The recent news about a man who was caught with a sac-full of human skull in Biratnagar brought to my mind an unforgettable myth I had heard as a kid.
According to it, tired of his fearful reputation Death decides to visit Earth with friendly intentions this time. Centuries of experience had of course sharpened his foresight and reasoning. Which is why at once he recognized that he had to shed off his enormous garlands of human skulls. This, he reasoned with a triumphant laughter, would lend him a rather approachable look. Meticulously, like a lady taking off her bridal jewelry, he removed the skulls one by one, and had already advanced a few steps out of his lair when the icy wind of habit gripped him - he began to miss those skulls.
Though the indigenous oddness of his face was enough to make anyone suspicious, it was the sac he carried over his shoulder that drew the attention of the people on Earth. One lady, with eyes of someone who had been startled by the moon, asked meekly, “What’s that, that thing you have there!” Death gave a bewildered look, as if he himself had forgotten what was in that sac. The lady, who apparently knew Death very well, recognized who he was and, without a further word, left at once. After numerous similar disappointments Death sat under a tree. Carried by weariness he was sleepily stroking his long beard when a group of men grabbed his arms and dragged him away. According to a popular version of this myth, Death remained captive for years and no one died during that period.
Of course the man Binod Raya, 37, of Biratnagar who was caught with skulls last Sunday cannot be Death himself. For had he been Death, no one should have died since his arrest on February 2. But the truth, as we all know, is otherwise.