Kanchi squatted near a tap, washing some baby clothes. Kancha, her husband, stood next to her with a mug of water in one hand, and the other hand inside his mouth. He was brushing his teeth with some coal taken from the mud-built chulo. Three girls of almost similar ages were sewing a gundri using straw. Two girls in long blue skirts and torn shirts were entering the grounds of the small hut with a bundle of grass on their backs. One of them ran immediately to a cradle where a baby boy slept peacefully. A big family, indeed. A big family only because of a thirsty desire to bear a son.

“Seven hungry mouths to feed with no source of income,” Kancha raged one night after they had ate gundruk and dhido to a half-full stomach before sleep.  

“Eight if you count yourself.” Kanchi spoke softly looking at the floor and then at her husband in a millisecond interval of time, as if she would meet his eyes.

“Nine it would have been if Fuli had still been here. God knows what happened to her.” She continued.

Kancha heaved a sigh and closed his eyes. Kanchi followed the same as if copying him. They both were remembering the same day all over again. The day when they last saw Fuli, their eldest of six daughters.

“Baba, you and aama have grown old. We have no good source of income and we are a large family.

I have a friend in the capital who has promised to get me into his factory.” She had stopped to look at her parent’s faces, their eyes reflecting disbelief.

 “You’ll let me go, won’t you?”

Kancha was speechless. However, the next morning he had let Fuli free. And sadly, since the day she left, nothing was ever heard from her. Her parents weren’t even aware if she was alive or dead. However, they were happy to have a son who looked just like Kancha.

Time passed. Bire who looked just like his father was turning fifteen tomorrow. His sisters had all been married away to distant villages and to men he failed to recognise. He missed his sisters a lot. As a small boy, he loved getting dressed up as a girl. He loved it when his sisters put their skirts and blouses on him, no matter how old or torn they were. He found it difficult to plough fields when his father took him out on chores. He couldn’t perform physical tasks like a boy usually did.

 “You only look like me but you aren’t a percent of me if you have to work,” his father had shouted at him when he had failed to carry a sack of paddy on his back. No one had made a great deal about it until some rumours about Bire kissing a boy in the woods came up. Terrified, Kancha had run to him to find out the truth.

 “How dare you go on kissing boys in the village?” Bire didn’t shout a word in protest, rather welled up his eyes with tears like a little girl. That was when he got punched in the nose by his father who couldn’t bear his quiet sobs.

“What has happened to the boy, Kanchi? How can he kiss a boy?” Kancha shouted in disbelief leaving the hut.

Kanchi went up to her boy and Bire started crying hysterically. “Aama, I don’t like being a boy. I don’t like all these foolish girls in the village. What is wrong when I like a boy and feel like kissing him?” Bire cried wrapped up in his mother’s arm. Kanchi was indeed awed by her son’s words. Her young son was attracted to boys when he was a boy himself. How could she accept that?

“My son, you were born a boy. The world doesn’t work as you please. Boys need girls and vice versa. Being the only son in the family you have to continue the family name. You cannot get attracted to a guy. Apologise to your father stating you have made a mistake, will you? He’s too worried.” Kanchi, always the soft-spoken one, tried to change her son’s insight. That night Kancha returned home with a long face.

“Your son isn’t a son.”

“Yes, I saw him holding hands with a boy and walking down the riverbank.”

“It is obvious he likes boys. That’s disgraceful, Kancha.”

Kancha wasn’t able to make out whether the villagers were speaking the truth or exaggerating. “We’ll have to marry him as soon as possible. I’ll leave for the neighbouring village tomorrow at sunrise. I’ll find him a good girl.” he assured himself.

Looking for an appropriate girl for his son, Kancha was away a whole day. Later, in the evening he found a suitable family with a young daughter fit to marry. The family wasn’t a well-off one, nevertheless, Bire needed to be wed fast. And thus, within a fortnight Bire got married. Simple food, few people, and an easy marriage, it was. Not the kind everyone talked about. Kancha felt like he turned a big stone of his life and was very happy. But, a fact always remains a fact. Tying a knot merely doesn’t change the truth. Sadly, Bire and Sunita, his wife, even after three years of marriage still didn’t bear a child.

“Why haven’t you two planned for a child? It is time we get to hold a grandchild.” Kanchi asked one day.

Sunita didn’t speak for a while then slowly said, “Aama he doesn’t make any moves on me and when I try to, he doesn’t show any interest either. I wonder if we will ever have a child.”  Kanchi was shocked. She told everything to Kancha after dinner. Kancha cupped his head in his hands, frustrated. “I think we’ve lived enough, Kanchi.” He murmured.

Kancha wasn’t able to get sleep that night. He woke up to go outside and get some cool air. He peeped into Bire’s room and to his disbelief Sunita slept in the bed all alone. Bire was nowhere to be seen. Kancha ran outside and looked around with a torch in his hand. He heard something rustling behind the bushes. On nearing, he was taken aback to see two boys kissing passionately. And to his astonishment Bire was one. He tried to shout but in vain. No words came out. He dragged his only son to the old hut and locked him inside. He fetched a gallon of kerosene stored for a long time and threw it all over his small hut where inside, his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law remained. He lit a matchstick and threw it towards the hut. “Let us all rest in peace in heaven” he shouted and ran inside the burning hut to Kanchi, his beloved. Burning in the fire he lit himself, he hugged his panicking wife and burned every soul in the hut to ashes.