Kanchi and I had
just finished putting on our red saris when a neighbor woman began yelling for
Kanchi from the road. The rapid-fire Nepali was incomprehensible to me, but
Kanchi spit some phrases back, told me to “Jaum! Jaum! [Go! Go!]” and grabbed a
handful of rupees as we sprinted out the door.
Down at the bazaar, we joined a group of women from the community, all
dressed in red saris and gold jewelry. Many of the recently married girls had
returned to their maternal home to celebrate Teej, a Hindu women’s festival, with
their mothers and sisters.
“Where are we
going?” I asked Kanchi.
“To Koteshwar [an area of town]; we’ll
go there and come right back.”
“Why?” I was rather
perplexed: there was no major temple in Koteshwar; weren’t they going to do puja [worship] to Shiva on behalf of
their husbands, as the holiday dictated?
She said something
about the jhagada [fight] and going
to the person it concerned. There had been a disturbance in the village that
morning, which Kanchi had just described to me as “jhagada.” I assumed fist-fight
and didn’t think about it again. But now it looked like the women of the
community were going to show up somewhere and give a person their two cents
about whatever the fight had been about—dressed in their red and gold finery
not less. They would make a firey sight.
A few minutes later,
the women piled into a bus—young, old, married, unmarried, a few widows, and
not a few young boys coming with their mothers—and we made our way to
Koteshwar, a large transportation hub on the edge of Kathmandu.
When the bus stopped
in front of the Koteshwar police post, my stomach flipped. The women all piled
out of the bus and into the police station. I was swept along with the crowd,
and steered in specific directions by Kanchi. Soon, the women were yelling
various phrases at the police chief standing on the porch, and began to push
inward towards the police station office door. I stayed in the back of the
crowd, trying to get out of the thick of the movement of people.
As I was unable to
understand her answers to my many questions, Kanchi directed me to some of her
female relatives who could explain the situation to me in English. “Last night,
a woman’s husband beat her,” one young woman explained, “the husband and
father-in-law are inside [the jail].” She asked Kanchi, in Nepali, who I was.
Kanchi explained that I was the doctor’s daughter, who had diagnosed her son’s
disease; as a close family friend, I was here celebrate Teej. “We’re her daughters,” the young woman
described her relationship, and the women with whom she was standing, to
Kanchi. I assumed she meant nieces, or the wives of Kanchi’s nephews, as Ashok
was her only son. “You look very nice in that red sari,” she smiled at me.
Turning the
conversation back to the issue at hand, I asked Kanchi why we were here. “Samajko laagi! [for the community!]” was
her reply, and looked at me like it should all make sense now. The crowd
continued to shout incomprehensible Nepali phrases in unison at the police chief
and other officers gathered on the porch.
The crowd was not
only made up of women—a number of men had shown up as well. “These are men from
[our village]” Kanchi told me, “and from the woman’s maithi [maternal home/village]. We’re all here to support her [sahayog dine ko laagi].” It appeared
that it was the woman’s word against those of her in-laws, and the community
was there to vouch for the woman. The sea of women in red and gold—many of them
in their wedding saris, and all their gold jewelry designating them as married
women—made a bright contrast to the overcast day and dreary, muddied police
station yard. Raising fists in the air, shouting phrases together, and pushing
in on the police, these women made an intimidating force.
There were a few
journalists and television reporters present. I did my best to stay out of the
cameras’ eyes as they interviewed the woman who had been beaten. The women had
all pushed her to the front of the camera, and handed her a bottle of water to
drink—all the women present were sitting a complete fast that day; by drinking
water, this woman was breaking her fast, and doing her husband a disfavor.
While all that was
going on, various women of the community recognized me and came over to
talk—when did I get back in Nepal? How long would I be here for? How was my
family? And I looked really nice in that red sari, by the way; it really became
me.
A number of
policemen in blue fatigues began gathering on the upper levels of the police
station, watching the crowd and particularly honing in on me. Their relentless stares
from behind a line of heavy black boots along the balcony edges made me feel
small. I had my back to a TaTa truck used for transporting these police to
various places around the city; inside various riot gear—padding, helmets,
bamboo sticks—hung at the ready.
The women began to
sit down in convenient places to gossip and socialize. The younger children who had come along with their mothers ran around the police yard, chasing each other and munching on chips or snack noodles, holding the colorful packages in their fists. Some of the more
restless members of the group ran to the main road and threatened to enforce a chakka jam [traffic strike]. A few of
the policemen put on riot gear and meandered to the street to make sure that
didn’t happen. I rather suddenly noticed that there were no women police at the
station. I also finally registered that none of the police were in the blue
traffic uniforms either, but in the armed police fatigues.
“So why are we still
here?” I asked Kanchi. “Oh, I don’t know; we’ll see,” was her reply. She began
to discuss the situation on rapid village slang with the women sitting next to
her. She obviously did not share my consternation, and was glad of the
opportunity to socialize with relatives and neighbors and take a break from the
manual labor daily required by her family's farm. I was seriously considering
going back to the village, but for some reason, felt safer staying with Kanchi.
I continued to sit on the porch next to her, and hopelessly follow the
conversations around me.
Soon, a truckload of
police in riot gear showed up. The police chief told the women that they had
just come from a routine round. The police got out of the truck, but did not
take their gear off—they began to just wander around the compound. A few struck
up conversation with the women, who were glad to inform them why their
community was at the police station.
We waited at the
police station for four hours. Nobody seemed bored though; everyone but me had
a rather festive attitude. The women began to make jokes about how they didn’t
have the opportunity to make merry [raimailo
garne] today—usually, they’d be doing puja
at the temple, then singing and dancing as they sat out their fast. They would
have fun the day after tomorrow, on rishi
panchami, the final day of Teej. Kanchi was kept just as busy explaining
who I was as she was gossiping about the current situation.
Suddenly, a police
truck showed up and everyone became roused from their more relaxed positions to
merge as a crowd again. Kanchi pulled me off the bench we had been sitting on,
and pushed me off the porch. I turned around to see the police, in their riot
gear, make a human barrier with themselves all along the open porch on which
most of us had been sitting. The truck had apparently brought another family
member; whether they were complicit in the beating or here to vouch for the
woman, I wasn’t sure. The crowd began to shout again, but after a while, they
seemed satisfied.
As quickly as we had
arrived, we left. All the women piled back into the bus—which was waiting for
us outside the station—and we made our way back to the village. As the women
lamented the fact that they had not had opportunity to make merry as usually,
the bus driver put on the latest Teej tunes, and the women standing in the bus
aisle began to dance, as much as they could, in that crowded, moving bus. The
women who were seated clapped and sang to the lyrics.
When we got home, I
smothered Ashok—Kanchi’s son—with questions in English. What had I just been
unknowingly complicit in?! He explained that the woman in question had been
habitually abused by her in-laws; she had been beaten again last night and the
husband and father in law had been taken to the Koteshwar jail. The whole village
knew about the situation—they were neighbors after all—and they had gone to
support her case. One of his female cousins then showed up to gossip more about
the incident. After a while, I gave up trying to follow her rapid village
slang, punctuated with hand motions, laughter and giggles, and hushed tones.
Kanchi and I
eventually made it to the local mandir
[temple], where Kanchi performed the required oblations to Shiva. Many of the
women had gathered to sing and dance. There was a large speaker from which
issued the latest Teej songs, ranging in genre from dohori git
[song-duels], lok git [folk songs] to disco teej (which many of the younger
school girls were excited about). Kanchi danced, and the younger girls
eventually persuaded me to hand my camera to one of them so they could take
pictures of me dancing.
While these are the
more typical scenes of Teej—dancing and singing at the mandir while sitting out a complete fast on behalf of your
husband’s wellbeing (and if you’re unmarried, then as part of requesting a good
husband)—the movement at the police station was not exactly out of place
either. Teej has become a platform for voicing women’s rights, especially in
line with social justice. Most of the abuses women endure in Nepal come from
the hands of family members, most commonly in-laws. Showing up to support a
woman’s case against her husband and in-laws for beating her is now just as in line
with the spirit of Teej as is taking time off from housework and labor to
socialize, have fun with female friends and relatives, and pray to a deity on
behalf of your husband or husband-to-be. I happened to experience both in one
day.
