On the way to Hetauda

It was raining. The road was slippery. Automobiles were crawling like tortoise. Nineteenth Century buses were farting black smoke and honking arrhythmically. Motorcyclists were craning their heads like geese in the lake and overtaking every kind of vehicles. Beep...beep...beep...beep. I was among them. I could see grumpy faced people in the bus or, the car looking at me as if I was the one who caused the whole lot of problem to their journey. I was just one amongst other motorcyclists and let the system run. That was the best practice we fashioned while driving in the town or the countryside; well, we all, you and I.

It was 12:30 PM. The first Saturday of May, 2012. I was going to Hetauda from Kathmandu on motorbike, black Honda shine. There was a heavy traffic in Dakshinkali road because it was a Saturday and many people were returning to Kathmandu from Dakshinkali temple after morning worshipping. This temple is located 14 miles south of Kathamandu valley which is famous for godesses Kali Puja. Some of the travellers were in their personal cars, taxies and others were in the public buses. The motorcyclists were just like leeches in the high-hill damp grasses. In fact, it was a complete chaos.

Beeping and dragging through narrow gap between two lanes of the broken, mud-gravy bumpy road, I finally arrived at Dakshinkali. As I just crossed the holy river of Dakshinkali, I saw a girl waving her hand from a shelter just above the road. I slower the speed and pulled over. I quickly scanned her from head to toe, solder to solder if I could recognize her. She was definitely in her late teens, wearing green and white spotted Kurtha, had a shy demeanour but bold enough to ask ride in her subdued voice. Her solder length hair was  partly colored gold and dishevelled. A gray backpack was swelled like a pregnant belly on her back. 

"Can you please give me a ride to Deurali…I have been waiting for Sumo but they all came full… there is a bus coming at 4.00PM, but I have to go early, " she finished all in a single sentence.

Her eyes were round and wide with slender eyebrows. She had strawberry lips, bubbly outlook and shiny, halo- white teeth. Two moderate islands were visible in the ocean of  her youth. I wanted to quench the thirst drinking the water from the deep ocean standing in front of me, but no way. 

" Roads are slippery and its raining. I think It's good to wait for  another Sumo," I replied in a dilemma.

When she broke into a smile, her white teeth lit up and kindled my heart. I could sense a debate between brain and body.

 Fuck the brain, I moved my backpack to the front and ask her to mount onto the back seat. She put her hand onto my solder and placed her bum on the edge of the back seat shaking it back and forth. I asked her to move closer and hold me firmly so that I could balance the bike. Don't take me wrong, I have no other motive besides driving safely. She, soon, put her both hands on my solder. Hot garlicky air hit my nose instantly. An electric sensation ran through me as she rested her body on my back.

" Do you go to school", I asked.

"No", she sounded like giggling.

"Did you come to worship the goddess Kali here".

"No, I came to visit my sister. She lives here."

" Why didn't you wait Sumo in the bazaar? You could get Sumo from there."

" I just walked because while standing there, so may people were gazing at me. I felt uncomfortable."

 Since it was raining I choose to keep quite and concentrate on driving. A Hetauda sumo passed by me so close that I nearly hit the wall. I grunted some angry words and asked her if she was okay. She was talking on the phone which surprised me that how could she managed to hold the phone in her one hand while I was driving in a rough, bumpy narrow, slippery road.

When we arrived at the summit of Chhaimale with a great difficulty, she requested me to stop for pee. It was still raining. She was soaked and the outer layer of clothes became transparent to  the inner garments. As I stopped the bike on the side of the road, she dismounted and ran into the bush. I assumed that she went far enough to get screened from he bush. I walked to the other side of the road, hid behind a tree and peed. And I came back to the bike and looked around, but could not she her. I thought she  was taking a shit instead of pee in the bush. I waited more than twenty minutes, however she never returned. With a hesitation, I walked into the bush where she was heading, looked around but could not locate her. There was a narrow unpaved road stretched down a small village. 

I felt uncomfortable. She told me earlier that she was going to Deurali; it was not even a half way through. Why did she lie me? Why did she run away without letting me know that she was going to the village down the road and would not come back?

I carried my backpack and mounted on bike. As I started the engine, two sketchy guys stopped on my side.

" Did you see a girl on the way?" one of them asked putting his hat backwards.

" Girl"? Any description? I asked.

" A girl about twenty-two, peach skin color wearing kurtha surwal…medium height…", told another boy.

I assessed the  situation and immediately sensed something fishy.  

"No", I said boldly.

They looked each other and drove down the hill towards Pharping. After a five minutes drive along the narrow road, I felt the wheels stuck in the mud. I thought it was the rear tire that was flat which I repaired a month ago putting a patch on it. I sensed a safety hazard while moving ahead because I could lose the balance and meet an accident. Moreover, it could cause more damage to the rim .

A guy who was just ahead of me pulled over and let me go ahead looking at me strangely. It made my head rubble for a while. In the mean time, I felt my bike wiggly than before. I pulled over and parked on the edge of the road. This time, I saw the front tire completely flat.

I was standstill. I looked at the passerby and so did they. I was on the state of confusion what to do or, not to do. There were no workshops nearby. In front of me, the road was steep, water pooled in some places and rocks were falling from the fresh  landslides in the hill. There was a workshop at Sisneri, but it was about five kilometer far from my place. If I returned to the Pharping, it would take me hours pushing the bike all the way. It was the center of Chhaimale village and, I had no clue if there were any workshops in the area. 

I had no choice. At any cost, I had to fix the problem as soon as possible. Wherever I go, I had to push the bike up to the workshop because riding on it would not be safe and also could case more damage to the wheel. As I checked the wallet, I found only three hundred rupee left. In that area, new tube replacement would cost five hundred minimum. I phoned my wife and told her about the situation. However, I did not tell her how difficult it would be to get the tire fixed. After a moment, new alternatives started bubbling in the head…“Why not to borrow some money from the driver of "Hamro Sumo" since I know most of the drivers” …“‘No’ it will be embarrassing. They might have stuffs to get the puncture fixed, so why not to ask for help. Should I leave the bike at someone's house and come next time to get it? Can I get a ride or a seat on a Sumo at that time? And so on and so on.

 I remembered a line from a poem I read two days before, “stop thinking and end your problem…problem is the seed of solution.” 

I decided to go back Pharping ( Dakhchhinkali) where I could change tube and also withdraw some cash from ATM. Then, I started pushing the bike with the strength from baptism.

On the way to  Pharping, around 3 KM’s distant, I noticed a graffiti on the wall of a house. In fact, it was an ad "Bike Marmat Kendra" written on the wall of small mud-stone house like a den. I looked around for a while and saw a man coming out of the neighbouring store. He was a middle aged man with gundruki hair, puffy eyes and clumsy body wearing a dark tattered shirt and shorts with holes enough to display the dove's nest. 'Dhunga khojda deuta milejhai' in reality, he turned to be a mechanic who could fix the puncture patching stickers over the hole on the tube. He brought a tool bag and a wooden log from inside the house. On the side of the road, in a narrow grassy field, he started his work. After removing the tire from the wheel, he took out the tube like an intestine from the goat’s belly, inflated it with a hand pump and, took out his tongue and put it on the tube. In fact, he licked the tube more than five places.

“Here it is”, he grinned at me with the foolscap of his yellow teeth. He rubbed over the hole with a stone and put a patch over it. Again, he inflated the tube and looked it thoroughly with his goat eyes and licked with his tongue. “Here, too”, the skin of his forehead shrunk at once and formed a shape of a brush tree.

The more he inspected, the more he found the holes. I requested him to change the new tube. But he told me that it could cost more.

 “How much it costs?” I asked.

“Do you have five hundred?” he looked at me as if I was a homeless guy riding a stolen bike. I became polite more than necessary and told him that I had only three hundred and I would pay him the rest on next Friday if he trusted me. He shook his head for “NO”.

"Add more patches and make it run. I don't have enough money to pay for the new tube. I am new in this place. Nobody knows me to lend me money", I pleaded him.

 I listened my heart, "calm down, all will be okay”.

He scratched his head and asked me to bring a tube from a trash nearby his house. There were many tubes dumped in the rubbish and most of them were covered in the grass. I looked around and quickly picked up two and  passed onto him. There were already patches on it. He started mumbling. He picked one of them up and inflated. He examined it minutely. He said something but I couldn’t catch quietly. He walked to the water drum and dipped it into the water instead of licking. As he came back, I noticed an unusual glow on  his face. 

“ Do you have five hundred?”, he asked me again.

“I told you already I just have three hundred”, I replied politely.

 "This is a new tube which I put there yesterday”, he told clearing his throat. 

I understood the situation. I didn’t speak a word for a while. He inserted a tube in the tire and inflated it and put back on the bike.  He took a short test drive, too.

“When will you come back? "He asked.

'Next Friday', I replied.

He was also telling me while working on the tube that some Madhesis had betrayed him earlier. He told me that one of the guys owed eight hundred who never came back to pay it. I understood his intention. He was picking up a tube from the trash and selling me in a new price. I couldn’t say anything because I had no choices. Due to the grace of  God, the tube was good.

After he handed the key over me, I gave him three hundred and requested him to return fifty rupees; so that I could pay to the check post on the way. He asked my phone number, took a piece of stone and rubbed it over another flat stone scribbling the digits of my phone numbers. I offered the best lip-service with sugar-coated words and drove on my way. I checked the wheel twice in a very short distance to know if they were okay. Luckily! Yes, they were.

Then I headed towards Sisneri, a hamlet on the bank of Bagmati river, about thirty seven kilometer south of Kathmandu. As I reached there, I saw more than fifty people gathered in one of the hotel's front yard. I pulled over and craned my neck screening the mass. I was shocked seeing a girl in the police handcuffs. Three Police officers were on the scene and around fifty onlookers. It did not take me a long to recognize the girl who just an hour before was on my back seat.

I asked some of the onlookers if they knew the reason why she was being arrested. Everyone was beating around the bush, but nobody knew the truth.

" It was said that she had stolen a neckless from a jewelry shop", a man, who had his both hands entangled on back, said.

" She is a whore. She stabbed one of her clients", an old man wearing a tattered hat said.

" No, she was one of the agents of girl traffickers in rural Makwanpur,' another young lady interrupted.

I slipped out of the crowd since nobody had a clue why she was being handcuffed. Anything could be possible. How did she make her way down Sisneri ahead of me? Who gave her the ride? Why did she escaped from my ride? I kept bugging my head. She might have got the Sumo ride when I was spending an hour with the primitive mechanics on the way.

Dark cloud was hovering in the sky. I could hear the thunderstorm on the west part of Kulekhani.

I put the raincoat back on and continued driving. The image of the innocent looking girl occupied the mind like a shadow. The girl whom I first saw as a school girl, innocent and the most beautiful, now turned to be some ugly frightening image.

"Did she break in at someone's house? Did she commit a murder, or she is a drug dealer?"These questions kept bugging my head. I never found the answer. A huge rock rolled down the river right from my nose. I stopped and looked up the hill where mud was still sliding. I quickly accelerated and crossed the landslide through a narrow tract.

Driving through several obstacles on the way, crossing the pooled water at several places, I finally stopped at a hotel in Kulekhani. On the side of the road, there were several local vegetable and fruit sellers waiting for the customers. Sumo passengers were the first customers for them and the bikers. They were selling fresh cauliflowers, cabbages, cucumbers, yams, beans, green leafy vegetables, peas, potatoes and seasonal fruits like peach and  plums and, some of them were selling fresh fishes from Kulekhani dam. One of the passengers was telling others in a group that those fishes were actually from Janakpur and other parts of Terai. 

I went inside the hotel, a kind off in on the road side who sell foods and liquor the same table. Tables were almost full. I found one in a corner, put my backpack on the table and waved to a server. Nobody showed for five minutes. I walked to the counter and ordered a plate of chicken fry and a beer. I wanted to erage the hunting image of the girl and near miss accident with a juice of barley. A girl delivered the order on my table and lit het teeth. I saw the image of the same girl I encountered earlier in her presence. I quickly turned my head otherside and cracked the beer. I wanted to drink more but the road ahead was narrow, up and down with a paved but broken in several palces with short and sharp turnings. I paid the bill and continued driving up the hill towards Deurali. I felt the bike lighter than earlier and had better control on speed. While I was driving down to Bhimbhedi from Deurali through narrow and steep road, I braked hard at a sharp turning to avoid collision with a Nissan Pulser. As a result, the wheel somersaulted on the side. I found one of my legs trapped under the wheel which I could not pull myself out. In the meantime, a sumo stopped abruptly very close and the driver, followed by curious passenger, approached me, checked the surrounding and  removed the bike. He asked if anything hurts. Luckily, nothing had happened to me, not even a bruise. I thought I got a new life that there was nothing left to be worried about. Without looking at the faces of the onlookes, I thanked the driver and mounted on the bike, ran away from the crowd. At this moment, I neither had the image of the hunting girl nor the feeling of remorse or regret. I was overjoyed.