Shaptarishi Paneru
“If we survive this COVID, we will meet here again. You have hidden me. You are a teacher. And I know where you have been teaching. I had already recognized you.”
These are the words resounding in my mind frequently since a month ago. I become restless sometimes and go to the window, open the curtains and look at Sallaghari—the pine grove. I feel every pine tree is her images. I see her wavy hair in every bunch of those trees.
It was nearly a month ago, I was lying on my bed after lunch at around 11:30 AM for a short siesta. I had no sleep at all; so I began scrolling my mobile phone. There were no other ways to kill time. I had to wake up early at six, take online classes till ten, eat a full plate of dinner and hang on the mobile phone like the legendary king Sisyphus, condemned eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top. Since a month after the second wave of COVID-19, the world had been more handicapped than the previous year, I was not an exception neither my country was. It had flooded the entire country.
I again began to scroll down my mobile phone. The more I scrolled the screen, the fuller it was with news, one after another, narrating and reporting the number of death tools and infections, lack of blood and oxygen for the COVID patients, vandalism in health centers, attacks on medical workers and bitter criticisms of the government for being unable to handle the surging situation.
The more I read, the more restless I became, felt furious, cursed the COVID, and made a wish it would end soon and the situation would retrieve. No power other than COVID itself could control it. My reluctances had been surging. I had been feeling loneliness and frustrated every hour and day. I was worried of being a pray to depression for myself; so I typed ‘loneliness’ in the Google search bar to search some remedies so that I could counsel myself and keep calm.
Immediately after I had clicked, the screen displayed an indented citation from From Krishnamurti’s Journal: “It is good to be alone. To be far from the world and walk its streets is to be alone. To be alone walking up the path beside the rushing, noisy mountain stream full of spring water and melting snows is to be aware of that solitary tree, alone in its beauty…The demand of expression, with its frustrations and pains, is that man who walks the streets; he is never alone. Sorrow is the moment of that loneliness.”
What this citation actually wants to mean was not my concern; neither did I probe into its philosophical essence at that moment because my thought, imagination and mood were not still and calm. Instead of concentrating on Krishnamurti’s opinion, my thoughts began to contemplate on nature. I woke up, moved slowly towards the window, drew the curtains and stood still, looking out of the window. Nearly a kilometer away from where I was, my eyes encountered a low hill full of tall pine trees, but the ground was bare. The gray paths looked as if they were moving snakes; upwards and downwards on the slope of the hill. I could not confine myself within my room. I had no interest in changing dresses. With half inches of unsaved beard since a month and casual half, I wore sporty shoes and set off towards the hill which the locals call Sallaghari.
Due to COVID lockdown, I had been staying at home since a month and the progress was just an addition of body weight and a belly enlarged like a jar. I felt it while I was climbing up the hill. Again a worry rose in the mind with a suspicious thought of asthma. I was scared of destroying my youth, career and life if I had been caught by it. I reached the top, took a long whispering breathe and observed nature with my wandering eyes.
The sky was almost clear except for a few clouds; even these were shining in golden due to the reflected sun rays. The cool breeze with the smell of pine leaves dried my sweats. The new Dharahara, rebuilt after the disastrous earthquake of 2072, was exhibiting its beauty far in the heart of Kathmandu Valley which was not less decorative than a bride on the wedding day. The entire Valley had such a clear visibility that I supposed I could count every temple, gumba, complex and house. I concluded, urbanization is a cancer to nature and natural beauty. I doubted whether I could enjoy these sceneries or not, after transportation and industries began to run as they used to before this pandemic.
The loneliness three hours before within me was gone. I began to feel myself accompanied with the surrounding trees, persistently flowing breeze, and chirping of birds. The land where I was sitting was like a bed of faded pine leaves. The bells ringing at the gumba nearby had added musicality there. It caused a dilemma within me whether I was in a transcendental world or in a jouissance. Whatever it could be, I was in complete ecstasy. I began to thank that loneliness which I had brought bitter maledictions before.
I was completely unaware myself of my physical presence amidst the beautiful natural surroundings. You can imagine as if I was unconscious, believe me! Suddenly, I heard a “Heelloo…” in a melodious tone and I moved back. My eyes dazzled when I witnessed a lady of around 25 a few yards away, approaching me. I was shocked if I was in deep sleep or was dreaming. I pinched myself on the left thigh keeping my hand inside the pocket. I wished she did not see me.
“Hi…” I replied a bit later than it should be.
“May I know why you are living alone here?” she added.
“I also want to know why I should not be alone,” I said in a flirting tone.
She blushed and smiled. I saw in her a charming girl, slim, and in a queenly figure. She wasp-waisted and had berry-red lips. She was perfect and was glowing flawlessly. Her arched eyebrows, raven-black in color, and her silky eyelashes over her acorn-shaped eyes nearly killed me. The mercury-red hair tumbled over the shoulders in her elegant personality; her blue dress in an out of a killer fashion had the magnetic power to attract me. Everything in her was magnificent and incredible.
“I got suffocated living at home—damn this COVID! It’s hard even staying at home. I am bored and have come here. I was also wandering alone over her since an hour ago. I noticed you too alone. Did I disturb you?” she flowed at once.
“No, no. It’s okay,” I said. I wanted to talk but I had no idea how to begin.
“Do you live nearby?” she asked before I proceeded.
“Yes.” I pointed the locale where I live, “Over there, it’s not so far.”
“Hmm.” She nodded.
Silence went through. We began to ask each other our details. I concealed much of mine but wanted to know more about her. She said that her hometown was Biratnagar. She had come to the Valley three years before and joined a university, and married her classmate in court in her first semester. The same year after two months of marriage, her husband had gone to Europe for further study. I wanted to know more about him but she was uninterested. I realized it and stopping asking further about him. She just said that he bears her every expense of living and study. I estimated: she had no hardships at all. Her fair talk since the beginning had made us more familiar, as if we were well-known and met frequently. She also remembered her hometown and explained many things which I did not know. When I asked about her parents, she spoke no words.
Again silence conquered us. But a few moments later, she told, her parents frequently talk to her about the suitors in her hometown and suggest marrying. In a voice lower than usual she said that she had been hiding her marital relation from her parents till the date.
I got surprised, and started suspecting her at once. Looking at her face I wanted to ask why she did so. But no sooner had I seen her than her eyes had been melting and the tears flooding down both her checks.
In a sobbing voice, she continued, “I don’t even know my husband’s hometown yet.” She added, “Neither had I known before marriage.”
I was just listening, I didn’t know how to react, what to say.
“No one should have such marriage; leave the young loving wife alone. No one…No one would make sacrifice of a woman’s youth who left everything for her love…for her husband.”
Shedding tears, she continued as if it was a pray.
I felt cold on my checks too. I knew I had melted already after I examined my tears with my palm and swept them quickly. I didn’t even know when I stretched my hands, and swept her tears too. I only knew it when she caught my palms with her hands. I could feel — both our palms were warm and damp, either by tears or by sweats, which I didn’t know for sure. She leaned and put her head on my shoulder. Royal Princess Oud wafting from her delicate wavy mercury-red hair and, well-endowed chest and body made me spellbound. I was completely captivated. One, our two bodies were. My mobile hands were on her wasp-waist and my lips were stuck on her lubricious raspberry-red lips. Languishing, we both were. We did know nothing, as if no one was there, no trees, no birds, no breeze, no, nothing else. We were lost completely…
We had a sudden wide awakening together when we heard the flapping of a couple of doves nearby. One was uttering dhukurr…kur…kur moving to and fro; the other was trying to fly away.
Withdrawing our sticking lips apart, I said in a fearful whispering and regretting voice, “I thought did injustice on you.”
“Who is not unjust here? Look at this COVID pandemic! It’s unjust to the entire humanity, the government to its people and the justice itself is unjust here. I think family, community, this gender and the entire culture, and everything else is more unjust especially to the women. To the women, it’s severe. When can a woman fly like these doves flying freely in the sky? Can you imagine how unjust Robin has been to me by flying to Europe alone? Has he been waiting for me there as I have been waiting him here? No, I don’t believe. He is free by birth. His gender allows him, mine does not. I am scared of this every second. I am frightened not by myself, but by this very gender I belong to, by the society I live. We, the women, are compelled to fear our own privacy and freedom—always, everywhere, and any time. Why this? Why? From the ocean of this injustice, you have given me a drop of justice this time.”
I listened quietly until she stopped. I had no words. Neither I spoke for her nor could I go against. She pointed at the doves’ mating and laughed loudly.
The doves flew away. Probably, they were threatened by her laughter. I watched them until they had reached far away to the horizon above the Nagarjun Hills, where the sun was setting on its top in a yellowish red. The doves disappeared from my sight and I returned to her. I saw a tika on her forehead exactly like the setting sun.
She pulled and kissed my forehead, and said, “If we survive COVID, we will meet here again. You have hidden your details from me. You are a teacher and I know where you have been teaching. I had already recognized you.”
She withdrew her body away from mine and in a very soothing sound said, “bye!” before making a departure. I looked until she had crossed the bend.
The sun had already set.
[Author is currently teaching at Lincoln College, Samakhusi, Kathmandu.]