreement to cry at this moment? Why was she crying with me? As I was a mother I could understand a mother's feelings and pains. We were crying for worthless life, stone-hearted sons and kindless hearts… We were, after knowing absurdity of the whole world, crying for worthlessness, aversion to the worldly affairs, nothingness, illusion, incompleteness, ephemerality, ignorance, greed, love, attachment, birth, life and death and all others….

Since there was no one besides two of us, we could cry louder and louder without any restrain. It's fortunate to get a chance to cry because it sweeps away all pains, agonies, torments, impurities, complaints, derisions and mockeries. Nothing came between. We were transparent like an open book, and we knew each other well.

Her first husband was not her first love, but the first sacrifice. She was longing to marry Samdok, her first love, who also wanted to tie the knot with her, but he died of blood cancer. The song she sang in mourning became an elegy. It was fascinating, pleasant and music to millions ears. She started having a meteoric rise to success in the field of singing.

With the passage of time, in course of singing, intimacy was established with a lyricist and they tied the knot. A son was born, bringing immense joy and completeness in their life. She was totally absorbed in the world of music. One day, she saw her son sleeping in bed due to illness when she had returned after a musical program. She rushed him to hospital, only to find, according to doctors, it was too late. He was suffering from pneumonia. The chest was moving up and down, with rasping breath, while he was breathing. The son passed away in her lap. She helplessly faced the grief of the death of her first child. After all we all have to bear the pain… however deep the wound is.

She did not sing any song in the wake of her son's death due to grief. The lyricist often encouraged her to sing. Seeing that her sweet voice was going to gather dust, he made her come-back, swearing to his own life, but he disappeared from this meaningless world. No one knew where he went. After search for days, his body was found on the bank of the Koshi River. Since he was not the man of a weak disposition, his death – whether someone killed him or he committed suicide – was shrouded in mystery.

Shattered by the death of her husband and son, she took to drink. It taught her to dance and pretend to laugh and enjoy in the artificial world of entertainment. A so-called modern 'society' was formed around her, startlingly showy; and she emerged as the image of modernity. The so-called modern world heartily welcomed her.

She earned popularity in a rapid pace. Singing gave her money, name and companionship. She accumulated tens of millions, but frittered away a lot of money. She helped cronies as much as she could. Spendthrift, she had no concern about the level of her income. A stage show, whether in or abroad, would earn her hundreds of thousands. With audio and video records of her songs being sold unceasingly, she was rolling in royalty. Many people took advantage of her generosity. Journalists never backed away from creating scandal by connecting her name with rich youths. In order to protect herself from such allegations, she married the musician.

It was not a marriage as such, rather an agreement in business. She would sing in his music. Her songs were super hits one after another. She was made an actress in a film. In God's will, all winds bring rain in that the film she starred also was a super hit. A superb singer and actress – Juni-Uni.

She couldn't bear another child as, with her career at its peak, she couldn’t afford time. With her shining in the world of glitz and glamour, she became a money-spinner and made a pile. She not only accumulated wealth but also made an ocean of it. Was it an ocean or a desert? The ocean of wealth was akin to a desert for her. She was mewling because, she thought, she lost her true self because she was able to be neither a drop in the ocean nor a sand particle in a desert.

Like her, I have experienced peaks and troughs. My friend, who could be a shoulder to cry on, was filled with grief like me. I knew which side of her heart was aching; she knew what I was grieving for. Nevertheless, we were helpless. We could only shed tears in pain because we were unable to heal each other for pleasure. We could break down in tears, but do nothing more.

Today itself, there was a piece of news in a newspaper with the headline 'Mother commits suicide in Seti River after snakebite kills son'. In the wake of the snakebite, he was rushed to hospital, only to find he could not be cured as it was too late. While the body was being taken to a nearby church, as some people suggested that the child could be revived there, the mother took her own life by diving into the river. Her husband had died of cancer a year before. The son was the only soul on whom all her hopes to live were resting. That mother dared to commit suicide, but can I follow her suit? I cannot do like her. I still have a forlorn hope in one corner of my heart that my son will come back to me. People are so malicious that despite knowing that my son has been missing, in order to hurt me they asked me, “Does your son call you? Where is he? When will he come back?”

Whenever I could not cope with the outpouring of grief, I would tell them, and myself, “Yes, he often calls me. He is going to come after a few days.”

Discouraged, I have a deep ocean of tears inside, and it will not dry up however much I cry. Instead, it causes more and more agonies. Alas, the agony triggered by the missing son! May even an enemy for seven lives not face the pain of this sort! Oh God! How painful! How agonizing! How horrible!...........Difficult to put up with! I have been coping with such a horrible pain for the past 20 years………..20 years!

“For 20 years!” I blurted out with wail.

“For 20 years…,” she repeated, looking at me, her eyes reflecting unfathomable pain, feeling deep sympathy for me.

Twenty years is a long period for the life of a man. He had gone to a foreign land 23 years ago and he would turn 43 now if he was alive. (I cannot imagine that he may die). He had said he would return in five years, but he has not come back for so many years. So long years in wait! I whined, and words came out of the mouth involuntarily: “How unkind son I have borne! He forgot me and his father. He forgot his birthplace and duty. Has anything wrong happened to him? I fear if he met his death in the foreign land. What happened to him? How can I know about him? Oh God! I don't believe in the existence of God. If there was God, He would have responded to my plea – a mother's plea.”

“Don’t wail. We have cried for long. Now let's transform this cry into strength. Let's change it into a firm determination and action. Wipe your tears,” she said. “After 21 years, Tallaghare Maili's son has returned home. Rumors were that her son, who had been sent to China with drugs by smugglers, was hung there after arrest. Maili died in course of waiting for her son. However, her daughter-in-law was, bringing up her 6-month-old child, awaiting his return. Her husband came back, finally. Be patient.”

“But…,” I could not utter anything more than this.

“No, I can’t see you cry anymore,” she said, adding, “Who do I have? To people's eye, the musician is my husband. He has children from his elder wife. They are lovely to him. My own child died young out of abject scarcity and grinding poverty. My husband resorted to committing suicide, for he couldn’t struggle in life. I am alone. You have children and grandchildren from your daughters' side. You can satisfy yourself by holding hope on them. But see me. I’ve no descendant. I have enough wealth, but I can’t use it; I don't have any children to use it. I want to hand over the responsibility of using that wealth to you.”

“What responsibility?” I asked her. Knocks at the door were heard. She cleaned her face, and mine too, with a towel. Then she adjusted her make-up and opened the door.

“Hey, you?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, me. It's been two hours. People have crowded the house, the yard and the streets. They are repeatedly asking what you two are doing here.” said my husband.

“We are making a grand plan,” she said“Yes, I was looking at you through the CCTV camera from the next room. I wept as much as you did,” he said.

“Oh, really? You clever brother-in-law!” she said in surprise, wearing attractive smiles.

As soon as all three of us had come out of the house, long-waiting journalists and fans besieged us. To my surprise, she organized a press meet, keeping the journalists around her.

“I am going to inform you about the only plan I have had that I want to donate my entire property for the establishment and operation of a ‘hospital for children’.” Pointing at me, she added, “For this, my bosom friend will chair the management committee. Now onwards, I will organize musical programs across the world, whose objective will be to spread the 'Mother's Message" worldwide. The money collected from the programs will be used for the hospital. I'm sure the enlightening programs will reunite the separated ones – mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives and brothers and friends.”

The journalists and others present in the meet welcomed her declaration with a big round of applause. Then she whispered in my ear, “You also come along. Let's search for another ray of sunshine.”

Translated by -Chiranjivi Baral

*****************************************************

The Endless Light

I step ahead as I have to go ahead. In the light of the rising sun, I spot coins strewn all over the ground and pick up one of them to put into my pocket. Still one more coin is shining in the grassy earth. All at once, I take a pause and stop collecting coins. Worry grips me.

I am riddled with a barrage of questions aimed at myself: Were not there any companions? Where have they disappeared, if yes? Had I used any conveyance to come here? How could I land in this unknown place if I had not come by any vehicle? Who am I? What am I here for? Where did I come from and where am I going to? What, how, which way and where are the puzzling questions pursuing me.

I look around with a hope to find a tree for fruits. One of the trees in the densely woods catches my eyes and I walk to it straightaway.

The tree is bearing no fruits; nor are there any leaves. Instead, countless of bills are rustling in the breeze. I pick up the notes with great excitement. Not after long, I feel the coins in my pockets too heavy to carry. I fish out the pocket coins and throw them away one after the other until only one of them remains as a residue.

The coins roll down the hill with sound. There arises a sound pattern, as the coins roll down, hit the rocks, chime each other or halt on the ground. The sound is an inexplicable music to my ears which I have never had a chance to hear. I am fascinated.

I have plucked a number of notes from the tree. I want to make wads and tie them down. What, however, can I use to tie them down? I pluck my hair one after another to pack the notes. I tie virtually a bagful of wads of bills.

In a while, the tree bearing the paper money blots out the sun and I feel cold. As the cold grows severe, I sit under the tree shivering, grinding my teeth. This is the first time I have ever felt such trembling cold. I am very much in need of fire. I frisk myself and find a remaining coin. I rub the coin against a stone to kindle fire. The coin sparks and kindles like a lamp. Then I throw the wads of notes into the fire. The notes are reduced to ashes. The heat of the fire keeps me warm. With the warmth of the fire, I feel all alone once.

I again want to see someone as my other half. It is said that God says, “If you wish, I will fulfill it.” The entire forest turns so bright like a flash of lightning that I shut my eyes. When I slowly open my closed eyes, I see a gorgeous young girl in front of me. Quite stunned, I ask her, ‘Who are you?”

“I'm your life partner destined for ever,” replies the beauty queen. I have now been bestowed with a spouse. Elated, I take her in my embrace. Quite a number of children appear in the scene. They are said to be our progeny. I am now engulfed with family. I am again trapped in the worldly affairs and ask her, “What do these kids feed?”

“We can live by eating soil,” answers my better half. We start digging earth. We make a heap of soil and sit around it. No sooner has she gobbled down the soil than she herself turns a mound of soil. Same is the fate with the offspring. Scared, I throw away the soil I have been ready to eat. I am bereaved by the death of my wife and children. Pain and anguish of the tragedy tears my heart apart and I burst into tears. While the heart is pounding, a deafening sound makes the forest quiver. Two ferocious and terrifying monsters appear before me. They pounce on me in a flash. “Man, the pounding of your heart like the boom of a drum has disturbed our sleep. You have woken us up from the somber of ages. Now each of us will ask you a question. The one whose question you can answer will devour you and eat your flesh,” they threaten me.

“I am alone: my wife and children have died and relatives have left me. Any of you can eat me,” I say to them, adding, “I wish to go to them in the heaven because I am bereaved and grieved.”

“One of us will eat you only if you answer right,” explains another monster with pale complexion.

“Ask me the question pronto,” I assert as I resolve to snuff it early.

“What is consciouslessness?” asks a black giant.

I stand purposefully speechless as I know they will kill me if I remain silent.

“What is consciouslessness?” the black demon repeats the question. I remain tight-lipped again.

“What is consciouslessness?” he asks me the third time.

If we are not in fear of our life, nothing in the world can fear us. I keep mum.

“Mortal, you are right. No answer is the right answer, for there is no definition of consciouslessness,” the giant explains with a roaring laughter, his mouth wide open. “Now, I will eat your flesh,” he says and lets out a loud guffaw.

Knowing that my days are numbered, I suddenly remember all-powerful God. I regret that I have never prayed to God. Drops of tears roll down my cheeks. The tears have only just dropped onto the mass of soil when there appear a light that never puts out. And the monsters disappear.

Everything vanishes; everything disappears. The only thing that exists is the light. Amazingly, I transform into the light. I am absorbed into the light. All feelings and experiences come to an end. It is the end of sensitivity and existence. There is only the light. No one is alive to put it out. It has existed for ages and ages.

I am in the form of the light.

When will the light extinguish? I am waiting, in the form of the light, for the day when I can be mixed up in eternity and enjoy the divine bliss.

I am waiting for the light to blow out. Will it snuff out? Will I enjoy the heavenly happiness?

The light of consciouslessness is on. All – knowledge, science, universe – are being submerged in the light. The light of the vast eternity – unseen … continuous … endless … immortal … lifeless – is on. Is it waiting for freedom from the endless round of birth, death and rebirth? The lamp is awaiting the eternal joy of end.

May the light go into all mortals!

May it bring pure, sacred and eternal love!

Translated by – Chiranjivi Baral

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An Old Leaf

Patients are fighting for life in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a hospital. I have been under treatment in the unit for the past couple of days. My condition is slightly better in comparison to other patients. I can recognize the relatives and other well-wishers who have (come )gone to the hospital to visit me and read the atmosphere and things around. Some patients in the unconscious state are only breathing in the last stage of their life. In other words, they are at death's door and waiting for their death. Their relatives are also awaiting their end.

I have seen my death near at hand. Does the world mean nothing? What must this life be dedicated to? After all, one day, everyone must leave this world. During our lifetime, we fall in disputes regarding possession of property, avarice, sin, love and illusion of the world and commit mistakes. What's their ultimate use?

Some people drop dead before they assess the value of the long (or short?) life they have lived. However, I have enjoyed a whale of time to summon up lots of happy moments of life, and some sad ones. I feel quite nostalgic. I am overjoyed and take pride in good deeds and repent of the sins I have committed.

My house is within spitting distance of the hospital. The house has got a room where I have spent a few decades of my life, and I have a strong attachment to the room. In the middle of the room is a bed where I spent day and night with my wife, dearest to me in the world. She had breathed her last on that bed. I wish I met my end on the same bed. Wow! How beautiful, peaceful and lovely the bed is! But my room where I spent several decades has been unachievable.

I wish to die in the room. I have urged my family members to shift me to my own room from the ICU, but in vain. Now, nothing happens at my will. I have turned into a no-good thing. What's the use of taking me back home? I feel downcast when this piffling wish does not get fulfilled.

*** ***

As I was not born in a rich family, I have been deprived of material wealth since childhood. I could hardly get even any small thing. Yet, in the early tender childhood, I developed the habit of being satisfied even when the desires were not met.

Although I didn't get many things, I was satisfied with a hope that I would achieve them one day in future. However, I was down when I failed to make gorgeous Nirmaya my own beloved. Every time I saw her, I would be impressed and began to feel for her from the bottom of my heart. The unrequited love has left a sweet memory though it was the first bitter experience triggered by loss.

I was under the illusion that Nirmaya was born for me. I thought she smiled, laughed and bantered for me and whatever she did was for my sake. I braced myself for paying any price in order to be close to her. I wanted to make her my own no one else's.

I proposed to her for marriage, but she turned it down. My first love (attraction to opposite sex) was nipped in the bud. My dream to build a castle in the air fell apart. Consequently, I left the village and went abroad as I felt the village was bleak and desolate.

*** ***

I reached a foreign land where I was recruited in the foreign army. There I started the exhilarating life of a soldier with hopes, excitements and vigor, expecting a secure future. Though I enjoyed the job for a few years, I raised a rumpus as I knew that Nepali soldiers were being exploited by high-ranking officers and foreigners.

I was accused of clamoring for rise in pay and perks unnecessarily and egging on soldiers for collective mutiny. Another truth came to my mind – a man is unfit in the army if he cannot endure injustice, oppression and exploitation.

I quit the job and returned home. I met Rupakali while I was running from pillar to post in search of a job in my own country.

*** ***

A little money (good money for the people like Rupakali) I had brought from the foreign land was run through in pastime with her. A retired young blood, I was jobless. As a rule, I moved around the city, went to the cinema, got drunk and went round to Rupakali's in the evening.

I could not get the love of Nirmaya, a pie in the sky for me. I took sensual pleasure of youth in Rupakali's cuddle. I felt as if it was the ultimate goal of life. I was head over heels in her puppy love and fritter away the prime days of my youth. It cleaned me out with every passing day.

By the time I was completely cleaned out, Rupakali satiated her sensual thirst and threw me over. My immature dream to marry her and settle down was shattered. I woke up and smell the coffee again.

*** ***

The snow-capped mountains that could be seen from my village attracted me. I had to go to the village once. I reached the base camp via the village. I took up the job of a porter for mountaineers. It was an enjoyable job.

When I went to bed, I fell asleep straight away due to cold climate and hard work. There was nothing to worry about; nor was there anything to regret. Hard work, I came to know, keeps worries at bay. A porter lives a mechanical life. Like animals, he does not know what is going on around him, how fast the world is changing and what will happen to him.

At that time, I saved the life of a tourist. He was near to death due to high altitude. I carried him piggyback to take him to the lower height, and he regained his consciousness. I was filled with joy when I saw his eyes reflecting the feelings of gratitude, acknowledgement, love and respect. I knew from that small event why people were ready to extend help and benevolence to others and why they chose sacrifice.

*** ***

Life of a porter was not my cup of tea. I came back to the city, thinking of doing a business or running an industry there. Thinking that a business could be started at any age and that an industrialist would get respect and honor, I made a rash decision to open a garment factory. Starting up a business or an industry before acquiring some required basic knowledge is like diving into a deep pool of water before learning to swim. The drowning man can be rescued if a good swimmer takes notice of you, but there's no one to rescue you in business and industry. There is no way but to go bankrupt in a large business. I went bankrupt. Who should I pass the buck? I came to the conclusion that the economic and social environment of the country was not good because the political situation was not conducive. With an aim to making a total transformation, I went over to rebels who were carrying out their activities from the jungle. Military training in the foreign army stood me in a good stead for the rebels. I spent half of a decade of my life as a rebel. I knew it only when the historical 19-Day II People's Movement became a success.

*** ***

During the rebellion, I got a chance to work in tandem with young blood who were infused with the feeling of supreme sacrifice. Our life was balanced on a knife-edge.

In the very rebel life, I met Phulmaya, a person with courage and determination not to retrace her steps once she moved ahead. I developed emotional intimacy with her in the course of fighting war in different war fronts. The intimacy turned into love that culminated in the birth of a child. Despite hardships in our rebel life, we fulfilled the duty of rearing the child and fought the war in different fronts.

We would have been killed at any time. We were always worried what would happen to the child in the wake of our possible death in the conflict. However, the 19-Day II People's Movement rescued us to the new peaceful family life.

*** ***

In the family life, we faced various ups and downs and innumerable bends. I stood as a candidate for the upcoming elections. I was eulogized as a devoted fighter and politically clean. There were opportunities galore. I became a minister. I could not believe my luck. I wondered how I achieved such a coveted post. I was bestowed with benefits of the position. I was made the owner of unlimited property by cronies, civil servants, industrialists, contractors and other corrupts who crowded around me.

Although a rich man is praised for whatever he does – laughs, talks or does anything else – I was vilified in society and my party made me redundant. I took a back seat in order to save the property I had amassed. People, who had weak memory, forgot how I had accumulated the unlimited wealth. With that money, I started a modern business. Although I had been made redundant, I pushed my youngest son into politics. He is a political leader today. One day, he will also be a minister. Though condition of the country and its people won't change, the property he will amass will surely change his condition.

*** ***

Ignorance is bliss. The more we know, the more unsatisfied we are. I am not unhappy though I am not able to enjoy the foolish imagination like innocents.

I have a long list of experiences, be they good or bad. On the one hand, I feel I have lived a long life with countless events since childhood. On the other hand, I feel that the life has passed in the blink of an eye because I am yet to experience many ups and down and do many things.

I am a father of three sons and a daughter. All of them have got married. I have 13 grandchildren. I want to remember their names – Bhujang, Prakashan, Swikar, Rachana, Shristi, Shailee ………

How many of them came to meet me? My eldest son and daughter-in-law are abroad. I doubt they will come to see me. Merina, one of my granddaughters, whom I love most, is also in the foreign land. My family has become too big. I wish I would see all of them before my death. If only I was surrounded by them and died on my own bed in my room.

*** ***

Though my body is bedridden, my mind is working fast (so fast that the mind of other people, except those who are on their deathbed like me, cannot work at this rate). As we cannot think of the cloudless sky, so cannot we think of the thoughtless mind. The waves of memories hit me and ebb. My thoughts always flashed back to Phulmaya with a deep emotional attachment. Although sometimes I remember many others who I have almost forgotten, Phulmaya's image is still sticking with me clearly and it repeatedly comes back. It is natural that we often reminisce about a person with whom we spend most of our life, share feelings and romantic moments.

Phulmaya!

She was the only person who knew my relation and acquaintances with women. She made my life complete. I have many sweet and bitter experiences with her. I had heaved a sigh of relief when she came to my life because it occurred to me that there was someone waiting for me and that she would mix her smiles and tears with mine. I was everything for her though I was useless for others. The feeling gave me strength to move ahead. Did I do any justice or injustice to Phulmaya? Her husband meant everything to her, and she devoted her life to me. Neither she evaluated it; nor did the society. On the deathbed, I am trying to look back on justice and injustice; sins and good deeds; vices and virtues; good and bad.

The judgment of this kind is valueless. I might make a good judgment like a chief justice but what's the ultimate use? What's the use of the assessment done by the one who himself is on deathbed? It may or may not have meanings but arguments and counterarguments go at it hammer and tongs in my mind.

I pride myself on the fact that I gave her happiness. However, the happiness was wrapped in mental torture, stress and difficulties. I tortured her mentally and physically. I beat her black and blue. When I remember the torture I subjected to her, I find myself descending on to human cruelty and animal.

Yet, she made the best of things and loved me despite tortures and injustices. She might have whimpered in silence, but she supported me in every step.

She was great; she bore me offspring and gave me pleasure. When I recall her, I fail to fight back tears. I want to be in floods of tears. I wish the tears of remorse washed out all guilt from my mind.

What a strange! Tears have not appeared in eyes. They snub to stream down. I feel sour and bitter. The decrepit old body is not supportive. I cannot roll down tears. I feel a lump in the throat. Immovable, I am only waiting for an auspicious time for pleasant death.

"Phulmaya, I am thankful to you, for you endured torture, covered up my mistakes and loved me. In the eleventh hour of my life, I apologize for tortures and pain I caused you. Please, forgive me: I'll never…."

*** ***

Still breath is being blocked in the throat. It may be because I have the last wish to depart this life on my bed. Who is the hurdle to the fulfillment of this small wish? Why have not I been taken to my own room? Is here no one to hear my yell, cry of pain and call?

I have heard that my eldest son and daughter-in-law, who are abroad, had sent some money for my treatment. Can they just send their father some money and shirk the responsibility of caring for him? I curse today's sons and daughter-in-laws.

My second son lives with me in my home. As I taught him techniques, he has taken responsibility to look after the business. Doing business is one thing, making parents happy and to earn fame in society is quite another. Though I harbor no complaint against the second son, I object to the way they have forced me lie down on the hospital bed.

"Return me home. Let me die there,” I have told them my last wish, "I want to die on the bed where your mother breathed her last."

They replied in a consoling tone, "Father, don't talk pessimistically with a sinking feeling. Don’t worry. Nothing befalls on you. We will take you back home only when you return to good health. You are sure to be recovered."

Will I really return to health? The chance is very thin. Doctors had discharged me from hospital, but I am still here as my son and daughter-in-law refused to take me back before recovery. Last time, my health recuperated. This time, I don't think I will get better. I know I am going to die. "It is the rule of nature that the old leaf falls off the tree and a new one sprouts. Don't wail. While there is life, there is hope. Your father will never be dead while he is alive. He is still not dead," I hear someone say.

There is a big crowd of people wailing for my possible death. My youngest son may have arrived. I hear someone crying like him. I was rushed into the ICU, and now they have come to visit me one by one. They are gazing fixedly at me; so am I staring at them. This look has an inexplicable pain of death.

*** ***

Man is born lily-white. In the course of time, he is tainted with various colors of his vested interests. Some remain incorruptible until death, while others blot their copybook for the whole life. No one can judge others; a person himself knows how his character is.

In the race to be a successful man, I deceived some and took a potshot at others. I am running out of time to reel off the list of people who deceived and excoriated me, too. Life has taught me to be selfish. A man commits unpardonable crimes. I also committed a crime which is still haunting me. I still feel painful regret.

After I became a rebel, I took insurgents to my village and alleged that Nirmaya's husband spied on rebels' activities, leading to his murder in a physical punishment. Poor innocent! He was killed in vain.

Nirmaya spat in my face when she heard her husband was polished off cold-blooded. In a response triggered by a mixed feeling of shyness, anger and regret, I pointed a gun at her, but I could not dare to shoot her dead. At that time, I knew how weak, frail and absurd I was.

Thousands of innocent people lost their lives in vain. I am also responsible for the genocide. Though I pride myself on fighting bravely for the nation and its people, I am more self-humiliated than proud for killing innocent lives. Even if law of the land sets me scot-free, my inner heart punishes me.

*** ***

Time (or greed) taught me to be a corrupt for money. I preferred a corruptible life for material prosperity to honesty resulting in hardships.

Despite the fact that I was for good beliefs and principles, I became ugly-minded, cheater and immoral in practice. So, I succeeded in amassing property. My mind has gone black. I am not easily breathing my last may be because of the crimes I had committed for money. I ask myself regretfully why I amassed property. Money could not save the life of Phulmaya, nor can it save mine. One of the properties I accumulated is my bed. I want to go there and die on it, but to no avail.

It does not matter where you die. The dead does not feel. Death is death where I die – on my bed or elsewhere. When I die, the world dies with me. Why should I worry about my sons, grandsons, all others and worldly activities?

The end crowns all. Those who make progress in life turn boastful but they are unaware that death has no medicine. Everyone must die one day. All are equal to death. It does not spare anyone – whether they have suffered others and amassed wealth or reached high positions through deception or they are powerful or powerless. However, no one has time to think about their own death. Only at the last moment of life, we admit death as I am doing it now.

Oh, I am deviated. Do I have enough time to deviate? No I don't have. I have thought about everything in my whole life. Now, I must think about death, that is my own death.

My death! A low death! No one sings dirge in my death. No one will offer a single piece of flower in my graveyard. Do my children and relatives offer a flower? They will shed crocodile tears and pay a hypocritical homage to me only to show others.

What remarkable thing have I done to have my name written in the history of human race? Like millions of other common people, I lived, dined and died at last. This is the end of my life, end of my story.

What weird feelings! What am I to worry about on deathbed? It is good to die with a smiling face and curious mind. I try to be happy and curious, and I find death more fruitful, more beautiful and more welcoming than life. I spread out my arms to bid goodbye to life and welcome death. It looks as if I am going to embrace death. My last request to you all: Please offer a piece of flower in my last resting place.

Every leaf must fall……….. An old leaf has fallen.

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Contemporary Nepalese Short Stories By Saran Rai

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Contemporary Nepalese Short Stories By Saran Rai

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