How could I call you? - Second Part

©Olivier Follmi

“Prie Nuhu,

I'm only writing to you today when I got home.

Our daughter was born!

My joy is uncontainable. Have you seen how beautiful she is!

But now I'm very tired.

Torn by happiness and sadness that you were unable to come and witness her birth, as if my wrists were tied with ropes to two carts moving in the opposite direction.

I know, you just started working – you told me – and you can't take any days off yet.

What immense pain I think you are feeling: you too, like me, pulled by the carts.

My love for you is increased fivefold by imagining the sacrifice you are making for our life together.

We grew up with the fear instilled towards dozens and dozens of demons told by our parents: the khya, the lakhe, the bhut, the pret, the rakshas...

But none of them warned us, at the time, about what truly terrifies and breaks the heart: the fear of losing the people we love. Of not being able to be there when they need us. Of not being able to share the joys and sufferings with them. The real demons are those that our heart gives birth to.

I was almost afraid to call you to show her to you.

In fact, I will never know if the tears I saw flooding your eyes flowed from the luminous source of the heart or from its dark recesses.

Human tears are strange. Without a word to explain them it is impossible to understand whether light or salt prevails in them.

Now I'm starting to lose strength in my hand too. I just want to sleep hugging her.

May my warmth warm you in the cold Berlin autumn, my love.

Your Lumanti.”

“Prie Nuhu,

we finally celebrated, this morning, Nwaran, the feast of her name on the eighth day of her life: we called her Maiju, as she was in our desires.

Since late yesterday afternoon the house and courtyard have been a bustle of women who have come to help your mother cook. She forced me to stay in the room and rest.

They were among the most beautiful hours, with our little girl wrapped in the blanket in my arms; her face looks like a white rosebud. Just being able to smell her forehead gives me a thrill.

Ma carefully prepared the corner for the puja, spreading a sheet of newspaper on the carpet and collecting all the objects for the ceremony one by one, awaiting the arrival of the Pujari*.

I was sitting on the blue couch rocking our daughter in my arms and mentally counting everything your mother prepared.

Copper utensils, oil lamp, white sandalwood, sesame seeds, kalash coconut, curd, dry rice, sel roti, milk, honey, incense, araca nut, the tapari, the pancha-pallavas – the five different leaves, the Puja Vasthra for the little girl to wear, the red powder for the tika. She then took our daughter and carefully washed her head over an iron tub.

You should have seen how many times she ran her wet hand through her black hair, and what a smile she had! She seemed to be reflected on the surface of a lake of joy. Your father stood watching by the door, looking anxiously towards the entrance and the courtyard.

Upon his arrival the Pujari started preparing for the puja.

In accordance with the Nakshatra, our daughter's astrological chart, I was finally able to whisper her name, Maiju, in her ear and my heart exploded in a garland of flowers.

While first the brahmin, then your mother, and all the others in line celebrated Maiju with their fingers dyed with vermilion and rice coloring her white cheeks and forehead, I felt like Yasoda looking into the mouth of her Son Krishna and there she sees space, mountains, islands, oceans, planets, air, fire and stars...

I was, and am, completely captivated by her beauty.

No photograph I send you will ever capture the smell of her, the light in  the eyes, the feeling of her little hand holding my finger.

Even though I know that these words hurt you at the same time as they make you cry with happiness.

Finally a part of you is in my arms. It's like I woke up from a beautiful dream and I don't want to fall asleep anymore to protect that dream.

While the Pujari marked my forehead with vermilion and let the red petals fall on my head, I saw you, sitting right in front of me with crossed legs, with the red and white jacket, the luminous face and the pointed eyes.

Then the room filled with everyone who came to rejoice with our family, to eat, to hold Maiju, and you vanished. You have returned to the secret chest of my heart.

Once the invocation to Ganesh and Lakshmi was finished, the Pujari went out to scatter the petals in the courtyard near the trees and everyone started eating and singing until late at night.

It's been a long day. One of the most beautiful after the day of our wedding and the day of his birth.

Now our daughter has her name.

Your Lumanti.”

Nepal (dettaglio). ©Andrea Pistolesi

“Prie Nuhu,

I'll tell you this.

Last night I couldn't sleep. Maiju cried continuously.

I was disturbed because while I was praying, concentrated on the acrid smell of incense, a dog's bark fell from the valley into the room with the open window. Suddenly my heart started beating as if it wanted to come out of the choli.

I had a terrible feeling and then our daughter did nothing but cry.

As the sense of anguish climbed inside me, the door opened and your father entered. He held a malpa plate in one hand and a dhamaru in the other.

He sat next to our daughter lying on the bed and began to rotate the wooden toy, making it beat rhythmically while scratching the little girl's chest with his fingers.

Maiju stopped crying. Truly!

He looked at me for a moment and pointed to the plate on the carpet: “Eat. They are freshly made.”

I was petrified by the sweetness.

As I bit into the fried bread I watched your father bring his wrinkled, sun-baked face close to our daughter's. Then a melody came from his lips as notes come from the holes of the flute.

“Tara Baji Lai Lai… Tara Baji Lai Lai…”

The nursery rhyme grew from a whisper to a song, to the rhythm of the dhamaru.

Maiju looked at him and smiled, with little guttural sounds that seem like the vocal version of the blows she gave me when she was inside my belly. Almost as if to remind me that I no longer have any reason to be sad in life.

As you know your father never talked much to me. But then again he has always been silent with you too, as you often tell me.

The Jyapu are farmers who communicate more with the land and animals than with people.

But I am convinced that last night, with his nursery rhyme, the fried bread, the dhamaru, he found a way to tell me that he loves me: this is the feeling I felt.

When he left the room, Maiju and I fell fast asleep.

In the morning, when I woke up, I found the small wooden toy at the foot of the bed.

Your Lumanti.”

“Prie Nuhu,

the Great Durga has answered my prayers: you are about to return!

You managed to get a week to stay with us during Kija Puja*, your sisters were just waiting for this news.

My wait is over. I will finally be able to hug you again and you will be able to enjoy our little Maiju.

Barely a month has passed but she already looks grown up, with her tufts of black hair curling over her small ears like rabbit eyes.

Every morning I wash her with kwolon, the wheat and barley mixture softened with water and mustard oil to make her skin even softer and cleaner, like my mother did with me.

I go crazy seeing the dimples in the skin on the backs of her hands, they are so soft they seem boneless.

On our wedding day, in my heart, I hoped that our firstborn would be a girl. So it was.

Do you remember what a great celebration our wedding was!

With the line of all the relatives and friends dressed up like dandies dancing in the street behind the band playing the trumpets.

There are some moments that will forever remain engraved in my memory like the figures carved into the walls of temples.

Me sitting next to you, to your left, on the red cushions in front of the mandala drawn on the ground, surrounded by a cheering crowd, the photographers, the soft red blanket on our legs.

The moment in which you discovered my face by lifting the red veil and when you then hid it with a cloth of the same color to sprinkle orange and vermilion powder on the midline of the head, in the hair, also dyeing the God Ganesh under the peacock of gold of my luswan*.

The delicate shower of petals on our heads close together, cheek to cheek.

When I bent down to the ground and touched your feet I felt that I would belong to you forever; when you knelt before me and encircled my ankle with the silver pauju I knew you would belong to me forever.

You'll be back soon.

It doesn't matter if it's only for a week.

It doesn't matter how long it will take to complete the paperwork process for me to come to Germany.

I will wait. Every day away from you I know will be rewarded in the future.

And when we say goodbye to our family, our people, these mountains, these houses with windows carved in wood, I am sure that a song will rise from the earth and envelop the valley, the entire city. They will listen to it all the way to Kathmandu.

It will be the voice of my mother and father, in their last goodbye.

“यी आँखाका गहिरा ताल बिच

नसकि तर्न डुबे-डुबे म

तिमीलाई मनकी मायालु भनु

तिमीलाई म के भनु?”

“Among the deep lakes of these eyes

otherwise I will drown.

I will call you my love.

What could I call you?”

Your Lumanti.”

*Pujari, the one who performs the puja, the brahmin.

*Kija Puja, is the Newar name for Bhai tika which is celebrated on the last day of Tihar, the Diwali, festival of lights in November. This holiday celebrates the bond between brothers and their sisters.

*Luswan, is a gold ornament depicting Ganesh under a peacock that is worn in the center of the hair, especially during weddings, typical of Newar culture.

***

My first meeting with the Nepalese community in Rome was in October 2022. More than two years have passed and a beautiful friendship was also born with some of them. It was an impulse for me to delve deeper into their culture. Dev and Pramila were fundamental in this, who I can now consider like a brother and a sister.

The inhabitants of Nepal are descendants of major migrations from India, Tibet and Central Asia, the three main branches are Kiranti, Newar and Parvati. In Nepal there are over a hundred ethnic groups: the main ones are the Newar, Gurung, Magar, Rai, Limboo, Tamang, Tharu, Bhotia and Dotuya. The Newars are the most numerous in the Nepal valley and are recognized for the primacy of Nepalese art and literature.

This story is dedicated to Dev and Pramila, especially to her who is of Newar ethnicity.

Without their help, I would never have been able to write this story. Thanks again.

Italian version