5

I felt betrayed. I didn’t know who to blame, if any, for having such an infallible image and not thinking of the possibility of the world beyond my imagination.

Pasang dai had built a three storied house in our backyard after buying the land from my uncle. The house had an ornate wooden door that had Buddha sculpted on it. The floors were covered by imported marbles. On top of the house they had a big dish antenna.  We had rented cable line from him. He declined to take any money however and said he was only doing a part of a good neighbor.

His kids went to an expensive private boarding school. He never went to a college himself but had started a right business at right time and made a lot of money. He came from a remote village in Khotang. He proudly liked to tell his story–how he fled his home at the tender age of fourteen, struggled working in carpet factories before starting and selling his own carpets made in his rented room with his wife. Besides his business, he was involved with various social organizations. Anytime the local kids wanted to organize a program, he would be one of the biggest donors. He used to hang out with both older folks and younger ones alike. 

He frequented the pool house. I never played with him as he’d play with other folks who liked to flaunt their money. Sometimes the bets were as simple as buying tea/coke for the players and the spectators, and other times, occasionally, a big bet of five hundred rupees or more per frame. I had admired him despite his show offs until I heard from Shirish. I had once heard from a guy, who came from the same village as Pasang dai did, that he initially made money from trafficking women. I didn’t believe then but slowly it was gaining prominence to serve my narrative, regardless of the truth, and my assessment of him instantly became negative.

Coincidentally I saw Pasang dai and his youngest son coming out of our home. A feeling of disgust engulfed me but I tried hard to cap my emotions.

“Bhai, are you coming from the poolhouse?” Pasang dai asked.

“No,” I tersely replied.

“Okay. Isn’t your school off? Why don’t you come to our place when you are free? We can play marriage and drink beer. I won’t tell your dad,” he said with a chuckle.

I was getting irritated. I had been in his home a few times. They played ten rupees a point which was too much for me.

F^king lecher.  “I don’t have money. I won’t have that much money to play ten rupees a point without doing something illegal and immoral,” I rudely snapped.

“Just come by. It’s Losar.  You don’t have to play cards.” He kindly said. “Bhai, we will just drink beer and celebrate.”

I felt bad talking to him like that, especially in front of his kid.

6

The electricity was out. It was still twilight and as such there was no need of candles yet. Since it was a regular phenomenon, most Nepalese can attest to it, my family had all gathered round the kitchen table as if a drill master in an electricity disaster planning class had instructed them to do so every time the light was out.

My mom was cooking. Everyone else was firmly seated. In the middle of the table there was a basket of fruits, sweets, and a case of beer. As I had assumed, it was Losar sagun Pasang dai had just dropped. We would return the favor during Dashain and on other occasions if we had special puja at home.  Since he knew that my dad drank, he got beer for him. My mom was not pleased.

“Loken, can you get a glass and pour me a beer?” my dad said to me with a grin.

“I hope you don’t drink that dog’s piss in your life,” mom said looking at me as the lettuce she just put on the pan made a spluttering sound and drowned her voice but it was still audible. I looked at dad. He was looking at mom. It was a Mexican standoff but without guns.

Dad winked at me and it was a tacit command to keep quite. Maybe my youngest brother didn’t see it and was alerted by the spluttering sound. 

“Is this a lettuce week? I am tired of eating it day in and day out.” Sabin gasped. He didn’t like lettuce. Neither did I but I never complained.

“Don’t say so. It’s from our own field.” Mom tried to assuage him.

“I don’t think any lettuce comes out of a thin air. It has to be from someone’s field,” he said with a sardonic reply before dad gave him a look.

Sarcasm was the lingua franca of our home. It may sound rude to an outsider but the mutual respect was seldom breached in spite of an apparent veneer of sarcasm in every reply. Being the weakest link and the locus of the verbal trade, my mom, ironically, had the least endurance. The last sentence was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I’m tired of looking after you all. I am going to my mom’s house and see who would cook food for you.” She was overwhelmed. Suddenly the whole mood changed and everyone was silent. She went on, “Probably your dad will marry Kanchi aama and then you’ll eat ghiu ra bhat every day. “

I t was now imperative upon dad to defuse the situation. With a fake loud voice he looked at my brother and said, ‘Don’t you have to study?’

“The light is out,” Sabin answered.

“Nani, can you come here and make tamatar’s pickle. You are the only one in this house who still obeys me,” mom said to my younger sister Archana, “she is the one who will look after me when I get old. I’ll write you the gairi khet in your wedding.”

Archana was a very quiet girl. If dad was around she hardly spoke. In fact, I was the only one who was least afraid and was quite friendly with dad. But this time she wasn’t taking in kindly mom’s words and jumped in the same bandwagon that was irking mom.

“Where is it written that only womenfolk have to cook at home? Because you are lax on them, they are on top of you. Wouldn’t it be nice if menfolk too cooked sometimes?” she said with a low voice directed to mom and secretly hoped dad didn’t hear; but he did.

“It would be absolutely wonderful. I heard dad makes really good pickles. Maybe we can start an auspicious act with the head of the family,” I couldn’t resist and interjected in between.

No one laughed. My sister wasn’t finished.

“What gairi khet? It’s been three years you said you would buy me a half tola gold chain. Nothing has happened. I have been working hard every day in hope of getting one but it seems like you are lying to me,” she said as tears were welling up in her eyes but she quickly regained her composure.

“Gold chain?!” Sabin exclaimed, “I have been wearing the same shoes for two months now. They are torn beyond repair. I am ashamed of going to the repair shop. I don’t know what people think– maybe they think the repair shop is jointly owned by the cobbler and me. “

  Even when he was sobbing he didn’t forsake sarcasm.

“Why do you have to play football with your school shoes? Your mom and I have been working hard to put you all through school and you go there and play football?” dad said to Sabin.

It was extremely painful to hear my dad saying that to my brother. I know for sure he didn’t mean it. He had been a physical education teacher for the last fifteen years and had always encouraged us to take part in extracurricular activities.

It was difficult for my mom to see her special snowflake, her much-loved Kancho chhora, crying even though he was the one who tormented her often.

“I will collect the rent from the first floor early tomorrow morning. If you go and pay the electricity and the phone bill within three days, you get 3% discount. Loken, can you go and pay the bills day after tomorrow and on your way back home buy your brother a pair of Chinese shoes?”

“Huss.”

We were by no means poor but there was always something lacking in our house. I knew there were many families that had the shorter end of the stick. We had land, that too in Kathmandu city, but not enough active income. My parents could have sold a piece of land and have lived a comfortable life. I am glad they didn’t–as it taught us all what it was like to struggle in life. My mom worked in the fields herself and believed no land should be left uncultivated. Many times the produce was stolen from the field but that never deterred her. She always had a rhetorical question whenever we raised an issue about it: ‘what if everyone stopped cultivating their land?’

As with any family with children going to school, our family also had to cut corners. I had my own list but didn’t want to bring it up. It was frustrating to not have a sound financial situation at home and witness a rough patch in life. My mom had to sell her jewelry to pay for my admission fees although she said she borrowed money from my maternal uncle. I didn’t see her wearing that necklace ever again and the other time we all went out to a relative’s wedding, she was wearing my aunt’s necklace. I once polished my dad’s brown shoes black after my pair was torn playing basketball and we swapped our jackets during winter. To this date I haven’t asked them how they managed to get fifteen hundred rupees to buy me a new pair of sneakers after I was selected for inter-college competition. At times I conveniently forgot the only source of income in our house was my dad’s measly salary as a government school teacher and the first floor rent, and had tricked them in getting some extra money.