It was a day after a warm day in June. I had just finished my breakfast and was about to leave for my college when I saw clouds rising in east. Soon the whole sky was overcast with dark and thick clouds. A cool breeze started blowing.
It seemed that rain was imminent. Still, I decide to take a chance. I left for college. I walked quite fast as I was anxious to reach college before the rain starts. When I was only half way, it started drizzling. Within a few minutes, the downpour became very heavy. Traffic came to halt. People run for shelter. I also took shelter under a canopy of a nearby shop.
I was watching the roads and streets being flooded with water. There were water and water everywhere. Suddenly, I got calls from Kelsang.
Kelsang: Hello! Where are you?
Me : Tusal Chowk, heading college. You aren't coming?
Kelsang: nay! I am not going. You also don’t go. Come here at café we all are not going.
Me : Yeah! Again rain will be excused. I am coming.
There they were doing their own part of things. Kelsang was smoking, Tsering was waiting for his turn to come, Tashi was watching Kelsang smoked, Shankar was drinking and Passang was just sitting, passing time.
Come sit here. ‘ Kelsang said to me.
On every cabin a small tinkling bells were hanged and from every corner, a musical voice of a teen girl was echoing –recent N-POP song.
I took the chair and seated. What is going on? ‘I asked as I move my head with music.
We were talking about Namgyal dai and his wife. Shankar said they had a big fight yesterday. ‘Tashi answered.
I heard, when Namgyal dai was fifteen, wars broke out between his country and neighboring country, their neighboring country once who promised of modernization occupied their land. His father died resisting.
“So at very young age Namyal dai joined resisting force, they sent him along with a bunch of other youth like him for a mission in the southeast part of the country. The mission was unsuccessful, but luckily no one from their group was caught. They all escaped to neighboring countries. Written refuge in their forehead.
He used to come at café, does spend time with us talking about recent events. And when he goes drunk he used to tell us of his bravery act, how he fought against the enemy. It was fun to listen and hear him. How he praises himself and in next moment how he starts to weep as the fragrance of his childhood passes by his face.
They used to fight before, what is the big deal. ‘I replied to Tashi
No, this time revolt occurred, his wife fought back. So we are analyzing how such spirit has come inside her to fight back. You know she never does fight back. But… ‘Tashi said
Oh! Great, so what is the reason, I mean conclusion, you guys found. ‘I questioned
According to Kelsang , His wife expresses her mind through action. Her mind was dominated by fear and anxieties for long time- which she experience in the form of threatening, beaten and unloving. Therefore, it was because of her lingering internal anxiety and fear of getting beaten again, which deduces his tolerance power, she fought back.‘Tashi stop speaking and asked Kelsang to speak his second point.
I think secondly, it might be because of the law of momentarily and law of change in nature. I believe in these two things. Love is like a dream created illusion; it happens due to the law of momentarily and fades due to the law of change in nature.
Marriage is a sign or part of love, and it is generally supposed to be a long drawn and lasting a lifetime. But feeling is not, feeling is passionate which does burst quickly. And because of contradictions in the relationship between these two, she fought back.
Passang was carefully listening to him. In the mist he was shaking his head up and down as like when people do agree with someone’s point.
I know none of you will disagree with this statement “longer you know someone, the more faults you will find.” So the question here is after discovering those faults, will you able to live with those faults? In case of her, she answered no with her fighting back. ‘Kelsang said and finished his analysis.
What about you Comrade Shankar? What you think? ‘Tashi asked Shankar
I turned my face towards Shankar from Kelsang to hear him.
I totally disagree with Kelsang’s analysis. What he said is a prejudice and prejudice itself is a self created Illusion. ‘He opposes Kelsang analysis and started his own.
Her fighting back was an act of revolt and victory. She was exploited by him for a very long period. How she gets beaten by him symbolizes the system of brutality, exposed ideology of injustice and shows enormous gaps between women and man.
When we talked of the bourgeoisie, we should keep in our mind that we are talking about a man. Man is the bourgeoisie. Women always were somehow oppressed section and they have not played much role except a few. So fingering them as bourgeoisie will somehow make no sense.
In case of her, I portrayed her as revolutionary class-fighting against the bourgeoisie (Namgyal dai). Her fighting back was demand for the end of oppression. ‘Shankar finished his analysis.
Then comes the turn of Tashi. ‘And he started soon after sipping Tea.
Since I was a child, I was grown up under the guidance of female first mother, then aunty and then sister but during these years as I learn many things, I developed an answer of who are women? According to me, women is a section of people whose contributions never credited, whose deeds never respected, whose presence never valued and whose live never counted.
I learned that during childhood her father sent her brother to school and forced her to work at home. She was made to believe that education is useless, mathematics is worthless and her involvement does make no difference.
He sip tea ‘and started again.
I know now guys will ask me but why she got beaten up?
It is just the simple logic, education makes a person an independent but she was deprived with that right by his father. So when she got married, she became dependent to her husband. And when somebody becomes dependent to somebody, his/her self presentation gets affected. Supremacy power rule weak power. Same happened here her husband with financial and independent power; beaten up her who is dependent to him hoping nothing will she do and can. And her fight back was cry for change (feminist movement). ‘Tashi ended his analysis.
And what about you Passang? ‘I asked
He smiled and said. ‘It is because of karma.
I walked out from café and observed that the rain had stopped completely. People started moving about again. Traffic was resumed.
The streets and roads had become very slippery; with its drops rain had washed away dirt from the leaves of the few trees that are still present in Kathmandu. Kathmandu itself was looking if had bathed.
