Bardaan had married Katie, but he had not informed his family about it. Neither his sisters, who understood him the best, nor his brother, with whom he was closest, knew anything about his marriage. Even his father and mother, the two most important people in his life, were oblivious to this news. However, now that Katie insisted on seeing his parents Bardaan finally made up his mind. When he called home to his father and mother from his apartment in California, he was confronted with the question he feared the most. His mother, sucking her teeth, asked, “Nepali?”
Bardaan understood at once what she meant. “No mai,” he replied.
A silence followed during which Bardaan thought he heard his mother and father whisper to each other in secretive manner. He asked, “Why are you quiet, mai?”
“Myself thinking,” his mother mumbled hurriedly and timidly. Then she added, “Sheself Indian?”
“No, she is white American.”
“American. American,” his mother seemed to announce this to a crowd.
“Who are you talking to, mai?”
“Youself, beta. Don’t matter. Don’t matter. Sheself American, don’t matter. Black hair and black eyes?”
“She has blonde hair. But it’s no problem, mai.”
“Weself knows. No black eyes also?”
“No. But she is like our Nepali girls, kind and spiritual.” Then, swallowing, he added with almost beggarly pleading, “She doesn’t have father and mother, mai.” Bardaan himself was startled by the genuine feeling of helplessness in his voice.
“Weself be her family,” his mother said after a silence. “Sheself is good, is good, beta. Weself loves her already.” Bardaan could hear the muffled whisper of many people now. It became clear to him that his father had meanwhile phoned his sisters, who all lived in Janakpur within few minutes’ bike ride from his house. In the background, he could make out the insistent, querulous whining of Sanwi, the daughter of his youngest sister. “You’ve already invited everyone?” Bardaan asked, only now realizing that he had been talking with his mother in English. This perplexed him but what perplexed him even more was that his mother too was responding, not in her native Maithili, but in English.
Not that his mother had never talked with him in a language other than Maithili. Often when she visited his high school in Kathmandu she used Nepali to reprimand him or to motivate him. There were moments, it is true, when she even flowed into English mode. However, on all those occasions their conversation was merely limited to few preliminary remarks which she had picked from some third-class Hindi movies. Today, on the other hand, there was a certain tenacity, a conscious effort, in her voice. “Gayathri, sheself talk with you. Youself hear me,” she was shouting, as if straining to make herself heard directly to California from Janakpur.
Before his sister could speak into the phone Bardaan began to talk in Maithili. He informed them that he would book his ticket today and would be in Nepal with his wife a month later. His father, however, snatched the phone from Gayathri even before Bardaan could finish and began to complain, as usual, that a certain neighbor of his, a close family friend whom he once had helped, was now going rogue when he needed him – not exactly needed, he emphasized, but that he only wanted to test his true nature – he had unleased his serpent’s fangs and revealed himself. Not that he, a retired CDO, cared about it but it does not hurt to know the opportunists, he was saying when Bardaan cut him off by assuring him that they would discuss the matter in detail when he returned home. But his father held him with one last suggestion, asking him to call his brother and sister-in-law who lived in Kalanki and tell them about his plans. After hanging up, Bardaan went to his wife, who was sitting in the hall, “So we’re heading to Nepal on 30th July.”
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A month later, on the evening of 1st August, they landed at Tribhuvan International airport. When they emerged into the opening of the arrivals, they were greeted by a loud chorus of people standing behind the metal railing. Bardaan’s two sisters, their respective husband and children, his father and mother, his brother and sister, his five uncles and their corresponding wives, all were there. Bardaan was at once sucked by the many-armed crowd anxious to embrace him from all sides. His youngest brother-in-law, in tweed coat and tie despite the suffocating heat of August, held out his right arm towards Katie, “Hello, meself in-law.” Katie’s fatigued hands came together almost involuntarily and rose up in a gesture of Namaste. “Namaste, Katie,” she said, smiling and shaking her head with genuine joy. Only then did she notice the outstretched arm and, feeling partially embarrassed and partially guilty, looked at her husband who was now standing right beside her.
Bardaan caught her helpless gaze and felt guilty too. After all, he had spent last one month and all their time on flight pounding into her mind the right traditional Nepali approach to greet people. He had, in doing so, failed to foresee that his own relatives, who were after all obsessed about America, might have meanwhile learnt the western manners. In any case, his brother-in-law had already resolved the awkwardness by withdrawing his hand and adding, “Not mind ji.” Drawing his wife towards him he proceeded to introduce her with a proud husband’s grin, “Bardaanself sis, myself wife.” Katie nodded with a smile and noticed a little girl staring curiously from behind the saree of Bardaan’s sister. “And sheself myself daughter,” the brother-in-law introduced, trying to pull the little girl out of the saree. “Tell hello to mami.” In response the girl retreated further into her mother’s saree. “What is your name?” asked Katie. The little girl’s eyes glistened expectedly for a moment, then she hid her face in saree. Her father replied with an exaggerated smile, “Sheself name Sanwi.”
“Hey Sanwi, come here,” Katie said, her heart welling up with emotion. She leaned over, in her left arm pulling out a fistful of chocolates from her purse while with her outstretched right arm beckoning her to come towards her. Sanwi nearly flung herself in her arms, but at the right moment her mother pulled her back. She mumbled something into Sanwi’s ears in Maithili which Katie didn’t understand but still nodded out of politeness. Sanwi walked towards her, touched her feet reverentially and accepted the chocolates. Katie then lifted her up and kissed her forehead with motherly tenderness.
An hour had passed before they were finally ready to leave the airport. Most of the relatives had already stuffed themselves in their assigned cars. There were five cars and one of them was set empty for Katie, Bardaan, his sister-in-law and his brother. Sanwi, however, was not happy with this arrangement. She was screaming and hollering, so she was finally, upon the approval of Bardaan’s mother, allowed to sit with Katie. But since Sanwi, who in the eyes of his other niece and nephews was no special, had been allowed to sit beside their American aunt, they too began to scream and protest. Finally, it was decided that Sanwi and Mistika, being girls, would sit with Katie while Swarnim and Ravi, being boys, had to settle in another car. Of course Ravi, the obstinate one, was still dissatisfied for he believed that his uncles, despite being men, were allowed in that car. In any case, when they reached the house in Kalanki, and everyone was occupied with the ritual of welcoming the bride into the house for the first time, Ravi and Swarnim vented their frustration by beating up Sanwi till she wept.
After dinner, which was long and lively, Sanwi sat in Katie’s arms and fell asleep. Katie, though swamped in fatigue brought on by jetlag and sleeplessness, sat jubilantly on the couch between Bardaan’s two sisters. Her heart was brimming with waves of joy. She had never felt so special, so loved by so many people at once and only now, watching the sleeping girl in her arms, she could get real sense, with a lump in her throat, of how it might feel to grow as a child in a family. At around midnight, she accompanied Bardaan to their bedroom with a rejuvenated soul. While lying next to him she locked her arms around him and looked directly into his eyes. Her voice crackled with tears as she said, “Thanks, Bardu, for giving me a family!” Outside, the eternal rain of Kathmandu’s monsoon was coming upon the world with hypnotic serenity permitted only in the hills and mountains of Nepal.