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An unexpected lesson
I loved my mother, but I never did everything she asked me to do. Whenever we walked on the street, I always ran ahead of her, causing her distress.Sandesh Ghimire
I loved my mother, but I never did everything she asked me to do. Whenever we walked on the street, I always ran ahead of her, causing her distress. Sometimes as I ran ahead of her, I would muddy my pants and she would scold me, but I never cared. I was a little tyrant who always yelled back at her. She loved me and served me, like a dedicated maid.
Things were different with my father. I did not love my father, but I obeyed him the way the children in the story followed the tunes of the piper—that is, without hesitation. I was barely 10 years old, and I was frightened of him. He would say, “Nooni, go fetch me this or go do that!” and I would do exactly as he demanded, as if I were an automaton tuned to his commands. Sometimes he would get so angry that he would dip sishnu in cold water and smack me with it. Thankfully, I only saw him once a week, on Saturdays.
On other days, as I would be ungluing my eyes from my dreams in the morning, I would hear him turn the motorcycle’s handle, and at night, just after mother turned off the light in my room, I would hear the bha ta ta of his motorcycle.
On Saturdays, my mother would tell me to sit next to my father, and since my father was already there I couldn’t say no. My mother would then disappear into the kitchen. The silence between us was long and unnerving. He would ask me mechanical questions, like “How was school?”, and I would respond even more mechanically with a “go…od.”
During the week days, my mother would sometimes say, “Nooni, your father loves you. You should talk to him more,” but that never happened. A few weeks went by like that: The silence between me and my father were filled only with the voice of my mother.
It was a great relief when the neighbourhood boys started calling my name early on Saturdays. We played cricket (though I rarely got the chance to bat or bowl) or improvised a football game, itta dhalai in the street. Sometimes nobody called, but I still went out. I would sit by the dhunge dhara and watch people fill their gagris. I came back home in time for daalbhaat. I was able to successfully evade short conversations and long silences with my father. I would eat heartily and then sit with my books and pretend to study until 2 pm when a Hindi movie played on Nepal Television.
One Saturday, I went out as usual. The clouds were hanging low, and my mother occasionally came out to the balcony, and looked at me sternly–perhaps as a warning. She was letting me know that if it rained I had to go inside immediately.
Since it was cooler than usual, I ran more. I even got to bat this time, and I scored many runs.
When I came back home I was sweating like a dog and hungrier than an elephant. I couldn’t believe that I had to wait another half hour for the food to be ready.
Hunger was killing me, but what I dreaded the most was the silence that I had to withstand between me and my father. But what choice did I have? I sat there in a small table, next to my father, eagerly waiting for the food to be served.
I knew I was ready to eat an entire mountain of food. When mother served me the usual portion, I demanded that she give me more. I felt like I was one of those dwarfed Hobbit from the book and the movie, who were capable of eating the amount that was equal to their own weight. My mother served me a little more, but I wasn’t satisfied. I demanded more, but she only pretended to add a little bit.
Had my father not been there I would have yelled at her, but I only gave her the evil eye. She added more, but that day I was not to be satisfied, and I insisted for more. “Maile chahi khanu pardaina?,” she retorted back, but I cared not a straw for her concerns. I would have continued to petrify my mother, had my father not taken my name very sternly.
If I continued to ask for more, I knew, it would have been not my father’s words, but sishnu that would have greeted me. So, I stopped complaining and started eating.
At first, I ate with the zeal of a hippo from the Animal Planet and then with the laziness of a monkey. I must have eaten half of what was in my plate, when I gave up. My stomach had already swollen like a balloon, and there was no space for me to stuff more rice.
I quietly tried to take the plate to the kitchen, but I heard the quiet and commanding voice of my father that said, “Nooni!”. I froze, where I stood. A certain dread gripped my soul. Was I to meet the sishnu again?
My father took another minute to empty his plate, and he said, “Let’s go!” My mother looked at him with questioning eyes, but he did not respond. I put my food back in the table and followed his lead.
He started his motorcycle and indicated for me to hop in. It had started to drizzle but he didn’t care. Soon the drizzle became a downpour, the road became a river, but we kept going. Where was he taking me? Was my crime so serious that I was being moved without explanation?
We arrived in the outskirts of Bhaktapur, where there were fewer houses and bigger fields. In the fields there were people planting rice for the season. My father stopped the motorcycle, and took me by the hand, pointed his gaze to the field, and said, rather loudly (perhaps to make himself heard in the downpour), “You see those people, they bend their backs to plant the rice, and I work countless hours to bring that rice home, and your mother wakes up earlier than everybody else to put that rice on the table. And what do you do with it?”
I was in the downpour; he saw my tears and hugged me tight. Since that day, there were very few silences between me and my father, and I never wasted another plate of food.