IN A VILLAGE

Here began a village. This one was a lot more different from many other villages. The trail was almost nominal. Somehow my steps proceeded. Thick nettle bush flanked the way. A step aside and you'd be stung by them. And more, it was too dirty and odious with human dirt. My concept that villages are among the greenery had failed here. No green was in sight except a few bunches of twigs in some branches of lifeless trees. It looked as if the jungles were cleared and all trees were uprooted years before, and the village was going to be a desert soon. Maybe that's why it was such a sweltering hot. Small stone-roofed houses stood along the trail. The windows and doors of those houses were a sickening sight. How could one get through such small doors and windows!I came across some old people, simply waiting for their death. Their poor dresses were horrible. Patched at dozens of places, they were not washed for ages. Their eyes carried nothing but gloom. I asked one of the old men, 'Ba! How old are you?'

He tried to force a little beam, but to no avail, I don't know why. He mumbled something in the local dialect. I couldn't make it out. At least I could gather it that he didn't know his own age.

 I kept going ahead, the path uphill mostly. One felt a bit relieved when on the level. On the ascent, the body was thoroughly exhausted. I encountered some middle-aged men. The doko1 they carried things in was slightly different from ones I’d ever known.

'What are you carrying?' I asked. 'Rice'.
'How long have you carried it?'
'Say, some seven days.'
'Rice doesn't grow in this village?'

'There is no farm good enough for paddy. Just a little wheat grows. We live on that. We are bringing this only for the Dasain,' he explained in the local dialect which I could understand some, and some I failed to.

By now, I'd got well into the village. What else could there be: a few stone huts, runny-nose children in their filthy rags, their shabby threadbare dresses with patches on patches, and their limbs resembling that of a leper. They looked as if the limbs are rotting and they are dying. I asked an old man, 'What's wrong with their limbs?'

'It's the pipso2 bite, hazoor. Not leprosy.'

'Can't we eliminate pipso?' I asked again. He had no answer.

 But the children's hands and legs were so foul and disgusting that I had nausea for quite some time. There, everyone's legs looked swollen with pus and the poor children couldn't even walk. I asked them if they went to school. Soon I realized I’d asked a silly question. The school was far and they were not in a position to go.

Time to eat. I was already starving. Feeding me, a single person, was an uphill task there. Flour roti3, salt and chilly, that was all they could prepare. There was a big rush in search for rice. Somehow the meal was ready in a few hours- just daal, bhaat4, a little salt and chilly. As for vegetable, it was out of question- neither they knew the need nor they had it by tradition.

In the house next door, a woman was struggling to prepare some wheat rotis. She must be quite ill, I figured. She was, you may say, struggling against life itself for one roti. A bit further away a newborn baby was whining. The woman was on all her fours and squirming about.  I took this to be her labour pain for another child. But later I could see it was nothing of the sort. She had delivered a child that day and now had been the victim of the tradition that nobody else should prepare food for a sutkeri5 mother.  She was thus forced to prepare her food herself. And she was to go to reap wheat from the other day on. I reckoned the child was dying soon and she would be rescued from the sea of suffering. Whenever she couldn't do the job, she'd howl, wail and fret wildly. I rested my head on my palm and prayed to the Supreme God.

No youths were available in the village. They would probably come back home during some jatra6 or mela. The women's breasts were all flat. Their form carried no trace of youthfulness. Women in their twenties looked as if they were old hags in their fifties. They were utterly repulsive. They knew nothing about themselves. They were born to breed. They had no love for life. In their eyes- where there were no saplings of dream, sentiments or hope- danced shadow of nightmare. Were they women really? Thoughts flowed through me for a long time.

I was to go much further. Small villages appeared and faded away. All similar. They looked more settlements of the dead than villages- there was not a scrap of spirit and optimism; they were lifeless. The villages looked dead and deserted as if it was a village devastated by the war that has just ended. Very high, barren, naked and red mountains. Nowhere a green patch or a tree. Neither fountain nor brooks. It was almost evening and I was against time, and my legs refused to carry me any further. I was thoroughly exhausted. My only wish now was a good rest and a peaceful night. My heart was heavy and spirit quite low.

The same narrow path, the same nettle growths, and filth- there was nothing new anywhere. The atmosphere was horribly stinking and suffocatingly foul. And more, very cruel and sharp stones greeted throughout. Stepping over them was treading on coals of fire. I wished to see the Seti Himal from there- there was no sign of it. The Himal was far, far away. I was restless; the night was almost falling. I plodded on and on dreaming of a good sleep and things like that.

I came across a few men coming down the slope. They were drunk. They had lost their balance. Their legs were unable to carry them well. They were quarreling, probably about a game of cards they had played earlier. They tried to stop me. But I could avoid them and took another way.  I knew they were on the way back home after playing card and drinking raksi all day. Now their ritual at home would be to beat their wives.

The path I'd now chosen was more rugged. I was doubtful I'd be able to reach my destination. But I had to reach there. The nettle thickets flanking the way was thicker here. A woman appeared. She was busy plucking the nettle buds with a tongue. It was almost dark. I reached up to her. I couldn't help asking- 'Sister, what are you doing?'

'Plucking nettle,' she was pretty busy. 'Why pluck it?'
'This is the thing we eat. There is nothing else…..' She confessed her helplessness.
'Why? Don't you grow even wheat?'
'No…., we don't …..' She was ashamed of it. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
I knew they ate only nettle. I found her to be of a better understanding.
I blurted out, 'What do you need in this village?'
'……….' She didn't understand me.
'You couldn't understand? Do you need water, roads, school or what else?' I tried to put it clearly. 'We don't need anything……' she made a short reply. It was interesting to talk to her. She must have been out for some time: she spoke a bit more intelligibly. 'However……' I pressed her. 'God has not granted us this nettle too. An insect eats it up. The lai attacks it and not a leaf remains. We've to live on thorns….' She almost sobbed. 'And ……?' 'Please give us some insecticide to kill those that eat our nettle… Our need is only this…..' Now she was impatient to be off.
'You need nothing else……?'
'No, nothing else……'
By the time I came to senses the woman had already gone. I fixed my thoughts upon something for a long time and brooding on it I trudged slowly up the

 Translated by Dinesh Poudel

1. doko- a panier made of bamboo straps used for carrying things in rural area.
2. pipso- a flea
3. roti- whea bread
4. dal bhat- meal consisting of lentil soup and rice
5. sutkeri- mother of a new-born
6. jatra- fair