This is a short story anecdoting an unforgettable moment from my childhood, written by the perspective of an 8-year old me.

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Amidst the busy wedding ceremony at the mosque in Kathmandu, I stumbled upon a brazen boy. I was playing along with my cousins in a small courtyard inside the mosque.

He seemed older than me. His potbelly and frivolous gait instantly caught my attention. He had a large face and his eyes were bigger and brighter than mine. He had a striking smile.

Clothed in the soiled pale sky-blue T-shirt and a khaki pant, he ran through me, I hesitantly moved aside. Much to my awe, he was carrying a tin box with a size of a palm in his right hand. He shook it with much enthusiasm while he ran. Every time he’d shake it, the pebbles inside the box would make a rumbling noise, and he would give out a huge laugh.

I wondered why a boy -older than me, would act such weird! My cousins and I ended up laughing looking at him. We were amused!

Not long after he showed up, an aged lady in a Blue Kurta and tattered green shawl ran towards him and ushered him away from our gazes. She was a frail-looking woman with a slight hunch in the back. The green shawl struggled to cover her hair which kept slipping down. Her sharp long nose, scrawny shoulders, sharp tone, and hunched back reminded me of the witches I would often see in the Cartoon.

Still intrigued by his brief presence I slipped inside the ladies section and made my way towards my mom.

“Did you have lunch, here have some?” she offered.

I asked her, “umm... Ma, I happened to saw a boy upstairs. He was dressed in soiled clothes and carried a small container. There was something amusing about him? What happened to him?”

“He’s a lunatic,” my mom replied, “She and her Nani (grandmother) often visit these ceremonies for freeloading.”

“Lunatic?” I ran the word through my head numerous times. He remained in the back of my head throughout the wedding and until that night.

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The next morning, I woke up late! I hurriedly ate my breakfast and ran off to school. Preoccupied with the usual school assignments and my favorite playtime with my Galli ko Sathi haru (close friends) in the noon, I completely forgot about that boy. After that day, he never reoccurred in my thoughts.

It wasn’t until after a month that my mom took me to another wedding ceremony at the same mosque. I never cared who was marrying who for the only thing I cared about was enjoying the day with my cousins. We would run hither-and-tither around the mosque.

One of my cousins, Neyaj, told me “You see that open spot amidst the pond, filled with algae,” pointing his finger towards a small pond a few meters from the mosque, “A man jumped into it and died this morning. I saw it on my way to the wedding.”

“DID YOU SEE HIM JUMP WITH YOUR OWN EYES?” I exclaimed with an open mouth.

“Ummmm… Yes!” He said with a drop-dead face. I swallowed a thick swath of saliva.

Still shaken, I headed back to the wedding. Suddenly, I thought of that boy. “He must be around here,” I thought to myself and started scouting the throngs of attendees for him and his free-loader Nani. I kept looking everywhere but he was nowhere to be seen.

With a heavy heart, we headed back home. I didn’t know, I’d feel this bad for not getting to see a stranger. I started thinking to myself, “Did that old lady do something to him? I HOPE HE’s OK.”

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It was July; the first rain of monsoon came pouring down like bullets. Although strongly advised by my mom not to step outside in the rain, I carelessly walked from school to home drenched in the rain. This bewildering sight caught my mom’s eyes. She slapped me hard on my left cheek and hurriedly took off my wet uniform.

Unhinged by my mom’s attention, I stood there motionless until she asked me to wipe the water off of my body. I did so immediately for I wouldn’t again disobey her stern order. She ruled the house!

I peeked from inside the window, it was still raining hard! The commotion of vehicles on the street and their non-stop honking made me nauseous. Dizzied from the sight and the rising heat inside the room, I opened the window to let the cold air in. I swear I had only stood there for a few seconds when my mom came running towards it to shut it close.

“Have you become a lunatic?” she shouted at me. I smirked at the sight!

It was cold in the evening. I remember huddling inside the warm blanket with my mom on the bed while my father was busy watching News.

It was eight in the evening! I could tell that by the announcement made on the TV. “Namaskar, yo Nepal Television ho. Aath baje ko samachar ma tapailai swagat cha (Good Evening, this is Nepal Televiosn. Welcome to the News at 8!),” a middle-aged man in his bifocal announced it just before starting the headline –as soon as it came I dozed off with my head on my mom’s cozy lap.

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With much difficulty I moved the edge of the blanket and opened my eyes, it was already morning yet it felt like the evening. It was still raining.

“Get up you lazy ass,” mom said, “You’ll be late for the school.”

Mustering up all my strength, I made my way out of the bed and onto the bathroom. Just before I entered, I saw a woman in the kitchen facing the other side. She was perched on a stool and was sipping her tea. I remembered the blue kurta and tattered green shawl over her head. “It’s that same old woman,” I said to myself.

Before I could ask anything, my mom pushed me inside the bathroom. I came out 15 minutes later and immediately moved my eyes towards the kitchen but she was gone! Thinking to myself, “Why must she have come here? We have no business with her.” I walked inside the kitchen.

“Do you remember that boy you saw in the Masjid (mosque) that day?” mom asked.

“The boy, and her Nani. Umm... Yes,” I said, “Why did she come here and so early?”

“That boy, he died last night,” she said, “He lost his way back home.”

“Haa... How? How could he get lost? Wasn’t he accompanied by anyone? And, where did he go anyway?”

“He wandered off the home late at night. He must have walked into the thick bushes a few meters from his home. It’s so easy to lose one’s way in those thick bushes, you know? And with the heavy rain last night, it must have been very difficult for him. With his mental condition, he must have lost a sense of direction.”

“But how did he die?” I poked her with another question.

“Well, his Nani said that he fell into an open ditch at the far end of the bushes. Nobody found him until this morning. A passerby saw his corpse and told her about him."

“Did she come here to tell you that? And, you believed it?” I provoked her.

“No, she came to ask for help. You know they’re poor and couldn’t afford to bury him. She’s visiting every Muslim house in this area. She would really need someone to drive the body to the graveyard and perform the ritual. Women aren’t allowed to bury the dead, you know? It is against…”

I silently stepped back and walked to the living room while she kept talking. Nothing came to mind except the sight of that boy running around the bushes trying to find his way back home. I thought to myself, he must have sat inside that ditch all night and cried relentlessly, looking for help.

I silently put on my uniform and left home. He remained in my thoughts throughout the day. All I could think about was him sitting amidst the bushes in the heavy rain with the small tin box in his hand and calling out for his Nani. I asked myself, “Did he have any friends?”

The thought that nobody came to his rescue just shattered me. I couldn’t think of anything else but him and his small tin box.

Random thoughts ran into my head, “What if I tried talking to him that day?”, “What if I had met him the second time and became his friend?” followed by a few more of "What-ifs."

I thought I wouldn’t have been able to change the outcome of the previous night’s event. With the thought of him still inside my head, I raised the cup and started sipping the tea.

THE END

By Salman Khan Gurung

From: Nepal

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