House of Snow

by Sir Ranulph Fiennes Ed Douglas

  Faced with her brazen dismissal of me, I was filled with a sense of inferiority. At the same time, I felt sharp anger and hatred toward her. Following Mother’s advice, I kept my distance from Sabitari, but she toyed with me like a cat plays with a mouse.

  “O Ramesh brother, when are you going to be a man? Chanda Auntie is afraid of me for no reason. My Ramesh brother’s manhood has yet to rise.” She pinched my cheek with her tough hand while I glared at her. She looked back coquettishly and said, “Wow, brother-in-law. Now you’re gaining some manhood. I feel like crushing you in my arms, squeezing your whole body, but what can I do? I’m afraid of Chanda Auntie.” Laughing, she left.

  “Whore bitch!” I spat, hatred boiling inside me.

  *

  Sabitari’s husband, Sukai Ahir, was a bone-thin, ill man with a limp, who did not have many friends. He had about an acre of land on which he grazed a buffalo and two cows. Before Sabitari came into his life, he had not been married for a long time. While single, he had suffered from all the difficulties that beset a man who has no wife to take care of the household, so he looked much older than his fifty years.

  The villagers would always tease him. “Sukai, shouldn’t you get married? No house is a home without a wife. They say a house without a housewife is like a ghost’s dwelling.”

  “What to do? Who’s going to give a daughter to a fifty-year-old like me?”

  “You have to marry, Sukai. Someone dark, someone with only one eye, someone with a limp – anyone will do. All you need is someone to take care of the house. Why don’t you bring in that madwoman from Rampurwa?”

  Listening to such talk, Sukai would become irate. “You rascals! You’re making fun of me? May God give you dark, blind, and lame wives!”

  So when the same Sukai who had been the target of mockery suddenly ushered in a pretty, young wife, the whole village was stunned.

  “How did this crippled old man capture this angel?”

  “She’s just reached puberty – the fresh bud of an orchid.”

  “How fair she is, Sukai’s wife, sparkling with such glitter. The cripple turned out to be very lucky. Where did he find this gem?”

  The gem had been brought from Parwanpur. Her father had married her off at an early age to a man who died soon after the wedding. She blossomed into a teenager, but no one wanted to marry her because of her previous marriage. Around this time, Sukai entered her village asking for a girl, and he returned to his own village with Sabitari.

  “This cripple can’t take care of a girl like that.”

  “What beauty, what youth. An angel, yes, an angel she is.”

  “This angel will surely fly away one day. She’s not going to remain shackled to the cripple.”

  The speculations of the villagers remained just talk. Sabitari soon became a good wife and began managing Sukai’s household. In the morning, Sukai would milk his buffalo and cows and take the milk to sell at the market. Sabitari would feed grain and hay to the animals and refill their water, then cook food for her husband. Sukai would return from the market and go to work in the field. Sabitari would bring water and food to him. Both worked hard to manage their home life.

  The rowdies of the village were very impressed with Sabitari’s beauty. Given the slightest excuse, they slithered up next to her, saying, “Sister, here I’ll help you. Sister, I’ll do this for you.” But Sabitari didn’t look at anyone with impure glances, and the villagers became jealous of Sukai’s luck.

  Meanwhile, Sukai had become very contented with his married life. A new motivation and excitement were kindled inside him. Soon, he demolished his thatched hut and built a bigger house with a tiled roof. He then bought another buffalo and hired a servant to help in the field and the house.

  After five years of married life, Sukai said, “Sabitari, you’ve come into my house a Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. Since you’ve arrived, my luck has been shining. I am completely, satisfied in almost every way. Only one lack remains. I wish we had a son.”

  Sukrai’s talk made Sabitari shrink. For a moment she stared at the ground, then said in a sad voice, “When you go to the bazaar, get a pack of peanuts. I’ll grind it in milk, then you drink it. You’ve become very weak these days.”

  Over time, Sukai’s desire for a son grew, but his strength did not. One morning, I was lying in the mango grove near their house. I had just returned from school in the city and was enjoying my summer holiday. The cool morning breeze had lulled me into a nice sleep when I was suddenly awakened by Sabitari’s screams and cries.

  “Oh, Lord, the bastard butcher is killing me! Oh, father, I am dying!”

  “You whore, you harlot, you’re bent on cutting my nose! Take this! Isn’t this what you want?! You slut, let’s see you whore some more!” Sukai’s thick stick landed heavily on Sabitari. I quickly got up and rushed over to them. Several people were already there. Sabitari had fallen to the ground, her body spotted with darkening bruises.

  “What are you doing, Sukai dada?” someone asked. “How can you beat your wife like this?”

  “She tells me that I am becoming impotent. But this chhinar is philandering with Lakhpat!”

  The villagers understood. They counseled and calmed Sukai. Two women helped the severely beaten Sabitari to her feet and escorted her inside to a bed. One woman cooked onions and turmeric and applied the ointment to Sabitari’s bruises and wounds. ‘’What havoc you have created, Sabitari. The whole village is spitting.”

  “What should I have done, sister? That eunuch can’t satisfy my body, but he’s always pining for a child, saying his lineage won’t continue. The bastard’s wish prompted me to become involved with Lakhpat. I was hoping that I’d have a son, but the bastard found out. His own body is so weak, and my burning youth – he should have understood and kept quiet. He wants my skin to play with, he wants a son, and he also wants honor. I have served him very well, and even when I was squirming with frustration, I let him play with me. He himself doesn’t have the strength to beget a son, so how can I give the bastard a son without sleeping with someone else? He cut his own nose today, and then made the whole village spit at me.”

  After that incident, Sabitari became known as chhinar. Her shame had been put on public display, but she refused to be cowed. She turned aggressive and unpredictable toward Sukai. Mindful of the burden of household chores, the drudgery of farm work, and his own health, Sukai couldn’t kick her out. With the strength and determination of a man, Sabitari took over Sukai’s entire affairs.

  Sukai began to shrink. He appeared saddened by both Sabitari and his married life. He went to the field in the morning, worked all day, and in the evening went to a hut near the village and became intoxicated with ganja and opium. Returning home at night, he ate whatever Sabitari offered him, then collapsed in a corner.

  Sabitari’s repressed sexual needs began to burn like dry wood. Now she feared neither Sukai nor the opinion of the villagers. She started distributing her lust evenly, and everyone became ravenous for Sabitari bhauji’s unabashed generosity.

  Sometimes, Sukai said in a very pitiful voice, “Sabitari, why do you insist on defiling your name? And why, along with yourself, do you want to push me into hell? It’s better you go somewhere else and find a husband. Free me from this.”

  “You’re not going to get off so easily.” Sabitari’s voice trembled with rage. “I want you to burn every day, do you understand? I have turned into a harlot. Why? I wanted to give you a son to continue your lineage. But you exposed me in front of the whole village. You stripped me naked, so you watch and burn. The more you burn the more you squirm, the more my soul will be at peace.” Faced with such fierceness, Sukai withered.

  Sabitari became a common well, where anyone who was thirsty could quench himself. Sabitari discriminated against no one, gave everyone equal satisfaction. The amorous old men of the village said, “Sabitari bhauji, we too are thirsty.” She would banter with them for their amusement, saying, “Brother-in-law, Sabitari is wa
ter from a gushing stream. You don’t have a throat muscular enough to contain this stream.”

  Wherever Sabitari went, men’s voices called to her, and, smiling seductively, she showered pleasure upon them. The honorable men of the community said, “That woman is a complete whore.” The village wives said “Why does she hustle everyone so much? Is she going to seduce our men?” They told Sabitari, “Don’t come to our house with your bawdy ways.”

  But totally unperturbed by such talk, Sabitari went to each house, helped people in their daily errands and participated in their joys and sadness. She was kind and generous. If she learned that a neighbor’s stove was cold and there wasn’t enough to eat, she immediately went to help her. If someone fell ill in the village and there was no one to nurse him, Sabitari did not hesitate to reach his bedside, fetch medicine from the village health post, give him his medicine, and attend to him until he got better.

  Nanakau Pathak, for example, was forever indebted to Sabitari. One day he and his only son were at the garden east of the village. Nanakau Pathak had climbed a tree to pick some leaves for the goats, and his son was playing on the edge of a nearby pond. The child became attracted to the white lotuses growing in the pond. He reached out to pick them, and suddenly lost his balance and fell into the water. The pond was deep, so he started to drown. At that very moment, Sabitari was approaching the pond to wash her pitcher after relieving herself in a nearby field. She saw the boy and, tossing the pitcher to one side, tightened her dhoti at the waist, plunged in, and quickly brought him on land. He had swallowed a lot of water, so she pressed his stomach as Nanakau Pathak slid down from the tree and came running. The boy opened his eyes, and Sabitari smiled.

  “Sabitari bhauji, I will never forget this kindness,” Nanakau Pathak said. “If you hadn’t saved him, my only son would be dead. The village might curse you, but I give you blessings: may you bathe in milk, may you produce numerous children.” Sabitari became serious and stared at Nanakau Pathak’s face.

  *

  On the one hand, Sabitari bhauji’s amorousness terrified the village wives. They feared her presence, never invited her to their homes. On the other hand, when their household chores became overwhelming or when someone became sick, they hoped she would appear. Without an invitation, and despite being shunned by everyone, Sabitari managed to help every needy home.

  At that time, Ramdev Kurmi was considered one of the big men in the village. Because he was a landlord, be had become known as Big House Baba. But Ramdev’s wealth was matched only by his stinginess. He kept his family at arm’s length, depriving them of good clothes and good food. His son and daughter-in-law were forced to live by his strict rules; as a result, they came to resent him. Eventually, when Ramdev became old and weak, his son and daughter-in-law took over his household and started to neglect him. Even in this helpless state, Ramdev cursed his family, so they stopped caring for him completely. When Sabitari heard that the old man had become incapacitated, she went to see him. Entering his room, she had to cover her nose with the edge of her dhoti because of the stench. The old man was mired in his own urine and feces, and Sabitari felt like vomiting. But she suppressed her nausea, carried him outside, and washed and cleaned him. She then washed his bed in the pond and put it in the yard to dry out. After that, she nursed the old man every day.

  When the villagers saw her caring for him in this way, they gossiped. “It’s not for nothing that Sabitari is nursing that Ramdev. She’s after the wealth he’s hidden.” But they were wrong.

  Pleased with her care of him, old Ramdev one day took out his bag of jewelry and gave it to Sabitari. “Daughter,” he said, “my son and daughter-in-law turned out to be useless. But you have nursed me so well. That’s why this money I’ve saved I’m giving to you. Think of this as a gift from a father.”

  “Big House Baba, what use do I have for your bag of jewelry after I’ve had to shed my honor, which is the greatest wealth a woman can ever have? Sabitari is sinful, is a whore, but she’s not greedy, Baba. Give your wealth to your son and daughter-in-law. They are your rightful heirs.” Sabitari’s eyes had become wet, and she returned home without accepting the bag.

  The old man did not want to leave his wealth to his uncaring family, so he died with the bag of jewelry on his chest. The next day, the villagers who had gathered to take his corpse away saw that the bag was intact. Ramdev’s son picked it up and found gold necklaces, gold earrings, silver anklets, a necklace of silver coins, and gold coins: nearly fifty or sixty thousand rupees’ worth of jewelry. The son thought to himself, May God bless you, Sabitari. Didn’t you feel greedy for this wealth?

  Yesterday, Nanakau Pathak arrived in the city from the village and told me, “Sabitari chhinar is dead. Very generous and kind she was. She gave us many things, made us obligated to her for many things. We hated her, and she loved us dearly. She managed Sukai’s household, served him completely. She served the whole village. She showered her fiery youth on the entire village. She was a river, a flooding river that reaches every home, creates havoc in the village, and leaves behind a soft, alluvial soil in which all the people flourish.”

  Who was Sabitari bhauji? A morally loose woman? A goddess who served the village by bringing it hope for prosperity? A village-wife who satisfied the villagers’ needs? I don’t know. But she served the village with her mind and her body, and for that she received her name: chhinar.

  LETTER FROM KATHMANDU

  Isabel Hilton

  Isabel Hilton is a London-based writer and broadcaster. She is founder and editor of Chinadialogue, an independent, non-profit organization based in London, Beijing and San Francisco. She has reported from China, South Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe and has written and presented several documentaries for BBC radio and television. Before founding Chinadialogue she was a writer and/or editor for a number of newspapers, including The Sunday Times, the Independent and the Guardian. She has authored and co-authored several books and holds honorary doctorates from Bradford and Stirling Universities.

  ROYAL BLOOD

  The Crown Prince was in love. Is that what drove him to kill the King and Queen and seven others?

  On the evening of Jestha 19 in the year 2058 by the Nepalese calendar – June 1, 2001, as that day was known by the rest of the world Dr. Upendra Devkota was operating on a patient in his private clinic in Kathmandu, unaware that, a few miles away, King Birendra of Nepal and fourteen members of his family had been shot. Devkota is the country’s leading neurosurgeon, and an expert on head injuries; his day job is a badly paid position at the large, overcrowded Bir Hospital, and, like most Nepalese doctors, he supplements it with private practice. Devkota, who is forty-six years old and speaks a precise, fluent English (he was trained in Glasgow, at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, and in London, at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery), told me that he had completed the surgery – a neck operation – and had sat down to discuss the case with a family member of the patient when a deputy surgeon burst into the room and told the relative to leave. The deputy is normally soft spoken and polite, and the breach of etiquette was startling: the message he delivered brought Devkota to his feet. There had been a disaster, the deputy said. The Crown Prince of Nepal, Dipendra, had been injured by a bullet. Moments later, an aide-de-camp to the royal family appeared on orders to find and fetch Devkota.

  The doctor told his deputy to call the members of his surgical team and put them on emergency standby. Devkota knew only that the Crown Prince had a bullet wound, but the fact that they had summoned him meant the wound was in the head. He was driven off in an Army jeep at reckless speed, its red lights flashing. (It had already hit two vehicles on its way to Devkota’s clinic.) “I thought I was going to have a head injury myself,” he said.

  The jeep entered the gates of the military hospital, which was crowded with armed soldiers and vehicles. The trauma resuscitation unit was on the ground floor. There was a body on every one of the gurneys, and m
ore casualties lay on the floor. The junior Army doctor on duty that evening was working furiously to resuscitate a patient. Other specialists had been rounded up and were just arriving. A switchboard operator was phoning for blood donors.

  Devkota was shown a man who was bleeding from both ears and whose arms and face were paper white. “I just glanced at him – an older man wearing a pale kurta and pajamas and a Sai Baba locket. The tube was in and they were bagging him” – pumping air into his lungs. “I felt the pulse and was told that they had been bagging him for fifteen minutes. He was lifeless, I said, and rushed on.”

  The royal physician, Khagendra Shrestha, met Devkota and showed him a stretcher on the floor covered by a sheet. Shrestha pulled it back, and Devkota recognized Qyeen Aishwarya. He knelt down and put his hands around her head, and it started coming to pieces. The skull had been blown apart. Shrestha was in a state of panic. “The entire royal family,” he said, “has been shot.”

  The King’s youngest son, Nirajan, was dead from more than thirty bullet wounds. Shruti, the King’s daughter, was in critical condition; her heart was scarcely beating. There were more casualties – eight members of the royal family were to die that night – but Devkota still hadn’t seen the Crown Prince, who was on the floor above, in the operating theatre. As the two doctors headed for the stairs, they passed the first patient again. Shrestha identified him. “His Majesty the King,” he said.

  “I hadn’t recognized him,” Devkota told me, even though he’d met the King several times. “I felt deeply depressed. I took his pulse and paid my last respects. Then I had to rush on.”

  Devkota changed into surgical greens. A tube had been inserted into the Crown Prince’s mouth, and a team was pumping air into his lungs. A bullet had gone in one temple and out the other, and brain tissue and blood were oozing from the wound. Devkota ordered blood and tested the Prince according to the Glasgow Coma Scale, which runs from fifteen (normal) to three (vegetative). Dipendra scored four: dilated pupils, pain perception, some neurological response. Devkota knew he could neither move the patient nor delay. As he waited for the blood to arrive he phoned his wife. Something terrible had happened, he told her, and almost everybody in the royal family was dead. She should lock the doors and let nobody in. Devkota was in a state of barely suppressed terror. He had no idea what had happened, but three possibilities kept recurring: there had been an Army coup; Maoists had broken into the palace; or there had been some kind of coup involving the Indian secret service. Any one of these possibilities, he knew, would be a catastrophe for Nepal. Whichever it was, he reasoned, the chances were that those responsible were there at the hospital, perhaps among the armed men downstairs. Would they let him try to save the Crown Prince if they had just tried to kill him? He feared for himself and his family.