Madhav Ghimire
That day, Sukumar was walking along a dusty village-road. The sun was about to set. This little eleven-year old boy was running away from home. He did not know where he should go and what he should do. At a distance, he could see the panoramic beauty of the mountains. A golden hue spilled over the lofty peaks of the mountains.
Sukumar was all alone. There was no one in this part of the world he knew. But he believed, he would meet someone or the other for sure, who would give him. In the meantime, he heard the voice of a girl coming from some corner. She was calling out to her mother. On hearing the girl, Sukumar also remembered his mother, who was no more now.
As soon as he heard the girl’s voice, he took out his flute and placed it on his lips. He believed that by playing the flute, he could call his mother the same way the girl called her mother.
On seeing young Sukumar play his flute, a middle-aged woman stopped before him. She was carrying a load of grass atop her head. She came very near to Sukumar. She was the wife of the Chief of that village. Standing still, she listened to the tune of Sukumar’s flute. When Sukumar came to know of this, he started staring at the woman. The two stared at each other for quite some time. Both of them felt, they knew one another for a long, long time.
The woman asked in an endeared language, “My son, where are you going?”
“Mother, I am a strange traveller in this village. I am heading towards a distant place. I am looking for a place to hold the night today,” he said. The two addressed one another as ‘mother’ and ‘son’. Was it pure love or it had some deeper roots? The woman was surprised on hearing the boy. The boy did not know anyone in the village. He did not have a decided destination to reach, either. Yet, he continued to stand there, and played on his flute as though there was nothing to bother hm.
“My son, you come with me,” said the woman. She continued, “As you can hear, your sister is calling me. When I heard you play the flute, I thought we were calling me with your melodious strain. Come my child; let’s move homewards now.”
With his flute tucked underneath his armpit, Sukumar started following the woman to go to her home. When his mother died, Sukumar was just five years old. All he remembered about his mother now was that she was a woman with beautiful eyes. All the time, she put on a blue necklace around her neck. Sukumar believed, his mother always lived in his heart. This flute had been gifted to him by his father. After the death of his mother, his father used to play the flute every day before bedtime. Sukumar, an orphan now, was lulled to bed by the melodious tune from the flute.
One evening, as his father was playing the flute, Sukumar asked, “Daddy, where is Mummy? Why can’t we meet her anymore?” The father threw the flute on one side. His eyes turned grim with sorrow. Then he said, “Your mother is presently in the house of God. She is far away, farther than the sky. Yet, she always stays in our hearts.”
Sukumar asked, “Have you ever talked with her after she came to stay in your heart?” Paying a quick look on the face of the boy, the father said, “I have talked, my son. Whenever I play my flute in deep tune, I talk with her.
“Oh, is that the case? I too am impatient to talk with her. Please get a flute for me too; I will also play it. I am intensely willing to talk with her.”
After a few days, Sukumar’s father got a new, cute and lovely flute prepared for Sukumar. He also taught the boy how to play it.
His father had also taught Sukumar many more things. For example, he told him that the miracle behind the moon was its beauty, its songs of intense melody. He had explained how it all happened. The father always said, be happy, and play your flute from that state of happiness. When this sweet music reaches your mother, she too will be extremely happy.
After this, Sukumar used all his time in playing the flute. When he was nine years old, his father said to him one day, “My child, you can now play the flute better than the way I do. But then, I will tell you a thing today, which I had never told you in the past. Every person, no matter rich or poor, loves the melody of the flute. So, whenever you play the flute, play it with the feeling of love and goodwill in your heart. Every listener will consider your love and compassion as the melody coming of the flute. This way, you will be able to meet your true mother.
A few days after the father had said this, he too died.
Now, Sukumar was left all alone. He turned sad and sorrowful. He threw his flute away to a corner. For six months, he did not even touch the flute. All he did was, he sat alone and kept crying. He spent his days this way. In fact, he had become an orphan.
Sukumar went to stay with his Uncle’s family. Only after that, he started playing his flute again. He did not play the flute to show it to others. He played it to express his love for others, and to receive their love in turn. Yet, he used to be quite restless inside. He was extremely unhappy. So, one day, he took his flute and took leave of his Uncle’s family, and set out on an unknown journey. He did not know where his destination would be. With the pace of his journey, he went on playing the flute.
The people he met on the way used to gather around him, enchanted by the melody of the flute. Some of them even danced to the enrapturing music of the flute. He was, however, a loner in that world. No one could give him the type of love his parents gave. Most of the people he met were caught up on their own problems. They did not have free time to console Sukumar. After harvesting pleasure from his flute, they used to take their own ways. No one had time for him.
But, that day, Sukumar happened to meet the wife of the village Chief. She called him ‘son’ once again. This time he felt, he was meeting his real mother.
When the two of them reached the front-yard of the woman’s home, a little girl was seen roaming around in the garden. She was the woman’s daughter. It was she who had called out for the woman just a while ago. Facing the girl, the woman said, “My child, I have brought a very good boy with me. He will now stay with you. I mean, I have found you a brother.
Sukumar and Saypatri stood facing one another, quite coyly. Yet, both of them were very happy. The little girl did not have any brother; she had found a brother, and Sukumar too had found a sister.
All of them entered the home. It was evening now. Sukumar observed the woman prepare lentils in the faint lantern light. He was extremely happy that day. This was the type of happiness he actually lacked in his life.
At dusk, the Chief reached home. Without speaking a word, he observed Sukumar from top to bottom. His looks made Sukumar feel quite bad. His heart grew quite restless. Making the environment comfortable, the woman said, “I met this boy on the way this afternoon. He is adept in playing the flute.”
At mealtime, the Chief did not tell Sukumar anything. After dinner, Sukumar took out his flute and started playing it gently. The entire family was lulled to sleep by the melody of the flute. Both the Chief and his wife felt the grip of the melody. The melody touched their hearts. A tune, seemingly quite familiar, won their hearts. They felt, Sukumar was, through the flute, trying to share his sadness with this family.
After he was done with flute-playing, Sukumar prepared to go to bed. The woman stroked his cheeks, showed him deep love, and wished him good night.
The next morning, Sukumar woke up early and got ready to move away. But the woman stopped him. She said, “We are mother and son now; you cannot go away from here anymore.” This way, Sukumar came to become a member of this family.
Saypatri also loved Sukumar very much. But she felt, she had many more things to learn about Sukumar. She always wondered why Sukumar stayed silent most of the time. During the day, she went around in the village together with Sukumar, and made him meet her friends. One day, the two of them went to the bank of a river. Sukumar silently sat upon a stone and stated gazing straight at the river water. Saypatri could not subdue her curiosity. She asked, “Brother, what are you thinking?”
“Beloved Sister, you have your mother with you and she loves you very much, for you are her daughter. I don’t have a mother. I meet her only when I am plying my flute.”
Saypatri was deeply saddened on hearing his words. She asked, “But Brother, isn’t my mother yours too?” After a short pause, Sukumar said, “It’s true. You are my sister, and she is my mother. But…”
“Why but, Brother?”
“You have got your father’s love too. But I don’t have that privilege.”
“Isn’t my father your father too?”
“I have not been able to secure a place for myself in his heart till this day.”
“It’s fine; I will talk to him tonight. I shall ask him to love you very much.”
“No; don’t do it, Sister. It won’t be good to tell such a thing now. I shall try to win a place in his heart by playing my flute.”
That night, when the two children went to sleep, the father started talking with his wife in a low voice. He said, “Look; you should not believe an orphan this much. The orphans seldom stay in the same place for long. Sukumar too shall do the same. One fine day, you will find him waking up and leaving for an unknown place. Until he does that, he will be moving here and there, and stay here under our care. Saypatri might be negatively affected by his company.”
The woman was hurt by her husband’s words. She said, “It’s fine; he is an orphan. That’s why, I am saying, we ought to be his father and mother. Oh, I cannot even believe how hard of feeling you are.”
This way, they ended their talk. Both of them went to sleep thereafter.
The life of the family continued in an ordinary way. Soon, spring was around the air, and the village was filled with greenery. Roses bloomed out with brilliance. According to the practice of the village, the maidens gathered for Ghatu Dance in this season.
One evening in spring, Sukumar was sitting on the window and looking out at the full moon. He felt, the silver moonlight and the clouds running all the way in the sky were telling him, “Play your flute, play the melodious ditty on your flute.”
Sukumar took out his flute. In fact, he was willing to play it. In spite of several efforts, he had not been able to win the heart of Saypatri’s father until now. He was finding the task quite difficult. He thought it would be best for him to leave this place, instead of continuing to stay there.
Early next day, before it was morning, he walked out of the house secretly. Others were still fast asleep; he silently sneaked out of home and stopped for some time. He turned and looked back. He showed his reverence to Saypatri and her mother, took leave of them, and went away. By sunrise, he had reached quite far from that place, and had arrived at the hill with a deodar tree. Several times, he imagined Saypatri was calling out his name. He at times thought, he should not have run away from the house until Saypatri had woken up. He was not in a position to return and go to the same house now. He kept his pace, even as such thoughts rose in his mind. He walked all the day.
Walking past hills and gorges, he reached the top of a hill in the evening. There, a temple of a goddess stood. He decided to put up there for the night. When he entered the temple, he had a feel of loneliness. He became quite forlorn. In the meantime, a melody started poking his mind. He wanted to play this tune, but it was a song of hopelessness. He thought he had parted from his own family by leaving Saypatri and her mother behind. He wanted to play such a tune, through which Saypatri would know how much he loved her.
However, the only melody that was surging in his mind was the melody of sadness. He stayed in the temple. Tears started rolling down his eyes. He sat there alone, and cried for a long, long time.
When he woke up, it was morning. The rays of the sun were inside the temple, entering from crevices on the window. A garland of flowers was dangling down the neck of the goddess. A strange glory glittered all around her face. In the statue, he could see the faces of Saypatri and her mother. He felt, the statue of the goddess wanted to pick him up and place him against her bosom. Suddenly, a doubt struck his thoughts. He was trapped in a dilemma whether he should move on, or return to the family of Saypatri. He slowly came out of the temple and sat under a huge tree. All through the day, he sat there and thought what he should do next.
That night too, he stayed in the same temple. In his dream, he saw Saypatri. She was standing beside him, and was beseeching him to follow her. When he tried to speak something, she put her finger over his mouth and signaled him to stop. When he woke up from his sleep with a start, he felt he had arrived at a decision: he should return home.
A year had passed since he came into that village and visited the village Chief’s house with his wife. He remembered this fact. When he first met Saypatri, she was standing near the mound of Tulsi. A diyo—wick-lamp in oil—too had been lighted there. This night too, when he returned home, a diyo had been lit at the same place. But then, some villagers had gathered at the front-yards of the house today. All of their faces looked grim and sad.
Sukumar entered the home silently. Inside, Saypatri was lying on her mother’s lap. As soon as she saw Sukumar, the Chief’s wife shouted, “My son! Look, something has gone wrong with your sister. People say, she will be alright. What am I supposed to do? I know nothing.”
Sukumar walked close to Saypatri. His eyes got moist with tears. He stretched his hands and touched his sister gently.
“She was caught by high fever the very night you went away. Since yesterday, she has been lying unconscious. I feel her soul has wandered out to find you. Now that you are back, you should do something to heal her, my son! Bring her senses back,” said the mother speaking through her chocked throat.
Sukumar sat on the floor there, all silent, and motionless. With his hands, he stroked Saypatri on her cheeks, gently. Then, he took up his flute and started gently playing it. When the melody started overflowing in the room, the eyelashes of Saypatri started moving. Her father too was there in the room. He came with some water in a goblet, and moistened Saypatri’s lips with water. Slowly, Saypatri opened her eyes. Seeing Sukumar sitting nearby, she stammered, “My brother! Are you back?”
Placing his flute on the floor, Sukumar said, “That’s true, my sister! I am back home. Your brother is back.”
All of a sudden, Saypatri’s father walked close to Sukumar. With eyes filled with tears, he took Sukumar into his arms and said, “My child, it’s true that you are my own son. I shall not allow you to leave home and go to any place, anymore.”
The mother sat there without a word. Tears started rolling down her eyes. Saypatri and Sukumar looked at each other’s face, and smiled.
A resident of the same village said, “In fact, this is like the story of Ghatu.”
Ghatu, you know, is one of the most popular dances of our country Nepal.
***
Translation: Mahesh Paudyal
[Madhav Ghimire (1919-2o20)), the poet of the nation, is highly acclaimed for his metrical verses and songs that have become a part of the collective memory of the Nepalese. He has authored dozens of short epics, lyrical plays and poetry collections, the best-known of them being Guari, Kinnar–Kinnai, Malai Mangale, Manachinte Murali, Raja-Rajeshwari, etc. ]