If only I could turn back time!

After Dashain, the great festival of Nepali people, I left for Gulmi with my younger sister, Munny. Actually it was my promise to her last year that I would take her there. She hasn’t visited her birthplace since we migrated to Nawalparasi some 15 years back. Even I could manage to go there after 12 years now. But, as I couldn’t return on time from Pakistan last year, that promise was on pending. So we two left home for Gulmi soon after the ‘Tika’.

There are hundreds of incidents worth mentioning about our visits. Specially Munny’s sentiments, her amazements and feelings could produce dozen of books. Among the myriads of things that happened to us this incident will be hunting me for a foreseeable future.

We were returning from our maternal uncle’s home in Dhanmuda, Baglung to Gulmi. My sister and nephew, Shiva, were with me. It was raining all the day. We were three and we had only one umbrella. Luckily we found some umbrellas to buy in Naya Bazaar. When we were climbing the way up to Bareng from Ghatta, the rain only stopped occasionally. In addition to it, a cold wind was blowing. We were not prepared for that kind of weather in Autumn. I, at least, had put on full sleeve shirt, so had Shiva. But our little lady had a very thin and sleeveless frock with Jeans. The air was so cold that sometimes it pierced our heart. We were shivering badly. And there was no help until we reached the Bareng Bazaar. Later we remembered that we had a fine woolen shawl in our bag. It was a gift to our mum from his brother in Dhanmudha. Munny was survived.

When we reached the 'bhanzyang', the top of the hill, we saw a grocery with a restaurant. There was not a single home there except that shop. The village was at the distance of 5 minutes walk approximately. A beautiful lady was in the shop. She was baking doughnuts. We all wanted to have something hot. I wanted to go to buy it but Shiva was insisting from the day before to buy something for us. He insisted again and I let him go.

He went to the shop and asked for the doughnuts. The lady asked him where we were from. He replied we were from Jhirbas (his village and our mamaghar). The lady smiled. I told to Munny that as the lady had smiled we might get the doughnuts free of cost. I think I had said it pretty loudly. The shop owner lady heard and laughed sweetly. Shiva came back with some hot doughnuts in a bag. The doughnuts were really fine and hot. We enjoyed it to its full. We sent our blessing to the lady all the way to Jhirbas. The story ended there. We came back to Jhirbas, enjoyed time with our Mama and family. After 2 days we returned to Koryang, our home village in Gulmi.

While we reached Koryang, our sister-in-law and children were in the courtyard of Narayan. He is my one of the finest childhood friends. We stopped there to have a chat with his mother, wife and other people. In the course of talk, Narayan’s mother asked us whether we met Sabitri didi (sister) in Bareng. She said that Sabitri didi runs a grocery shop and a restaurant there. I was startled and asked promptly the location of her shop.

When mother described the location, I was sorry to death. A vast cloud of regret came over me. The beautiful lady with whom we bought the doughnuts was our Sabitri didi. I was so sorry for not going to buy the doughnuts. I was so sorry not to recognize her from the mere distance of 50 meters. I was so sorry to miss the opportunity to meet her. If only I had gone to buy the doughnuts, I would have said we were from Koryang and that would be all. Oh! If only I had more time I could have returned to meet her.

Now more than 3 weeks passed when the incidents happened, I still miss her almost daily. We played together, laughed together and grew together. She loved both of us; Narayan and me. There are so many incidents happened when we were in our primary classed which aren’t letting me forget her. I am waiting the next opportunity to visit Gulmi so that I could manage to meet her.