The area had endured weeks of incessant rain. Everyone felt thoroughly chilled. Raindrops endlessly pattered on the window. The claps of thunder sounded as if troops were bombarding the area. The dense forest echoed with the sound of falling trees. There were flashes of lightning. The slender trees dripped rainwater like sweats falling down a labour’s nose and cheeks on a scorching summer day. The nearby river raged ferociously.

In the middle of the night she woke up screaming. The same dream that she had been seeing for weeks now woke her up. In the dream she was standing on the banks of the Koshi river in a small village in Bihar, India. A fierce storm was raging and a man and a woman were forcing her head under the icy waters, drowning her.

This recurring dream confused her. She had no idea who she was and she had no memory of the past. She spoke Nepali—but she didn’t know what place she was from or how she had come to be in a temple in a small village in Bihar. Near the village, a river that originates from Nepal flowed.

As time went by, there were tantalising flashes of memory, glimpses of vague, ephemeral images that came and went too quickly for her to grasp and analyse them. They came at unexpected moments, catching her off-guard, and filling her with confusion. At the beginning, she’d asked questions. The priestess of the temple was kind and understanding, but there was an order of silence, and the only one permitted to speak was Maata Menuka, the elderly and frail priestess.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No, my child,” Maata Menuka replied.

“Which year is this?”

“This is 2001.”

“How did I get to this place?”

“A year ago, we saw a boat floating in the nearby river. There was rainfall and the river was raging. The boat sank, but by the grace of God, two of our sisters saw you and rescued you. They brought you here.’

“But where did I come from?”

“I’m sorry, child. I don’t know.”

She couldn’t be satisfied with that. “Hasn’t anyone tried to find me?” she asked. Maata Menuka nodded her head and said “None.”

Frustrated and desperate, all she wanted to do was yell. She wanted to bang her head against the wall so that her memories would come back. But no noise and no acts of violence were permitted inside the temple.

“Didn’t you inform the police about me,” she asked.

“As you know, we’re forbidden to communicate with the outside world. We must accept God’s will, child. We must thank Him for all His mercies shown on you. You’re alive. Feel good thinking about your life rather than your identity,” said Maata Menuka.

And that was as far as she was able to get. At the beginning, she had been too ill to be concerned about herself, but slowly, as the months went by, she had regained her strength and her health.

When she was strong enough to move about, she spent her days tending the colourful gardens in the grounds of the temple, in the incandescent light that bathed the village in a celestial glow, with the soft winds carrying the pungent aroma of lemons and vines.

The atmosphere was serene and calm and yet she could find no peace. Her quest for her lost identity was causing unrest in her. She kept thinking—‘I’m lost.’ No one cares. I feel isolated. Why? Have I committed a sin? Who am I? Where am I from?

The images continued to come, unbidden. One morning, she woke up suddenly with a vision of herself in a bedroom with a naked man undressing her. Was it a dream or a reality? Or was it something that had happened to her in the past? Who was the man? Was it someone she had married or was she raped and thrown into the flooding river? Did she have a husband and offspring? If she’d been a married woman, what would’ve her husband done by now? If she had a child, what would’ve happened to him or her by now? She wore no wedding ring and glass beads. In fact, she had no possessions other than the sari that Maata Menuka had given her. All the women living in the temple wore the same type of sari.

She was anonymous, a stranger living among strangers. There was no one to help her and sympathise with her—no psychiatrist to tell her that her mind had been so traumatised and it could stay sane only by shutting out the terrible past.

And the weird images kept coming, faster and faster. It was as though her mind had suddenly turned into a giant jigsaw puzzle and a maze, with odd pieces tumbling into place. But the pieces made no sense. She had a vision of a school, a classroom, students, etc. ‘Was I a school teacher? Which school did I teach?’ These thoughts struck her.

One morning, she was sitting under a tree on a mat. It was a little cold. The weather was clear. The golden rays of sunlight were penetrating through the dense forest. Butterflies were fluttering about in the sunshine. The birds were chirping and she was enjoying the morning gentle breeze. In the background a religious song was playing. Just then, the wind brought a Hindi newspaper page where she was sitting. The newspaper page gently landed on her right leg. A headline in the page jolted her. It read—“Students of a Nepali school are in Bihar for three days for a field trip.”

She put down the paper, feeling foolishly vulnerable. The school’s name had given her little hint to regain her memory. She thought she had a strong sense of affinity with the school. She once had seen herself being a teacher of a school in her dream. She wanted to get in touch with the people from the school to find the answer to her question. According to the paper, they were staying at ***** Hotel.

When she dialed the hotel’s phone numbers her fingers trembled. She was nervous. She had a feeling that the past was about to become the present. She found herself thrilled at the thought of getting her identity revealed.

“What if I was married and my husband has married another woman? What if they do not know me at all?”

The receptionist said, “Good morning, ******** Hotel. She took a deep breath. “Can I speak to the headteacher of ***** School from Nepal?”

“I’m sorry, madam. There isn’t any headteacher but the coordinator. Will you speak to him?”

“Yes, please. After some time, “Hello! Hello!”

“I wanted to confirm if one of the staff of your school has gone missing.”

“Yes, ma’am. Last year our headteacher’s wife lost her life in the Koshi river during the monsoon. She was a teacher, too. The headteacher was supposed to join us for this trip. He’s recently got married. He is now honeymooning in Pokhara.”

‘I’m too late. It’s over. Maata Menuka was right. Let the past remain the past. Loneliness can be a corrosive, eating away at the spirit. Everyone needs to share joy and glory and pain,’ she thought. She was living in a world full of strangers, watching the happiness of other couples hearing the echo of the laughter of lovers. But she refused to feel sorry for herself.

“I’m not the only woman in the world who is alone. I’m alive! I’m alive!”

And unexpectedly, at midnight, without warning or signal, she remembered who she was.

My name is Anjali. I’m a Nepali teacher. I’m from **** Village, Saptari, Nepal.