Malami

25 September 2018

I don’t think I can justify today’s event with my words. There isn’t much you can expect from the article you read when the writer gives up even before starting. How can I elaborate such intense pain, sobbing, emotional break-downs when I was just there observing and numb? All I had in my mind were weird questions and answers! I don’t remember what they were, but I was constantly trying to get rid of them.

I woke in amidst of noises. Not those noises that are found in Mela, but the one that signifies organizing of something. Well, it sounded so, because it was so. Arrangements were being made to take Thule ‘ma’s body to Mahakali.

Thul Ba, uncles, dai and father had their head shaved. I didn’t do it. I just didn’t because I felt something awkward. I know what you may be feeling, but I had my reasons! I saw father with his head and face shaved for the first time. Well, the second, but it was long ago, very long, when Hajurba died. When I saw father, I realized what fuss everyone talked about me and father looking similar, almost same. I do look like him, almost the same. I have shaved my beard many times, and when I saw him with his beard and mustache shaved, I felt as if I was looking in the mirror.  

Thul ma’s body had been wrapped in a yellowish Ram-Ram-written robe. Both her nostrils were blocked with cotton and her mouth was open. It rained heavily last night, so her body was kept in the veranda. Everyone stayed up the whole night, no one slept except us that includes Bachelors and kids!

In the morning, the rain had stopped. I was there midst crying, standing numb! Her body was tied and placed in a bamboo-made bed. We lifted the bed together. I didn’t know before: we had a culture that the death-bed was to be picked up first by the Grand-Sons and then it was handed to the sons. We were about to cross the premises of the home carrying the body. All the ladies were in the veranda crying, when I saw Riya, my sister, on the road. She was crying incessantly. He was barely being able to stand. Her legs were shaking and she was shouting with her all volume. I never saw her cry before. I don’t think I will be able to get over that sight.

I really get very weakened when I see a woman cry. I have been the reason for many cries, I hate myself for that. I don’t call them weak or so, but they are emotional, very emotional!

There was a long procession of bikes to Mahakali: Family and Family-friends! The body was to be burnt. The death-bed was made with logs that we carried. And after a while, it was lit. And slowly, it burnt. The logs were quite wet, as it rained yesterday so, ghee and diesel were used. Remember those Hindi movies: how they show a death-body burning? It never happens that way. There is a lot of tussles here and there that one has to do to make sure the body burns.

There is one more thing that I found in which our culture is different than the way they show in the movies. In movies, you may remember that a family member takes the ashes of the body to the holy river. But in our culture, a bone is taken, yes, a small bone of head! Babu dai and Babbu Thul dad took it to Haridwar after the body was burnt.  I saw that the body doesn’t burn completely. There is a certain part that doesn’t. I saw that part was hidden under the river with stones. And many rituals followed by after that.

There was one more thing that I found weird. If you have been to classic-Nepali-wedding, you may have observed that there is a person to whom everyone writes their names with the gifts they have to give to the newly-wed couple. Similarly, there were three copies that were being rounded among the people who came to Malami in which they wrote their names. I asked Puskar Dai, what was it for? He replied the obvious: ‘To know who and how many came.’ I asked for what purpose, he replied: ‘So that we can call them in Barshiki (one year of death) and know who came.’ A number of questions went across my head at that moment. Some of them were very mean, or you may call impertinent. I was thinking: Why do that? Was coming to Malami had become a compulsion where you had to give your attendance, and not coming could penalize like in school and government office? Hadn’t death now been capitalized: I mean, has it become like if you don’t come to my grandfather's death, I won’t come at yours?

See, I think weird things. I try not to think much, but that I can’t. I keep on asking questions to myself. Of course, I don’t tell anyone about this. If I would start asking every question that I think, I would offend many. And I don’t want to do that. There are a few things that are better if kept confidential.

I was starving. We don’t eat until the body has disposed in the Mahakali. And Thul dads, and father won’t eat until Babu dai and Babbu Thul dad come back after disposing of the bone in the Gangas.

All of us eat except them. They will stay away from the house now for 14 days. No woman is allowed to touch them. They will make food themselves and they can’t touch the handpump. They are depended upon us for everything else. It is pretty much like men in Chaupadi, except you don’t bleed and it doesn’t happen every month.