Saudade

I was born in a very beautiful family, we were a family of four, my mother, my father, me and my sister. Yes, we were, now we are a family of three excluding my father who expired three years back. I am feeling saudade in the memory of my father and I am writing because he was the one who motivated me to write. He used to bring me copies and pens to write. He used to say, everyone is blessed with an art, in the form of writing, in the form of dance, in the form of music and when a person realises his/her passion, they should make an effort to enhance it better. Art and creativity can happen anytime, anywhere.

I was in Australia when I heard the news of my father’s death. I couldn’t believe my ears, I hope no one in my place would, he had an awesome job as chef in one of the top five star hotel of my native country, we had complete family with a son and a daughter, my mother was pretty and healthy as well, actually for an audience we were perfect. But listening to the death of the father and on top of it, the reason for death being ‘suicide’ is something I couldn’t digest.

I belong to a strict Brahmin( so called upper caste in Hindu tradition) family so as per my tradition in Hindu culture, I shouldn’t consume any kind of food and water before burning the death body of my father in the funeral pyre. I did not feel hungry either because in pain you really forget even the fundamentals of living. It took almost ten and half hours to land in Nepal. I went directly to the ‘ghat’( a place for burning corpses). I saw my helpless mother, I saw my sister’s perplexed face, a lot of loud cries, whispers, sad faces and mass of people to see the funeral. I was myself in my late teenage, I had no idea how to handle myself, my rest of the family and the rituals. I do not remember anything because I was doing as per the priest said.

 Then we were supposed to sit in a small hut known as ‘kriyaputri basne ghar’( a place where family members of the dead should live for the next 13 days). I sat there, my life just gave me a 360 degree turn all of sudden, now I was the new leader of the house. We have a patriarchal society but in Nepal it is quite a lot. I had two dependent populations relying on me. ‘Why dad committed suicide?’ and ‘what shall I do next?’ were the only questions revolving round my head.

My mother continuously urged to commit suicide herself as she had no reason to live. My sister was traumatized by the death and mother’s continuous threat was taking life out of her. She had just completed her high school, ready to explore her life suddenly this happened. I felt a heavy burden in my head instantly, patriarchy does not bring lavishness in life always.

I was preparing myself to go back to Australia after two months of dad’s demise. I heard my mother discussing with my aunt about how she used to get humiliated by her in-laws back in the village so she came to the city anxiously. I hinted something wasn’t good back then. I even heard that she had a discussion with in-laws about why she was kept in the dark regarding his love to a girl from the village and why they destroyed her life. But my father and mother were an ideal couple to me, now I see it was just an illusion to the world.

After two year, my mother and sister called me, their faces gloomy. Firstly, they tried to cover changing topics but then they revealed that police had found a call from a number before the accident(suicide) took place and it was supposed to be the number of a girl from another city and they were having an extra-marital affair. I was shocked, I never heard my parents fighting, he was perfect in his responsibility as a father yet his adultery went unnoticed. With a heavy heart, I asked my mother how their relationship was. She said she never felt any abuse from dad but as a wife she always felt that he wasn’t happy and something was killing him inside. She even warned me and my sister not to tell this to anyone as it might ruin the image of after and the family in the society. 

After a month, she called me again saying that she had been to the village and she couldn’t contact me. She had confronted her in-laws about the reason behind the ‘suicide’ but parents were blaming her telling her she could not make her husband happy and she was a ‘bad omen’ in his horoscope. I saw the status of women in patriarchal society, she is not the reason for the success of a man but she is the one to be blamed when misfortunes happen.

I have an uncountable question to my dad, ‘’ Dad, why were you cowardly to express your love in front of parents? Why did you devastated the life of my mom? Why did you give birth to us if you were not in love? Why did you choose this solution making our ways more complicated? Was it easy to forget us and escape from your responsibilities?’’

I am twenty eight now, my mom forces me to get married by this year. But I can not say to her that it has been five days that I have not slept properly to send them money, to sustain life there, to make my sister feel no less than her friends with the father, to create a life for myself and to them so that I can finally take a breath of retirement from dad’s duty.