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PRADHAN GUPTA

He is a teacher and has occupied an important place in Indian Nepali short story writing. We find minute, artistic and logical analysis of human values in his stories.

These days people move with heavenful of compulsions. Positive and negative situations develop visual experience in peoples brain-such visualizations turn to reality in future. Every year they face storm with some compromises- a sort of faith develops when one repairs his umbrella.

Ordinary people must rely on lending and borrowing even to run a small household. In the beginning of every month every clerk receives certain right to sustain his life for the whole month but he disposes this right in filling up the vacuum left aside in the previous month which ultimately creates another vacuum in the present. In this way, people go on moving with the debts of his own situation and surroundings like that piece of cloud which has overhung by the pressure of its sky.

Madan's family is also living with such limitations in life in a small room which is situated in the ground floor of two-storied building. This ground floor was resulted while shaping the slope land with beams and pillars or lets keep it this way-this floor has resulted with the foundation pillars erected to raise the dreams of a successful dreamer. When such pillars are covered with some shape then the rooms look attractive for those unsuccessful dreamers who are living with limitations. Perhaps when such pillars are covered by the discarded and worn out woods of the society, people living

meaningless life may get shelter in such rooms. Upper floor houses are always ranked at top in the civilized society but the stories of the people living under them are never accounted for. Madan's dreams have also floated in his mind with the strong intensity to rest in such upper floors reality. When such dreams fail to find a proper place in reality he becomes acquainted with the universal definition of life to maintain his family in the cold periphery of the ground floor buzzing like bee.

The upper floor of Madan's family has been occupied by a middle class family. That floor remains almost quiet for the whole day long. But the civilized culture of that family begins their movement when the evening starts to ascend. They raise the sound of heavy foot steps as well as the voice of struggle and the ground floor is surrounded with gloomy atmosphere bearing such suppressions. In the evening whey will be getting ready to put first morsel of food into their mouth which have been earned and bought by their sweat from the corrupt market, suddenly the dust drop from the upper floor on the very first morsel of food. When Madan's family get into the bed, the upper floor will be occupied in hot discussions on various topics like the present situation, politics etc. Law and order, politics, economics etc are explained with individual experiences…. And their movements start descending, as the night grows deeper. But for Madan if politics is an unopened book, law is merely the height of recognition. The person, who is paralysed by the situation, will have no courage to argue on such topics sound sleep will be more precious for those people who get tired by the burden of the daily work laden on their head. But the forceful life is unable to belch right. Recently his wife had shouted excitingly when it was unbearable for them. But the woman of that house had shouted back bending half of her body from the window in reply, "Oh, what to do, such is the house, little noise is inevitable in human habitats, if it is intolerable, try to shift is a better place!……"

This time she felt very bad. Such feelings were deepened spontaneously into her and were watching her helplessness in the form of eyes or they were judging the challenges of her pitiful state. That time when she felt her internal conflicts she sensed debility in their supporting elements and had kept quiet.

Every new day was changing its colour while dipping the fruitlessness of life and were thickening in the wall of proceeding age. It may be the reaction that he had started to feel more pressure by the challenges of heavy foot falls in his house.

One day Madan returned home with brightness in his face. His wife gazed at him-isn't this brightness like that of the moon which has borrowed light from the sun when their life itself is based on lending and borrowing? Otherwise she is convinced that people like her husband are unable to brighten themselves with their own lights like that of the sun in such civilization. Therefore he must have borrowed his brightness from somewhere. It is not absurd on the part of her husband to return home with borrowed brightness when borrowing has become a feature in his forceful life.

She repeatedly asked about the brightness to her husband. But her husband did not want to express the mystery of such extraordinary brightness of life easily, rather he stated to tease his wife by becoming more mysterious. At last when she failed to find out the mystery of that brightness, her face darkened gradually. Therefore Madan pulled her closer to him and exposed the mystery, " there's a happy news! I have been promoted-now my salary will almost double up".

While accepting this brightness his wife felt as if she is flying up in the air like those petals which are flown by a gust of wind. His wife cooked rice, ground spices, prepared curry like a machine while holding this brightness in the corner of her eyes-she was not conscious of anything around her while keeping herself engaged in that brightness.

Since then the heavy foot falls of the upper floor caught their less attention-most of them split ways from their ears.

One night their youngest son was sick and was sleeping on the bed, both the husband and wife were awake. Suddenly some thing heavy fell on the upper floor with a bang which frightened the child and made him cry. In such situation Madan's wife was about to open her mouth to say something but Madan stopped her by putting his palm on her mouth and said, "Stop, don't say anything- leave it. They are leaving this house very soon-I have heard that the husband has been transferred. We will shift to the upper floor when they will leave the house, I will talk to the house owner in no time."

It was true that the family of that floor proceeded somewhere after leaving that house. On the very day Madan shifted his entire belongings to the upper floor by taking leave from his office.

They were relieved at last-their life felt a little bit of broadness.

His wife started to look at the situation after opening the tight shoes where she had travelled a long way of life having pain in her feet. In fact, shifting from one house to the other is also a section of travel in the chapter of life. After shifting to a new house life is once again, surrounded by new plans and one breathes with free and cheerful feelings. Therefore Madan's wife too kept herself engaged in planning and decorations of the new house for many days. After some days a new family started to reside in the ground floor.

It had started to rain. Pattering sound of the rain at night on the roof of their house might have given musical feelings to Madan, he said, "rain water on the roof has caused what a pleasant sound……. Rainfall is better at night!" They went to sleep after enjoying such music for sometime.

On the next morning one side of the quilt was drenched. They were unaware of such leakage. The rain had stopped in the morning. Madan trued to stop the possible places of leakage. But in the evening when it started to rain leakage appeared from the same places. Therefore while shifting the bed with the help of his wife from one side to the other Madan thought himself-how could I have figured out the problem of such kind faced by the occupants of this floor! Then there was clattering sound in the room shifting of bed created dragging sound on the floor. The person from the ground floor shouted in

an exciting manner, "Won't you let us sleep? What is this clattering sound for in the midnight?"

Madan's wife too was supposed to say something in reply but kept quiet when she looked at her husband.

On the next morning when Madan was trying to fix nails on the shifted place of bed, vibration caused the fall of saucers form the shelf breaking them into pieces. By that time the dust had already dropped over the cooked rice in the ground floor. Under such situation the ground floor woman started to shout from outside, "What's all this for! neither we can sleep at night nor can rest during day time".

Scattered pieces of saucers had already maddened Madan's wife and when she heard the shouting, she couldn't control herself and started to shout back bending half of her body from the window, " Oh, what to do! Such is the house. Little noise is inevitable in human habitats. If it is intolerable, try to shift in a better place!"

Without waiting for any response she started to collect the broken pieces of saucers.

Translated Bhanu Chettri

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An Anthology of Nepali Short Stories in English

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