Pashupati

I sit with my grandparents now, writing this, thinking that we have about 2.5 hours of electricity left. This is a laptop which can hold enough charge for me to type two hours into the darkness. I don't think it will take me much further than that.

This morning, I went to Pashupati. The morning air was the same as I have always remembered it. Ever familiar was the walk down from the Goushala Police Office, down by a small statue of a Rishi, I don't know who, meditating on a pedestal above me on on the left. It was garlanded and covered with Vermillion- so I wasn't the only one to notice it. I actually hadn't noticed it before. The dark fellow lying prostrate on a blue woven plastic tarp, thin, mangled legs outstretched, feet lightly bandaged around the arch, left hand reaching towards passerby, his head resting just barely above ground while the right hand shook a Damaroo: this man always drew my attention. His dusty hair always seemed to stand out. I don't know his name, but he wasn't there today. Nor were his nearly monotone, crying repetitions of "Jai Sambho!" and again, "Jai!"

I used to give him a blessing, "Jai Bhole Nath!"

Some ladies were setting up their small baskets with Saya-Patri flowers and other things, like those sweet, sugary, lumpy pebbles that resemble kidney stones. Except the three kidney stones that my mother showed me in a jar after her operation at a nursng home in Tripureshwor some years ago were a disgustingly pale yellow. This to-be-prasad was white and usually came in crudely sealed plastic pouches with a paper picture of a god- sometimes vishnu on his serpents, or lakshmi dispensing coins from her left hand- drawn in solid colors and very visble black lines, slipped in before sealing.

A tree passed me on the right- precariously planted in the sidewalk, around which you could walk or even sit because there was a brick skirting around it at about knee level. The pandits who would have their Abir stained Paatro's and books spread out, opened to the sky on yellow "Ram Ram" fabric were not there either. Further down, after the gradual left turn, there were more prasad sellers here and there on the sidewalk. One guy had a collection of necklaces spread out on a dirty red rectangular cloth. He squatted by the long side of the rectangle away from the pavement, his hands clasped in front of his mouth, puffing away the cold in his hands while his elbows rested beside his thighs. The grayness of his pants merged into the grayness of his jacket and then into the grayness of his woolen hat. Only the dirtied dark blue pattern around the base of his hat stood out in the mist. As did the thread which stood up from his hat's peak, where, perhaps when the hat was still new to the world, it used to hold a pom-pom in place.

The walk down, to the final right turn before Pashupati, is still a gradual downhill. And because of the many sellers on the sidewalk, the trees blocking the path and the monkeys grouping around the sellers and hanging from the trees, I stepped down to the road which has become the sidewalk. Perhaps it took this role even before it was paved for cars to use. What was supposed to be the raised sidewalk has remained a natural, sturdy, and convenient place from which to hawk ones wares. The only memory of today's walk is a story I was being told of how the person walking next to me was bitten by her friend's grandmother's baby monkey. Which, somehow, had not been domesticated but had been given rabies shots anyway. An image of a baby monkey hanging by its teeth from the right thigh of a shocked tenth grader remains the most prominent memory as I passed by the grassy, upward slope on the left. I remember that above the whitewashed walls, there would be a swing around Dashain time, and kids would find much enjoyment. Bamboo poles, arched, and a swing hanging down from the arches. But today, instead of the swing and the kids there was a mist which somehow made the air crisp, but kept it moist: it is the early days of Phalgun.

Eventually, Pashupati came. And eventually, it left. Just as it has done for millions like me.