Vishnu Singh Rai
I was born in a house that was darkened by the smoke of dung-cakes and crowded with women. I was born with the help of a village woman whose coarse hands brought me roughly out of the cozy womb of my mother, and I yelled. This was the year 1951 – the year when a tripartite treaty was signed between the Ranas, king Tribhuvan and the Nepali Congress in New Delhi which ended the Rana Regime, and started a democratic government with the King as a ceremonial head. The beginning of democracy was cheered with new hopes in the country. My arrival was also cheered and greeted first by the dai who received a sari and a fifty rupee note for her help to bring me in this world, by the priest for his religious performances, and by the relatives. I did not like the experience of being born, and I cried. People laughed, and I didn’t like that either.
When we’re born everybody laugh, we cry
Do something that when you leave, everybody cry
Such helplessness! I couldn’t even stand up and walk, couldn’t say how I felt. Somebody put me beside my mother. She opened her eyes and looked at me, and for the first time I felt happy that I was born. I have no words to describe the feeling of those caressing eyes. “My lovely moon!” she whispered. I still remember those words: no one not even my wife ever called me ‘lovely’ you know.
I was the second child of my parents. As far as I recall, none of us remember as being loved by our father. He never showed love to us not in an obvious way. We never swung in his arms, never had a chance to sit on his shoulders as most our friends did and were never, never kissed. We always avoided him if we could. Sometimes in a good mood when he tried to talk with one of us, the absolutely unabated tension which emanated from him caused our minds and tongues to be paralyzed, so that we scarcely knowing were punished. Even when we were grownups, we never invited our friends to the house for fear that they would be insulted and they too didn’t like to visit us. We used to call him ‘Father Hard Stone’. Only after when I had children, I realized that my father was not actually cruel: he loved us but didn’t know how to express it.
Father’s a coconut
tender and juicy inside
but hard to open
Naturally, we were very much attached to our mother. She was a frail looking delicate lady and people looked surprised at how she could bear so many children. She was very traditional, shy and introvert type. Her world was confined to her children and husband and most of her time she spent in her kingdom –the kitchen. There are no photographs of my mother anywhere on the earth. She was not one to be trapped in anyone’s little black box. It was enough for her that she could talk with her husband in front of others (which needed a lot of courage at that time). But in no circumstance would she say aloud his name for deeply obscure ironclad traditional reason. When addressing her husband, she would use oblique phrases such as “Look here, O!” “I say there!” “Hello!” and sometime use my elder brother’s name “Upendra’s Father!”
My parents’ marriage was an arranged one, and very successful, although I never saw them betraying love or even fondness to each other. Did they love each other? I would never know.
Love is not a show:
it is sacred and private.
Keep it a secret.
Whatever I am today- it’s because of my mother. My parents have four children, two sons and two daughters. My brother was a very diligent student. He liked books, and always stood first, I liked football, and got through somehow. He liked maths, and immersed himself in solving the maths problems. I liked literature, and read novels hiding among the thick mango leaves. He was praised, I was scolded. What I hated most was they compared me with him. Granny implored me to be like Upendra, my brother. I didn’t want to be like him. Consequently he became a civil engineer –a much coveted job in those days (and still is), and I became a teacher which no sane person wanted to be. But gone the days of rivalry! I am content with whatever meager achievements I have.
There was no high school in my village or nearby villages. My father could not afford to send me to the high school in a town. He wanted me to help him with his farming. I still remember that evening. I was looking for mom. I heard talking her with my father behind the closed door, “No”, she was saying, “We must also send Vishnu to high school. I won’t let it happen that only Upendra (that’s my elder brother) goes to high school. They both must have higher education.” I left the place – I realized that it was not nice to hear parents talking. Next day, mom called me. It was month of June. Mid-day. The sun was emitting fire. No wind! Not even a single leaf was shaking. With his eyes closed Harbal, our dog was panting. Under the cool shade of a coconut tree, lying on a string bed I was reading Sherlock Holmes when I heard mom calling me. Very unwillingly I detached myself with Holmes and went to her. She was mending the frock of my little sister, Lalita. She raised her head from her work and asked me gently what I was doing, and I told her that I was reading a novel.
“All these novels you read are written by educated people you know”, she said. “You should also pay attention to your study.”
“But I don’t like maths”, I blurted out.
“OK. So don’t take maths. Take whatever you like but read. Promise me you’ll be serious with your school”, and I nodded my head in consent.
She didn’t live long. After a few months, she died. My father honoured mom’s last wish, and despite grave financial problems sent me to high school. I owe everything, what I have today to my mother. Sometimes I wonder where the strength was hidden in her frail body. She never contradicted her husband or her mother-in-law openly, but when she said something in her soft but firm voice, even the almighty father could not ignore it.
I’m 73 today. I learned a lot, and earned enough. Mother’s little boy went overseas for higher education, earned PhD, and become a Professor. But none of my achievements I could share with her. Had she looked at my PhD certificate, how she would have reacted: would she have smiled, or would she have cried – I can just imagine.
Who? Father? Don’t know.
Mother gives birth to a child –
I’m my mother’s son!
(Vishnu S. Rai is a retired Professor of English Education at Tribhuvan University. A prolific writer, he writes in both English and Nepali. His poems and stories have been included in secondary school and university syllabuses. His published works include Realities (a drama), Martyrs and Other Stories, Vagabond Verses, and Ghazals in English.)
