Story:
Chandrama Poudyal
Runche Disease
She lives in a zinc-roofed small hut beside my room, from where, through window glass, almost all activities of her room can be visualized. As usual, today morning, too, I drew the window curtains as soon as I had got up. Perhaps she has gone to work somewhere carrying her senior son along with her and getting the nine-month-old daughter to sleep on the bed. Only the small girl child in the room has deeply fallen asleep.
Suddenly, a bitter reminiscence pinches me. I get confused if I shall draw the curtain or not. I feel like suffocated and recall the reminiscences from six months back.
In my perception, the hut, she lives in, is not only a common kind of chamber but a labor-exploiting model house. Although the hut-resident is free from the burden of paying rent every month, they ought to spend every moment of their day to serve the whole population of that family. Being frustrated after paying dozens of time more labor than the actual rent of the hut, some people left this chamber in the past. Similarly, a man got martyrdom in this same shanty but having no money for his funeral, we managed a corpse- carrying vehicle free- of-cost. In the meantime, I recall this bitter reality.
Approximately six month back this hut suddenly became vacant. My landlord and his wife got shocked. What could be more catastrophic than this event to this family which was completely aloof even to the slightest household work? The moment this hut was occupied, the landlord’s family would keep themselves busy in feast and party from morning to midnight. The courtyard would be full of so many vehicles like car, taxi, motorcycles, and scooters and so on. The highest level authority holders of the nation, politicians, journalists and litterateurs would gather in the house. The family members, too, are employed in the lucrative posts in the high level government offices. Some of them are politicians and journalists as well. Once a year or every six months they fly for the most advanced nations of the world such as Europe, America and Australia. Both male and female members of this family seem to be equal in all arena of life. In the eyes of such modern and aristocratic family, middle or lower- middle as well as working class people are like insignificant gnats. So, our relationship with them is limited in the form of the rent-paying creatures; and hi-hello-exchanging phatic expression.
One day, early in the morning, I saw the outbuilding stuffed full of things all over. A smart-looking woman, probably in her mid-twenties, holding around a three-month-old baby on her back, was busy on arranging the household appliances. I was much worried how this beautiful sutkeri woman with curvaceous body looking like someone who could make others work under her command, can accomplish the entire household drudgery of this family.
After arranging the appliances she hurriedly came out of the hut to fetch her a-little-grown-up son school. I busied on my own work. I had taken leave in office that day since I was not feeling so well. I took a bath and enjoyed sunbath in the courtyard. In the meantime, she came by me in order to apply oil on her newborn’s body. As I enquired she said she was born and grown up in my home district. Her husband was employed in Nepal Police. She had two children. I enjoyed the scene that she applied oil on her suckling’s body making her sleep on sunlit floor.
“Madam! I also do household work what I can and know in order to save my husband’s salary. I should pay my son’s school fee. A policeman’s salary is meager. Anyway, I should not pay my room rent in this house. It will be a kind of saving. They said they would give me food. I will clean utensils, wash clothes and scrub the floors in two other houses, too. Let me work in your family as well if you have difficulty,” she kept speaking while massaging her infant’s back.
Through her gestures I concluded she was frank and fair-minded. This is how; day to day, she got closer to me. Dashain of the year was nearing. The zinc-roofed hut was getting colder and it was badly affecting the suckling more than others. The infant began to weep every time. The woman had no time to suckle her baby due to the hectic household chore. Her appealing body reduced to skeleton. Wrinkles began to be visible on her face.
One day, she shared her agony to me, “I shouldn’t have come here. My children are ignored and uncared. I am thinning out a lot. The food the landlord’s family provides is much too little. I have to eat the little leftover cold curry after they are stuffed. A tasty meat I prepare. Merely its smell is on my part. My husband is not any rational human, either. If I share my sorrow, he pitilessly thrashes me in return. Every time he threatens me that he will marry another woman. He is so spend-thrift that he plays cards and drinks heavily. I needn’t have lived such a sorrowful life if he saved his salary. I would live a peaceful and comfortable life in the village but such suffering I am enduring in order to educate my children.”
I felt sad to hear her suffering-narrative. I had never thought the landlord’s family would discriminate in food. My perception about them was they were not merely materially prosperous but cultured, too. My heart ached as I silently surveyed her husband’s job in Nepal Police, her pitiable condition and the bamboo shoot-like children’s grief. I kept one-sidedly listening to her talk without speaking a word.
I began to offer her food the moment I prepared something scrumptious. Moreover, I would invite her to have tiffin with me the day I stayed home. Her son often would have dinner with us. It would be around ten o’clock when she returned the hut carrying her small daughter on the back. She gradually got closer to us. She would get her daughter to sleep while going to the work and request us to look after her. The infant would wake up and start crying. I would lovingly lift her up and keep in the warm sun. The cold was extremely increasing in the hut due to the chilling zinc roof. Many times I kept the baby by the electric heater in my room. I bought firewood and all of us enjoyed fire warmth outside. It was a great relief to her.
The winter in Kathmandu didn’t let the baby remain safe no matter how much treatment was applied. She continuously got sick. Sometimes she would suffer from common cold and fever, other times from uncontrolled diarrhea. Due to her sickness one after another, the child reduced to skeleton. Due to her worry about her daughter the mother thinned down as well. Her husband never showed up. She phoned him a number of times and informed that both of them - the mother and the daughter - were sick. But he didn’t come at all. He kept saying he had round-the-clock duty.
As she was penniless, there was no way out. We couldn’t put up with her sorrowful plight and gave her money for the treatment. She tearfully said, “It’s your great mercy. I will pay this money back after my husband brings his salary. If I am lucky my daughter will survive otherwise she passes away. But once I will take her to the doctor irrespective of its result.” The same day, we asked for her husband’s contact number and called him home as soon as possible. Fortunately, he came back and the little daughter was taken to the doctor. Gradually, her condition improved and finally got recovered. Cold gradually lowered down. But no ease and comfort she felt in her work and the manner the landlord’s family showed upon her. In my free hour she would share her complications and I would lovingly listen to her complaints thinking that she would somewhat feel her heart light.
Her daughter was already nine month old and she was gaining weight after the health treatment. But I couldn’t weightlift her because my pregnancy was running on the eighth month. I was not holding the woman’s daughter anymore since almost one and half months back. I hadn’t seen the woman properly almost for four or five days, perhaps due to her busy schedule. She hadn’t come to my room as well. I, too, hadn’t gone outside the room because of my sickness. However, yesterday afternoon she entered my room carrying her daughter and requested me to look after the baby for approximately a couple of hours as she had to wash clothes in the landlord’s family. I told her I had been sick, I hadn’t eaten anything and I couldn’t weightlift the baby. She added that the child was sick. She called a witchdoctor in the morning. He chanted some magical words and the girl somehow got recovered.
She got outside my room saying she would wash the clothes tying the little girl on her back with a shawl as I was bedridden sick. Taking rest for a while I got outside the room. The sun feebly shone. I sat basking in the sunshine. The landlord was cleaning his car. He asked me about my health condition and suggested that I should take care of my body in such situation.
He further said, “Our guest s have come all the way from America. We stay at theirs and we need to welcome and serve them as per our capacity the moment they come to Nepal. Today they have come to our home to have lunch. We are about to take them round-the- city trip in these two cars”. No sooner had he completed his say than an aristocratic-looking big squad of people came to the courtyard from the upstairs.
Amidst the crowd of people I could recognize only my landlady, her daughter and her daughter-in-law. Rests of the people were unfamiliar to me. I was getting late to have my medicine. The landlady, from afar said to me, “Hello! I have to tell you something.”
I suddenly stopped by the doorstep and said, “Okay! You can tell me what it is.” She directly came towards me. I would always be confused to see her face whether she was happy or angry. The same thing happened yesterday, too. She came nearer to me and said, “Is the fetus inside your belly a son? You don’t look after the servant woman’s daughter today onwards. The girl is suffering from your runche. Every day the poor woman is consulting the witchdoctor. The girl keeps weeping. Okay, don’t touch her anymore. We get disturbed a lot as the girl cries anytime.”
I was stunned to hear the landlady’s sound similar to the corn crops bursting in the heated earthen pot while roasting them. I courageously said “Madam! Whether son or daughter we don’t know. We haven’t identified the sex. How is so what you said?”
“It must be a son,” raising her index finger she further said, “Why would this little girl weep if not so? The woman feels difficult to tell you, so I have told you. Don’t touch the girl anymore.” I gave her the nod and got inside. I felt like falling on the floor. However, I prayed god wishing the well-being of my fetus in the womb.
I couldn’t have a sound sleep throughout the night that the landlady’s words kept haunting me.
As I was blankly staring outside the window thinking about yesterday’s nightmarish experience, the little girl woke up and began to cry. If it was as usual, I would have gone outside the room to care the baby. But today I don’t dare look at her even from window glass. I have an unknown fear that somebody is looking at me. Perhaps the little girl is expecting me while crying. She burst into louder cry. Like a vocally-impaired spectator I watched and listened to her. The bed she was sleeping on was high. The playful girl crawled on her all four and fell down the bed in front of my eyes. Her head did strike against the floor. She is helplessly screaming. I am looking outside the window flabbergasted. Probably the child is remembering me, but I am standing nonplussed recalling the warning my landlady gave me raising her index finger. My heart is melting and dropping down along with the little girl’s tear. What shall I do? Shall I go to help the little girl or not?
Term Reference
runche - a disease from which children suffer and they keep unnecessarily weeping and quarreling. People with superstitious mindset believe small children suffer from this disease if they are in touch with pregnant woman. If the fetus is male, female child will suffer and vice versa.
sutkeri - a woman who recently has borne child / children
dashain – the greatest national festival of Nepal
English Translation - Suresh Hachekali
