Making Apa Happy
“Hurry up!” Tashi called out to his brother Kashi. “The goat must not have returned and Apa’ll be waiting by the door. I bet we’re in for a good thrashing today.”
But Kashi paid him no heed. He trudged behind his elder brother with weary halfhearted strides, stopping every now and then and staring in amazement at the tiny prints his feet left behind in the sand. His head was weighed down under a heavy load of firewood.
The yellowish shimmering glow of the setting sun reminded him of an apple. His tummy growled. He wondered whether there’d be dinner that night or if another beating was in store, and then unfed to bed.
“Kashi, quick,” Tashi urged, “the sun’s going over the hills. It’ll get dark soon.”
Kashi increased his pace to catch up with his brother. “Ata, why does Apa hit us? Doesn’t he like us at all? Why does his mouth smell so bad?”
Tashi didn’t feel like answering each and every question, so he gave the one response that answered all. “Because we are poor.”
“If people are poor, do their mouths stink? What do we have to do to get rich?”
Already irritated, Tashi searched for the answer within his won limited wisdom. “You’ve got to go to school, get educated, look for a job, and earn a good salary.”
Kashi was about to unleash another barrage of rambling questions when they realized they’d reached home.
Their father was sitting outside the door to their shack. There was something red all over him. He had vomited blood but what Kashi saw was the fury in his father’s bloodshot eyes. What he, in his childlike incapacity for hatred, could not recognize was the pure searing despair lurking behind the black rage. After glaring at the boys with his red, puffed up eyes, he ducked back into the shack. The boys followed him and quietly retired to their corner.
Within an hour, everybody was asleep except Kashi. He lay awake throughout the night trying to understand the complexities of getting rich as explained by his brother. After hours of mulling over the problem, he rolled over, nudged his brother and whispered, “Ata, will Apa’s mouth stop stinking if I go to school? Will he be happy and not beat us if I give him money? I can do it for him. In fact, I’ll go right now and return before the sun goes down tomorrow. I’ll get rich. Promise me, you won’t tell him.”
Tashi murmured something sleepily and Kashi took this to be his brother’s consent. He got up slowly and slipped noiselessly out of the shack.
The night was cold. A few dogs barked in the distance.
Five days later, when the sun was just setting, the waves of the village river washed ashore the swollen body of Kashi. The drone of the buzzing flies mingled with the muted roar of the river. His belly was bloated. Nature abhors a vacuum; the water must have taken advantage of empty stomach.
By: Dilson Chhetri Source Courtesy: KUENSEL