Buddha M. Dhakal
\nLouisville, Kentucky, USA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jaya reached there after three hours of continuous walk through the thickets of sub-tropical forest. The foot trail was narrow, just drawn by the usual route of cattle herds and wild animals. \u2018The place has not changed much, except for the growth of dense vegetation,\u2019 mused Jaya as he trespassed through the vacated hamlets of Deorali. Jaya got an opportunity to the sojourn after one and half decades, escaping from his hectic schedules of urban life.
\nThe land was almost forbidden to him. Yet, the nostalgic memoirs of that rural scene drew him all along Deorali and beyond. .<\/p>\n

\u201cAren\u2019t you returning home, dear?\u201d asked his mother sitting by the fireplace. \u201cWe endured all the social, political and economic repression in your absence,\u201d added his ailing father, who was long suffering from duodenal ulcer. Jaya found his throat choking as he tried to make convincing and comforting justification to both the concerns. Obviously, those concerns reflected parental expectations from their grown-ups, usual to all oriental cultures.<\/p>\n

Attempting to answer, he simply muttered, \u201cI am very sorry for those austerities you faced. I wish I rejoin the family had it not been for the better options of life in urban place, though far away.\u2019<\/p>\n

The village where Jaya\u2019s parents were living was surrounded by the Sub-tropical forest cut off from the graveled road and secluded by two rivers at the eastern edge of the village.<\/p>\n

\u2018It has been for years that we have not been able to produce enough grains in our farm. Food items are to be carried uphill on the back from Haatkhola ferrying across the Sunkosh that swells with the onset of monsoon. We have lived with the scarce food and money all these years. Did you know that brother?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jaya felt a pang, probably hard-hit by the question of his younger brother, Manu. Of course, the gullible villagers faced serious aftermath shocks of state-sponsored violence operated under the military might. That was the agonizing truth. And now, Jaya was sitting by the side of the flickering flames, haunted and unnerved by the intricate complementarities of personal needs and family values.<\/p>\n

Sixteen years ago Jaya left the parental home as a schoolboy in quest of academic degree; by now a youth of mid-thirties, he lived with family responsibilities burgeoning on him, yet to be accomplished.<\/p>\n

He mustered up to make other people know the world affairs, as if he knew everything of it. He said,\u2019 The world is fast changing. It is not just enough staying together, and we must now change our lifestyle to live in dignity. The shanty huts are no longer good place to live. It is an opportunity for people like me to step higher and higher. It is not to amass the wealth, but to earn a good living, by which I can support you to live a better quality life, rather than this wretched one.\u2019<\/p>\n

His father, who was fiddling the small handbook of Gita said, \u2018I swear, God is always there to give you protection and guardianship. It is this Gita that saved me from the encounters with wild elephants, the unknown jungle people and robbers. In contrast to ours you are living a good life. So what more?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jaya himself had learnt by-heart the hymns of Gita when he studied in primary school. He still remembers some of them, often not understanding the meaning. He wanted to reply \u2018you believe in stars, I believe in senses,\u2019 but held it back for he did not want to produce annoyance in the environment.<\/p>\n

\u2018We should buy a plot of land down in Kuwapani by the roadside \u2019Jaya\u2019s progressive mind spoke aloud.<\/p>\n

\u2018But how\u2019s that? We have no saving to own a land or house at the roadside\u2019, the mother argued.<\/p>\n

Manu grudgingly expressed concern over the latent feeling of insecurity that was hovering over like black clouds in the village. \u201cThere is no basic right to travel in and out of country, sell or buy land, to start a business and the like. The newly contested parties are not in a position to change old systems. The military frequent our village only to panic us. We cannot talk anything ill about the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the clock struck midnight, Manu continued the narration which Jaya had not pried. \u201cYou know how Prem forced himself to death?\u201d Jaya shrugged, eyes wide-open and listened to the death story of another younger brother some four years ago. The following Dashain was mournful for Jaya\u2019s family with \u2018no tika\u2019 observed by the family.
\nJaya simply gazed without a word, but chimed in himself, \u2018 that was timidly worthless of him.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the middle of their conversation they could hear barking of deer just at the edge of northern cornfields, and grunting of wild boars passing by the backyard. Manu relentlessly unfolded the pressing situations he had to undergo in those woeful yester years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI slept on a leaning branch of a banyan tree a whole night in one monsoon, not being able to cross the Rate-khola, while returning from a government labor force.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree years ago, my wife delivered a child with leg deformities. I had to dole out a lot of bucks taking him to a far-away hospital but all went in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sell milk to a man across the border at Rs.4 per litre. And I usually find difficulty in managing a deal with merchants of Haatkhola, coaxing them to buy our cash crops. They pay too less and we get to sell at their price.\u201d
\n\u201cWhere is \u2018mailee\u2019 now?\u201d Jaya inquired about Manu\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

\u2018She went to her maternal home last Dashain and has not returned.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Get her home. I shall help to establish a business for you. That can be easy living.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jaya intended to put an end to the elastic conversation that went unheard of by the rest of the sleeping world. They did not want it to be in the air, however.<\/p>\n

There seemed to be Pandora\u2019s box, thought Jaya. It was already the beginning of the next twenty-four hours when they decided to go to bed. Sleep would not come and Jaya was well aware that at early hours he would have to leave.
\nAn idea lit in his mind that he should go around the copiously tasseled corn-field, the well- groomed paddy- fields and look at the fruit trees at the backyard before he walked away. Jaya rushed to the old,traditional waterspout that fed him in his childhood, with the natural water. Though he liked to play with the equanimity of glistening water in its natural origin sometime more, Jaya realized that he didn\u2019t like to be spotted by other folks in the village, and soon took to his heels homeward to be out of sight.<\/p>\n

That evening nobody kept guard of rice fields to scare away the wild boars that usually sneaked into the fields and fed on milky grains. Going around the paddy fields the very morning, his father was heard mumbling: these beasts took the chance of my son\u2019s visit to us and this is probably the last chance for them to relish before the harvest in November.<\/p>\n