Floating into my Memory -7

Strange Man in a Brook 

It was a sunny day in Talsen Palpa, Nepal. I was a student of certificate level in Trihuvan Campus, Palpa. The classes used to be held in the morning. We had the whole day after school to read and write.

I used to stay in a rented room near Tudikhel, a large open ground for public use. Behind the boundary of Tudikhel was Nepal Army Headquarter and training centre. Our rented house was closer to the army quarters. We could see them running, standing on a queue for lunch holding steel plates in their hands, army chiefs whipping some caders who did not follow the barrack rules. We used to think ourselves privileged.

Before the final exam, we had classes off for a couple of months. Our teachers never finished the course in the classroom. So, some of the teachers used to harvest tuition classes all day. Those students who used to do politics in the college or involve in a gange would take the tuition classes. I had no money to pay for the expensive tuition classes. I  had no option for studying hard at home.
During summer days it was really hot staying at home and working on the school books. It was really boring too.

There was a large open ground below the house with mango and lichee orchard. Local people from Bartung would go there for grazing cows and goats. It was away from traffic noise and quiet place for the students who wanted to study in quiet place. Ram Bhakta Parajuli and myself went to there, one day packing our books and other stationery in the backpacks. We walked down the steps along the Tin Dhara foot trails. At bottom of the hill was a creek almost hidden in the weeds. Alongside of the creek was a foot trail hardly visible that lead to the open field and mango orchard. From the orchards, we could see a wide paddy field named ‘Maadi Faat’. Someone, a tourist named it a ‘white lake’ as it looked white in the morning when the fog was rising above the ground in this beautiful valley.

As we arrived to the our desired site, I sat under a lichee tree and worked on my books. Ram Bhakta Parajuli was sitting about hundred meter away from me and working on his Chemistry book. Near my lication was a small waterfall burbling from the creek. Birds were chirping on the branches of mangoes and lichee. It helped me to concentrate on my study. When the sun was above my head, I felt thirsty. There was a natural tap next about five hundred meters away from my place. It was a gorge in between the two hills. I packed my books and went to the tap for drinking water.

As I arrived at the tap, I saw a man taking shower. He was a bald headed fat-ass rubbing  a round stone on his head all the time. I waited for fifteen minutes for him to be finished his bath. But he was so compulsive that I could not ask him to leave a tap for a minute and let me drink water. There was no sign of leaving the tap. He was mumbling some words which I could not really understand. His eyes were red like a burning coal. He had a bucketful of  laundry on the side. It was an isolated tap that we hardly see people coming to fetch drinking. Only the people who show up there were the
farmers or shepherds who were grazing their cattle.
Waiting more minutes  caused stress and  fear. Then I went back to the location where Ram Bhakta Parajuli was wrestling with physics and Chemistry. I told him the story about that fat pig. He was keen to see that mysterious fella so that he headed towards the brook. After ten or fifteen minutes, he came back with more surprising stories. When he pooped up by the tap, the man looked at him with his cranky eyes. Then he laughed like a hyena. He shifted his hands from head to chest and the bruise in the scalps could be seen read with blood stains. There was no way to let him drink water. Rambhakti returned to me quiet. ‘ I guess one string of the guitar broke.’