Part II

The second week of Janaury, 1989, a year had been over in this place, Two weeks of the winter vactions were glorious days for me. It was with great excitement I had been to my home. Today, in this cold foggy morning my mother was taking me back to the school. The night hadn't been so good I was not able to sleep well. I didn't know when I had got to sleep. In the morning mother woke me up and it was then I realised I had to go back to my school. On the way I was totally flushed and sad.

It was true, I hadn't liked the school since my early days. Never had I liked it. It crushed me from inside when I happened to learn about the day going to school. I was always in favour to more like freedom than the rules… perhaps would have loved as a dayschoolar. For me, a hostel, it was even more terrifying.

Counting back the hills as we passed by and watching over the great riverside that ran down on the right of the road, seconds after seconds and minutes after minutes finally the time brought me back to the school. After getting all my things checked and my bag throughly searched, I was allowed to pass into the school. The place had been filled with so many people... as just like me everyone had been back from home.
When I arrived I was surprised, earlier to me many of my friends had already arrived. It was a sort of great relief seeing them there. So, their presence in a way was a great comfort to me. Next day, early morning, in cold of fading winter, I could feel the strong cold breeze over my face. It was still very cold in the morning and evening though the day was getting warmer. After the breakfast in the morning, we learnt the classes wouldn't not be started until the Sunday.

I was with some sort of excitement of the new class but something had put me off for the time being. It was that I missed my last years mate, Kiran. He had left the school and I was almost sure of that I wouldn’t be able to see him again. Missing him I felt lonely. The reality, it was part of life so there was no way other than to act with what it existed in the reality.

Earlier, on the same day of my arrival not to get sick feeling of getting back home, I had already picked on a friend, a classmate of mine, Prakash. We would go along together, together with him this would make me feel very much better.

Being friend to him there was a advantage… he didn’t like “haluwa”… as for me … I like it the most. So, every morning he would give most of the share that he got for him.
Some time it is strange to think of things how it went. We often swapped our meals… or sometime even put it on the bet. Other friends like bishnu also didn’t favoured “haluwa” as for me I didn’t like vegetables and eggs so I swapped them for haluwa. When we were friends we often did it everyday.

Well, about making bet with the meal… it was on the every football matches on the meat days. We would bet with the opponents with the pieces of meat. It was a deal that depended on the indivials with how many pieces of meat are to be placed in the bet. Everyone did followed the rules... the losers of the match would always give the promised pieces of meat to the winners.

Then after our breakfast, we would rush to the ground to play anything we found or we thought of. We would play stones we would just walk through the dry grasses. We would just do the things we saw or found. Some time we would walk into our hostel to see if some others arrived or just stayed with the ones for some talk. It was a good way of getting rid of the time.

On the third day, we were all asked to attend the classes though, we hadn't still got our schoolbooks to read and notes to write. However we came into. Now we had a new class, it was on the ground floor and to the south of the school building. It had four big windows on the adjacent sides, west and south.

It was never that the classes started on the same day of the arrival. Sometimes it took few days about two or three days at least before the classes smoothly begun. But it was unusual this time.
Then an Indian teacher Fenson who used to teach us English came into our room. As he entered we stood from our seats and greeted him and again took our seats.

We were surprised we started writing down the song "Temple of the king." on the black board. (It was almost a decade later I came to know it was of the - Rainbow.) Then he asked us to write it down and make it by heart. So, he sang for us and we followed him ... and it continued for several times before he told it was enough and the class ended. But before he left he told us we had to know it as he would any of us anyday.

Sunday, it was then the classes were supposed to begin. It was now we would not be allowed to play during the day. It was over. Now we had to work in accordance with the time and with the bell. And with the same routine that was not made only for me but to everyone living in that place. Even for the teachers too.

This time there was some changes... there had been so many new teachers. We had new social studies teacher. “Badgami sir” we used to call him. He became our class teacher. We also had new subject teachers in Nepali and other subjects.

Soon we got all the schoolbooks from the school. Putting covers on the books with the Chinese magazine became a tradition. I too couldn’t ignore it. It was good because, the papers of these magazine were shiny thick and large in size. In some way they were very preventive for the schoolbooks.

This year, with some that left the school and with those, the new ones that came we were all together fourtyfour in number. Sunil and Bishnu were two of the new ones who kept on till the end of high school.

With the beginning of the classes, when things were routinized, slowly with time the days faded, morning after the daybreak, the morning bell from the school building, signed us to wake up. Then things followed the way it did till late night in the evening.

It was strange, we had so many new teachers for our lessons. And something strange was there in the routine, this year we had musical class the very last class, every Tuesday. For us Kaji sir was appointed for it. There was also a drawing class. Principal Dev grg himself took it. It was great moment having those classes because we would have enough fun with it. In first drawing class, Dev sir taught us how to draw the national flag of Nepal. He asked us to draw the triagles with the setsquares and also tyold about the special way of drawing sun and the moon. He had perfect hands, he made beautiful sketches of it on the black board that looked so impressive.
Similarly on the first day of our musical class Kaji sir taught us an english song “Oh Carol” This was the song he wrote for us.

Oh Carol, I am what a fool,
Darling I love you, though you treat me fool
You heart me and you make me cry
But if you leave me I will surely die.
Wow wow yehi yehi I love you more than I can say
I love you twice as much tomorrow wow wow I love you
More than I can say.

(It was almost a decaded later I discovered the song had been the mixture of he two songs “Oh Carol” and “More than I can Say” by Leo Sayer.) Yes, he did often help us learning and singing songs. But sometimes he would go with long lectures suggesting us, teaching us morality and telling the truths about life – something more rational and sensitive … and partly emotional. He would teach us how we had to deal our parents and elders… and also teachers. Also about how we had to work, work for our future and our destiny. He would also tell of so many things that were good or not. It was very impressive the way he told. We would always hear him up in silence.

Among all the teachers, it was him with whom every student did fear of him. He was not only strict but sometime he was like animal. He would go on hitting everyone in the class even for a mistake done by a person. And sometimes he would even reject the truth instead and make us accept with what he believed and decided. This was the thing I many times hated the teachers for how bad they sometimes were.

Nepali class also became interesting. We always called “Gurus” for the Nepali teachers. In sometime he became closer to us. It was because he was a great storyteller. In the beginning, also the beginning of spring, we would all ask him to take his class in the sun. Usually he would do so… just as others so many teachers. Then he would teach us. First he read all the passage then he went through words after words. He would explain with the best of his knowledge, as his subject was a sort of compositions, stories, essays and poems, sometimes he would even sketch the figures of his own and enlarge the whole material. He would tell everything, every event and all the knowledge he had about any thing when he came across the matter. Sometime when we asked for stories, he too wouldn’t reject. He would happily engross us with it.

In short time, it became a schedule for every Friday, he would tell us a long series of the epic from the Ramayan and Mahabharat, (The Hindu Epics) I became one of his most oriented listener. I would wait through all the week until he came for the class. Through, almost the three fourth of an hour the class would turn into dead silence until the bell rang for the lunch. It would again be the next week we would be waiting for the remaining of the story.

There was the next new teacher, Som sir, a very serious teacher.
Once, during the initial days I greatly suffered from him. That day, while he was with his math lesson he was so angry with all of us but unfortunately I becaome the major target of it. He would ask me several times and hit us in our plams with the bamboo stick, very harsh. That day the fourty-five minutes of his class turned out like a hell. I was with tears as I cried for several times almost through out the class.

But I don’t know how things changed. Later years I was a sort of his best student. One reason that I believed he had loved me could be that he found me simple and true. I used to write a lot of Poems and show it to Guru, his roommate. Perhaps he liked it. In the later while staying with the other teacher, while his friend went home for the weekend, he would sometime take me to his room where I slept in the friend’s beds. I guess I should have only been the one student who should have come to the teacher’s room to sleep. Moreover he would sometime take me out of school for a tea or milk. This was very great of him. Not only this, on the later year during my high school he would always persue me to do with with the studies. Yes, I too had done it about which I will explain on the later pages.

Days weren’t much different to what it used to be the last year. Though we were in a different room for the class but still we were in the same hostel room. We had new captian, it was no more Kirshna. Umesh, the third boy of the class and Gupendra became the class monitor. We also had a new hostel warden though, she was a tall lady, with good height and figure. She was a police personnel. So, she had stronger accent and serious look. But there was something strange about her in the school. She had a daughter living with her… who was the only girl in the whole school who had been studying in the boy’s school. As the aunt, the warden had been living in our room, the big hall, the girl use to live with us… with her mum. But it was never, she spoke to any one. But it didn’t last for long, not longer than few months though. Then she left the hostel. A new aunt, “swaraswati anutie” we called her, came to join us.

Badgami, sir had more the sort of mongol look. He wasn’t so strict relative to others but still he was someone who had a sort of strong anger sometime that often terrified us. As he had been the classteacher for us, the day, it was his class the first every morning.

It was not only during the classes that the class teachers were engaged to us. Sometimes, they would take us to river for a swim. So, it was usually him who would do that for us. Usually it was Saturday, that we would go to the river, however sometime we even did go in other days after the tea when the classes would be over.

This time it was a different route and a different place we went. The river was bigger, we had to walk about a mile and then down through the steep hill. The way was so sleep and dusty with only small stones and gravels. Sometime when we were in a crowd we would run down… not with greater, speed as in races but still with some speed. When many of us, did it … it seemed as a herd of cattle racing down the hill. The dust sprange and covered all around, making it seemed like the mist. However, when we reached the bottom of that steep hill, we would gather again before the teacher decided for the right place. When we reached the place, we would take off our things and get into the river. The river was too big, so the teacher would be concious in watching us and not to let any accident happen. The auntie would then come over us and help us, one after the other.

It would be for about an hour or little more before he would ask us to get our things and prepare for the leave. Well, while climbing back the hill, and again racing to reach the top, some of us who tried for it would again be covered with dust and sweat, that proved no difference in having cleaned ourselves.

There were few other things that were brought into use. Every Saturday, we were supposed to have selfstudies for about two hours and half. There would be a teacher or two, looking over all the classes. It was a system adopted from the central school. We also often had “Self stand Program” on Saturday morning. It was meant for cleaning the school, carrying rubbies and paper… or sometime evening digging stones from the football grounds. It was strange… almost everyone was sincere to working it. It was done often, once in some time.

The evening classes were also altered. It wasn’t selfstudies anymore. Now the teachers would take their respective classes. It was five days a week. Friday and Saturday would be off, there would be no class at all.

After the spring, when summer was about to come, it was dry ever where there was no rain and the scarcity of water was very high. We were known the water pipes for the school were still on the way and it was certain it would still take few months to reach to us before we would have enough of water.

The daily water supply was only enough for dining for the cooking and cleaning purposes.
The big tanks were also almost emptied… it was getting difficult with the water. And to fill this necessity the school first cleaned the circular pond about hundred meters south of school building. One Saturday, they brought a huge motor and drained out the greasy water from it… It was so dark and dense. When the water was almost drained out of it … we could see so many fish there. They were the ones that kids had caught them from the river, put them in the bottle and when they brought it to the school they had put them in the pond. It about a year or two they have really grown very big. That day all those fishes were collected. It should have been the great feast for the camp commandent and the principal, we guessed.

It was first let to dry for some days, then some big tankers, supposed to carry milk for the locals carried water for us and filled the great two tanks of the school… They even worked through the late evenings until their job was done. For sometime, it did seem to be enough.

Just with time, days came… we had the terminal exam and there was the holiday. It had just been two days the exams had been over. For the holidays, that sunny morning, mother came to take me home.

Before, we left the place, the camp commandent of the school told my mother, that the teacher the school had facilated the students for extra classes even during the holidays. So, he asked her to take the oppurtunity, as he told I wasn’t so good with the studies. Though I wasn’t one of those very best in the class but still I knew he didn’t know me, so in no way he would know about about my studies and my appereances in the class. It should have been the same thing he should have told to almost every parent or guardians who came to take their kids.

Yes, endless happiness in me was no bound of it while coming back home. Seeing all the family back, hearing the stories they had, as usual it was a great pleasure for me. Nevertheless, as appointed by the school the same week we got started with the tution classes in the junior school in the valley.

Prakash Shrestha, was only the classmate who came for it. We were always together, coming and leaving school. After, the lunch, at about nine, he would leave early and come to me, then we would walk together to the school. In total we were only fifteen. There were only two teachers, but only one of them to take our classes.

Our class would start at ten and end at three. The teacher who taught us was our english teacher. But during this extra tution classes he would teach us with any of the subjects we deserved. But most to his prior, usually we never decided, he would focus on English lessons, Grammar rules in English and mathematic.

He was good teacher, and he did try his best for it… but as usual it was that we took it more as the fun classes rather than any serious classes. We were engaged and were happy with it… the main reason for this was, it was totally different to the formal classes in the school. It was for three weeks and ended just a couple of days before the time our holiday ended.

By the time something changed happened in my family business. The business was splitted. Mother decided to move her glossery shop to the place closer to our residence where as father, he kept on his business on the same place and carried on his photocopy business.

Holidays was soon over, I was terrified getting back to school. Even thinking about the place and the way of living would turn me grave … I knew I could change what it got to be next day. But still there was something that was taking up my mind.

In the school, once I had learmt from one of the friend, Saroj who had caught the fever. It was not actually that he had caught it naturally. He told he had caught it by some means in his way because almost none did like the classes. I wasn’t sure of the truth but still when it had happened to him, I couldn’t ignore it too.

Somedays, later after he had recovered he told me that we could get fever if we could hold a slice of an onion inside our armpit through out the night.

So, on the last night, I thought to give it a try. If I would get the fever then it was certain I I could stay longer at home. So, I did it the way I was told, I creeped it tight in my armpit. It wasn’t so easy I could get into sleep. Same thing came over and over in my mind… I feared with teachers, I hated the system and was tired with the strange rules. But still something gave me some delights to cheer me… if my plan worked then I would have some more days. Thinking about all this, and with some sort of melody with the heavy rain of the metal roof… I didn’t know when I got into sleep.

Next morning, my eyes opened wide early in the morning, just sometime after the dawn, I made the test if I had caught the fever. Then I thought of the onion slice. It wasn’t at the place anymore. It seemed as it had droped out earlier that night and it had turned so soft and delicate, perhaps I should have rolled over it many times.

“Shit, I told to myself … “ It hadn’t worked at all. There was no way other. I had to go to school.
It was my mother again who took me back to school. It was dark and cloudy day when we started off after our lunch before the lunch. At about the midday we reached the school.

The classes had already begun, though they were not smooth because yet not all of us arrived. I was so drained I coulddn’t hold my passion, my tears they were rolling down my cheeks and even trying to dry them with my fingers I wasn’t able to work it out fully. Aftersometime in my school uniform I appeared in the class. Nepali teacher was with his class. I took a vacant seat next to Manoj Ranjit, would be same for all the term until after the next vacation if I didn’t get it changed with others.

SuddenlyI noticed of a change in the classroom… at the left end at the front … there was a large clay pot about a meter in height. It was for the water when we were thirsty… it had an yellowish metal lit and a an steel glass on the top of it… it was to meant to take the water from inside … The uncles would fill it in once in every few days… This system lasted for about two years before they were replaced with two water filters from the dinning hall.

That day, after the noon there was some sort of sunshine afternoon. As there weren’t student to teach, the teacher decided to take us to the football ground.

Due to monsson during the holiday, everything had grown up so green and very high and the ground seemed wet. With our uniforms we were brought in the ground to clean it up, the sticking grasses.

A friend Manoj had arrived few days earlier. It was him who tried to fascinate and console me those meoments. It even with my work on … along with the other friends I couldn’t stop my emotions. Well, it just went on and on and on. But with minutes, hours … it slowly recovered and in few days it was over. I had now learnt, I again accepted it, I was to go with the same shit rules again. There was no way out. I accepted the reality.

It was one late afternoon I learnt few days back a black dog had killed a rabbit in the School principal’s garden. The dog that had killed one of the two the princpal’s rabbits was the only one mostly seen in the school. There were several other villager’s dogs that came from the neighbourhood, to feed on the massive garbage of our school kitchen everyday.

Next day, after our classes, in the late afternoon, I saw a crowd gathered infront of the hostel building. Everyone seemed to be wondering to the far end to the west of the school. As I reached there, we could see three persons there, two men were standing at a place where next man was running with the dog. As from the talk I too was confirmed it was the black dog, the same dog that was accused of killing principal’s rabbit.

Though through the distance we realised they were all the kitchen staff. The dog was tried up with the rope, and the one who was holding the rope and making the dog run was Purne. I was a little bit known to him because he was the one who used to get sweets for some of my friends. He would make out some money doing so. I was known about it via my classmate Rajendra, because it was from him rest the other mates (I was one of them) that finaly brought sweets in thrice or four times the actual price, because in hostels it was n’t easy getting the things like that.

After sometime, running with the dog, sunny late afternoon, we all watched for what was to happen. It was stange manny of the friends were known about it… From them I knew they were to burn the dog alive.

In the beginning, I felt it wasn’t true, but seeing with my own eyes, there seemed no doubt about it. Yes, we could see, Purna did spray something over the dog… before the next person took the rope from him and raced the dog again. Perhaps it was kerosine, they should have sprayed on the poor dog, we all guessed. Just sometime later, he brought the dog to the place where the two of his other mates were standing. Yes, it was then, we saw one of them lit the fire to the dog. Within few seconds, the dog ablazed to huge fire, it was too far to hear any noise though. Perhaps the dog should have been too tired to run too far from the place before it finally collided on the ground. The poor helpless dog had no other way out. I felt the horrible moment watching all this.

However it was not the end. That week, ten more dogs were poisoned and killed. Some were even tied inside big jute rice sacks and thrown down the hill that ran down straight about hundred and fifty meters. There were lots of stories but it wasn’t the matter anymore when there were no dogs seen again for sometime.

The summar was over and it was the monsoon. Still we didn’t have enough water for us. There was one and half inch polythene pipe that carried water for drinking purposes for two fifity or three hundred people. It was often used to collect water to fill the tank that we used for cleaning ourselves every morning and evening.

However we had heard some stories new pipelines were to be brought in few months and then we were to have enough water. They were to bring from a stream on the hillside fareast about four miles from the school location. The reason it was taking time… was that there was no road and manpower needed was extreme for even for the little work.

However, it was some how easier in the monsoon, because they were using a different way to collect water there to fill the tanks. The outlets for the rain water from the school building, hostel building and the dinning hall were blocked and big two inches polythene pipes were fed from the roof of each to different tanks. This solved the most of our problem for water.

However, we would still be taken to the riverside to bathe. We carried a towel of our own over our shoulder and other very few auxillaries with us. Just as usual, on the way we always walked in a line. We were not allowed to go to the shops or anything nearby or even talk to strangers. The only thing needed was we had to walk our way and do our job. That was it.

In monsoon, rivers came up so high and they were too furious… so, we were not taken to the place… But there was other better opotions that even didn’t risk of any hazardous accidents. Due to heavy and continuous rain in monsoon there used to be so many small stream that were born, but they would soon dry when the rain stopped. There used to be so many of them on the steep hillside on a side of the river. All of them didn’t locate on thebase… Instead many of them were about twenty or thirty meters from the top just about the quarter of the distance from the top.

When we got there, I was usually more engaged in making small ponds… and try to get it larger. As it was steep, I would never succeed because, even before getting it bigger enough some of the sand and stone would fall from the top or either, the apart of it would flow away being unable to hold the pressure of the water. But still I aways kept on making small ponds. So, usually I would aways be late to complete washing myself. It was often the aunt that would call me and I had to got before she soaped me and then cleaned with the water then finally ask to dress me again just the way she did with others.

During this holiday I had brought a calender with me. It was a years calender in a page. In every few days I would see at it cross the numbers of all the days that were passed. I often counted the remaining days for the coming holidays and for the vacation.

Usually, after vacations, if I was one of those one to arrive in the school earlier out of the others in the class then I would always take the seat closer to the window, the one I would prefer more would be the one on the back seat. Else I wouldn’t mind to take the front one. Sometime if I arrived late than the others Then I was it wouldn’t be easy to decide. Usually I would decide for the seat underneath the fan.

In the class it was a sort of the tradition, the one who arrived earlier took the seat he favoured, the seat would be occupied with the priority from the back then on the middle and finally the front ones. It was because almost everyone was aware of teacher and no one really did will to be closer, in any occasions except fopr the story telling.

For me it was the window I wanted, as it was only the thing that ever did mattered to me. I wouldn’t mind taking the first seat because it had been often that I took the first seat. And usally the first ones in the middle row. They were the ones that were always the most abandoned.
It was same in the hostel. In hostel, the tradition had been that first of all the upper beds of the two platforms in each were occupied. Even among the upperones the ones with fans closer to it always became the first targets.

It was not so often that I could make on the upper ones. Sometime I did, while taking the account of the windows. There were so many small windows, I would pick one at the far end from the door, so the cool bleeze would give a better sleep for the night.

But there was a different legend, why I preferred seats closer to the windows in the classroom. Definitely it was a cooler place … because of the wind, it was also a great place that gave a very good view of the beautiful place around, flat land and the hills all round… Apart from these it gave a distinctive view of the chains of beautiful mountians on the north. Above all this, there was something I used to work with.

Thosedays, it was usually only few that use to put on watch. It was later, on the eighth year during my high school when I had really put on a watch but it didn’t last long. It was a sort of gift from the father, though he hadn’t really brought for me. One day I opened it to see, to look inside of, because wearing it for long I was always anxious about it. With the help of the blade of the pencil sharpner, that was the very major tool we often used in school, as we never did have any other tools like screwdrivers with us. Yes, trying to look over it, opening few more screws, a sort of spring jumped out of it. There was no way I could get it … as it was too little to go for a search all around the classroom. After then, I learnt it could never be repaired. It was finally on the beginning of the tenth grade, the final year of my high school when my mother got a watch for it, which favoured me for the next six years.

Well, so taking the seat next to the window, I use to mark the shadow’s lining on the wall, side of the window with the pencil. After midday as the sun went down, it would greatly take over the shawdows on the wall. Those marks would designate the time when the class of a teacher would end and the class of the next teacher would start. Usually the last classes in the late noon would be boring and we would be longing for the end. So, it would help me with the time. I would easily know how far the classes had been and about how long to go. But there was some thing ridiculous with it. I had to changes in marks because the rising and going down of the sun altered dastrically in almost every week. So, I kept changing the marks. I continued it for about seven years but never did tell any one about my mysterous time teller.

The following monsoon, there came the season of eye disease. It was that in few days one who came or stayed closer to the the one infected with the disease then soon the one staying next to the person would also be infected in a very short time. It wouldn’t even take few hours.

It was so soon, so many in the school caught the diease, not to let it get even worse the infected students were talked to a different building, at the far end from the main hostel and school buildings. It was great they needn’t come to the school to take on the classes.

When those infected were taken away, the growth couldn’t rise up so abruptly. It slowly came down. I hadn’t still caught it though. But since the disease came out in the place, I had always wished for it. Because if I would be infected I neednot to take any class. I could stay up in a room with the other sick friends through out the day. That was what I was longing for.
Yes it did happen, I caught the disease with the help of infected
Friend, we had a closer eye to eye sight that the next day showed it effect. My eyes had grown red from the edges and very frequently they ichy, as I I tried to squeeze my eyes it indeed make it teribbly bad.

The same day, when I realised that I had too been infected, I moved to the different place to the other sick boys. I carried my bed to the place they were staying and spent all day with them. Thing happened something worse then that I had expected. My eyes got bad then I supposed it would have been. They didn’t only get red but the muscels around the eyes were also swollen. I felt the terrible pain because of it. It was since then I didn’t like for what I had done to myself. So, I became concious about what I was doing. I started cleaning up my eyes regularly and puttin on the medicine from the aunt who used to llok after us , the sick ones. So, it didn’t take so long before I was back with the recovery again. Well, it was then since the next week I started with the classes. I came back to my friends to hostel and started living together with them.

The following second week of the month, I was surprised father had come to take me just for the Saturday. Every one had been so waiting to see me as the same way I was for them. Mother had made the special fish soup for my arrival.Getting together in the family and after then the meal, the soup that the mother had made it had the very distinctive taste so beautifully cooked. Sitting with others and wasn’t to so much of concentration for what I was doing… As I was almost to finish the meal I felt something in my neck … I felt hurted inside. Then the fear ran through my nevers… I though it perhaps should have been one of a tiny sharp fish bone.

In the beginnig I didn’t tell any one … I tried myself to over come it. I went to shower, drank a lot of water… then tried to feel… No, I could still feel it. Then I tried with milk and the rice balls…. No, it too didn’t seem to work. So, then feeling helpless, I rushed to the father and told him what happened.

Immediately I was rushed to the regional hospital in his motor bike with the mum. When we reached, father took me to a room just to the right of the entrance. There were two men in apron … should have been the doctors I guessed. Both seemed to be the middle aged men but one of then had the average height and look where as the next had the glasses on his eyes and was pale and thin with bread over his face.

Not the skinny guy, but the next one came and asked me to take the seat on the chair, he took the detail from my father before he came forward to me and asked me to open wide my mouth. Then with the torch light he looked inside… perhaps trying to figure out something if he could. Then he asked my father for x-ray.
Then from there we headed for the x-ray room. For the first time in my life I was infront of the x-ray machine. I was asked to take off the shirt that I had put on. And stand straight on the stand. Then he focused the projector.
After sometime with the x-ray details we headed back to the previous room. The doctor who had made my the checkup earlier, looked at the x-ray and the details in the serious manner. That moment the father talked to the next doctor and he told I would also like to be the docor some day. Hearing these words from my father he looked at me and made a fuzzy laugh, which I really didn’t like at all.

In reality I never told I wanted to become a doctor. It was my father who had asked me to tell that I wanted to become a doctor. Moreover it was the thing he always told it to other people… to his relatives and friends when he happened to talk about me. Usually I never did favour to talk to any of his friends though.

From the x-ray they found no sign of the bone… they told it had already moved off from the place so it wasn’t so serious matter. They prescribed some drug for the probable wounds that the bone had caused over the internal glands. From his words I was conforted and assured it was bad anymore. We didn’t stay longer… we got the drug from the store near the entrance and we drove back home.

Sometime things would happen so unexpected and that would only be the matter to talk about. One morning there was the news all around, some of the junior boys fleeted away from the school. This was a desperatinf moment for all

Since boys were too young…. The teachers, admistrators and other school staffs would know the fleeing kid would go nowhere else than to their family else to their relatives. So, even they usually knew about all this but still they would go in seach for the missing boys. They would go to the places around and ask if they ahd seen the boys… or go the valley and see in the cinema hall and ask if they had seen any kid like the ones missing. They would take the pictures and go around unless they were confirmed found. Usually there was no other way, most of those fleeing kids would return to their homes in the evening and sometimes they were even found to be staying in one of them home telling they had the holidays. But there was no any case that they were not found.

It was no longer than sometime later, two of my classmates vanished from the hostel. Even living always together, didn’t matter, in the same class, in the same hostel and also in the same dining we still would know so many things about the friends. Non of the others had known anything about them. After three days they were again brought back to school. Unfortunately both of them left the school after the final that year.

I too was so desperate with the school I didn’t liked it at all. Sometime I too had the feeling of fleeing from school, I even had worked out some plans but I was unable to do it because I was known about the result as that had happened to other friends and the junior brothers, more than this I had always loved my family, so it no way I could live far away from them..

It was not only that I had thought about it I had also told about it to my friend Bishnu, my best friend of the time. I had told him… if I was to escape from the school I wouldn’t be going to home. I would instead be going to a small town, Vimat some kilometers south from the school then would. There I would do some work in any houses or shops if they would let me to live and let me go to school. Then, if I would succeed living the way then I would someday write my family for how I was and where I was. Some time these feeling came so intense over me that I was almost to start out…. But some thing did stop me again. My mother would never tolorate even hearing me missing from the school. Was I supposed to deceive her for her true faith and love? No, this could never be.

Sometimes, when she did have hard times or when I bugged for something that I wanted and that she didn’t have it to give it to me. Rather than deny it she would try to convince me, give the reasons for it and tell her stories. Most of the cases, it would melt me down, listening to her, my eyes would feel with tears and I would settle down with no more conflicts.

When these all things reaveled out in my mind and the feelings that I had for her, were sort of the margins that bonded me for many times that made me to stop for that I decided to do or some time give hopes for those things that I wanted. So, all in the years of my schooling I could never do things that would make her feel that I deceived. Perhaps this should have been the reason why it always led me to think so much before I decide for anything so that I usually never happened to get into the wrong way.

One Saturday afternoon, father came to visit me in school. I was called to see him. Earlier, when I had left home after the vacation, things were so good in the house. He was a sort of always living the house. Most of the time, the thing I ever hated seeing was the time when he scolded my mother and made her cry or sometimes when he even hit her. He was a man of the odd nature who always liked people if they accepted his oppinions where as he would have big dicussions and arguments with those who would reject or disaggree him. And almost two decades of his job in police force had turned him more strict and rude.

There had been so doubts about him, so mother had asked me not to come out with him if he came to see me at school. Keeping her words in mind …so, I decided it would even be better if I didn’t go to see him. When was told I ignored it and didn’t go to see him. Later the uncle came to take me…. Grabbed my hand, I told him I didn’t want to see him. But he still didn’t let me go, so I fought and cried and with tears I told him I wouldn’t see my father at any case.

It was later, my father came in the hostel lawn, handed a plastic bag with oranges to me and went away. He scolded me for not visiting him. I was so fear of him I couldn’t look at his face. There was a small crowd gather around us to see what was happening. I just kept quite for some time before I rushed out from the place and away from the hostel leaving him there. I didn’t know when he left. Later everybody asked me about it. I just made a story to them.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like to visit him. The only reason for this was, many times the way he happened to treat my mother. And about these cases, I was so much into the mother words I would do it the way she meant. Later I was told, that evening, when he was back home, he was drunk and had created a greater mess and all the family had raced off from the house that late evening to escape from the possible damage he could make in anger.

In weeks again, days were getting closer, we were to have the second terminal exam and then we could go home for a long vacation of a month, which included two big religious festivals.

Soon exams came and this time again mother did come to take me back home. Returning back home in the bus, I saw the all terraces till the long distances full with the rice fields along the roadside. The time I had left home to the school they seemed as they had just been planted. And now just after few months when I had seen it for the second time it made me feel like the growth had been so quick… now I could see many of them already had the fruits on the top. So, it resembled that they would soon be ready to harvest.

Coming back home, in few days the festival would start. Dashian or dashera, we called it. It would be a long fifteen days festival when all the school and other achemedic institutions would be close for the fifteen days or some even for a month. Just as every year this is would the most waited festival by almost all the Nepalese. With the fullest they would do their best to organize the best for the family. They would do their best to get good food, special festival bread we called roti, that looked more like the donuts in shape and also made in the similar way. Also new sets of cloths for the kids and themselves, the ones who might be away from home would also make attempt to return back to their place. There would be slo so many swings being made in different public places … big bamboo swings were made and the ropes used for the swing would be hand made rope from the special local grass… thick and extremely strong. All of these things did make a complete cahnge in the over all environment.

For me everything was appreciable for so many years. Family gathering and the scent new cloths in the festival time was something so delightful event but only some years later, only a little things turned my feeling upside down. I completely started hating it. The only reason for this was the grand sacrifices of goats, sheeps, chickens and buffaloes they made on the eighth day in temples and many homes, only in the name of god … just to make it happy. It was completely a nuiscence for me. Since the time I understood the reality, I hated it the most.
The main day was the tenth day when people put colour ful “tika” “a mixure of rice with colour (red, pink or white) and liquid (water or curd) from the elders, like parents, guardians and realtives for the successive five days which is till the fifteenth day…the fullmoon day.(All the dates and festivals of hindus are based on lunar calender)
As for my brother and me, mother had got each, a pair of jeans shirt and pant. I was delighted for having it.

On the eighth day of the festival, I went for the boating in the lake with an old European woman. Since we sometime rented the rooms for the foreign guest, she had been one of those who had been staying with us for the second time.

She was an old woman in fiftees. When she started staying with us with often wanted me to go out with her. I did never figure out the reason for this. We would ask me, only me to go for a walk or for little shopping. She had taken me sereval times to different restaurants for coffee and toast. Sometime she would also buy cheese break and milk and then with my sisters and a brother we would make a little party.

The more interesting about her was she sometime would make some games for us. She would hide the sweets around in the little flower bushes and stones and ask us to find. She would never say what she had buried and where. She would do it when we were not around … and when we were all back she would each of us to find it. Moreover she had given me pencil colors and drawing books teaching me how to draw pictures. Ahead of it… One day I had strumbled my toe on the stone… which had the severe infection on my foot which made me unable to walk for few days. Those tough moments it was her who cleaned my wounds and tied us the bandage around it for several days before recoved.

That morning after breakfast with some toast and tea we took a small boat from the local fisherman from the neighbourhood. It was a very small boat like a canoy, made only with a single piece of would. I mean it was carved from a single log of a tree, possible the stem.

It was a sunny day and slowly we headed to the cetre. There was gentle wind blowing to the north … and few clouds that were moving the direction. At around the midday, it was getting hotter. I was feeling hazy and a sort of thirsty. She would sometime ask me if I ws hungry. I would say no because I wasn’t feeling hungry … at all. Only thing was that I was starting to feel tired of being in the boat for long time.

In the middle, she would sometime come out for a swim. I would look at her and just smile back at her but would say nothing more. I knew she would love to be in the lake rather than getting off ashore… And I really didn’t want to offend her saying that I wanted to get back ashore.

It was about three in the late afternoon before she told we were to get back. I was happy returning back. When we were at the shore she asked me if I would like to swim for some time. I hadn’t learned the swimming yet so, I first told no… But then she showed me a pillow like air filled bag. It was small and itdid seem it would fit me. So, with a surprise and delights I told I would.

I was happy, getting it … though often did come out for the swim but I had never dared to swim in the shallow water in the deep. Usually I wouuld only be in about a meter deep water some time playing some games alike hide and seek with the neighbouring friends. Rather a “touching game “ would be more appropriate for the meaning. Sometime in summer, I also loved running top on the buffaloes that came for wet themselves due to heat because of the hot sun. I had the great fun with all this but also many times I suffered for getting into water. My ears were jammed and sometime my nostril hurted when I accidently took breath from my nose

Swimming in the shallow water soon became intersting to me. She was with her own way and I started loving myself for that I was doing. I would come to and forth the shore. When I was in deeper place it astronised me when I looked down to the clear water underneath. I could see the gree grass that had come up high because of the summer and monsoon but soon in the cold winter they were to die until the beginning of the next spring before they would again start to come out.

With this extaordinary adventure, I had forgootten the fear that I was not known to swimming, unless before accidently I slipped the bag that was helping me to float me on the top. As I missed it, then I realised happed to me. As I went down and reached the bottom I pushed myself back to the surface but unfortunately it was too late before I grabbed it the wind took it right out of my hand.

There was no way I could think of anymore… Nor I could hold my breath anymore. Then slowly water got into my body… suddenly a strong hand pulled me out and put me over the same airfilled bag. I was in half conciousness but tried to regain with the most I could.

As she brought me to shore she pumped the water out of my body. It wasn’t so much I had drank much. She asked me to rest for sometime before she carried me all the way, back home. She was saviour for my life for this time. A couple of years earlier of it, Kanchi, a girl from my neighbourhood had also saved me when I was about to be drowned. Even that time, she was one of those two that we only in the shore. Ro god shake she had known swimming else it would have been to late for anyone to come and rescue me for my life.

These greatest incidences in my life …some reminds me of the closer deaths that I had escaped and made come through till this moments.

I happy engrossed with time … it was beautiful. Just a week before my holiday ended the day came when the lady had to leave. On the last day I waked with her to the place from where the bus was supposed to take. The made the last bye telling her to see again in the next two year the most. But unfortunately it was never she returned again nor did we hear anything from her.

Though we were never to know if something happened to her or she had the reason for it. But the great time she shared with us do have the great impression over me, something I worth it for the reason.

Finally the next main Hindu festval, Tihar did come. It was more like a brother and sister’s festival. It would be celbrated for five days. Schools and government institutions and colleges were also closed for the main tree days.

This festvial was for the brothers that had to go to visit their sisters get tika and blessings for prosperity and success and in return give her a present. I did like it more than any other ones because this seemed more for the appropriate reason.

Out of the main five days. The first day would be a crow day. People would try to pray for the crow and feed it … at list for the day. The legend behind it was people appreciated the clevernesss of the crow… accoring to the myth, it was believed that the crow once had stolen the medicine for immortality and had brought it to the earth. So, they were supposed to live long life. Next day was the dog’s day… Hindu’s believed that the last incarnation is the dog’s life after which the soul get’s the body of the human. So, they were supposed to be treated well.

The third day would be for the ox… it had the greater affiation to the people to make land and grow the food … so, it was the return they were making for the ox for what it had done during the monsoon. The fourth day was for the cow… supposed to be the mother feeding it’s milk as for the children… more over it was consirdered to the the wealth. And the last or the final day was for the brother and sister. It too did have it’s own importace … on this day Yamaraj, belived to be the undertaker of every human and animals had also gone to visit his sister on the following day.

The last three days had the greatest importance. It has some distinctive features unlike to other festivals. On the main three days every evening the candles lights would be burnt in every houses celebrating it. It was ritual that if some one has passed away the folling year the family and the relatives of the person would abort any of the festival and celebrations for all that year.

There were also some other events on this festival. People would gather in groups and go singing and dancing around the houses in the neighbourhood. After the show … they would be offered with fruits and other accessories that the family would give as the return for the service. If often included the monay as well.

Though for us… my sisters, the brother and me, we never did form any groups for these sorts of shows but as usual we did celebrate the festivals with the best we could and for that greatest fun that we could have.

Soon after the festival… It was the time again I was to be back at the school. And yes I did make no any way for the escape this time. I had to accpet the truth with no defences at all. Yes it was the winter again… grey, dry and foggy, even the nature it’self looked so desperate. Mother took be back to the school.

Getting back… this time … I was surprised we had the new hostel. All the construction in the hostel building on the upper floor had been over. So we moved to the room on the right. It was as large as the others that we had for last two years. But being on the top, it was a different thing. We believed we could have more air.

As usual there had not been classes since two days. Everyone was still on the way coming back. All the two days We, all the old friends gathered on the shade next to the class building and spent the time looking over the highway seeing the people coming into school. After the tea in the late afternoon, today I was with a senior brother Robin, though was two grade senior than me we played a game. We would look for the traffics that passed along the high way. We, each of us would choose a side then when a vehicle came from a side, one of us whom it favour could get a chance to hit. So, the loser had to bring both of the hand forward and close it. The winner would get a chance to slap the hand. The loser would be given chances to make ecapes so the hit is not hard. But the winner would get several chances though unless he slaps the loser. It was a great fun.

This time, I was closer to Prakash Karmacharya. So, it was like, he became a good friend to me.
The fog in the winter, it made the morning dark almost everyday. This was something I didn’t like because it made me feel so sad. Rather the big rains in monsoon were more preferable.

Unlike to the other time of the year, at six it would still be dark… But still when the bell rang we all had to come out of our bed and get ready for the PT. After we cleaned ourselves we gathered in the field out side the hostel. Then when all came we started of in two long lines. The captain governed the team from the side.

I never liked the PT anyway. And when it happened to be in the winter, it was even aweful. Warm bed would be more fascinating then these exercises. The sky cleared only sometime before the midday. After the lunch, during the lunch break we would come out in the ground … The put off our coat or sweater and sleep under the warm sun. It would be lovely but soon when the bell ran for the classes again … this would dissapoint us, hazily we rose … then went for the water cleaned our sleepy face and walked to the classroom.

It was the same winter, one afternoon after the lunch. Breakfast at seven… sometime didn’t feel our appetite so, even before the lunch hour we would already be so hungry. The following day, I have had already enough of rice to satisfy the hunger. When I finished and was about to leave from the main gate of the dining hall. There was the teacher asking each of us. Few days earlier he had asked every of us to drink at least 2 glasses of water everyday during the lunch and dinner. Few others ahead of me … told “Yes sir” when he asked them.

When he asked me … I told him the truth, that I hadn’t. He asked to go back and drink the water. I told him I would because I was already so so full that there was no place for two big glasses of water. He asked me for the second time but I told him back the same thing.

When I ignored his rule, he told me to get stiched on the wall just infront of him. I was asked to put down the plate (that I was carrying to the basin for the other kitchen staff to wash them) on the corner and did what he had asked me. It was not less than a hour he kept me stitched to the wall until everone finished up the lunch. After then he asked me to get a glass of water and told me to drink. I didn’t want it but I did it as he showed his angry face over me. I was scared if he would hit me.

This became one occasion in my life that taught, sometime the moement might come in life when a lie can be more important and worthful than the truth. If I had told him I had had it …just like many of the others then I would have never been punished for disreguarding him. Yes it happened but I was assured that I was not going to make the sme mistake again.

It was been almost two months of the arrival. The final exam was soon to come. For our exams… from about two weeks earlier the teachers used to inform us in the assembly about the stoppage of the PT. Really it did bring the happiness in me. I rather preferred being in class than in the fields. So, early morning we would go to our classroom for the studies.

As for me, I would usually be in the classroom but sometime I would also come out in the ground. I would carry a book with me from the classroom and walk out to a better peaceful place because of too many of the others, classroom was always too noisy.

But even when I came out in the open field to a silent place... There I too didn’t feel it helpful. It was because it was too quite to study. Instead, it would make me think about something like about the holidays and about the family or look something else, arts or grasshoppers jumping around … or something otherlike this. But still I always took the way I felt to, so, sometimes I stayed in the classroom where as sometime I walked out in the fields.

Days… then a week and then… more the finals was over. After the finals the school decided to take us to Vimat (a small town a couple of miles south from the school). Every of my friends went but I decided not to go so I stayed in the hostel all the day.

Just as the last year, the teachers were busy for making the results of the final exams and also in preparing for the king’s birthday. But we still had more than a week time and nothing to do. After the exam, many did have thrown away the books and copies where as few of us still had it. One morning after the breakfast we saw few of the senior brothers had lit the fire at the field at the back of the hostel. They had the huge chunk their books and copies. They were taking one after another, taking out every few pages and burning them for the wamth in the dark foggy winter morning. It didn’t take long that many of them followed it. Soon the place was all filled with small groups making their own fire place and couple of time I too did have one with my mates. But it didn’t continue for longer. Because in winter, the land was mostly covered with the long dry grasses that had turned grey and dry. So, it was very vulnerable to the fire. Once it did happen that the grasses caught the fire and all the kichen staff working near by had to rush to put the fire off before it covered and spread to more land. It was then restricted.

It was the time… we were totally free. We had no classes at all. So, we could play and play and play. Many of the students were engaged for the programs for the king’s birthday. I had nothing to do with it as never go chances taking any part of it. Thosedays, I wasn’t good to dance nor for singing. Usually it was the senior brothers that were faciliated with the opportunities.

Sometime, it was still difficult to get through the time. Most of the time I would be with the Karmacharya so we would talk about our selves… sometime we would wonder around the dinning, hostel, classroom and even around the school offices. Well, getting around the place I had collected some seeds of the flowers deciding to take them home. Well, I did have many of it.

Just a couple of days before the king’s birthday the result was published. I had passed the exam. I was ninth out of the fourty four of them. But next year, two of my friends ahead of me left the school I again regained the seventh position.

Afterthen on the kings birthday the school was decorated with as on the other special occasions with colourful papers along The main gate had to big pillars decorated with thwe red cloth and on the horizontal it was written “Welcome”. A big tent and the stage on one end was also built infront of the school building. Carpets were placed just before the stage, which was meant for us. Then special chairs and sofas were placed for VIPs and the distinguish guest. And then was follwed by our wodden chairs of our classroom, which was meant for the other guests, the guardians and the parents.

The show initiated with the national anthem after the arrival of the distinguished guest, the patron of the school, the reginonal Police officer, Dwarika. Then followed with welcome speeches,then songs dances , drammas, finally ended with the speeches from the Pricipal, Devendra guring and the chairman who fially annouced the end of the show. Then was the refreshment for all the guests. We too got the sweets.It was something that made a beautiful ending to that day.Many of my friends left for home with their parents. My father came the next day I was also back to the home for two weeks winter vacation.



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