Dawn was yet to break, and Pramod had been waiting for a bus for the past half an hour. The sun was hiding among the dark clouds, heralding the start of yet another dreary day. He had not slept a wink all night. Despite his numerous attempts to close his eyes for the dreamy world, he spent the night tossing and turning in bed, and puffing cigarettes.

He took a few steps back and took a glance around the bus station. His attention was drawn to a woman who was as fast as a squirrel. She owned and operated a tiny tea shop. He locked his gaze on her for a few moments. Her face was riddled with wrinkles, each one telling a different story. A man with a newspaper stall stood right next to her tea shop. Despite his best efforts to study things around him, Pramod was weighed down by his own thoughts. That morning, his legs wandered hesitantly towards the station. A part of him was telling him that going to Jiri was pointless and that he should return home. For a decade, things should be left alone. But there was a discrepancy with the other part within him. Deep down in his heart, he felt bound to make this trip.

Finally, his bus appeared. He found a window seat just behind the front row. The bus turned onto a bumpy dirt road after an hour of driving through town on the pitched road. He realized how his lifestyle had been altered by the comfort of his own car. He had not been to his ancestral house in Jiri in ten years since his father died. After his father's departure, he has never felt at home. His mother had died when he was five. He has everything today: a bank account, a mansion, automobiles, a vacation place, and media flashes. He had gotten his ideal job and was living a comfortable life with his lovely wife and daughter.

Subway Ride in New York | Picture Credit: Ramesh Gurung

Pramod was still preoccupied with his own thoughts, rather than taking in the gorgeous panorama of the meadow and mountains playing hide and seek amid the clouds. On the road to Jiri, a tiny wood shook off his nostalgia. He had fond memories of being in the woods as a child. Two toddlers appeared in front of his eyes as he walked down memory lane. He and Shyam, his stepbrother, were the two of them. He and his pals used to visit this wood on a daily basis. Their swimming pool used to be a little watercourse in the woods. They used to spend the entire day there in the summer. That day, he, however, did not find a speck of that alluring feeling that he used to feel there when he was a child.


The Khalasi yelled, "Jiri aayo Jiri!" Pramod exited the bus. The sky was looming with dark clouds. The sky was raging, and there was a lot of lightning. A torrential downpour was on the way. His ancestral house was only a short distance away. In fact, he could spot the silhouette of Shyam in a distnace.  He began shuffling. Shyam sat by the front door, his palm resting on his brow. He was a commoner who went about his business as usual. They gave each other a warm embrace. It was a long embrace. Shyam hugged Pramod as though he were a lost child who had discovered his father at a fair. Pramod was well aware of his predicament. Pramod had always struggled to express his feelings and views as an introvert. He could say nothing.


"Where is she?" Pramod broke the silence.


Shyam pointed towards the room in the attic. Sharala, Pramod's sister-in-law, greeted him. Sharala was such a garrulous person that she was seldom silent. But that day, the silence was all over her. She led Pramod's way to the room. A chill shadow crept over him as he entered the house. His legs felt heavy as he lifted them to climb the stairs.


Pramod's stepmother lay in the bed, deaf and dumb, gasping for breaths. Since the day she married his father's father, he could not stand her. He could not believe that his mother would be replaced in his family by someone else. Even during rare times the two communicated, Pramod had always made sure that she felt the deep-seated rancor he had for her. He stopped worrying about her after his father passed away. He had the feeling of being a free man, and he was living in town with his family. He wouldn't have given his stepmother a second thought if he hadn't received a call from Shyam and had been aware of her precarious condition. His stepmother, on the other hand, was a remarkable lady. She brought up both of them with equal love and affection. But, Pramod was too stubborn to let her fill the space of his mother in his life. Despite her numerous endeavors, he never let her. 


Pramod knelt down close to her bed. He mustered all his courage and grabbed her hands. She woke up from her deep sleep, and their eyes met for the first time. She seemed a different person that day to Pramod, someone extremely close to his heart. Pramod discovered that her eyes were the same as those of his mother's. They were glittering. He felt strange, very strange. He was drenched in shame, for he never respected and valued her. He pondered how his life would have been if he had dared to be more accepting of her presence in his life.



Pramod turned pale. He tried to open his mouth, but something choked him; he could not utter a single word. At that moment, he felt like she was the person who was missing in his life. Guilt stung his eyes, and tears impeded his eyesight. He started sobbing, with his head down at her knees. Suddenly, he felt tender hands caressing his hair. It was his stepmother. He fixed his gaze at her. Through her watery eyes, she sent millions of things that no language could express - something deep, very, very deep that washed away all sorrow in Pramod; something that replaced stones in his heart with soft feathers; something that returned his hammering heart to its normal rhythm.


Pramod caught a bus back home around three that day. As the bus reached the wood it stopped raining, and the clouds were away. The wood that he felt so dreary a few hours ago, soothed him on his way back home - something that he used to feel there when he was a child.