himachal: part-1

Almost all of my previous visits were with my father, back when I was still a toddler, so unfortunately my memory doesn’t yield much of them except visiting hoards of far off relatives that he found almost obligatory to catch up with (him being the elder most and all that). The last one however, about a year and a half back had much more to it. It was the first actual village wedding that I attended, something i had always wanted to see. And so it is for some pleasantly obvious reasons etched out pretty darn well with me. Am not putting up all of it together, but yes the following is an excerpt from one of my last few nights spent at the bridegroom’s (my father’s, cousin uncle’s boy’s) house:


…I was a little apprehensive about staying up on the roof as the belching booze party was already well in action, but soon both the aforementioned girls climbed up to keep me company. I found it a tad bit strange, being followed by them in the wedding all through and so had to pluck up my gut and inquire as to why they saw it fit to stalk on me. One of them giggled at my apologies for this rather dim-witted query and went on to tell me that her mother (one of my door ki buas) had asked both of them to see to it that I was both well fed and nicely taken care of. I, as more a reflex than a gesture, squeezed her hand, (something I had never bothered to do for any of my cousins here in Delhi) and let her know how I couldn’t help but feel like a complete zit at barging in on their already stuffed wedding schedules.
Seemu, (which I later came to know was her nickname, Seema being the long for it) to my utter wonder giggled again at my city-bred idiosyncrasies, which I unfortunately hadn’t bothered to leave back home. “Oh that’s alright, am sure we can make some room for you” I remember the other one chirping along (Sushma, if I rightly remember…sumi to her mother…suusmaa to her father, and a rather plain susuu to her bratty little brother). They pulled out a couple of old charpoys from under the muddy little baud (a term given to the makeshift attic, usually on the roof of the houses there), and a pair of the most feather-soft hand woven himachali quilts, something that you’d have to pay through your nose to get elsewhere. And arranged for me to sleep outside in the open letting me know that a few of the others from downstairs were going to join us soon.
Sonu, Sushma’s younger brother brought up some of the leftover seera, (again, sent up by the ever-motherly kitchen ladies) and climbed down the back to let the handful of dogs out (for the night I guess). Seemu, while I gaped at the pooches, took my limp little pony in her hand and scorned at the sight of it. “You don’t oil your hair, do you,” she said. “Ummm…no I don’t” I whimpered. “Remind me tomorrow…I’ll do it for you”. Hah…even though I don’t think I have ever let anybody do that to me again, I did let her do whatever she pleased with my hair the very next morning. A couple of minutes later both the girls's mothers came up with some other ladies that I for the time being didn’t bother to introduce myself to. And before crashing down beside us, walked around to the other side of the baud to brake up the merry-uncle-booze-party and also to make each one of the slightly drunk men climb down to the two rooms below us. I asked suusu the reason for their not joining us upstairs where it was relatively cooler, to which she calmly explained of how they would be by now anyway too drunk to bother with the heat down in the rooms and that making them sleep up here would only mean one of them tripping over while trying to climb down in the dark for peeing or for something of that sorts. And oh yes, for some extra brownies we wouldn’t, this way, be subjected to their irksome snores and drunken moans.
Soon thereafter everybody around us pulled up their covers, and to another of my many pleasant surprises that day, one of the ladies sleeping on the other end of the row began singing…humming almost, I think to the infant next to her. It was an old local lullaby that I had come across once before and so had absolutely no trouble enjoying. She kept up the humming for a while as I sunk low in my charpoy, under the soft quilt, gazing at the clear moonlit sky above us with the humming becoming fainter only to fade away slowly. I was still at my sky gazing when Seemu turned towards me from the adjoining charpoy and whispered… “You know, that sky is still gonna be around when you wake up…would be much better if you close your eyes and try sleeping instead…early morning tommorow…goodnight.