Shristi Shrestha
A small village in the southern plains of Tarai struggles to put itself on the map. The fields are lush and green with promises of better future tied in the end of colorful sarees of the women. Red, violet, blue, green, yellow sarees walking on a straight line with the fodder for their cattle balanced perfectly on their heads. The laughter of children while hanging upside down from Neem tree mixed with the melancholic sound of flour-mill calling out for birds to come back home. Clusters of small huts that leaked in monsoon and cracked in the heat of summer treasured joys of childhood and qualms of ever accelerating responsibilities. Meekly trying to keep up with the pace of developing country by sending sons to foreign land, stands my village, Aurahi.
We are assembled into one single being by bringing together memories and putting them all into one single skeleton. The skeleton of my memories was this woman who navigated through the uncertainties of life with such dignity, wisdom and innocence that her existence in my life caricatured the very perception of this world on me. She was my great grandmother, the pillar that carried the whole family on her shoulder, the evolution that changed the course of history for so many of us- “AAMA”.
We called her the thesaurus of swear words. She had plenty of them. I learnt my first swear word while it fell from her mouth like leaves fall during autumn. And she was generous with them too. She flung them at the workers who worked in our farms, she threw them like morsels to the women who came to ask her permission to take a few ounces of grain and she passed them to anyone who offended her. In the midst of all the swearing that incorporated creative connotations, lived a kind soul that shined on all the women, men and children of the village making it impossible for anyone to challenge her authority but all out of respect and not fear. I wanted to be like her when I would grow up.
I remember one time when all of us, all 12 kids, entered an orchard that belonged to one of our relatives and stole guavas from the trees. The news of our strategic conquer had reached aama long before we could build a story to save the dignity of our achievement. As we entered our home, we saw a white apparition staring at us through her thick glasses that magnified her eyes threefold. It was as if she could see everything even when she was not present in the scene. As we were absolutely oblivious to the unknown spy who had reported our bravery to her, this idea of her being omnipresent was cemented in our hearts for a very long time.
Every Tuesday and Friday, men in their white dhotis and bright eyes, women beautifully wrapped in colorful sarees that their husbands gifted and jewelry that they bought in dowry, children in good pair of trousers looking sharp and us, the kids from Kathmandu, from the city enthralled by the sound and the noise and colors and the excitement of it all, entered the Haatbazaar. People from my village and all the villages from far swarmed the crowded bazaar; bull-carts laden with the goods that they would sell, with their families singing and dancing as the poor bulls carried the weight on their necks and the burden of their strength on their back. It was an event for us. Locked in a classroom all day and then moved from one assignment to next, this whole space full of possibilities was freedom to us. Our pockets were filled with instructions on where to go and what not to do but we already emptied our pockets as soon as we left the house. After all, we had to stuff our pockets with sweets, so no space for instructions. Just as we got back home and washed our dirty faces and hands and feet, we would then run to greet our cows returning from the grasslands. Every year for few months, our cows would be taken to grassland and they would graze and become stronger before coming back. No one had to tell us that they had arrived; we could hear the bells that were tied on the neck of our cows from far away. We would then run bare feet to greet them but made sure that we were not too near to be trampled. As they entered their sheds, I could see my aama beaming with pride at the size of her cattle as her manager reported to her about their status.
Her universe revolved around her house, her people, her family, her fisheries and her fields. She was the ultimate guardian of the village. She lost her husband when she was young. She lost two of her four sons and one of her four daughters when she was getting old. Yet, she stood up and put on her slippers, wore her glasses just like she wore her principles and emblazoned in a simple white cotton saree. She made an empire out of age-old, conservative, man’s world.
Amongst all the miseries she carried within her, I do not think anything broke her more than when she had to move to Kathmandu as she got sick. The body that could resist fallacies of culture, that could let go the attachments of commonalities, that could absorb and nourish the challenges thrown at her and that had evolved from a young widow to an old woman while housing the most spirited soul, that same body was surrendering to cancer. I knew she wanted to live her last days in her home, among the cattle, the fields, her heaven.
Her last days with us are not engraved in my memory as such. I had been corrupted by my own necessities, rebellion and journey to create a space for myself. This somehow had made me take her presence for granted. Little did I know, in front of me adorned in a white cotton saree battered for decades by norms and customs, getting frail by the day and restless during the night, stood a woman who was history herself.
I remember her light, patio where she sat like a queen with the sound of her hookah deafening the noise made by those who shouted how a woman should behave, with a bidi (local cigarette) failing to stain her finger as she held it on the tip of her thumb and forefingers as the smoke camouflaged her completely and her smile that made her magnified eyes small with pure joy.
I remember her rules, her terms, her commands, her smell, the “tip-tap” when her slippers echoed announcing to the world that she had arrived, the sound of her stick that became her friend as she grew older much to her dismay and her voice that shook grounds and walls of the huts of a village whose foundation was a mixture of clay and feudalism.
I remember her unapologetic laughter, her effortless strides and her limitless intelligence. In a world stained with patriarchal territories, she knew how to erase the lines. If her husband was alive, things would have been different. Her story would not be hers but only what her husband would have written for her. But the woman I met when I was a small girl, etched not just an idea but the very foundation that would mold me as I became a woman myself.
And, as a grown woman still trying to live up to her magnitude, I wonder. I wonder how Aama, as a small bride, must have felt when she came to Aurahi with her husband she had never seen before, let alone shared space with. I wonder what she had thought when she saw the fields and cattle for the first time, completely unaware that she would someday have to fight the world to save the ground she was standing on. I wonder what gave her the strength to carry on beyond the heartbreaks, despair, hopelessness and actually create an empire for her children, grandchildren and her great grandchildren. I wonder if she understood the cunningness of patriarchy she was fighting against but at the same time supporting it and passing it on to her daughters-in-law. Unfortunately, I will never know.
As she, my aama, (the womb bearer of a generation of strong opinionated women, the grail of wisdom and mystery, the epitome of feminine and right hand of Goddess) took her last breath, a whole chapter ended.
And as she passed from this realm to next, I know one thing for sure that no matter wherever she passed to, she is still ruling that realm like a boss!
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[This story was originally submitted for a story writing competition called “The Big Story” Organized for the purpose of raising funds for “ChoraChori”, an organization that works to provide better opportunities for the girls and women in Dhanushadham, Nepal. This story was granted the prize for second place among the 129 entries from all over the world.]