The Woman Who Climbed Trees by Smriti Ravindra

Author:Smriti Ravindra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

Love Is a Thing of the Cities

On our way back from Darbhanga to Kathmandu, we stopped for a few days at Sabaila. Ma never allowed us to stay for too long a period in Sabaila, but perhaps due to the infrequency of our visits there, for most of my childhood I was intrigued by my ancestral village.

I loved the landscape, so unlike Kathmandu’s. I liked the daily routine of waking up before dawn, bathing before the sun was out, and praying to gods as though they really could hear my words. Despite her Friday fasts, Ma had raised us with little reverence for gods and goddesses and I found the clear grace with which my uncles, aunts, and cousins prayed beautiful. The only thing I did not like in Sabaila was Ma. While in Darbhanga Ma grew supple and light like a new blade of grass; in Sabaila she was hard and sharp. Everything pleased her only at the superficial level, and she was quick and sarcastic with everyone, especially with Kumud Chachi who visibly shrank before Ma.

In Sabaila I stayed away from Ma and spent most of my time with my grandmother, Sawari Devi, helping her with tasks like drying fruits, chilies, and vegetables on the terrace. It seemed to me she knew nothing about fatigue. She worked tirelessly. Even in her old age she went to the fields to supervise farming and when at home she was busy washing, chopping, drying, gathering. Mostly she worked alone but sometimes she called out for me and created little tasks I could carry out for her. “Help me with the rice,” she said and passed on the flat basket that held the rice for the week. I sat with my grandmother and removed twigs and husks from the rice. At another time she asked me to spread the tilauri upon a sheet.

And this time, perhaps because Nana had just passed away and her own husband was on her mind, Sawari Devi told me a story.

“At first I did not know your grandfather was my husband,” she said. “I thought he was a cousin, a playmate. I was eleven. He was fifteen. I did not pull a veil upon my face then, and your grandfather and I played all day in the fields.”

She paused and looked at me. I wonder now if there was something in particular she was trying to tell me that day. I was so young then, I couldn’t have grasped all her meanings.

“I played with him and with the other wives in the family. At night my mother-in-law slept between your grandfather and me. I did not mind. I did not know there was anything to mind. Besides, my mother-in-law was the closest thing I had to a mother. After your grandfather died, it was she who looked after me and my children. Eventually, she left off sleeping with us and I remember crying for her and I remember your grandfather running out of the room to bring his mother back so I would not cry.

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