We had just spent the last hour getting prepared for
swearing-in.
I stepped into the hall. After being surrounded by the flurried
activity of seven women in a small hotel room, it was nice to have a moment to
myself. I took the opportunity to get a feel for my new dressings and looked
down. What caught my eye first was my hand, which was adorned with a red Ganesh
ring. Hajuraamaa Khadka had gifted it to me on the day of our departure from
our training villages (I cried; but that’s a different story). Further down, a
bracer of sparkling green bangles (chiura) cupped my wrist (these I had bought
for the occasion); and under my arm the matching draperies of my forest green
saree could be seen. Its gilded peacock-feather design shimmered in the light.
I remember beholding this sight for several long moments, quizzical.
Whose hand is this? I thought. It felt unfamiliar – like it didn’t belong to me.
For past three months I had been surrounded by women wearing these effects – wives,
mothers, aunts, grandmothers. Suddenly, I was one of them. The feeling was foreign,
viscerally maternal, and honest in a way I can’t describe. I felt like I was
harnessing a form of myself from another time – another life. A latency; a
potential. Would I ever hold this feeling of presence in the future, if I ever
became a mother? Or is this who I would come to be by the end of my service?
(Somehow, that didn’t seem right). I mused.
My friend Pearl came around then, and I tried to describe my
predicament. “Whose hand is this?” I
repeated. “It’s like a mom’s hand,” I said, jokingly (yet, I was not joking).
“Look.”
Pearl looked. “It totally is,” they agreed.
The engraved Ganesh smiled from my hand.
Whose hand is this? Get it out of here.
