Home calling

"You stupid, dumb, fool!" yells his mother over the phone which is followed by a long silence and he puts the receiver down. He sighs, yet another call from home. Dashain is near.

 

These calls have become insignificant now. They come every now and then. He receives them, listens to what his 85-year old mother has to say and carries on, like the calls had never been made in the first place.

 

Speaking of his mother, she lives in a wooden house which is as old as her own marriage to a man who left her with four children of her own and six of his second-wife. She does not remember what her husband looked like and she has no photographs of him except his torn-and-double-laminated citizenship which she thinks, is under her stuffed mattress but actually has already been swept away by her daughter-in-law with dirt.

 

He suddenly remembers a pre-Dashain moment, three years ago. He had been home with his newly-wed Mongolian wife. The reaction of his family members on hearing of his exogamy had been a bitter-sweet memory. They were relieved that he had married after all, but the bride's caste had made quite a headline among the gossip-mongers. His wife had not been allowed to eat in the kitchen and was asked to take a blanket and sleep under the wooden ladder on the first floor.

 

He had accompanied her, of course! "How masochistic!", he thinks to himself now and three years from the day after his wife left him for another man, he feels no remorse for letting her go through every possible humiliation because, somehow and anyhow, he has to comfort himself with the idea that she was not happy and that she would never be, just like he had never been.

 

 He had rented this place after the marriage. New utensils, bed-sheets and curtains were bought. Three years to that and the utensils were never used, bed-sheets hardly changed and the curtains now have thick looms of dust on the edges. His wife had been here for two days during which they hardly cooked anything instead ordered "chowmein" from a nearby restaurant.

 

He had come to believe that life could go on track; that he could be that married, responsible man; he could have that family to tag along to his relatives' places during Dashain and get rid of "tyapey" and "ghajadiya" that had become synonymous to him within his family. Those words still define him and nobody wants him home, not this Dashain, not ever again. Nobody but his mother!

 

He will go home this Dashain. He wants to see his mother so that she won't bother to call so often when he gets back. He will start packing, within a few hours and take a bus home. He will go home, work in the fields, and clean the cow-shed for the following Tihar. He will mow the backyard and mend the loose screws of the kitchen-door. He will do all of these but he does not know just now that he will also vomit blood. He will be rushed to the hospital on a fruit-cart because of a strike called in by local activists. He will breathe for sometime after reaching the district headquarters and later his system will give in. His mother will faint too and will remain secluded than she already is. His death will be cried upon and in less than 75 days, his cousin will get married. Ever year, he will be remembered for what a foolhardy he was and what a miserable life he led.

 

As for now, oblivious to all that will follow, he smokes a pot and calls out for a plate of "chowmein" from the restaurant. He then, smiles at the thought that his mother was cursing herself by yelling at him with those words, few minutes ago!

 

Words: Nikita

 

Illustrator: Ayush

Color by: Niroshan