Indra Bahadur Rai
Waking a bundle of greens and lifting it from where it lies sleeping on the asphalt, then hugging it as if it is his wife, a customer asks, “How much for these greens?”
“Those are 6 paisa.”
Injustice cries out, surrounding the man’s self-interest with rage: he still remembers living in the forests, where it was possible to get them for nothing.
“They’ve turned yellow,” he suggested (if they had, he would have rejected them immediately), and then he walked away.
Maina’s mother sat and waited for another customer.
“No point living in Darjeeling now,” a man is saying. “Everyone here is looking for work. If you’ve studied, it gets you nowhere. We can’t get enough to eat living here. When we came there were very few people, but now many more have come and our numbers have increased. There’s not even enough grass for our animals. We should move somewhere else. The rains don’t fall here anymore; the trees are bare. We should look for a new place. By sunset tomorrow we should be gone, with our women, our children, and all our belongings loaded into ox carts. Put strong young men at the front and the rear. Drive the livestock gently. We should walk until evening, then lodge for the night. When we are a hundred miles away we’ll decide where we are headed.”
“Over the hills to Assam. We should move to the northeast.”
“Meet some of the people who came here later. Tell them the Nepalis came and set up a branch here many ages ago, a small town called Darjeeling. They’ve already found signs of very ancient settlements. For a hundred years or more they forgot themselves in this little toy town. Its little roads, little machines, little houses are the proof. There was very little to support them, so they became wanderers, scattered through the great land of India. Bunched together, they would all have died. The time had passed when they could have moved and advanced their civilization: their immediate needs were what forced them to abandon their homes.”
“Yes, we should move somewhere new.”
Maina’s mother was sprinkling water over her greens. If thoroughly drenched, their leaves would stay fresh; the cold spring water would make them last longer. Everything might be saved. But there is no water.
She covered the body of the bundles with a small grimy cloth. “You’re back?” she asked the woman who stood there now.
“Are they sold?” she looked at the sleeping greens. “How much has been sold?”
“I haven’t sold any.”
“Oh! I shouldn’t have tried to sell them here! I could have sold them easily somewhere else.” The woman came tired from an age-long distance. She sat right down on the ground.
“Give me the few pennies you have. My baby’s father is sick at home. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.” She stood up abruptly, suddenly fearful.
From here, you can see water falling into an ancient pond: circles spread out where each drop sets its feet. The rain makes the forest cry out; there is news that the rains are heavy this year. On the path that rounds the pool to the right, two or three bodies run hurriedly. One comes up to the tent and stands outside. He is a man she knows, and he smiles. He smiles in the pouring rain and says, “It’s pelting down, isn’t it!” He had pulled his trousers up above his knees.
“Where have you been to up there?” asks Maina’s mother, looking at legs like roof pillars, just as her mother’s mother had done.
“I’m looking at a place up there. People have covered the hillside with cow pastures, I’m looking for some place higher up. They say Darjeeling will be a big town when people have covered it all.”
“Everyone says the same,” he heard in reply.
Suddenly the din of the rain outside says, “Be silent!” Inside the tent a fire burns between three stones and the rain keeps all the woodsmoke inside. The man with roof pillar legs found a plank and sat down.
“Hey, the water is coming in!” He stood up again, and the woman selling tea got up, too. Water ran in under the tent walls.
“Have you nothing to dig with?”
“No, I have nothing.”
He picked up a piece of wood and went outside. Lashed by the rain, he began to dig a channel. The woman saw the fresh soil piling up. She saw that the water had stopped coming in and that she was encircled.
“That’s it! The water’s stopped!” she said, but the man continued to make good somewhere outside.
The rain clouds moved away. When the sun comes out, the forest’s greens all turn to yellow. The strong man was still outside breaking the soil.
“Do I hear that they plan to fill in this pond and build a bazaar?” the shopkeeper asked, approaching him.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Will they drain the pond?”
“They’re going to demolish that bank over there.”
“The pastures and the villages will all be washed away; they say there will be landslides.”
“Who said so?” The man stood up.
“We’re moving further up, too.”
“Do you think I’m running away?” asked the man defensively.
“I’ve heard that all the plants and grasses here are medicines. If you knew which ones, you could cut them and sell them,” said someone without a single penny in his pocket, clutching a small bag of rice.
“I’ve heard that there are mines underground near our house. There might be a copper mine right there in my garden. We should make the lowlands pay for water from our rivers,” said another person, just coming home.
A rock swished down from overhead (man goes to the moon). Maina’s mother dodged it; it just missed her. Then came a stave (live as men). It caught her in the chest; she doubled up and fell. All her sorrows stand before her; they come continually to her home. Joys for her are unknown and haughty. She wanted to sink underground in case great news came rolling down and crushed her. Her load of weighty hopes buried her deep, but she struggled to rise up and become a mountain.
Suddenly, she felt inspired to say—we came here looking for a place where we could see the Himalaya clearly. Now we don’t want to go anywhere else. All of us should have a house where we can open the window each morning and look at the Himalaya. Here man is unhealthy; he quickly tires of most things; his thirst is quickly quenched. But with one thing we are never fed up, and that is the Himalaya. Wherever we go we will take this land with us, wrapped up in little bundles. We will make a five-year-old carry our possessions ….
The bundles of greens threw off the cloth that covered them and stood upright. Each bundle opened; each stalk came away. They yawned and cast their sleep aside. A light evening breeze was blowing; the small yellow mustard flowers jostled and swayed.
There is a small tree that has lifted its branches way up high. Her mind crawled still higher on a level branch, and she felt dizzy looking down. Her hands touched the grass at its base to uproot and weed it out. A well of smooth water had collected beside a tomato plant; she thought she might pick up a rotten old tin and water the plant. She sighs with pleasure as she sees something planted on the bank of the field. Bamboo bushes stand there, filling her eyes. Her eyes watch a leaf wafting down, making her wait for her own existence. She goes far across the brown ridges of the fields. On a piece of rising ground, luxuriant grass is growing. From the end of a garden she walks steeply uphill, moving from terrace to terrace ….
Why then did you come here?
Why then did you come here?
Why then did you come here?
Why then did you come here?[2]
A grinding stone, some dishes, in the bazaar. The marketplace is selling off the honor, the profits, and the losses of a thousand homes. A grinding stone should guard the porch of a home; it should become a part of the body of a house and hold firm to its floor. It should not wander around like this; the only things it should encounter are the sun each morning and the sun each evening. Young women sit around it, discussing things deep in their hearts. It is always bad when it comes into the market. Those black medicinal stems and roots should be stored away in tins and sacks inside every home. Those dishes should be kept on shelves. The place where the family sits down to eat at home is the only place to scatter such things around. To Maina’s mother, this bazaar looks like someone’s home. It’s as if a thousand households have been broken open. Why do a thousand homes stand neglected here? She felt like joining them all together, with children sucking and chewing on sugarcanes and daughters pounding grain. Our household things have all been put outside with us in the bazaar. First, man left home, then his belongings came after him, and now they are here in the bazaar, waiting to take him back. Maina’s mother tries to go home: suddenly, she is afraid of this bright, open afternoon ….
Hearing a noise, Hanuman hid in the leaves,
Quickly came Ravan along with his wives,
“When will Rama come to kill me?
He has not saved Sita, whom I’ve abducted,
Though I have seen him in my dreams.”
Seeing the wicked one come near, Sita bowed her head,
Holding fast to the vision of Rama’s lotus feet[3]
She looked all around to bring herself back to reality. Like black dots, men climb the stairs and talk to each other. Their talking never ceases. Wherever she looked she saw more people. The whole scene becomes noise; everyone she sees is talking. They split up and come toward her, blocking her view. Their bags sway and collide with the tents.
The color of the flag has gone into the shadows; a loudspeaker blares in her ear.[4] A small boy runs by. Three people came and went; another passed by engrossed in thought. One is walking past in a hurry. (I was born here, here I live, this I have, this I sell. I must find happiness with this simple wealth: this is my stand.) A dog is chased away; dirty papers have blown off into the distance; many voices are shouting. The bazaar is stirring, itching, lazily scratching. The sun is up on an electric pylon.
“Why did you come here?” asked an invisible person. A man walked by in front of her; he turned and asked her the same question. All the people standing in the street queued up to ask her; all the people inside the buildings opened their windows and asked her the question in high shrieking voices, staring at her from sharp eyes, taking aim with gaping mouths. She hid her face with her dirty shawl and peered out through the chinks of her window: an old fear. The whole bazaar left its work and came toward her. A thousand faces surrounded her, asking, “Why did you come here?”
The greens would be trampled—she turned cold with fear and leapt to her feet to gather them up.
In the evening she was keenly selling her greens. When night had fallen she covered the spot with a basket and a wooden box, reserving it for tomorrow.
(first published 1964; from Bharatiya Nepali Katha 1982; also included in Nepali Katha Sangraha [1973] 1988, vol. 2. Trans. Michael Hutt.)
[Indra Bahadur Rai (1927-2018) is a renowned scholar, fiction writer and theorist from Darjeeling, India. He is a colossal influence on Nepali literature, as hundreds of writers after him have championed the movements of Third Dimension and Leela Lekhan in poetry and fiction respectively. His works of fiction include story collections Bipana Katipaya, Kathaputaliko Man and Kathastha. His novel Aaja Ramita Chha is considered a landmark in Nepali fictions. His fictions speak of the plights of people in the lower strata of the society and the absurdities that dot their day-to-day living. ]