13 Days

Marigold 

The wake of a hundred 

pairs of footsteps echoes in the dry heat.

 

Down the mountain

                the mechanical chatter of cicadas and

                                a jungled canopy of branches fill the sky.

The lowing of a conch cuts through the air again

and again;

Down, down

Down the valley and across town

to the bank of a rocky river

 where marigolds glint softly on a bed

 

of leaves

of wood

of smoke.

Down the river 

A red saree floats in the turbid waters 

Wet with memories.

 

Today marked the thirteenth and final day of observed mourning for our Chettri family. An aunt-in-law who had been struggling with brain cancer over the preceding months (muhaa, they called her) succumbed to her death on October 12, 2023, at 6pm. Her name was Dil Kumari Adhikari. She was 73.

Some days after my initial arrival, I met her for the first time. Muhaa had returned from a month-long stay in a hospital in Chitwan, where she was given an MRI and diagnosed with cancer. During this period we video chatted once or twice from the hospital, before I knew who she really was. Evidently invasive treatment was not on the table, so after the hospital she was brought home to be kept as comfortable as possible.

I did speak with her briefly in person -- we sat together one afternoon outside the house. My limited Nepali and her poor condition prevented us from discussing very much. She wasn’t able to walk on her own; but she rested and watched, and chatted with villagers who came around. She asked after me, made sure I was eating, and told me to come back and visit. 

“What affection she had for you,” my family would say wistfully. Muhaa was known for her compassion – she raised my host father like a mother when he was young, and they were very close, which made her loss especially devastating. She was loved very much.

"Did you get to talk to her ... you know, before?" someone would ask me. "She talked to you, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did," I would say. I wished I had had the chance to know her better.

Her condition worsened over the course of a month and a half: she became bedridden, and her breathing labored. She required round-the-clock care. A portable oxygen tank was rented for times when breathing became difficult for her. After some time she depended on it. Then she labored to talk with the machine at full capacity. Then she labored to breathe. And later she stopped talking altogether.

Posters were hung memorializing muhaa's life at the observance. 

The days leading up to her death were heavy with grief as the end of her life drew perceptibly close. Crowds of family, friends and villagers visited every night to see her and pay their respects. This had been true for the extent of her illness, but now her nursing room was constantly packed with circulating bodies.

The day she died I visited the house in the morning and spent some time with her. I was leaving for the day and wasn’t sure she would be alive when I got back. The room was uncharacteristically empty. Usually it was stuffed every night when I came around; but it was morning now, and today the children were at school; and others were busy with their daily and household chores across the village. So I sat quietly with muhaa and her daughter-in-law in the empty room. Bars of sunlight filtered obliquely through the window, the rhythmic wheezing of the oxygen tank filling the silence. There wasn't much to be said. I wept, and said goodbye.

Later I returned from my day in town. It was about 5pm. I took a quick bucket shower and had just finished changing when a piercing wail from the cliffs below broke the still evening air. It was then we knew that muhaa had died. And then that the 13 days of funeral rites began.

Sunset illuminates a single cloud on October 12th, 5:47PM.

Death and ritual rites are highly variable among different caste, religious and ethnic groups in Nepal. I won’t pretend to be an expert, even for the rituals of my family, which is of Hindu religion and Chettri caste. The rules and observances are intricate, even to the point where my youngest host sister was sometimes unclear about them. (“Mom! Am I allowed to bathe today?” she asked my host mother one morning. “Yes or no?” My host mother, ignoring her, or distracted, didn’t answer.)

I am sure there are cultural and religious explanations for all of these observances – unfortunately, I don’t have the breadth of that understanding; filling in the blanks with research from Google somehow doesn’t feel right, either. So I can only speak to what I saw, understanding that what I observed is generally standard practice for Chhetri families with some variability here and there.

13 days of mourning

• As news of muhaa's death broke, family and villagers piled in through the night, grief-stricken. My two host sisters arrived from their city three hours away by private taxi. Muhaa’s body lay on the stone floor outside the house – some hours later a barrier of straw mats was erected around her, though people were still able to grieve and sit with her body.

• The funeral (cremation) was performed as soon as possible the next morning, at about 10am, with the guidance of a pandit, a Hindu priest (who is also dictated by caste – different castes have different caste pandits. In our case he was Brahmin, or baun). This occurred at the bank of a river where it is believed the spirit of the dead will be carried away by the current. Her body was carried down the mountain an hour by foot with a procession of about a hundred villagers, by my estimation; and was burned on a pyre of wood after some announcements and customary rites. After this was complete, refreshments were served – juice boxes, coconut pieces, biscuits, and apples.

Mourners file down the stone steps of the mountain, through the jungle and open hills. At the front of the procession, pallbearers carry muhaa's body on a bamboo litter. A truck in town stops to wait for the procession to cross the street.

• Muhaa's sons and daughters-in-law changed their clothes at the river and from this point on were untouchable for 13 days. They were dressed in simple shawls and blankets. Back at the house they had separate sleeping quarters on the floor and were forbidden to touch anyone, including their spouses and children, for 13 days. Their forbidden touch extended to objects that they touched – like the bedding of foam and straw that they slept on. If a single piece of straw touched you, you would be required to fast the next day. They were allowed to eat only plain rice in the morning and fruit in the evening for the duration of the observation.

• Muhaa's sons wore white and took their meals outside of the house in a makeshift shelter.

• Immediate family of the household (brothers, sisters and their children – this included my nuclear family) were forbidden to consume some foods like processed salt, meat, soybeans, onions, and garlic for 13 days. Nieces and nephews followed this restricted diet for 5 days.

• Male family members shaved their heads.

• Various rites and rituals were performed across the 13 days – I did not observe many, personally, and cannot speak to them well… but they were dictated by the pandit and generally involved smoke, incense, offerings, and prayer.

• Every night, food, tea, hot water, snacks, and fruit were offered freely by the house of muhaa’s family, with the help of other community members. An altar and posters of muhaa were erected for her memory. Villagers stopped by to spend time with each other and chat. They wrote their names down in a register and offered money or food. Usually a large group of men would be playing games and gambling in one corner of the house; in one of the rooms, kids would watch a romantic drama on television, or cricket. Women sat together on long straw mats talking about family news and complaining about the weather. It felt like a block party for the wrong occasion.

• On the 13^th day, yellow tika (blessing given in the form of rice and mixed paste that is applied to the forehead) were given along with envelopes with small amounts of money. A large communal meal was prepared for all in attendance. This marked the end of the acute mourning period. 

Cremated on the bank of the river, as per tradition.

Throngs of family, friends and village members gather for the funeral and cremation ceremony.

 

One year of mourning

• Muhaa's daughters-in-law (and perhaps sons as well) cannot drink milk or milk products for 35 days following her death.

• Extended family (I am not sure how extended this is, but includes my family) are not allowed to celebrate festivals and holidays, step foot in temples, or participate in communal worship (puja) for a year following her death.

• One-year death anniversaries are marked with another shraadh, and subsequent distribution of yellow tika and a communal meal. Shraadhs from then on are conducted every year after the death of a family member in their respect and memoriam.

As a result, we will not be celebrating the equivalent of Christmas this next week, called Doshain - a Hindu-based holiday (that I won't get into here) - nor the second largest holiday that will be coming up following several weeks in November, called Tihar (which I also won't get into). My host sisters and brother will still be in the village during that time, though, and I look forward to spending time with them all together.

It has been a difficult time for my family, but through all the stress and hardship they have been welcoming, encouraging and very supportive.

We send muhaa thanks and appreciation for her and her life, which was full of joy and love. I hope that wherever she is now, she knows how much she mattered.

A Grand Day Out

Suddenly, I found myself alone with the custody of 9 children.

I had arrived at a villager’s house. Days before I had been invited for a day out by a village kid after we spent an afternoon roaming together. The place we planned to journey to had been described as “big”, “fun”, and “very nice” by several people. One of my host sisters said that tourists used to use it as a campground, and other than it being “30 minutes or an hour” uphill, I didn’t know much else about it. Truth be told, I was tired after having hiked a lot in the preceding days – but I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to see a new place, so after morning daal bhaat I walked up the village to his house as I had promised.

My understanding had been that this family was going there for some reason – there was an event happening, or they had planned to visit someone. As I soon found out, however, nothing was happening. The son had simply invited me to go with him for fun on this particular day. Perhaps because it was Saturday -- a school-free day. As for his family? They weren't going anywhere and were staying home to take care of the household like any other day.

By the time I reached this house, I had accrued a posse of 8 other children who had committed themselves to the cause by self-recruitment. Villagers looked on with amusement from their houses, hands on their hips, beholding the mob of children with a foreigner at its center, its extensions in constant flux like an amoeba on the move. I looked down across at the villagers, then looked to the road at my gamboling companions. This wasn’t what I had envisioned for the day. On the other hand, I didn’t really see a way out of this situation. So, after rounding up the village kids, off we started up the rocky mountain paths. There was a lot of running and yelling. I wondered if I had made a mistake.

Setting off from the village. Spirits are high, and there is a lot of yelling.

Despite my best efforts to keep tabs on my young bhai and bahini, this was virtually impossible, especially when their names and faces weren’t committed to memory. I soon gave up. Some of them would stop for a while or get distracted and linger behind the group; then other wandering children from passing houses and villages would join and leave our group at will. There were typically at least 7 children in sight. I considered the venture akin to herding cattle, trusting that our core group would reconverge eventually.

In all, the journey to our destination probably took an hour and a half, including the stops along the way. We serpentined dirt, grass, rock, and stone step paths alike. Green and yellow paddies of rice cascaded like waterfalls down stairstepping terraces. Villagers we passed asked us what we were doing. (I let the kids answer for me, since I could somehow never remember the name of our destination.) We met a family from our village which was working in its rice field.

Anish Nepali threshes rice by hand with his aunt, Sumitra Nepali. Rice is cut, then dried in the field for several days beforehand.

There were a lot of stops and starts. And many more shouts of “Didju, jum!” (Sister, come!), which sometimes came from several directions at once, when any (or many) of the children decided it was time to move on. Passing activities included:

• Playing ball at a volleyball court
• Catching fish in the roadside ponds and streams (3x)
• Fleeing from two (2) water buffalo
• Tiptoeing past a large black dog sleeping on a porch

One of two water buffalo which cantered and capered along the road toward us, tossing their heads. When encountering buffalo or cows on the road, old and young alike scramble away as far and quickly as possible.

Eventually, we made it. We crested the final hill and a large, flat expanse of grass emerged before us. (I say “crested”, but this is something of a misnomer; the mountain never seems to end.) A small herd of water buffalo grazed on the edges of the field. The kids ran onto it with abandon, whooping, yelling and waving their arms.

Here we spent the next couple of hours. The children jumped, yelled, and rolled around in the grass. For some time, they were intent on hunting for deer, looking into the jungles, fields, and over the edges of cliffs for signs. When no deer appeared, we played a variety of games: soccer, tag, and “Water and Ice”. Occasionally one of them would shout when they found a leech.

After a while they decided they wanted to continue up the mountain, towards the jungle, and ran across to the edge of the playfield. I yelled at them. While I wouldn’t have minded going into the jungle on my own, I wasn’t keen to journey into prime leopard territory with 9 capricious kids prone to wandering off.

The playfield, with a group of bhai playing volleyball.

“But we don’t have to go home yet,” complained one of the boys from my family. “Auntie said that we could leave here at 3 or 4pm.”

“Yeah, and she told you not to go into the jungle, either, right?” I responded, having been witness to her stern and hurried admonishments in front of my house that morning. He fell silent.

So instead they subjected themselves to some more playing on the grass, which lasted for a little while until they got restless again. At this time the clouds were looking dark, and I was ready to go home; but they wanted to explore a little more and insisted on continuing around the mountain. “Didju, jum!” they urged, wandered away once again across the hill. I watched them reluctantly from a lookout for several minutes, squinting to make out their tiny figures among the rocks. I hoped that some of them would wander back.

None of them did.

Rolling down grassy hills: an ancient and secular pastime.

“Come on!” they yelled.

“Where??” I yelled back.

“Over here!”

“Why??” I yelled again.

“We’re hungry! There’s guava!”

“It’s going to be far!”

“No it’s not!” came the response.

I considered my options. I didn’t want to continue wandering into unknown territory when it would take another hour and a half to get home. At the same time, any powers of persuasion I may have possessed meant little when the majority of my audience was almost out of earshot. 

I ceded. “Okay. We’ll go on for ten minutes and then head home for the village. Okay?”

Bright eyes twinkled. “Okay!”

Satisfied enough, I followed. We rounded the bend of a house and traipsed through a narrow and uneven path riddled with pockets of mud and rocks. Along this stretch of ground the kids found a small house down the way, almost hidden in the tall grass. No one was home except for a couple of cows, and the kids shared some laughs as one of the boys sat on one of them and pretended that the place belonged to his uncle.

A view of the playfield from a higher vantage. No guava or deer today.

A family from our village passes by on its way home after an afternoon of cutting grass for its livestock.

After exploring the small, empty house, we started heading home. As it turned out, the path we were on circled back to the trail leading down to our village.

Soon enough I got stopped by some English-speaking 20- or 30- somethings and spent some time talking to them. While this occurred, the girls of the group got bored and left for the village on their own without comment. Then at the volleyball court, the boys began playing soccer with someone else from the village.

It started to rain.

I decided to walk home with the family who had been threshing rice before – they had finished their work in the paddies and began trudging slowly over the slickening rocks and mud with their heavy bundles of rice and straw.

I let the boys know I was departing and left them to play soccer, and then followed the family back to their house. I talked with them for a while, was briefly featured in one of the nephew's live Tiktok streams, and enjoyed some afternoon snacks. Then I said goodbye, feeling tired, and ended the day at my house.

While not the day I had initially expected, it turned out to be a grand day out.

The 8 year old: a small and fickle creature. After several failed attempts at a group photo, I managed this one on a large rock overlooking the hill, where we had gathered to admire the view.