An extract from 'The King's Harvest' by Chetan Raj Shresta

31 December 2002

All-time Favourite Song ~

T

here was no escape from the dust; on the worst patches, the taxi jerked through opaque storms. The plump youth beside Straun apologized for the state of the roads, but assured him that they were better in Sikkim. At Melli, the border between Sikkim and West Bengal, Straun registered himself as a visiting foreigner at the checkpost. When he returned, there was an extra passenger, a thin woman in a blue jacket, waiting for him to climb in so that she could occupy his window seat.

There were now nine people in the jeep: two, besides the driver, in the front seat; four in the second—Straun, the plump youth, a bespectacled man and the woman; and an old man and his grandson in the last. It was a tight fit on the second seat and the four passengers swayed and bounced in cushioned unity on a road which was as uneven here as the one in Bengal.

A kilometre out of Melli, Straun disturbed the seat’s compactness. He reached between his feet and fished out an audio cassette from his bag.

He tapped the driver on his shoulder with it and said, ‘Nepali song.

Please put.’

There is a protocol that governs public travel in taxis, and such an imposition can be considered rude. A recent hit from a Hindi film was playing and it was clearly a favourite of the driver’s. Straun’s co-passengers in the taxi had observed his foreignness: he was European and distinguishable by height, colour and gait. His move caused a ripple of smug expectation; they waited for the driver’s irritation and possible rebuke. But the driver agreed, and the passengers disguised their disappointment.

Straun waited for ‘Resham Firiri’, the song that had captivated him.

Its melody had occupied his mind so completely that it was now a 3

malaise. He had first encountered it two weeks earlier in a music shop in an alley in Thamel, Kathmandu, his previous stop. The shopkeeper had shouted out as Straun walked by.

‘Hello, Sir! Good Morning! Latest CD! English, Nepali, Spanish, everybody music here!’

Straun shrugged but paused with some sadness, for his CD player had been pilfered from his hotel room the day before. The shopkeeper pounced on his pause. ‘Bon Jovi, U2, Norah Jones, Sepultura, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, AC/DC, Prodigy, Eminem, hip-hop.’ He stopped for breath. He saw that Straun was unmoved. ‘Trance?’ he asked hopefully.

Straun wanted something else. He asked, ‘You have Nepali music?’

The shopkeeper recovered his breath and said, ‘Yes, Sir. What you want? Instrumental, rock, rap, folk, Spanish influence, pop influence, heavy metal influence.’

‘Folk?’

‘This CD, Sir. Best CD,’ he said and held out a disc which Straun studied warily. The cover said ‘Best of Himalayan Folk Songs’ and it depicted three girls in chaubandi cholos with their dancing arms frozen against a mountainous backdrop. The CD had been manufactured and marketed by Digi Himal Music who also assured that its sleeve was made from recycled paper.

‘How much?’

‘Three hundred rupees. But I give you for two-fifty.’ To counter any retraction by Straun, the young shopkeeper tore the CD’s plastic packing.

‘Friend,’ he said as he bent over the audio system, ‘you listen first to my and everybody’s all time favourite song. Resham Firiri.’

Resham Firiri, Resham Firiri Oorera jaunki, danra ra bhanjyang, Resham Firiri Among those who endure the ceremonies of great and momentous affairs, there is a minority for whom the first encounter is of little consequence. There isn’t any sudden transformation from innocence to love; it is a stealthy journey. Straun remained unmoved by Resham Firiri as it played on the shop’s speakers for half a minute, the time it took for the shopkeeper to judge the CD as ‘best export quality’. But he paid the two hundred and fifty anyway, only to reward the shopkeeper’s sunny enthusiasm.

4 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

Later, Straun asked the receptionist in the hotel’s lobby to play the CD. That was when it happened. Perhaps it was the anticipation, because he recognized the song the instant it began. And then he found that he could hum along. So began an adoration of ‘Resham Firiri’ that would follow him out of his stay in Nepal and into Sikkim, his next stop.

He wanted to hear the song in all the recesses of its founding environment.

He wanted to hear it as its creators carried on their daily dealings. He asked restaurants and tea stalls to abandon the pop numbers they played to accommodate his taste. Some obliged but others protested smilingly that they only had cassette players. Straun shopped successfully for a cassette version and these demurrals grew less frequent. In his hotel room, Straun found the song playing on a TV channel, attempted to dance to it and felt graceless.

Straun was mystified by his infatuation with the song. He prided himself on his reason, acquired so diligently from sombre bearded professors in his East European university. He dissected his symptoms.

His obsession, which was like a calm fever, had nothing to do with the song’s lyrical content, for its meaning would always elude him. The instruments, too, were common; he knew their Western variations and had no great attachment to any of them. The only cause of the malady, then, could be the tune, which haunted him. It brimmed with longing.

It spoke of the mountains to him. It was sad and sweet and mysterious.

By the time he crossed over from Nepal into India at Kakribhitta, he could predict the opening strains of each song and knew that ‘Resham Firiri’ was his favourite. The driver of the night bus from Kathmandu had played it readily. Some passengers closed their eyes and hummed. A father clamped his hand over his child’s bawling mouth. Twelve hours later, the bus let him off at Kakribhitta, Nepal’s border town with India.

From here he caught a taxi to Siliguri, the city in West Bengal closest to Sikkim. The taxi’s driver was gracious enough to play the CD for him.

He reached Siliguri, and obeying his guidebook which warned him not to spend a minute more than necessary in that town of ‘traders and touts’, he quickly found a taxi bound for Pelling, a hill town in West Sikkim. From Pelling he was to trek to Zongri, at the base of the Kanchenjunga range, in the first week of January, reportedly a most unsuitable time.

Straun looked forward to solitude in Sikkim, which he knew to be less An Open-and-Shut Case / 5

peopled than Nepal. His outward appearance was stern but he wished to be remembered, when he left, as someone who did more than merely contribute to the local economy. It was this side of him that the song appealed to, and it seemed perfect to ask the driver to play it, here, on a dusty road beside a calm, green river. ~ Now, in the taxi between Melli and Jorethang, the driver reached back and took Straun’s cassette. In a practiced move he inserted it into the player fastened to the cabin’s metal ceiling.

A guitar strummed gently and it was followed by a flute lilt. In the moments preceding the first words Straun savoured the anticipation unique to music—a torment sweetened by the knowledge of immediate fulfilment.

Resham Firiri, Resham Firiri Oorera jaunki, danra ma bhanjyang, Resham Firiri The mood in the jeep turned convivial. The plump youth said, ‘You like the song? I have not heard this song since childhood. We also speak Nepali here.’ His English was fluent. Straun had travelled enough in the East to know that a conversation loomed.

‘Yes. I know. Lot of Nepali people in Sikkim,’ he replied. He did not usually respond to attempts at conversation when travelling in the East.

His English was halting; he had learnt it for the same reason some people learn driving, to get by in the world. And his patriot’s pride suffered when he was addressed in it. But now, he suspended these reservations, for something needed clarity.

Straun turned to the lady beside him, and asked her to translate the song. He wanted the song to be unravelled by a woman’s voice. But she strained her pursed lips into an unconvincing smile and shook her head.

She looked at the youth and said to him in Nepali, ‘Bhai, please translate the song for the tourist. You look like a college graduate. He’ll understand you better.’

The compliment and his own eagerness made the plump young man an ideal candidate. He leaned forward, tapped the eavesdropping driver on his shoulder and told him in Nepali, ‘He wants to know the meaning of the song. We should play it again.’

6 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

The driver agreed. He was anxious to cut off the man seated next to him, an acquaintance who held a clerkship in Gangtok, a post whose importance grew with each kilometre, until he was indispensable to the state. He had proclaimed at the beginning, ‘Bhai, what do we know about party-politics?’ and then proceeded to talk of politics with a passion that did not endure any interference. He had been talking of the Chief Minister’s poetic anguish at the slow pace of public works when Straun made his unusual request.

The driver, his eyes on the road, stopped the music, rewound the cassette and they heard the opening strains of ‘Resham Firiri’ again. The driver said to the youth, ‘Bhai, you will have to translate. My English is as good as his father’s Nepali.’

Resham Firiri, Resham Firiri, Oorera jaunki, danra ma bhanjyang, Resham Firiri The cassette was ejected with a click. ‘Silk,’ the youth said to Straun.

‘Fluttering. Yes, silky fluttering. Should I fly over the mountains and valleys? Silky Fluttering.’ ‘“Resham Firiri” means silky fluttering?’

‘Yes.’ The song continued, Ek nale bandook, dui nale bandook, mirga lai take ko Mirga lai maile take ko haina, may alai take ko.

Now the driver volunteered to translate. He slowed the taxi and asked, ‘Bhai, mirga ko English meaning ke ho?’

‘Deer,’ the plump youth told him.

The driver then began, ‘Single-barrel gun, double-barrel gun, aiming deer,’ and brought up his hand and held it pistol-like at his furrowed brow. Then he corrected himself: ‘No, no. Not deer. Aiming love.’

There was laughter, the loudest from the old man and his grandson at the back of the jeep. Straun turned to the plump youth who frowned and said, ‘True.’

The driver turned his unshaven face around and said, ‘My name Lakpa Driver.’

‘Eyes on the road,’ Straun said and pointed ahead.

The song resumed.

An Open-and-Shut Case / 7

Kukhura lai kuti ma kuti, Biralo lai suri Timro hamro maya preeti, do bato ma kuri.

The passengers seemed to have turned against Straun. When the youth recovered from his giggles, he said, ‘Tickle the chicken and give the cat chicken shit. Your love and my love came up in mid-way.’

The next verse came quickly: Sano ma sano, gaai ko bachho, bheeriama Ram Ram Chodera jana sakina maile, baru maya sanghai jau.

This was broadcast as, ‘Small, small calf on the edge of hill. Jesus Christ.

I cannot leave you, let us go together.’

The party-politics man inquired if Ram Ram could be fairly interpreted as Jesus Christ. The youth defended the necessity of a closer cultural reference to ease the foreigner’s bewilderment.

Straun did not understand what his considerate translator had said, but he wouldn’t have appreciated the youth’s concern even if he had. His traveller’s insecurity made him assume that the laughter was directed at him. He leaned close to the party-politics man’s ear and asked about the translation’s veracity. ‘Yes, yes,’ the man said, ‘this song is like our “Twinkle twinkle little star”.’ Straun winced. Absurdity was supplanting mystique and this appalled him.

It was time for the final stanza.

Himalchooli pallo patti dumsi lukne doolo, Suna chaandi bhannu matra, maya raicha thulo.

This one took a while. When the youth was ready he said, ‘On the mountain, opposite side, porcupine hiding in a hole. But love is greater than gold or silver.’

He smiled at Straun, who was beyond amusement. He was furious at the Nepalis for inventing such a melody only to subvert it with bad poetry and worse logic. His earlier innocence was now irretrievable. He could never again hear the song without feeling ridiculed.

‘So you still like song?’ the woman next to him asked. Straun felt confused and foolish.

‘Resham Firiri’ passed and another song began. They offered a translation. Straun declined and asked for his cassette back. Lakpa 8 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

Driver said, ‘Let it play. Too many Hindi songs make you giddy.’ The youth translated this and Straun agreed. The music and the drive were far more important than the ridicule of these half-wits.

‘So, where are you from?’ the youth asked Straun. He was ignored.

Straun withdrew from their talk and looked outside. The Rangeet kept the road company. It was diminished by the dry winter and flowed with reptilian sloth. The road passed through largely uninhabited foothills but the scenery, which might have enchanted in the morning or at dusk, was colourless under the weak sun.

The conversation in the jeep flourished; the incident seemed to have lifted everyone’s spirits, except Straun’s. The party-politics man, initially irate at his removal from the centre, welcomed the anecdote to his repertoire. The youth, who had thought himself incapable of provoking laughter, was pleased. The driver remembered a similar situation with another Nepali folk song and laughed. The old man at the back leaned over, whispered something to the youth and motioned him to translate.

The youth said, ‘He’s saying the song was sad before. His mother and aunty used to sing it at weddings and gatherings. He’s also saying the song is incomplete.’

‘There is more?’ Straun asked.

‘Yes, anybody could add anything.’

‘For sure they did,’ Straun said and returned his gaze to the river.

The youth recollected other Nepali songs where the first line described a landscape or a situation and the second line a sentiment. The woman stopped him mid flow: ‘Let it be, Bhai. We’ve already broken his heart.’

He thought it best not to translate this for Straun.

The song was soon forgotten. The passengers exchanged plans for New Year’s Eve. The party-politics man was organizing a cultural programme in Maanpur, his village. The driver was going to watch TV. The plump youth had a party in Geyzing with his friends. They felt sorry for Straun who was so far away from home on such an important day with only untranslatable songs for company.

The party-politics man asked to be let off at Maanpur, roughly halfway between Melli and Jorethang. He had announced repeatedly that he had ‘urgent business’ there but Maanpur’s surroundings seemed at odds with any idea of urgency. It was not a roadside settlement. A rough, unpitched road led downwards and curved away from view towards the An Open-and-Shut Case / 9

unseen village. At the mouth of the road there was a pavilion of rough planks where a few people waited in the ochreous dust. They saw the party-politics man walk down, handkerchief over his mouth and nose, briefcase in his left hand.

The jeep drove through red dust. After a few kilometres, Lakpa Driver swore under his breath when he saw a tall and broad-shouldered constable on the roadside waving his arm. A policeman on a highway is a creature in panic, for he is often passed by taxis whose drivers wave but do not stop. But there was no escape for Lakpa Driver, this non-paying constable recognized him, and his jeep, and the seat vacated by the party-politics man was clearly visible. The taxi stopped. The constable took the front seat. He wore sunglasses and had a moustache. He carried a duffel bag which had Reebok logos on its sides and an Adidas logo in its centre, he held this securely in his lap. And over it, he placed a packaged cake.

‘Where’s this jeep going?’ he asked Lakpa Driver.

‘Geyzing. And then Pelling to drop the white rooster,’ said Lakpa Driver, gesturing towards Straun. ‘Your posting is in Gangtok. So how come you’re going this way?’

‘I’m not allowed to go home? It’s New Year. Got a cake from Glenary’s restaurant in here.’

‘Cake?’

‘Yes, cake. Let the wife also taste some. It might sweeten her tongue.’

Lakpa Driver laughed in apparent sympathy. Puran Constable continued, ‘But I haven’t come all the way just to feed my family cake.

There’s also work. I have to report to Jorethang thana tomorrow.’

‘Is that Daman OC case still on?’ Lakpa Driver asked.

They pressed him with their expectant silence. Everyone knew about the case. There were policemen involved, and there had been rumours of rape, forced incest and suicide. It had anchored all recent talk in Jorethang.

‘Not that,’ Puran said and spat out of the window, ‘that one’s over.

Would I be here otherwise? That OC almost dragged down the entire force with him.’ The bag in his lap wobbled. He settled it delicately and added, ‘It’s something else. A development in the Soreng rape case.’

He turned around, to gauge his audience in the back seat, and said, ‘You won’t believe . . . Stop. Stop the jeep!’

The taxi driver complied. Puran jumped out, went over to the door next to which the woman was seated and said, ‘Madum, what are you 10 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

doing in the back seat among all these people? You have to sit in the front, no no, I insist,’ and then to Lakpa Driver, ‘You fool. Can’t see?

This is Dechen Madum, our OC from Nayabazaar thana.’

Dechen OC, the Officer-in-Charge of the Nayabazaar police station, who had taken up her post a month ago and was also investigating the Soreng rape case, thought at first of ordering the constable back to his seat. But now that everyone knew her identity, refusing a privilege would be pointless, even foolish. She relented and moved to the front seat, and Puran took her place beside Straun. The journey resumed, and there was a long, awkward silence before Dechen OC said, ‘This foreigner. We just translated a song for him. Good fun!’

‘Resham Firiri’ was rewound and played. The translations were repeated for Puran who leered at Straun and asked, ‘You like song?’

‘No.’ Straun looked out of the window again. He saw the manicured slopes of the hills across the river, their smoothness a contrast to the jungles elsewhere. He asked the plump youth, ‘What is that?’

‘Tea gardens. Darjeeling tea. It’s world famous, no? That side West Bengal, this side Sikkim, Rangeet river is the border.’

Soon, they reached the 16 Mile stretch and after the curve at its end, Jorethang came into view, set in a valley surrounded by low hills and bisected by the Rangeet. Constrained by the size of the valley, and with its regulation-sized buildings, Jorethang has the appearance of a midget city. It is famously hot during the summer, but it was winter now, and the valley offered a refuge from the icy hills.

The plump youth said, ‘Reached.’

They were soon in the new taxi stand, a large enclosure ringed with concrete buildings and packed with jeeps. There were old jeeps which had seen years of service and new ones whose loan repayments were yet to begin, surrounded by drivers and their assistants, passengers with shopping bags and children, groups of idle youth, hawkers of peanuts and puffed rice, conversations and arguments. ~ The jeep stopped to let Puran, Dechen OC and the old man and his grandson out, and waited for new passengers headed towards Geyzing or Pelling. Lakpa Driver’s fears proved unfounded as Dechen OC paid for herself and the constable.

An Open-and-Shut Case / 11

‘Madum, the file,’ Puran said.

‘It’s late. I have the night duty today. It’s not an urgent case anyway.

Come tomorrow and brief us.’

‘Madum, if you want I can give you the file here,’ he said, bending to put the cake on the ground.

‘Tomorrow,’ she said, her voice a command, and then added, ‘I may misplace it.’

He saluted. She nodded and walked away from the jeep, her blue jacket puffy around her upper half and her dark jeans tight around her legs, down to her heeled boots. Puran watched her behind. He found Lakpa Driver doing the same and asked him, ‘Would you do it with her if you got the chance?’

Lakpa Driver played it safe. ‘Would you?’

Puran said, ‘Of course! Face not so great, but body, what a body she has.’

The driver and the constable stared at her departing figure until she took a turn. Puran then looked around predator-like for another taxi that would take him towards Zoom, his village, just above Jorethang. He raised his gaze and in the background beyond the concrete buildings surrounding the taxi stand, the Zoom hill loomed. There were scattered specks of colour against the dull green cover, these were Zoom’s houses, and one amongst them was his.

He spotted a familiar taxi with some passengers waiting in it. He shouted to the driver, ‘Ay Padam, are you going towards Zoom?’

‘Arrey! It’s Puran Daju. I’m going to Soreng.’

‘So isn’t Zoom on the way? Why don’t you thieves ever give a straight answer?’

Padam Driver was young and of a small build. His jumper read ‘Never say never again’. He suppressed a straight answer to the constable’s question. It was against the taxi drivers’ code to argue with a policeman, and besides there was something familiar about this one, an association with a scandal that he could not place. He frowned and said, ‘Sit down Daju, it’s your taxi after all.’

There was a man seated in the front by the window. Puran motioned him to go further along the seat. The man resisted. Puran shoved his arm and snapped, ‘I’m getting off in fifteen minutes. Stop acting like a woman and move in.’ The man winced and shuffled along the seat.

12 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

Padam Driver sat in his seat and hollered for passengers. Puran saw him preparing khaini and asked for some. The driver offered a pinch when it was ready and Puran tucked it into his lower gum. The man between them coughed.

The taxi filled up quickly and was soon on its way. It exited Jorethang, crossed the Rangeet and went from South Sikkim into West Sikkim, two of the state’s cardinally named four districts. The taxi began its climb towards Soreng through Zoom on a road that wound abruptly around ridges and spurs. The jeep moved in the first gear. There could be no conversations, no music against the engine’s groaning hum. They had only the scenery for distraction.

The denuded forest amplified the beams of late afternoon sunlight that broke through it. A light breeze swayed the weaker branches, broke the beams and made the forest a seamless, changing haze. Its floor was a gilded carpet of fallen leaves, while the leaves that remained on the trees were crisp and brown. The taxi gained altitude and they saw Jorethang and Rangeet become map-like below them. A mother in the second seat took her sick child’s hand and pointed out the building where he had been treated for measles. It grew chillier.

Zoom arrived without notice. The village did not have a bazaar and consisted entirely of houses set in large plots of cultivated land. It was uncertain where one arrived or left and good humoured contests existed between houses which claimed these honours. Puran said, ‘Here,’ at an uninhabited stretch. The constable’s house was below the road, its roof just visible from the jeep.

Puran’s homecoming softened him and he offered Padam Driver some money, a third of the normal fare. The driver ritually declined and then ritually accepted the payment. Puran said, ‘Our journeys separate from here. Go slowly, and Happy New Year.’ They wished him back, and he turned to walk down the path, whistling Resham Firiri as he disappeared from their view. ~ Kamala waited in the dust for her husband. When she heard a vehicle pause on the road that ran above the house, she knew it was him. He had said he would come home on Saturday when she had called him the previous week from the Panchayat office.

An Open-and-Shut Case / 13

Puran and Kamala’s house was a small cottage with two rooms. It had a wattle-and-daub façade and a tin-sheeted roof, the style of the local poor. A kitchen, made of concrete, had been a later addition. Across the mud courtyard were a toilet and a bath, both makeshift, ramshackle structures. Maya and Thooli were spinning around in the courtyard, shrieking with dizziness. Their play stirred up the dust their mother waited in.

The girls slowed down, stood still, staggered, and fell down dramatically.

It was a new game and Maya was learning from Thooli, her elder sister.

Thooli stood up and swayed drunkenly, her sister copied her. Then with a shout she abandoned the game, for she had seen her father walk down the twisted declivity that led to their house.

As her father neared, Maya hid behind her mother and sucked in the snot coursing down to her upper lip. Thooli went up to him and bowed.

Puran did not expect his wife to do the same—their last exchange on the phone had been rancorous—but she surprised him by bending down to touch his feet, exposing a now defenceless Maya. The girl heard her father say her name softly; she ran and hugged his leg, shouting, ‘Appa!

Appa!’ Thooli laid claim to the bag in Puran’s hand.

‘Be careful with it,’ he said, as he let it go.

Thooli ran into the house with the package and Maya followed her.

‘What is it?’ Kamala asked.

‘Don’t you know, woman? Today is the last day of the year. From tomorrow it’s another year. I’ve got a cake.’

‘Only you seem to know such things. I’ve lost all my memories,’ Kamala said. She had grown up in Yuksom, a town three hours from Nayabazaar, where her father had a tailoring shop, and where she had met Puran.

‘And such sweet memories you had,’ Puran said. He was amused. He hadn’t expected the barb to come so early. These exchanges did not bother him too much, they gave him something to do in this wilderness, and often they worked as a form of arousal, culminating in sex. And the arguments that threatened to go nowhere, he deflected into beatings.

What else could one do with a short-tempered wife who insisted on being flogged?

‘Your transfer?’ she asked.

Five years ago, they had met in Yuksom, where Puran was posted as a 14 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

constable, and eloped. Within a month, Puran had inveigled a transfer to Nayabazaar thana, just below Zoom, where Kamala’s parents owned a patch of land and an old, abandoned house. They had set up home there, and soon the quarrels had started. Six months later, another transfer order had arrived: Puran was to be posted to Gangtok. She had not been able to find out if it was a routine transfer, the result of a bureaucratic lottery or if he had arranged it. For Puran, the posting was almost a reward; it had taken him to the city, and away from the stupor of Zoom and from his new wife, who had begun to sniff his clothes daily for the remains of other women.

‘Is that all you’ve been thinking of?’ he said now. ‘Won’t you even give me water?’

‘Doesn’t even want to talk about it,’ she said.

Every time he came home, he said that he was trying to wrest back the posting to Nayabazaar. Then the Daman OC scandal had erupted and all transfers to the Nayabazaar thana were put on hold. He had told her this, relieved that he now had a legitimate reason to stay in Gangtok, but she was not convinced.

He said, ‘At least stop nagging today, woman! In every shop and hotel in Gangtok they are asking people to celebrate this night. The newspapers have advertisements for dance parties. There must be a reason, no?

Tonight, we have to forget our grumblings.’

Kamala looked around; the children had disappeared into the house to rummage through the contents of Puran’s bag. She said, ‘Maybe. I’ve heard it’s another life there. We used to burn tyres in Yuksom and sing around them.’

‘I work hard there so that you have food to eat and clothes to wear. Be grateful,’ he said. ‘And I’m not here just to enjoy myself. I have to report to the thana tomorrow with some documents regarding a rape case.’

‘Did you commit it?’

Puran laughed, and thought of saying something to provoke her further but restrained himself. It had been a long journey from Gangtok and his feet hurt inside his kanpurey boots. He wanted to sit down and enjoy his drink. He did not want the New Year to begin with the aftermath of a quarrel. It was a common truth that the year streamed whatever mood it received on its first day. He turned to cajoling. ‘It doesn’t matter, woman. There has to be a party. We’ll try.’ He put a hand on her shoulder, she let it remain there.

An Open-and-Shut Case / 15

The children pattered out of the house. Maya asked Thooli, ‘What does party mean?’

‘It’s like a Happy Birthday,’ Thooli said.

‘Whose Happy Birthday?’

‘It’s the Happy Birthday of the next year,’ Puran said, as he walked into the house, and the girl was satisfied with the explanation.

Night arrived. The world was all sound. The insects in the forest emitted an unceasing buzz. Jackals howled and the village dogs barked in retaliation. Over all these rose the distant roar of the Rangeet. Puran sat in the living room on the second-hand sofa with a bottle of rum, a full glass and a jug of water on the table by his side. Maya ran in. He straightened up on the sofa and curved his feet into a seat, which Maya straddled. He caught her hands, see-sawed her and sang: Resham Firiri. Resham Firiri.

Oorera jaunki, danra ma bhanjyang, Kamala had slaughtered a hen in the evening and Thooli had plucked and cleaned it. Puran liked a dish of fried gizzard and intestines with his drink. When Kamala came into the living room to serve him, he said, ‘We must teach our children traditional songs.’

‘I don’t know any. You can stay here and teach them and I’ll go to Gangtok and work.’

He ignored her and repeated the verses of the song until Maya could sing along. She climbed up on to his chest and was soon asleep. This, too, was a ritual, and Kamala took the sleeping child to her bed and left Puran to his drinking.

The house was silent as Thooli helped her mother in the kitchen.

Puran counted the minutes. He looked at the clock. It was 8.30. He looked around the room in the dim light of the single bulb: the faded cushion covers, the twenty-year-old posters, the centre table with the chipped edges, on which the cake waited for the New Year. He looked at the clock again at 8.35 and back at the cake. Its presence was now a reproach to the smallness of his life.

‘Budi. Ay Budi! Bring me some more snacks.’ He called her ‘budi’— wife—as a provocation.

‘The food’s ready, Maya ko Bau. I’ll wake the child up and then we can eat.’ She called him Maya ko Bau—Maya’s father—when he irritated her.

16 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

‘Why did you let her sleep? It’s a party, the girls should stay awake,’ he said.

Kamala came to the doorway of the living room and shouted, ‘How will they enjoy the party? By looking at your face? There is no television, not even a black-and-white one. No radio. They wake up at four in the morning. Thooli spends her morning with the cows. She failed this year.

Did you know that? Why should they stay awake? What is there to have a party for? You were drinking, the children are frightened by what you do after you drink. Or did you expect them to talk to the night insects?’

Puran straightened up and snarled, ‘What did you say? Say it again!

Tell me! Is someone plugging your hole while I’m away?’

Vulgarity is often a woman’s weapon in a fight; its power lies in its ability to shame. A man has rage, the strength to hurt; if he adds filth to his arsenal as well, he cannot be defeated. Silence, then, is the best defence. Kamala held her tongue. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was only 8.40. They would fight tonight, there was no doubt about it, she had quite a few things to say. But the earlier they fought, the longer would be the beating she would have to endure.

‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Let’s eat. I’ll wake the children.’

It was a confluence of two occasions—the homecoming and the New Year—so they would eat in the living room. Kamala returned to the kitchen. It was a spare concrete room, with uneven walls and an earthen stove which had firewood stacked above it. There were some low stools lying around. Thooli had fallen asleep watching the chicken cook.

Kamala let her sleep while she took the chicken off the stove and put the rice on it. When she ushered the children into the living room, she was surprised to see that the wall clock showed it was a quarter to twelve. She looked at Puran. He caught her eye and made a winding movement with his hands.

‘Apuee! It’s about to ring twelve,’ Thooli said.

Kamala improvised: ‘Ho ta chhori. We’ve stayed awake like the bazaar people!’

At Maya’s request, her father sang Resham Firiri again and she danced. Thooli came in from the kitchen and sang a recent hit. At the children’s urging their father joined the dancing. Kamala left the room to check on the rice. The New Year could come without her.

Thooli called, ‘Aama, come in. It’s about to be Happy New Year.’

An Open-and-Shut Case / 17

Kamala stood in the doorway. Thooli was bent over the cake and staring at it intently, it was still a foreign indulgence. Puran was standing with Maya on his shoulders. They made an unsteady tower and Maya’s head almost touched the low ceiling. Puran swayed and Kamala hurried to bring her daughter down. A whistle went off from the pressure cooker in the kitchen, Kamala tried to leave but her husband caught her wrist and shouted, ‘Happy New Year!’ The children yelled after him, and Kamala found herself joining in.

Soon Puran and his daughters shouted out their greetings. After they had finished the cake, Kamala led the children to their beds. When she returned to the living room she saw that her husband had wound back the clock to 9:30, its true time. She bent over to clear the table for the food. Puran tapped the seat beside him on the old sofa and she sat down.

Their knees touched. Puran’s expression softened. Kamala smelled turmeric on her hands and felt unlovely.

‘You will be staying for a few days?’ she asked.

‘Should I stay, then?’

‘Your wish. You are our honoured guest.’

‘Meaning?’ He was glaring now.

‘We rarely see you. We three women are fine with each other. I seldom remember you at night. And the days pass without any beatings. I would . . .’

‘I’ll get posted here soon. And then we’ll be in the same house. I’ll teach the children in the evenings. But tonight, let’s be happy.’

He wanted it to be a peaceable end to a year of battles. They had fought every time he came home. They had fought when she found out about the girl in Gangtok. He had gripped her thin wrists with his left hand and whipped her legs with a belt, as he did servants accused of stealing at the thana. He had beaten her when he came to give his statement in the Daman OC case and she asked him thrice over dinner about his transfer. She had spat in his face and accused him of being involved in the incident and raping the mother and daughter. He had shown her then what rape actually meant. He did not want that now.

The drink had made him mellow. He wanted to sleep naked with his wife tonight, just like he did with the girl in Gangtok. He wanted to dream without bitterness and to wake up in the New Year to face whatever it would bring.

18 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

‘Please,’ he said in English, and called her ‘baby’. He took his jacket off. He caressed her shoulders and fumbled with the hooks of her blouse.

She brushed his hand away and stood up and moved across to the plastic chair opposite the sofa.

‘That girl in Gangtok.’

‘She’s gone. It was a small thing.’

‘She’s not gone, I know,’ Kamala said. ‘You can go back to her. I’ll find a man here, for a small thing.’

‘You whore!’ Puran shouted. The children twisted in their shallow sleep. He made a wild lunge towards Kamala, caught his foot in the loose cover of the sofa, fell clumsily and hit his head on the armrest of Kamala’s chair. An intruder at that moment would have mistaken the scene for one of private contrition.

‘You whore. You whore. You whore,’ Puran shouted as he pulled himself up. His wife remained seated. He slapped her, then slapped her again. He grabbed one of her braids and pulled her up to her feet with a jerk. With his foot he pushed the centre table away, giving himself more room to manoeuvre. He swung a leg and kicked her hard. Once. Twice.

In the groin, in the stomach. The kicks drew the first cries of pain from her. She twisted and turned to avoid his feet. Soon enough, some of his blows began to miss her, and the ones that landed on her were softened by the alcohol. The abuse devolved into grunts but the beating continued.

An open-faced slap, a back-handed slap, a fist to the face that tore her lips, some more kicks. Kamala, at a defining moment, slumped to the ground. It was an admission of defeat and a cue for him to stop.

‘Appa!’

Puran turned towards Thooli’s voice. She stood in the doorway, her teeth clamped around the door’s wooden frame. He paused, his body warm from his exertions. He realized he had an erection, and sat down on the sofa with one leg over the other to hide it. Saliva dribbled from his mouth. He sucked it in. He abused Kamala again with words that his daughter would repeat calmly in the police station the next morning.

Kamala was on all fours. Her posture aroused him. It reminded him of earlier fights, when Thooli was Maya’s age, and the fights, more violent than this, were treated as foreplay. Then, hazily, he remembered another night when she had crawled up to him and bitten his shin. He drew his legs in.

An Open-and-Shut Case / 19

Kamala uncoiled, leapt up and straddled her sitting husband. She tore at his hair, scratched his face and bit his nose, which began to bleed.

Puran realized it was an invitation to a second round. He threw her off and stood up. Kamala turned to escape. Puran put an arm out to restrain her, but only managed to tear her sweater and a piece of her blouse, exposing her right breast. She passed her screaming child as she darted into the kitchen.

‘Enough of your madness,’ Puran shouted as he chased her.

He wiped his bloodied nose and entered the kitchen. He locked the door and looked around for a weapon. There was a bamphok, a cleaver, lying on the ledge, still marked with the hen’s blood. He wanted the cleaver, but Kamala crouched next to it like a wounded animal. A khukuri was closer to him. He looked at it and said, ‘Now what do I do?’

‘Hit me, eunuch,’ she hissed.

She pulled up a half burnt piece of wood from the hearth, its top half still smouldering, and charged at him. He tried to dodge but it caught his face and he screamed. She retreated to the hearth. With one hand over his singed face, he felt around for the khukuri with the other, found it and advanced towards her. In a sweeping movement he brought his weapon down on his wife and missed. The sting in his eyes, his drunken state, and his inexperience with the khukuri worked against him; he had used the weapon clumsily, like an axe. He recovered and cornered her.

He brought the khukuri down again. She raised her hand and arrested the downward slash of his arm between her thumb and forefinger. Then she let go, slipped out from under his arm and bent to grab the bamphok. She twisted around as she stood up, and at the end of her twirl, struck him in the face. She slashed his cheek, his nose, and his left eye. She saw the white flash of bone.

Both had used their weapons ineptly. The khukuri should be swung at an angle, preferably an ascending one, and the bamphok brought down with a rigid, vertical swipe. But she had struck flesh, and bone.

He wailed and doubled over. She slashed at the base of his neck. His hand left his face, reached for his neck, returned to his face, and went to his neck again. He waved the other hand at her, like a distant man trying to get noticed. She struck the waving arm, the bamphok made contact at the elbow; she heard it crack. He screamed and struggled towards the door. He collapsed after a step and grunted as he went face down on the floor.

20 / Chetan Raj Shrestha

She knelt over her husband and hacked at him with the bamphok. His body twitched with each cut. He emitted a soft groan and moved briefly, like a sleeping man resisting a summons, and the twitching ceased. She continued to hack at him when he was beyond pain and had gone still.

Then she sat on the ground with her knees bunched up and, resting her head on them, she slept. ~ She started when she heard Thooli knock.

‘Where is Maya?’ she shouted.

‘Sleeping.’

She opened the door and said, ‘It’s done now.’ Thooli looked in, retched and struggled in Kamala’s arms. Kamala dragged her out to the scullery and washed her face. Then she cleaned her own bloodied skin by the light of the single tungsten bulb.

‘How long did I sleep?’ Kamala asked.

‘One, two hours,’ her daughter said.

‘We have to go to the thana,’ Kamala said and snapped, ‘Stop crying.

Your tears are useless.’

Thooli looked at her and said, ‘Aama. Blouse.’

Kamala looked at her exposed breast that drooped shapelessly and giggled. She went into the house and emerged wearing a fresh blouse.

Then she felt cold. She went into the living room and put on her husband’s jacket. As she left the compound her hunger returned. There was food in the kitchen and it would go to waste. She went in, avoiding the corpse of her husband, and brought out the vessels and plates. She ate the cold dinner and forced some on her daughters.

She went into her room, found her torch and strapped the sleeping Maya to her back with a sheet. On her way out she entered the kitchen and picked up the bamphok. She emerged from the house in her husband’s jacket, large on her, a sleeping child on her back, the bamphok in one hand and a torch light in another.

In the final hour of the year, the three women followed the dancing circle of the torch’s light towards the valley. They followed the slope of the road and at points known to Thooli, who walked this road on her way to school, they took shortcuts that laddered the tarmac surfaces. On one descent the torch slipped out of Kamala’s hand, rolled down and An Open-and-Shut Case / 21

broke against a rock. After that, they stuck to the road with its navigable gradient, though this lengthened their journey.

When they were close to Nayabazaar, they looked across the river towards Jorethang and saw the light from bonfires and suddenly, there were some muffled claps from fireworks; a rocket bomb darted above the town, exploded and its red flares spread out like an umbrella over Jorethang. The New Year had arrived. Isolated voices cried out their greetings into the night and some people hooted at them from a passing car as they neared the police station, situated on the peninsula formed when a downhill road took a wide turn. Before she entered the police station, Kamala instructed Thooli not to open her mouth before the police. Then she walked in and presented Dechen OC with her first case of the year.