I woke up to someone singing a folk song in the middle of the night. It sounded like a woman. I raised my ears to listen from the comfort of my bed and the warm blanket. “It must be Bharati aama again. She sleeps all day and sings all night.” I changed sides to get comfortable and tucked the blanket around my child.

The mornings in the village are breathtaking. It has been five months since I was shifted here to work as a teacher in a primary school. In Kosrang village of Dhading, one finds oneself above the clouds in the mornings. The urge to dive into the floating clouds is strong. I was admiring the beauty of the hills and the shining mountains when two villagers ran downhill past me. "Where are you guys going in such a hurry, Hom Bahadur dai? The local bar does not open until ten,” I said, jokingly.

“Bharati baa has fallen gravely sick. Looks like he might not make it, miss,” Hom Bahadur dai replied in a strained voice as he hurried away.

I felt cold. The cheerful face of Bharati baa flashed across my eyes. I ran behind them without stopping to think twice.

I met the Bharati family five months ago when my son and I first came to the village. Their house was near the school. As I wasn’t sure where to stay, they hosted me for seven days in their two-room mud-built house. Shivdhoj Bharati, popularly known as Bharati baa, always extended his arms to embrace us. He would jump with joy when my son ran towards him. Bharati baa used to fetch firewood to warm the cold January nights with a bonfire. He always politely said no to everything I casually offered—from biscuits to warm winter clothes—only to happily accept it after a few insistent requests. I had Sisnu (nettle) soup with rice for the first time in his kitchen. For the seven days that the Bharati family hosted my kid and me, his daughter slept with her mother while Bharati baa slept on a bed outside, leaving his bed for us. In a short period, he and his family had offered us warmth that no riches could provide.

I ran to the Bharati home in one breath. There were only a few people there. One was on his phone, calling for a vehicle to take Bharati baa to the hospital in the plains. Another was feeling his chest to find a heartbeat. “Chha chha. It’s still beating; hurry and call a vehicle.”

I scanned the place to look for Bharati aama but in vain. “She is probably tired from singing all night,” I thought. Hom Kumari ran out of the kitchen with a handful of water and gently poured it down her father’s throat. She was still in her teacher’s uniform–pink Kurtha Suruwal with a border of Nepali Dhaka.

“He asked me not to go to school today. I should not have left…I should not have left,” she wailed repeatedly. One minute she was looking out on the road for the vehicle, and the other she was calling out ‘buwa’, ‘buwa’ looking at Bharati baa. I sat beside her and stroked her hair. “It will be alright. He will be alright,” I told her, repeating it as if it were a hymn. The Bolero arrived 45 minutes after the first call, and Bharati baa was ushered to the plains in no time. Before she left with Bharati baa, Hom Kumari asked me to look after Bharati aama until she arrived.

Someone got a call probably after an hour. It was true. Bharati baa was no more.

How will Bharati aama react to her husband’s death? How will I console her? Who will break the news to the poor lady? I felt faint with so many questions running through my head. In a couple of minutes, women from the village who were gathered at the house started searching for Bharati aama. They asked me where she was but I had not seen her since I had arrived. “Maybe she is sleeping in the hut,” I replied absently. I followed the women to the makeshift hut where Bharati aama lived. On hearing noises outside, she shouted, “Who is it? Who is there?”

“Come here, unfortunate woman. Let’s go out in the sun,” one of the women said, trying to get her out of bed.

I thought it best not to tell anything to Bharati aama right now. “Let’s leave it to the family to break the news, I don’t want to be a part of this, and I request you all do the same,” I told the women. The benefit of being a teacher in a rural area is that people agree with you without second thought.

“Where are you taking me? I don’t want to go.” Bharati aama started shouting. But the women grabbed Bharati aama and broke her bangles in her bedroom. Surprisingly, she did not fight back. The only sound in the air was that of shattered bangles. I looked at her. Her expression had changed. She did not know who these people were or what they were doing to her.

One of the women brought a jug of water. Two women held Bharati aama. Soon, they were washing the sindur (vermillion) off her hair. What I heard next from Bharati aama shocked me. “Don’t take me to the Bible. Don’t take me to church. I don’t want to be the Bible.” These were the phrases she kept repeating. When she could not do anything alone against eight grown women, she continued pleading with them until the end, “Leave me alone with my gods.”

Bharati aama has no idea she is wearing a white saree. Her plight dates back a decade when she lost sight in both of her eyes. As she was not taken to the hospital for treatment, she had lost her eyesight forever. But the myth in the village was that Bharati aama was blind because of a shaman who cursed her. She mumbles every night in a makeshift hut where she lives apart from the family; sometimes singing and sometimes talking to herself.

Her family does not care what business she talks about; they serve her first of every meal they cook in their narrow kitchen. She lost her husband to tuberculosis today, and she hasn’t the faintest idea.

“When do you plan on telling aama about buwa?” I asked Hom Kumari, a few days later when I visited the family with some oranges.

“If we tell her he is dead, she will walk into the cliffs,” she replied with a heavy sigh.

“But, buwa was the one serving her food. She must already be skeptical by now, isn’t she?” my curiosity led me to blurt out yet another question.

“Aama has already felt his absence. She thinks buwa left to marry another woman. She told me it was okay if he had found a woman who could take care of him,” Hom Kumari started sobbing. “I cannot imagine telling her about buwa. She might as well believe the truth that is in her head.”