So there we were, resting every two minutes because we were with three of mom’s sisters – all in the range of late 50s to 60s, my mom being the youngest in her early 50s. The hike was definitely steep. But each pause made us take a whole 360 degree view of everything around: the hill right opposite to the one the village was built on, cloaked by the lush green pine trees, to the left and right were the snow-tipped mountains hobnobbing with the clouds.
“Don’t touch this plant,” Mom pointed out a regular looking plant, “It’s soi.”
“What?!” my sister and I were agog, pulling out our phones for a picture as one would of a celebrity albeit a scandalous one. So this sad looking vegetation was the notorious plant we’d heard about and decried as the main instrument of corporal punishment for children in our father’s stories?
“Hey, isn’t that…bhaang?” my sister was amused by how wild and free the drug often used in the festival of Holi was growing here.
“It’s weed,” I corrected her with a laugh. Well, no one cared here.
“Don’t touch that plant either,” Mom pointed out another unremarkable plant, “You’ll get rashes.”
“Wow, they’re literally close to the path, anyone could really,” I muttered.
We passed by some bright, hue-mismatched houses. How were they built on such a slope? Had to hiss and ensure all my aunts wore their masks, especially my mother when they stopped to chit chat with the inhabitants of the homes. It’s a village, everybody obviously knows everybody and people were curious about the outsiders traipsing up the trail. I suppose my sister and I were outsiders, they knew my mom and her sisters.
The last part of the climb was tricky but through persistence where no one was of the mind to stop midway and not carry on, we managed and arrived at my late uncle’s (my mom’s brother’s) home. He would be called my mama. His wife my mami was holding her youngest son’s one year old kid and smiling at us from the verandah overlooking the hills and mountains. Mami had three sons, each married with children of their own. This was my second time even meeting these three cousins. I barely recalled what they looked like, forget their wives and children (so many children!). This home which was the youngest cousin’s home was to be the base for the tiny festival we were supposed to be attending.
Hugs with people I did not necessarily know. Smiles at whoever smiled at me. A brother’s wife in India is called a Bhabhi. But somehow I’ve always called any Bhabhi, Didi. The way I’ve seen it, when women marry into a family, they are treated so differently by their in-laws compared to how they are treated in their own homes, that it makes me wonder if people marry to get convenient slave labour. My mom would be the perfect case in point. So I just thought I’d call these women who’d married into our family by the term we use for elder sisters rather than sisters-in-law. They ought to feel as close as any daughter of the family. But this time, I kept switching between the terms because no one understood the concept.
Sis was ill. So the hike was strenuous for her. She was excited though so was running on it, along with the beagle pup Firefly, who was constantly being run after by either my aunt or her son when not being terrorised by the middle cousin (I tried not to feel terrible about mixing his and the eldest cousin’s names up). In the village, dogs were reared rough, and by rough I mean they grow up to be huge, muscular, can-fight-off-a-bear-if-needed kind of creatures and fiercely loyal. Downside: they don’t turn out cuddly. Case in point was a fluffy black mountain pup with xanadu color eyes. He was, like Firefly, also happy to bite everything in his path. He’d get a lot of whacks for his trouble much to our horror. Everyone there looked amused by our outburst and told us that this was the ideal way to raise good dogs.
Contrast to this pup was our Firefly, a pampered lil creature with a tummy nearly touching the ground as he trotted about trying to wrestle down slippers and eat anything he could find. My Jammu massi (maternal aunt) said, “That is a mountain dog rough and ready, this baby looks like someone’s lovingly applied kohl to his eyes.” All of us were keen on keeping him away from our middle cousin who was clearly a fun-loving, provocateur.
I was not expecting a dining table or a geyser or a shower. I mean my Bhadarwah aunt didn’t have these amenities and Bhadarwah was a small town. So we were pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. The bhabhis cooked up a wholesome meal, again everything from our own fields. The food tasted different, fresher, more delicious. I felt guilty about how hard they were working, waiting on us hand and foot. But frankly we had zero clue about how things worked there so it wasn’t like we could help ourselves either, at least on the first day.
This was a very different life, for starters, my sister taking a bath was a collective decision – where everyone weighed in much to her frustration and amusement. Here, things were not individual. It was collective living and decision-making on the small things and the big. A very different concept to women used to their space. For instance, we weren’t even given a room until the night when we actually needed a room to sleep in. Because until then why would we need a room? Chill with everyone, move about everywhere, settle down wherever you feel like. Mom also wasn’t inclined on asking about it even though we had asked once or twice through the evening and then just given up.
Finally we were assigned a room, it was the main bedroom of my cousin and his wife on the first floor. You guys understand the generosity we were showered with? The home of course had multiple storeys and several bedrooms, but they gave us this room with windows that opened out into a lovely view of the far-off mountains and sky and clouds. This room also faced the backyard of the house.
Settling in with sis was a bit hard. We had issues yet unsorted but here we were sleeping, sharing, compromising in close quarters and she was ill too, so I was trying to be as accommodating as I could. We were behaving as people close to each other do when faced with an issue too big to solve, by pretending to be normal and shoving it into a box.
I’ll continue with more stories in the next post. Pardon me if there are any typos, I’ll try to correct them ToT
insearchofthebeautiful 