Prem Krishna Shrestha
Putali seems very happy today. The look on her face is different. Unlike other days, today her pace has strength in it. A satisfied smile spreads over her lips by the sack of flour hung on her back. The load of flour pressing her spine brings happiness within her heart. She remembers her home immensely. The picture of Sanu sitting at a corner of the room, starving with hunger, flashes and then fades away in her eyes. The image of Thule, waiting for his sister, beneath the terrace shades, slowly enters and then exits her mind. She gets impatient to reach her home soon. Seeing a pair of pigeon flying over the sky, she wishes to fly to her home too. At reaching home, the longing of feeding her brothers fully, after so many days, makes her heart cheerful. Resting the load by the side of the farm, for a while, she takes a long breath of pleasure. She gathers up some air and looks toward the far end of the hill road. In front, the Ragini river; penetrating its way through the majestic chest of a thousand miles wide, enormous hill standing in its own indecent manner, reminds her of a dreadful day of Asadh- a year ago, which instantly makes her heart cold. Tears pool around her eyes by the awful memory of her mother being flown away in the waves of Ragini River while saving her daughter’s life, all because of her stubbornness. The picture of her mother shouting and holding the end of her sari upside, when the waves hit her legs, come reeling over her mind. She wipes the tears with her fingers and gets ready to climb the slope again with the load on her back. Her forehead starts sweating as she walks. She wipes off the sweat from her wrist, looks her own footsteps that she left behind on the hill road that lays there just like the spiral pace of a snake. Maybe she does this to forget the pain that haunts her mind and heart, but she cannot be freed. It becomes too overwhelming. Why has this tragedy fall upon my luck only? – thinking about it, she at once cries her heart out, ringing the whole forest with her sob. The birds that fly around searching for food for their young ones, the others who fly higher and farther in the sky, whether understanding Putali ’s tragic grief or not, all come down at the branches and keep looking at Putali quietly. But how can the poor girl’s heart come to peace? It’s been only 7 days. Her father had gone to take some loan from Dhrube Shahu; a shopkeeper, but fell down from the acclivity and died. She can’t even think about it. The memory only haunts her and makes her uneasy. She suddenly panics. She feels as if the load backside her spine has gone lighter. She curves her hand and touches it. She relieves at the feel of the flour. She tightens the loosened sack of flour with a bamboo strip and moves upward the slope. To stay away from the memories, she starts to murmur a song. The hillsides, the forest and the paths of the slope, all listen peacefully to the melodious voice coming out her sleek throat.
Her heart doesn’t agree to walk singing. And finally, to forget the tiredness of the journey, she decides that it is best to walk remembering. In front of her, Yesterday comes reeling over as if a movie. “Sister, I’m hungry.” – One and a half year old Sanu, stares at his sister, sitting at a corner with his hand on his belly. Putali feels helpless. She inserts her hand inside a sack at a corner of the room where dirty clothes are piled up. A huge mouse runs toward the way out through the ceiling. Thule; who is looking out to the hills from a small window of the room, may or may not have seen the running mouse, but is trying to catch the mice with his hand that are running inside his empty stomach fiercely. Putali keeps inserting her hands. She circles it everywhere. But at the end, her hands cannot find anything inside the sack. The hand moves emptily in the air as if a soldier is running away from the ground in a war. Putali doesn’t believe it. Still, there’s a tiny hope of victory remaining inside her. She pulls up the two sides of the sack and bangs it into the ground, with a doubt of finding any weapons to defeat the enemies- at those corners of the sack, so she begins the game. After looking into all direction, she anyhow succeeds to find a fistful of small fragments of rice. A smile of victory clearly appears on her face. The girl who had completely forgotten about enjoying life playfully and joyfully, it’s a smile that has appeared on Putali ’s face after so many months. She smiles a little and approaches Sanu. She hadn’t taken two steps when she glances at Thule. Her smile fades away in nanoseconds. Where, Thule; sitting in a restless manner, cannot speak anything because of the fear and hunger stalking him, keeps staring at Sanu.
It’s evening time. Far, at the end of the west, the setting sunrays spills over the lake, it’s crimson water making the whole environment breathtakingly beautiful. Putali climbs up to the hillock searching a cluster of nettle. She can’t find it anywhere. All of a sudden she is reminded of Kaila Sarki who used to lend her things time and again. He even left the village the day before; the memory makes Putali sad and she helplessly inhales a long breath. Her neighbors, friends, everyone had left the village and moved to somewhere else; only she couldn’t misfortunately leave the village, the fact annoys her. A part of her gets angry as well. She feels as if her existence is a burden. ‘What’s written; is written’, it was written on her destiny. She gathers up patience inside her heart. After looking around the hillside, carrying her brother at her back, she still can’t see anything eatable, so finally exhausted, she reaches near the lake. She watches the water cupped in her hands. She stills and stares at her sinking face on the end of her palm. As she keeps staring, it transforms into kheer; a rice porridge. Her every imagination leads to her brother’s fulfilling hunger which makes her happy and she becomes happy.
Like a day after morning, evening after a day, night follows the trail of the evening playing hide and seek to take its place and conquers it all as its kingdom. Sanu is sleeping in Putali ’s lap. Thule is spinning the cotton. Putali , while preparing cotton thread from the spinning wheel, thinks about their poverty and smiles. The night gets darker. Tired with sleep, Thule dozes off and quickly looks towards Putali with fear. Getting frightened by Putali ’s pointy and strict demeanor, he widens his eyes with the help of his fingers and starts focusing on spinning the cotton threads. “We have to finish it today anyhow. Then from the money that Sahu will give me, tomorrow I’ll bring food for you two.” Keeping Putali ’s given assurance firm within his heart, Thule moves his hands quickly working perfunctorily as if a machine. The faster he moves his hands, the farther the dreamland goes away from his eyes. He sits crossed legs, imagining about tomorrow’s joyful moment when delicious food is displayed in front of him. In this way, in the village; that has been abandoned by everyone, nowadays emptiness spreads its arms everywhere. Outside, the noise of prattling cicadas, the rippling musical sound of the continuously flowing river, except that the dim light coming out of a small hole inside a hut and the rumbling sound has only made the village seem as a village. Otherwise, comparatively there isn’t much difference remained between the village; with its deteriorating identity and the cemetery.
Next day in the twilight, at the first sound of rooster, Putali has already headed towards Darfing village, packing the threaded balls in a sack. Sahu will give me money today. Putali , who has vowed firmly to bring food for her brothers, worries about going to forest, as the cattle would starve and worries even more about her brothers on the other hand,. In the everyday 6 hours long journey of coming and going from Darfing village, she never gets tired. Instead, the thought of the content moment when her brothers wouldn’t be famished anymore, makes her feel as if the sack of flour at her back is pushing her to move forward. Anyway, let’s just understand this much that, Putali ; carrying the sack of flour on her back, remembering her lovely village where she was born, her small hut, is returning to her beloved siblings.
Putali , reaching beneath the shades, yet again, rests her load. Totally soaked by sweating, Putali feels warm by the weariness of the journey. Hearing some squeaking from a distance, Putali points her ears to that direction. HarkeTamang; who lives down in the Besivillage, carrying his small daughter in his shoulders, walks down the slope.
“Putali Naani! I’m heading towards the village. Ah, why do you have to return? Let’s go to Kathmandu with us.”
“No Kaka. My brothers would be waiting for me there.”
“Then we’ll go alright.”
Putali , even after their departure, keeps staring for a long time. Unknowingly, from somewhere, she gets reminded of the past, by the loving attachment of her father. Putali after finishing to spin a thread ball, starts plunging in the new one into the wheel. “Hey, why should we work now? Working is only for the sake of living. Now, whenwe are close to death, we don’t have to bother. Go and sleep. Wait, instead prepare me the Tambakhu; Nepali tobacco/Hukkah.”- Putali ’s father Surkhespeaks. Putali walks to the Agena, taking out a wrapped ball of paper from the elevation, and starts preparing the Tambakhu. She holds the Chilim* from one hand and inserts the other inside the Khokila*. She takes out two-three matchsticks. Then, stretching the nerves of her neck starts blowing into the fireballs in Chilim by burning the paper in it.
Putali is preparing for sleep.Surkhe is smoking the Tambakhu, sitting at a corner. “I’ll have to go to DhrubeSahu from the uphill tomorrow. May be he’ll lend me some loan out of pity. He isn’t so inhuman anyway. But again, I haven’t been able to pay the loan that I took for the funeral arrangement of Putali ’s mother last year. I would have deposited the house and farm as securitybut they are worthless now. Others have left abandoning us. Who would be blind enough to lend me any loan? Yet, it wouldn’t harm to try once. May be I would get lucky somehow.” Surkheutters to himself in a faint voice.
Depressed with life, Surkhe seems to have too much love for his family, more than for himself. For the love of his children, he has woken up numerous nights with the fear of the lake collapsing. Looking at the faces of his children sleeping in a row, his heart constricts with pain even more. He looks to his youngest son, and then to the oldest, they seem to be sleeping soundly. Again, touches his daughter’s hair. Seeing them sound asleep, gives him a kind of gratification. Even if the lake collapses, he is assured that he won’t have to die looking at the rattled faces of his children. But today, it is unbearable to him.Exhausted with sleep, it seems hopeless to wait for the catastrophe sitting awake. He turns off the light from the lamp. After so many sleepless nights, and a lot of things playing inside his heart, Surkhe slowly gets lost into the dreamland. But, Putali hadn’t fall asleep till then. Quietly she makes her way towards the small hole in the room and peeks outside. Except the darkness, she can’t see anything. She listens carefully towards the hillside where the lake is situated. She can’t find any difference. Putali ; who has lived through 12 springs listening to the sound of the river flowing in a slow motion, the sound of the cicadas prattling, sits in the nearby mortar and waits for the morning far away by wandering about the lake.
Anyways, for Putali , who has spent numerous nights like this alone, the memory of last night when she left her brothers at home and moved out of the village early in the dawn, starts to worry her. The dazzling face of her friend, “Aren’t you going Putali ? We are ready to leave.” The memory of that sentence depresses her a bit so that she takes her steps hastily. Her steps slide down in the mud in front of her and she slams into the ground. Removing the dirt on her body, she stands up and moves forward carrying the load. “Putali , will you come with me?”- Girkhe’s long-lipped face also pops out in her mind. She doesn’t think much about Girkheand his doubtful and selfish look, she had always hated it. Girkhe also heads towards his way, somewhere far from the village.
The sunlight rises from the eastward peaks, carrying the colorful beauty with it. Putali , resting her load beneath the shadow of the terrace fig tree, exhales some air. Then, she gazes over the eagles; taking their free flights in the high air. And recalling the sack of flour, yet again she smiles inside herself. As soon as she remembers about the flour, in front of her, the faces of her brothers- trapped and lying in the claws of hunger, come clustering over her eyes. She doesn’t feel like sitting there anymore and moves quickly from there, carrying her load. The bamboo strip that has gone loose over her hair, she pulls it up by balancing the weight on her body. She has reached on the topmost area of the hill. From where, the whole village could be seen easily. But then she gets startled. As if a picture of exclamation, she stills and keeps watching. She can’t believe it. She rubs her eyes doubting on what she has just seen. But, no matter how different she looks, the image in front of her doesn’t change. May be because of the inability to face the reality in front of her, she crashes into the ground and lies unconscious. A little time later, she getsawake. Because she wasn’t living in a dream, but living in reality so that she condemns herself. Her heart is shivering. Herfootstep staggers and tries to fall. The lake has swallowed her whole village. Inside the depth of water flowing from the collapsed lake, her beautiful sketch-like village waves in it. Without having care of anything, she hurriedly moves forward. The distance between her and the water decreases reluctantly and finally, her body meets with the water. Focusing on her village, she starts searching for her brothers inside the water and keeps getting deeper. Inside the depth, a dark human shadow-like dead image is falling down and down. Above it, the sack of flour has overflown and is floating freely in the water.
*Chilim and *Khokila- parts of the traditional Nepali tobacco machine
