How could I call you? - First Part

"यी आँखाका गहिरा ताल बिच
नसकि तर्न डुबे-डुबे म"
“Among the deep lakes of these eyes
otherwise I will drown.”
(Narayan Gopal)

Nepal. ©Alberto Spalletta

“Prie* Nuhu,

I hope this letter of mine finds you in good health.

The night is clear and from the window of our room I can see the mountains and the land which has the shape of the wind. The full moon looks like a bowl of rice poured onto the black table of the sky and the stars are so low that they blend in with the eyes of wolves.

I'm not very hungry today, I'm a little nauseous but don't worry.

I'm writing to you at a late hour because it's the only time when silence falls on the city.

And it's also the time I miss you the most.

Five months have now passed since your family placed a bottle of water on the gate of the house to welcome your departure.

I cried a lot.

How cruel it is to separate so soon someone who has recently learned to love each other!

I know you do it for us and it wasn't an easy choice, especially for you: miles and miles away from your family, from your city. From me.

Another country, a different language. Alone.

Sadness tightens my throat just imagining it.

But you are the strong one between the two of us. And your strength is my strength.

But I still believe that spouses should always live close together, like the trees Bar and Pipal, married by Bandadevi, the goddess of the forest.

You can't move the trees, they have intertwined roots and heart-shaped leaves.

There are those who say it is just an ancient legend, but I believe in the tree wedding and it should be an example for every young married couple. Like us.

After all, in our Newar community they married me to a wood apple when I was still a child so that the God Kumar, son of Shiva, would keep me chaste and fertile throughout my life and then they married me to the Sun, during the ceremony Bahra, on my first period with the reflection of the sun on a mirror pointed at my face. For now being a woman, they told me. Therefore, I believed the Bel Bibaha, the Gufa Rakhne, I can't believe the love between two trees?!

I'm waiting for you to come and get me, as you promised me the night before leaving.

It doesn't matter how far away our home will be and how difficult it is for me to live on another continent.

A good Pipal always grows next to her Bar.

Good night.
                                        Your Lumanti.”

“Prie Nuhu,

my belly begins to weigh heavy and hides the sight of my feet.

Ma* early in the morning brings tea, oat flakes and churi with dal to the room. When she sits next to me she always reminds me that I must never look an eclipse of the moon or the sun otherwise our baby will be born with a black spot on her face or body.

I smile at her and nod. As if there were eclipses every day...

The beginning of the day is the time when she stirs and moves like a twig in the wind. I feel that every emotion of mine, every fear of mine, passes through her little heart that I feel pulsating inside me.

Then I look out the window and observe the mountains. The clouds chase each other over the peaks, the sheep graze in the valley.

I think back to our first meeting as my hand follows the curve of my belly, seeking her presence, and yours.

It was in the month of Bhadra, in August last year, during the annual carnival of Gai Jatra, the Cow Festival.

Before leaving, my sisters Kusa and Silu picked up my long braid and embellished it with red ribbons after I had spent the hours, after the morning puja, oiling my hair and cleansing my face with the paste of flour, butter and oil, to make smooth and luminous skin. Then I put on the most beautiful dress, decorated my forehead with the tika of rice grains and vermilion powder and all together we headed to Bhaktapur.

The streets were very crowded, even the red stones of the houses seemed to be taking part in the celebration.

I remember that we were right in front of the gates of the Shree Padma Secondary School, in the front row on the side to see the pairs of little girls proceeding two by two beating the wood, with their black tunics with thin white vertical stripes.

You emerged from the crowd, with your black topi* and black vest over your white jacket. Very elegant!

We began to follow the procession of children with drawn mustaches, the women and men holding signs with parodies of politicians, the women wearing the hakupatasi, the typical black sari, and the big Tahra-Macha chariots, made of bamboo with photographs of deceased relatives.

It's incredible how one of the most fun and ironic festivals is actually a tribute to relatives who died during the year, in memory of the death in 1600 of Chakravatendra, son of King Pratap Malla, who gave rise to this festival to relieve with masks and jokes about the pain and mourning of the Queen. Since then, the belts of the clothes of children disguised as adults with moustaches have had two long tails that rub on the ground as a metaphor for the ascent of the deceased towards Paradise.

Pressed by the crowd, with my sisters, we headed towards Durbar Square where the Nayatapola stands, the Temple of the Five Phases, built in 1703 and dedicated to Shiva. Every meter of the staircase decorated with images of deities carved in stone was crammed with people so close together that from afar they looked like many small colored pieces of a mosaic.

In the chaotic carousel of laughter, Ghintang Ghisi dances, trumpets, drums and whistles, our eyes met, despite everything.

It was a moment, but I already knew that you would be the man I would marry. I was so sure that not even an astrologer would be needed.

My mother often told me – and not only her – that as a teenager I resembled the singer Tara Devi, perhaps because I had eyes like churi beans and protruding cheekbones, white skin with two splashes of pink on the cheeks, lips like rhododendron flower buds.

“You would make any guy fall in love with you, even if he was blindfolded and could only smell your skin!”

My mother told me, proudly.

She got it right more than the horoscope.

The next month the Brahmin fixed the date astrologically and we got married.

                                        Your Lumanti.”

©Olivier Follmi

“Prie Nuhu,

Thank you for the photographs you sent me this morning.

Berlin seems like a very big city. The houses are tall and grey. So modern. Although I still prefer the red bricks and our windows carved with decorated wood.

I'm happy that you have found other Nepalese and that you like working in the restaurant, even if I haven't yet understood whether you work as a cook, or help in the kitchen or be a waiter. In any case, you should never be ashamed to tell me what you do. Remember that I would love you even if you did the most menial job on earth.

What is sacred in our hearts is often humble on earth.

Imagine what your friends in Berlin would say if they knew that every morning we clean the floor of the house with cow dung and urine!

My love for you does not change. You must never forget it.

I also sent you some photos: my beautiful belly that grows more and more every day and the yomari, the rice desserts that you like so much and I know you miss them. I prepared them this morning for a snack.

                                        Your Lumanti.”

“Prie Nuhu,

Tonight I feel melancholy biting my heart.

I was calm all day.

In the end your parents decided to let me to give birth in the Kathmandu hospital, even though your mother insisted that she had to be born at home: she had already spoken to Sudavi* Teesa, saying that she had already given birth to all her children, as well as half Suryabinayak. Luckily you were convincing. They listen to you, I don't have much say in the matter; but in my heart I am happy with the choice. She is our firstborn and I don't want there to be any danger.

Locked in my puja kotha I prayed a lot until my supplications were accepted.

Even the sky today was bright, clear, blue like danfe* feathers.

Everything seemed to be turning towards a peaceful evening...

Then from the window of a nearby house came the notes of an old song by Narayan Gopal: “Timilai Ma Ke Bhanu”.

You know it was my mother's favorite song. She often told me that thanks to that song their love was born and that, therefore, I too was the daughter of those words.

“फुल भनु कि जुन भनु?

फुल भनु कि जुन भनु?

उपमा धेरै, तिमीलाई म के दिउँ?

तिमीलाई मनकी मायालु भनु

तिमीलाई म के भनु?”

“Should I call you flower or full moon?
Should I call you flower or full moon?
How many similarities, which one could I give you?
I will call you my love.
What could I call you?”

My mother cried a lot the day he died. It was the evening of December 5, 1990; diabetes took him away at fifty-one. All of Nepal stopped to mourn him.

My dad loved it too. He said that in his voice you could hear the sweetness of juju dahu and the power of rakshi*, wrapped in the acrid smell of cigarettes.

I started listening to it after my mother's death, as if his songs spoke to me about her. So I looked for that song and listened to it until a few minutes ago leaving a hole in the center of my stomach.

This is why I am writing to you.

Maybe because it is a great pain that my mother will not be able to see our daughter.

The absence is a subtle sting that slowly grows in intensity.

I miss her, and I miss you.

It is a void that you cannot fill with anything, not even with prayers. It envelops you warmly from the inside as if it wants to drip out of your skin, from every pore.

I can't explain it well...

Pain never has the right words. My life is unfinished away from you, especially now that I'm about to become a mother.

My father loved to tell us daughters anecdotes from the life of Narayan Gopal. Especially when he downed mugs of chyang.

He had his own recipe for love.

“As the great Gopal once said: 'Without a good arrangement a song will be like a vegetable without salt or other spices.' The love between two people is the perfect arrangement that makes a song immortal.”

Here, far from you, tonight I feel like a beautiful song without a good arrangement.

“तिमीलाई म के भनु?

Timilai Ma Ke Bhanu”
“What could I call you?”

                                        Your Lumanti”

CONTINUES...

*Prie, dear, love.

*Ma, mother, and this applies to both one's mother and mother-in-law. As well as Ba, for the father.

*Topi, the typical Nepalese male headdress.

*Sudavi, the midwife.

*Danfe, the splendid warbler, also the Himalayan warbler, is the national bird of Nepal with intense blue plumage.

*Rakshi, powerful liquor.

Italian version