Anjali's Father
- Indira Prasai

There is a sudden gust of the wind. I drown completely in the summer heat. I feel shaken, I was thinking of life's infirmity. The calendar flutters. Today is the eleventh day of the month. I like this day. But no one has turned the calendar's pages. Even my time is lazy. I feel angry with myself.
I get up and tear the pages of the calendar and shove them into the wood fire. I feel alive today. Today is Magh 11. I quickly finish the housework and go to the dressing table. I want to look pretty today. I put on makeup, decorate myself, and look at the table clock. Half-an-hour remaining. Now I look at the gate. I feel so happy.
"You look good today." I am startled. Anjali's father is before me. He looks exhausted. I feel shy. He looks at me, sits on a chair, and leans back.
"You must be hungry." I go to make tea.
At night, after dinner, I feel like talking. I finish my work and enter the room. When I look at him from outside the mosquito net, his shoulders are slumped, he looks like the weight of the day is upon him. I enter the net, he is fast asleep. I shake him. He does not open his eyes, he mumbles.
I feel like crying. I cannot sleep. It is four in the morning. Next to me Anjali's father snores. I close my eyes and try to chase away seven years (the marriage ceremony, the fire ritual, and the short sleep I had towards morning), the fresh memory, the enthusiasm, the hopes, and the new life that I was entering.
I feel a stranger among this debris of delusions. I can't sleep at all. I turn to look at Anjali's father. He is sleeping deeply. I feel jealous.
The Drunk

All four of them drank a lot. They tried to remember returning home. Only a woman, pleasure, and irrelevant screams came to their minds.
It was still early morning. A policeman had moved the dead body. People surrounded the half-naked corpse of the mad woman.
Police Inspector Ram Chandra arrived on the scene. He was surprised. The woman and her clothes smelled really bad. He recalled last night more clearly.
She had not smelled bad at all last night. He had not thought her dirty either.
Mangali

The cement pipes belonged to the metropolitan city. Bhutley, Mangali, Kaley, Ramey, Suntali, and other street children sheltered from the rain in the pipes and sometimes spent the night in them.
Bhutley returned to the pipes early that day. Mangali had not found any food, she also returned exhausted. She felt happy when she saw Bhutley. He loved her a lot. Usually he had food for her. She hoped he had some food for her today as well.
His hands were empty. "I haven't eaten anything since we had rice this morning. The city has shut down because of the protests and there is nothing anywhere."
Bhutley was fifteen and his face, arms, and legs were unnaturally hairy. Mangali was fourteen, maybe, she was brown and pretty. Bhutley forgot hunger when he saw her. Mangali stood before him with an unhappy face. Then he remembered a packet he had picked up from the garbage dump.
Mangali was sitting down, sulking. He could see her pale thighs. He sat down beside her and stroked her legs. "I have some medicine that will cure your hunger," he said. He wasn't prepared for the sudden flood of happiness on her face.

"I'll become pregnant," Mangali was scared.
"I have medicine for that as well," Bhutley laughed. He had collected used condoms.
"These things don't work, Ramey used them but they didn't stop Suntali from becoming pregnant."
"So what if you become pregnant? There are so many garbage dumps in the city, we'll throw the child into one of them."
Another seed of hunger was planted that day.
Inventions

Summer's oppressive day was gone. I and my son were on the roof watching the stars. It was about midnight but neither he nor I felt sleepy. I felt sensitive and aware. He was full of questions.
"Mother, who made the world?"
"God did."
"Where is God?"
"In the skies."
"Who made us?"
"God did."
"And houses, fans, cassettes, medicine, railway, cars, airplanes, cinema halls, guns, TVs, computers; what about these things?"
"Humans made those."
"Humans like us?"
"Yes," I felt annoyed. "They're called scientists."
He didn't have questions for some time. Then he started again.
"Mom, I'll become a scientist when I grow up."
"What?"
"I'll become a scientist when I grow up."
"And what will you invent?" I teased him.
"You tell me, what should I invent? Everything seems to have been invented. I wonder what I'll invent."
What should he make? I did not have a quick answer. Whether preserving or destroying, giving life or taking it, many things have been done. But then, there is still dissatisfaction and war, no one has created a medication to end this.
"You could invent something that will end dissatisfaction and strife," I said.
He glanced at me. I wonder what he will become.

The Marriage

Even though her eyes were lowered and covered by a veil, she saw her husband come to the door. She stared at his feet. Roses had been strewn on the floor to mark their first night together. As he walked towards her, his feet stepped on many flowers. When she woke up in the morning, she couldn't separate herself from the roses that had been stepped on.

The Explanation

Her family is against her. She doesn't understand why everyone dislikes her. Even her sons are against her. Perhaps there was something wrong with the way she brought them up, otherwise this wouldn't have happened.
This is the last day of hearing at the court. She is alone. On the other side are the three brothers that she gave birth to, her husband, and the rest of the family.
They appeal to the judge for a divorce, they claim that she is not a chaste woman. She is sinful. After the judge hears them, he asks her to defend herself.
She says to him, "Your Honor, it is true I haven't been loyal. None of these sons is my husband's." She leaves. The court room is silent.

Pain

After jabbing Ram with burning firewood, Shyam said, "I'm sorry." But his eyes were laughing. After a while, Ram retaliated, hit Shyam back. The red coals burned Shyam's chest. Tears fell from Shyam's eyes. Ram was troubled by Shyam's pain.

adaptation by PR

People, Love her
- Madhav Ghimire

After playing, Shanti and Kanti came to her side,
looking upon their innocence, she cried.
Touching their heads gently she went without speaking
She let fall droplets of blessings.

Who took the mother and left behind children?
A bird has died in a trap, her children ungrown.
Why do you see such things, mother earth, you should split into pieces?
Don't kill the mothers of children, God, if you wish to fill the earth.

Shanti looks all over the house, she does not see her mother.
She looks upon my face again, she does not speak a word.
"Where is mother?" What shall I say, I weep and hold her tightly to my heart.
She does not know, she is but four, why have you made her an orphan, Lord?

Running circles around her mother, the world that Kanti made,
leaving milk half-sucked, she would laugh and look upon her face.
She sleeps today after crying, crying, tired in the soul, sucking her thumb,
look at this piece of my heart that has fallen to the floor, it shakes.

My lively Shanti and Kanti wanted new clothes and new toys.
They used to play, make a noise, cry throughout the house.
They would laugh before the tears on their faces dried,
she used to wash their faces with milk and wipe away their tears.

"The rice is cooked," Shanti used to bring me her message.
As soon as I returned from work, she used to weave me a web of words.
Kissing Kanti, telling her to dance, she used to say to me in gladness,
"How nice it would be if they remained children."

She used to tell me the small one was pretty,
she used to be proud of them, the big one was smart.
She used to say, sometimes, your daughter is chuuchi,
She used to cry, she used to say others needlessly mistreated our girls.

The decorations, the care, and the foundation have left.
The one they called mother left the beauty of her heart lost to the dark.
They sit in the dust and wait for her lap,
they wait for affection and love and memories to come to life.

If they weep, I feel sad, perhaps they remember their mother.
There is no happiness when they laugh, perhaps they forgot their mother.
I wish to make the small one happy, so I let her suck her thumb.
I entertain the big one and make her smile, I hide the sorrow deep in my mind.
One day they will understand this sadness on their own.
We will weep together one night looking for her star in some constellation.

Her long full face, her gait is in Kanti.
She is angry quickly and then forgiving, her habits are Shanti.
The daughters are here even though she is gone.

Sometimes with fire I may wish to fulfill their wishes,
if I make this mistake, brothers and sisters, forgive me.
In case I die before I achieve anything,
find these two orphans, kind world, and care for them.

In the morning, one bird comes and calls, she says to them, Wake!
In the garden, a butterfly comes and makes them play.
One shadow each is always with them and protects them.
O humans, love them, a star from the sky says.

Adapted by P.R.

 

The Trails Go Up and Down
- Chandani Shah

Every place you go, my love:
trails that lead into mountains,
trails that lead you down
forlorn hilltops, tree sheltered places,
upon the high Himalaya
lakes nestled into its chest,
wherever you go,
you will find me.
I will follow,
I will be footsteps.
I will be memories,
I will be the shades,
I will fall from the waters.

On the green flatlands of the Terai
on the terraces of the mountainside,
on sparkling peaks
in remote settlements,
wherever you go,
I will be the path that you follow,
I will be at your side.

In those sighs and exhaustions,
I will be your song and will sing with you.
In the cold that makes your heart freeze
and the heat that hurts your soul,
in the scenes that steal your mind and heart,
and the cool and quiet places you'll find,
wherever you go,
I will be the sky and watch over you.
Along the ridges and the valleys,
and the hill-flanks,
I will be the wind and I will meet you.