Showing posts with label 07. Part VII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 07. Part VII. Show all posts

Part VII

After the winter vacation I was back to school again.

It was the same classroom I had the same seat but Daksha by my side. In hostel… it was the same place, same bed and we even had the same hostel teacher, Guru. There was construction on the upper floor, and when it go ready we were to move there. Kumar sir wasn’t our classteacher because we needn’t to study the ‘History and Geography’ anymore. It was replaced by optional mathematics… called ‘Trigonometry’, the very tough mathematics.


The few other subjects that were removed from our courses were ‘Sanskrit’ and ‘Moral Science’. And in addition to it we had ‘Nagarik Jiwan’, ‘Accounting and Management’ and ‘My English’ There was a new science teacher for us… for the last year som sir had taught us with it but for this year he was with the optional mathematics…


The new teacher seemed quite okay but unfortunately he didn’t stay for longer… there was also a need of new mathematics teacher. And fulfilling both requirements we had a new teacher ‘Rudra Sinjali’. It hadn’t been easy for him getting to place… there were many who came for the exam …out of them three were taken for the test class… Three teachers came into our class with some title of the matematics and taught us for about fifteen minutes each… Sinjali sir was the last one… he taught us pythagorous theorem, the longest in the book taking almost and hour of the time… There was no question he was selected.

Sometime it astronises me how much difference does a teacher make for the student. “Sinjali sir” we used to call him… he had an extraordinary accent that not only forced or deviated me to a different route but also helped me to develop confidence and determination in the work… So that should be why even after years for few we always keep lagging behind them. Mathematics… I always feared, I was never good at it. Later I realised, more than the subject… it was the teacher that had made he fear the subject. As I had always feared with kaji sir … I had always feared with mathematics too and so, I had never been able to do bette in it. And about question … in my life I never had been to him with any of the question… I definitely had been to my friends for it.


I wasn’t the worse with mathematics… there was a friend who extremely feared with him… and it was Manoj. He was one of those weakest in the class… and it was him who often would make kaji sir angry because he would never get what ever he taught in the class. Unfortunately he always became the victim of kaji sir whom the teacher not only shouted and screamed but also had slaped and punished in many other ways only because for not knowing or not understanding. He was the only one… that he would often ask… and when he was silent with no answer it was sure by the end his eyes and face would blush red with tears...


Sometime…like this… a class, not even for an hour sounded completely harrowing like a day… Perhaps not being able to cope the teacher and perhaps also of his own personal reason he had left the school a couple of years back from the time. Sinjali sir was a completely different image to kaji sir… he was numb polite and low… he would never shout … if was difficult almost impossible to find any sign of anger on his face… More than this during his class for something we didn’t understand with his teaching… it was not us who had to go to him with the questions. Instead, he would come to us, to the individual and give the details. It greatly should have helped many. For me… it gave me a different dimension… in the mathematics.


He also became the science teacher… he would give us notes and details… but as his was after the lunch break… most of us would feel sleepy due to heat of the day… truly, I wasn’t with science so much the way I was for the mathematics.

In two weeks after our arrival, we had a religious festival ‘Swaraswati Puja’ when we had holiday… On the day the people used to pray to the Goddess of Knowledge and Skill Swaraswati… There was a Swaraswati temple newly made closer to the entrace gate of the school. Early morning in the foggy cold morning we were asked to take the shower with almost the freezing cold water. Then if we wished we were also asked to have nothing at all until prayer was over. After the shower we all gathered at the temple… there was guru making all the prayers… though I decided to take the shower and to take nothing unless the prayer was over but I was not interested in praying for hours and hours. It was interesting getting to the place though because even the teachers like kumar and others had gathered with musical instrument and they were singing the prayer songs.


There was something I wondered even… some of the friends had even brought their books into the temple to pray… carrying so many of their books from the classroom… There they were closing their eyes and really making deep prayers… After then before taking them back they first bowed on the feet of big statue of the goddess inside the temple and then coloured it with the red… After the prayer was over... we were handed sweets…
And the day was over…

Days were getting warm… trees were starting to get leaves. Even at the backyard of the hostel the trees that had been planted about two years back had grown up higher… the reason they had grown up higher than the rest of the place was that… fortunately the soil was better. Next thing that favoured the place was that it would get water all time through the year because the plants would get water that would flow from the drain to the large pond… It was the main washing place for all living in the hostel.

When the days started getting hotter and the in the spring trees started getting leaves… In search for the shade we made our own place near the fence. It was since then, during ten minutes break (twice a day) most of us only from our class would come to the place and stayed for a talk… It didn’t only continue for a year, well it did last till the end of our high school days.

About six weeks later, we shifted up to the upper floor room… It was larger room and higher from the ground so, it was definitely a better place… While building the upper floor they had elaborated the ground floor room that could smaller than half of the size of the last room in the hostel. So, while adding up above it … on the upper floor, two small rooms were made… one was adjacent to our hostel room … on the side of it was a little window for the teacher to sometime peep at us… there was a little curtain over it.


Next was a long room… where soon we brought desks and chairs … and it became our study room. It was also often used in the morning in selfstudy and in the evening class for the weak student. The teachers brought them there and gave private lessons. The place… I picked on one of the nicest. Most of them preffered on the upper bed… I too would like it …but I didn’t like fighting for it. However I looked for the beautiful which was very close to windows… on two sides of it … The best thing was that, parallel to my bed was a very big window which I always kept open. The other reason I had choosen it was at the far corner from the teacher’s peeping-window and his room.


Always in the leisure, it became the gathering place… As the bed was parallel to the window and it had the best view to the ground…the forest behind it and the hills at the far distance… usually there would be some one sitting there. After the games… in the late afternoon, mates came and rested there for the air… and in the evening after the lunch it in became one of the most gathering place. Because it was only the place …they could lie down to see see the moon and the stars, the clouds and the rain… and above all of it … the freshness of the air.


On the 28th of March, we had the schoolday. This year school decided to organise the annual function and the Parent’s day on the school day. On the day… I participated for the group song… And for the first time in life… I got prize from the distunguished guest for getting the third place in the school. It was a small school based classic novel ‘Tom Sayer’ by Mark Twain.

The following Saturday the particpants were given three hours leave for the valley. We, the members of the group song also got the opportunity for it. It was Kaji sir who had done the favour, which was very good of him. And he was also the one who took us to the valley in the school bus and left to go anywhere we deserved. We were happy excited and overjoyed… most of them made there own way… there became few friends that decided to go with me. Santosh grg, Rochan and Sunil, we first went to a friend of my sister… took two bicyles from her, meant for four of us…two in each.


Then with two bikes, four of us we went to my house… getting there we didn’t stay for longer we soon came back to give the bikes… While getting back we had almost ruined most of our time. And from the place… we spent the remaining time walking down the road to get to the place where the Kaji sir had asked us to gather, before he had left us free.

Everyone seemed punctual… at three, we were all already there… Kaji sir told us the school bus wasn’t to come so he asked us, to get the local bus to get to the school. He told he would come in the different bus with the remaining of the junior brothers. Sometime later we sorted out the bus in the busstand nearly by just about hundred meters down the road. I decided to stay away from my friends, who were all behind at the back seat so, it was the second seat from the main entrance door at the left.


Soon the bus started and we drove back to the school… the bus would drop us close to the school gate. I was definitely not happy for getting in the school but still I was happy for freely getting back. Moreover I was anxious to tell all the story of the day to the friends in the school. The bus stopped in different places before it left the city. So people climbed in and took the seat. I was surprised no body came and took the seat beside me. But I had noticed a beautiful girl came and took a seat ahead of me.


Soon we were out of the valley and it wasn’t so frequent the bus would stop. It started getting lonely. The beautiful hills with trees and open terraces… they gave me a sort of heavenly feeling. Soon my feelings became so intense in some way I forget where I was… in a low murmer I started singing. I kept singing different song one after next until I was closer to the school. Just few miles away from school… the girl who had taken the seat ahead of me asked… “Are you Shrestha?”
I somehow trying to turn to her with a surprise, told, “No”
“What’s your name? Where are you going?”
“I am Yubraj and I read in Dipendra…. In eight” With a pause I asked her “What’s your’s and where do you study?’
“ I am Sita Shrestha and I study Khairani High School in ten?”
“Where do you live?’ she asked me.
“In pokhara…. Lakeside” I shortly answered.
“My brother also lives in Pokhara, he runs the hotel there. Its Nascent Hotel…do you know?”
“No” I nodded my head. Then she turned away from me…
It was partly making nervous… because I had felt strange talking to her… so many years in boys school it would flush me red and make me lose my nerves when girls appeared before me and to talk… it was even frustrating.
When the bus once stopped sometime before our stop point the girl walked out of bus. I watched her walk out of it and making her paces to next side of the road.
After she left, I wondered about what happened. I then started having questions to myself “why did she wanted to know about me” “Why did she ask me who I was …and also why was the reason she gave so much details about her.”
We got out of bus… and when I was back at the hostel I told the story of the day and and the other story out the girl. And that evening, in the gathering inside our hostel… I retold the day with all that happened… and more than this I didn’t miss to explain then every little bit of the story with the beautiful girl.

The day was over but it wasn’t easy I could forget the incident. I never had talked to strange girl in that way. And in an accidetn in such a short time we knew so much about each other… it was strange. The same thing went over and over in my mind for some couple of days. But not to let myself in more confusions and illusions I decided to work out a way. I decided to write to her for once.


It was third week of April… I prepared a letter in English. I had known where she studied. She was the girl, reading in class ten in the government school only about half a mile east from our school.


I was well known to her school, so with no mistakes I made the address and I sent the letter to her. A first letter in the whole life meant for the girl. It was a simple letter with simple feelings through wasn’t any sort of purposal letter. Sending and receiving letters wasn’t easy. Every letter that came for the students was clearly observed by the teachers. Janak sir was the one whom it mattered the most. The letters from the girls were never given to the students. Once it happened a mate Niroj was called to the office about a case of the letter. It was common his affairs to women as he had told so many of his stories to me. The girls often wrote him the letters with their blood. This was the thing the Principal had discovered in his letter and so had called him top the office.


For sending the letters it was almost the same thing. The letters had to be checked by the teachers and the signature was requied on the envelop as an approval of the the teacher who checked the letter before they could be sent. I wrote it… but it wasn’t easy sending it. For the aprroval there proved to be only one of the teacher that could help me and it was Sinjali Sir. Those days I had already gained so much of the favour from him… he had already known my name and about me.


When I went with the letter for the approval… he didn’t even look for whom it was before he signed it on the back and gave it to me.
“Thankyou sir”I bowed him with a pride and great happiness.
Next day I handed it to Baral Uncle, who posted it for me. Baral Uncle, he was the only one staff of the school building who worked for students and teachers. Apart from cleaning the classroom by the respective hostel uncles and aunts, for every other thing it was him who had to work. He would ring the bell… for the beginning and the end of every class., working for the teachers and also often helped in bringing the stationeries and other accessories in accordance to our forms. In school he was often the busy person.


Not only among the friends in the class but I think among all of them in the school itself I was one of very few very close to him. Even if I wouldn’t get the teacher to sign my letter he would have taken it for the post at any cost. Principal had always been concious about it so only reason for it was… I didn’t want him to be in trouble only for my personal reason. With time, it was Laxman who became my closer mate. On reason for this was he was from the same school where I had been from so many years back. Taking to him about past school and the people there, it revived so forgotten realities.


Among the passive ones… who weren’t very good and also not so very interested in football decided to form a different football group. We also made a different ground at the far corner behind the dinning hall, some how far from the main center. We weren’t so much …only about ten and the little ground with stone post was sufficient. For some moment it became the tradition we kept playing everyday… in the late afternoon after the tea.

One morning, we had just been for the PT… we saw everyone rushing to the right end of the school… which had the edge… a cliff that ran straight down about fifty meters at the river side down below. Someone seemed to have fallen from the height and everyone were looking at him… We were allowed to stay there for longer so all of us retuned back to hostel. Later we came to know that he was one of the police personal of the school. He was immediately taken to regional hostel in the school bus… They said even falling from such a great height he had one of the figers of a hand moving … though he was still unconciuos they told there still seemed the possibilities that he could be alive.


Next day everything changed… he had to be taken to the hospital in the capital. They told there had been some damages in the brain… there wasn’t the proper circulation of blood. After four days of the incident he was still unconcious… operation was made but became unsuccessful and later was considered dead.

The actual reason was never known but there had been several stories. Many told that he had been missed from early before the night at about eight that evening. Perhaps he was drunk while returning to his room he might have had missed the way and had fallen from the height. The house they lived was only about thirty meters from the place he fell off.

However there were also somespiritual stories… somebody told that just few days back the following evening during his duty as guard in the school gate… He had seen the woman walking passed to the office… trying to find her after sometime he had found that she dissapeared in the dark… he asked for who it was … no body answered. He had told this story to his friend. Many guess that perhaps the same spirit might have done the damage on him.

Though stories came many but reason was never known. Though I didn’t really know who he was… but something I was made to think was about his family. He was married … had a wife and a very young son. And I felt so sorry that life was never going to be easy for them. In his demise, the school made a holiday for a day.

It was one rainy evening some of us gathered under a very small room under the stairs that went to the upper hostel room. The ones we had gathered there were Narjan, Rabindra, Deepak, Sujan and myself. We were having some serious talk. Deepak had made his recent song… it was beautiful. And just talking to each other we decided to start a band. However we didn’t give the name of it that moment.

Next day narjan handed over a beautiful memoir where the first song of deepak was written. Then followed by two of my songs that were more like the poetry they didn’t have the tune. For some days we were into it… but in few weeks it was forgotten. Our ideas didn’t get bonded together as it was supposed to be.

The second week of March I had visited home for the holidays for the religious festivals. The next day there was the shocking news about the uncle, the only brother of my mother. I was shocked and grieved with the news… at the early age of twenty-two, unmarried he had died. He hadn’t been sick for longer before he died with some problems in his brain. The news was harrowing and it took me so long to get rid of the image about him. It had been four years back the uncle and the grandfather had come to us. There wasn’t anything uncle had been doing in the village… Because the grandfather had been so sick… he had decided to come for his treatment in the regional hostipal in our place.


Uncle had always loved us when we were young. He would take our hand and we would walk by his side talking all the way… Sometime when he came to our place he even tried to take us in the boat to the next side of the lake though we deided to return. Uncle and grandfather had lived in the village… so life hadn’t been so easy. A few couple of times I had heard my mother said to the uncle. “Well why don’t you start up something at the place… you can learn something first” Something very peculiar about the uncle was… he played the flute so well. He even used to make it by his own. Though he couldn’t stay longer with us when he had come for the treatment for the grandfather but before he left he had made a flute for me and left it. He talked less but ways always smiling… something I always felt beautiful about him.


But their stay had never made father feel good about it. For few nights there was even discussions between my parents. Mother would say she wanted to keep them because they were weak… but father would dominate her telling that it was not the place they should stay… He told it was better if he left. Though I was very younger but still I believed I could understand the circumstances. I often told to the father, I was going to do the same when he grew older. It would never mean anything to him. He never took it seriously.

Now it was after four years the uncle’s death had been a shock for us. Something that I couldn’t obssesed me was… he was too young to die. He wasn’t even married. He hadn’t had the family. Why was there nobody when he was sick. There were questions I couldn’t have the answers and had to leave the things it way though I could never forget it as I am wrinting it clearly. About six month later grandfather too passed away. Now it was only my mother and her sister left in the family. Her mother had died when I was only about three or four… and even earlier her elder sister had died when she was only a young girl.


These realities were severe to me but I had to accept them.

With time… some thing proved we have somehw grown up. The teachers would now let uas go home alone if we had an application from our parents to the hostel teachers, asking them to leave us alone in the holidays. It made a drastrict change in my feelings. Even while studying in the seventh grade, as usual I was happy going home for holidays or vacations but while returning back from home it had always become the same story. I could never change much with my way. I din’t cry the way I did when I was a young kid but still aways tears ran from my eyes and my heart grieved so badly… it always became the worst morning for me.

But since when we were allowed to go home alone… it made a great difference… I needed look at someone to come and take me for the short holidays. There was no worry, the day came and I would go. So, after coming to this time there was a sort of extreme joy because there was no way I would ever get frustrate for not coming to take me home. Since then it was every month I could go home alone and returned the same way. This certainly eased the feelings… It also gave more confidence and pleasure to the life… and the way of living.

These little changes in the rules changed the way of life… it didn’t take long when the day after day a term was over… we had the first term… to my delight, I fortunately became the second.

After a month vacation, I had arrived on the day when the classes had already started. However I ddin’t miss any classes of the day. That late afternoon when our class was over and we were in the dinning for the tea, Santosh grg gave me surprising news. He told he had seen a letter for me in the wainting hall for the guest and guardence close to the entrace of the school.

Hearing it I was overjoyed. On the way he told it was from a girl. Then my heartbeat went high. When I had written her for the first time, I waited for the reply for all the month until the day before the vacation. After it I had given hope and had almost forgotten it. I just walked beside him. He looked the letter and finally we got it … it was placed over by the frame of the wooden clock.


I was excited and nervous… there was a reply but I wasn’t certain if it was some good news or it was something with some tough and hard words. With some sort of fear however I dared to open and read the letter. There was some news in it. She accepted the relation, she wanted to me her god-brothers.


She had beautifully written the letter. Even in the pretty simple sheet of paper her artistic writings had made had given the true word of it. Gave the true meaing what it should have meant. It was definitely the first relation in life that I had made with some stranger, a woman and it was with some accident. I had just felt to write and had done it as I wasn’t even sure of the reply if it would ever come back to me…

Since then it was frequent we started writing letters… when I got one then I would send the reply in few days and wait until got the reply for it… and it almost took three weeks sometimes a month. But things went on and it made us feel close… just like friends.

About month later, on Saturday, some time later after our lunch, Janak sir decided to take us to the riverside for the practical of the English lesson “Rice Pudding” of the My English. It was sunny day, through the dusty road we took our way to the riverside. On the way… carrying big pots to cook… big bags of powdered milk rice and other assessories like pieces of wood, we did enjoy carrying the load. For, me I had nothing to carry.


Walking about more than a mile we came to the small riverside of Kumle river… before getting to the place … we had to get down through the dusty slope, down the hill. We were fortunate it didn’t take time to find a stream near by for the water to drink and cook… Soon we started our work… we were only few who sat there to cook… there wasn’t enough work for everyone so, most of them went for swimming. It was narjan, santosh and few of the others and me that we deicided to cook.. And also Janak sir, the principal he was there overall looking everything. We gathered three big stones, all round to place the big drum or we can say pot. Underneath it we could make the fire.


In the group some of them went to bring the water. In some time we got enough of it and we mixed the powered milk… The firewoods were so dry and hard… that gave good yellowish flames. The wood were good because they were brought for the kitchen in the school that used tremendous amount of wood everyday…


It didn’t take much time when the milk hot then we poured into it … then sugar… and left it until it boiled… When the water, the liquid seemed to dry out, the mixed dry fruits were put into it and were stirred throughly… After then we put off the fire… and let it t cool… After it was over we too went for swimming.


We couldn’t stay longer…before the teacher called us.. When we all gathered first the cooks, we served the others with the stirrer who came with the plates… afterthen we also took… there was enough of it… so, when one finished they added. It had tasted good because it was sweet… moreover, the dry fruits had made it taste better. After all the pot was emptied.

After the meal eveyone was asked to clean their own plates… as for the big pots and other cooking accessories, the cooks had to clean it … because nobody seemed to even look at it. It became Santosh Gurung and my part to clean the big pot. When we got it cleaned we carried it to same place. Before we left I decided not to carry it …through the way… so I stayed a bit farther from it… and we soon moved. I was lucky I hadn’t anything.


The way… it was very quite… there were houses… but isolated and looked more like farmhouse. There was only a place where there were shops… however not many … only four… We, the one who carried nothing, made longer strides and moved faster paces that in very short time took us ahead of rest of the others. The reason for this was we wanted to get to the shop very soon to buy something to take it to the school. Because in school it wasn’t easy getting them… the teachers would never allow us to have the things…


So, after buying so many things we would rush to school… leaving the rest of the others far behind… teachers would also usually fall far behind bringing the lagging ones together with them. The way we had thought, we hadn’t been right thinking that we had left the others far behind… someone from the far distant who had been lagging behind shouted and asked all of us to stop.


There was no way for the escape that the day… So, we all had to stop before everyone arrived. When everyone arrived we found how aggresive the teacher had been. He shouted to all of us… He told there had been no one to carry the pots and other things, which seemed to have made him very angry. From the place we quitely walked back to school. However things didn’t get bad then this. There was worse thing sometime even teachers feared when they happened to take us out from school… the moments like that when we happened to take us to the rivers. Some times the small shops with only little things would be almost emptied… and most of the cases it wasn’t because of the sale but instead everybody took it and most never paid.


It was about a year earlier… it happened in a little shop close to the school gate. After the incident, the shopkeeper came to the teachers and with tears in his eyes pleaded them to help him get the things back… Hearing it all… we all talked to each other and with the pity we had decided to get most of his things back, which were stolen. That happened once and was good of us.


It was one of the eves after the meal in the evening. Since fe w days there had been the rumours in the hostel … some boys had peeped into the Rupa auntie’s room in the junior hostel while she was undressing. That evening with some of the friends we decided to watch the scene again. That day everyone in the class was known about the matter.

So, for this we decided to turn off the light of our hostel so that it could help us see evening easy in the dark… As we were watching it was after a long wait she did come but things didn’t happen the way we were told because that she became busy on her own. We were all curous and silent waiting to see. But unfortunately some one from inside the hostel turned on the light above us… and every one ran into the hostel. There were two of us… me and Arun, the captain. It was one of the friend who had done it. But some again went and turned it off… and everybody regathered for it… for the second time it was done.


Then it was some body who told teachers had known about it … and were watching us. So, immediately every one was gone except for me and Arun again. We decided to stay there for some time before we also decided to leave.


Initially I had thought about the teahers… it was only a rumour… but later I came to know from the uncles that teachers had known about it and the reason for why we all were rushing and runnning. In some ways, I felt shame about it there wasn’t any way to defend ourselves.

In the meantime a different game took the major space in the school… ‘Wrestling cards’… It became a sort of craze for everyone… when we would be at the leisure we would gather and then we would starts… However it wasn’t any sort to playing cards. It had no numbers… it had only picture of the wrestler in one side of it where as there wasn’t anything on the next.


For the game there weren’t any specific rules… the players would sit around with the lumps of the cards placed upside down on their hands. Then would start the taking out the top most card and placing in the middle between them. Then next beside it would put the next… it would then go on… if the two cards come out to become of the same wrestler then the person precedding the first takes the favour of taking all the cards placed in the middle… Then it is restarted again by the winner…. And it goes on and on.

It soon became the craze for everyone in the school. Soon everyone started wanting it so badly… they would pay huge money…(in comparision to it’s cost) for it… It became an addiction and soon realised by the teachers, it was restricted. After then many time the guru would accidently rush into our room and seize them… But slowly, it was given up…

Soon, it was then, we had the second term. After the exams were over… then we had the result… I was second again… with the result I was then starting to have more confidence.
The only thing I was waiting for was for some one to come to take me for vacation. Though we could still go home alone in the short holidays but still for the vacation guardians or parents were necessary to come and take us home.


It had been third day after our exam. During the lunch somebody told me some one had come for me… I hurried finished up the meal and headed to the main gate, at the entrance to see who had been there to come to take… I was shocked and surprised. Two girls in their school uniform were sitting in the waiting hall waiting for me.

In one letter of my letter to her, I had asked her if she could visit me in the school. I had just told her because I was sure she wouldn’t make any attempts comeing to me. But she had done it … and it greatly surprised me… in the beginning it wasn’t so easy for me to recognise her because it was once I had seen her … and it was the story of some months back… and now she had no glasses on… So, for some time it did put me in the confusion. But it didn’t take long before I could sort it out right.


As I had talked about the matter earlier about the relations with girls… as many times the principal himself had torn the letters of boys that had been sent by the girl… Even these little incidences would sometime becaome a big story in the school itself that almost everyone would know it…

And when it was like … meeting, it would even a big problem if the teachers knew… but I wasn’t so scared because I would tell she was my sister. When I realised her, I swiftly walked beside her and took the place… though I wasn’t frightened with anyone there but still I could succeed to talk to her the way I could talk about so many things in the letters. I couldn’t start the talk nor could see he face … I was already getting too nervous about it.


She did dare to talk start the talk… first she introduced her friend Kalpana to me. Then she asked me about exams… she asked me when I was going home and for how long… I did give the answers for her questions which didn’t prove so difficult… when the talk was over… she told me she wanted to give me a picture … as I turned to look at her from the side she slipped her picture to me.


I quickly grabbed, not to let others watch about it… later they gave me two cards in big light envelops by each of them. It was ever the first gift I got from some one. I was somehow exicited and nervous now… because I had something with me… if incase the teachers saw it … they would take it away from me… never giving me baqck again. So, hurridly I raced from the placed and rushed to the hostel… to she it for what it was.


She had handed me a beautiful picture of hers. Something shocked me… the location had been no where then the highway right infront of my school itself… I knew she had done it for me. In the envelops there were two cards similar types… on hers there had been a card for the festival with the encloser of a beautiful Nepali movie star… where as on her friend’s there was a nepali movie actor.


It was a first impressive gift…
Next day my in the afternoon …mother came to take me back to home… even earlier before I arrived there had already been the talked with my mother. I didn’t know how our hostel warden Guru had come to know that somebody had come to see me the day earlier. He had told my mother that sisters had come to see me a day earlier and mother was shocked because she wouldn’t believe it… As soon as I saw and had come to her the first question she had made for me was …who had come to see me.

I was then in problem… I told my mother, I would tell her everything sometime later when we would get some how far from the school. Before we left … there was the conversation between the guru and my mother, he suggest to go to every home near by and ask who was it to come to me to see me… As we came out of the school… then I started all the story tyo my mum. I din’t lie her anything… I told everything what it was how it was and when it was. Initially she didn’t like it.


When we reached home it became the matter to talk… I was proud telling ahving the relation and telling the story to my sisters… I even showed them her beautiful pictures and few letters that she had written then to me … but soon they all started making jokes at me… so I could no longer keep up with it before I seized everything and took them away from them.
Next day there wasn’t any story again.

A month vacation wasn’t long enough before we again returned back to school for the winter sessions. For this year for the final, we were to have the district level exams… Usually our finals would have been in the second week in the December… But because of the district level our exam exmas were supposed to initiate from the first week of the same month. So, it was only a month time… after the vacation he had the exams… it was only our class who had it … where as the rest of the others still had the classes.


In about ten days it was over… after our exam we could move home …that was the very best thing for us… In the meantime, during the winter vacation, I came with my mother to the school to seek the results of my finals… this time I didn’t miss the grab… I was the second in the class with the eightfour percentage marks… which remained the highest ever in all my life. Mother was certainly very proud of it.


A week later, one evening we started having among within ourselves we started having discussions. Since we hadn’t had the term with father… he was living with his own and wasn’t of much concern at that instant. The matter was between me mother and the esdest sister Bishnu.
Though it was a couple of months earlier that she had told me all her story about her love affairs, she had promised me she was going to wait for the next two years before I completed my high school. It was me to ask her for it because I had already learnt the lesson from the incident from the Manju’s case. And I knew father in no way would accept it.


I had hoped things would be alright… but that eve… the discussion brought up a new problem… she became so mad to us about him… she told that if she wouldn’t get him that day she would kill herself or hang. It became a horrible night before it was me and mother who finallized the case. We told her that next morning we would let her go with the guy if he would assure us that he loved her… She just had to wait that night.

Next morning she left home early and brought the guy to the mother. I didn’t interfer the matter. I just let over to mom with all that she wished to do because she was the mother and she would do the exact thing needed that moment because I had belief in her she would never make a wrong move … she was a sensible woman. The guy excepted that he was in love with her… so, mother gave them the decision to start with their own life. The same day father was known about it. I had already learnt a problem was solved but even a big disaster was yet to come.
Because father would never accept this… and for his unsatisfation we remaing had to pay the price for him….especially mother.

We were all young… so was the reason why I had asked her to wait the next two years… so that I would at least get big enough to fight for the right thing. But something the need become more important than loyality or anything else. We were all left… and now it was me to take over anything to fight again the monster.

The same evening he was back home totally drunk. We were living with intense fear because we knew he would come… We were just waiting to run away when we happened to see him. But even drunk he sometime tried to become smarter… he wouldn’t come in an easy fashion… he would come to surprise us and he wouldn’t just come… he often would come with big knives. That eve I had no confidence within myself…nor the mother dared to fight with him… my brother was rather small for it… and the other sister had no strenght for it… so when he came we all ran away. We though he would leave and we would come back… but it didn’t happen… he didn’t leave… instead he slept there. That night we had to make the request for a room in the monastry, just next in our neighbourhood. They did do the favour.


Next day… it wasn’t the good day either… We asked brother not to help him with the business. We hid him the all day… but that eveing we were helpless… he bit him up so badly he had the scares all over his body… Some parts were even sollen up. That evening it was again the same… that day I was so desperate I decided to fight.I did try to hit him once … But after then when he tried to grab me to hit… I had to run down the terraces… while running down… perhaps twenty meters away I fell into the ground… the jerk gave a severe pain on my right knee. I thought it had almost torn apart. For some moment I had to stop… I knew stopping there wasn’t the right thing so I again had to run farther.


There didn’t seem to be the better solution so, we decided to call for the help from the community. The next day mother called for the people from the community. With them he disaggreed that the fact that hwe came with the knive the few nights. Next thing was he blamed everything over the mother… who was so innicent and helpless. It was about an hour discussion and the community warned him for it. So, things somehow improved but still wasn’t complete and it wouldn’t be.

Two days later, I had to go back to the school again as my vacation had been completed. The following week… I was almost awake every midght beause with triebble dreams and wit the pain in my knees… though I didn’t feel it in the day… during the night it hurted very bad that every night I couldn’t sleeep for hours. In few days I realised the problem… so I started with the massage every evening before the sleep. In about a month I had almost recoved.



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