Before you read this, please read another thread of mine that says: "First Day in Nepal." Without reading that first, this will make no sense at all. This is part two.
Second Day
I shared my bathroom with my brother and sister-in-law since we were the only ones occupying the second floor. I had a minor jetlag. On my second day in the country I woke up around 5:30 AM. When I wake up, I literally sleepwalk to the bathroom. Perhaps that is the only discipline I have maintained throughout my life. Everyone knows that. That’s why my brother had posted a lengthy message on the bathroom door that read:
“It’s your bowel movement, I can’t control it, but if you wake up early, can you hold it till 6:30? There is no water in the bathroom right now. And I have not flushed my share; it’s still out there. I shouldn’t have eaten the entire box of cheese you brought from the Duty Free.”
He had left another message just below the first one with instructions on how to hold a bowel movement for an extended period of time. The postscript read:
“Here is my tip on how to hold it. Bend your body and hold your knees with your hands. After a minute or two, walk to your bed and sit down on your knees with your head resting on the bed. That should help you hold for at least an hour or two. Because of lack of water in kathmandu in the last several years, we have become professional holders. Trust me, if you just follow these holding maneuvers, you should be ok. Caution: don’t shake yourself; you’re not opening a can of Tuna. My prayers are with you. Good luck!”
Mind you, my brother is a medical doctor.
Perhaps I was holding my knees too tightly, or I was not bending properly. The maneuvers that my brother had recommended did not seem work on me. My intestines started gusting like a python that had just swallowed a live chicken. I was in tears when I heard footsteps outside. I could not run, so I crawled to the door, my hands still holding my knees.
It was my father outside. I sat down on my knees outside the door and covered my face with my hands. I was in agony. My father asked, “What are you doing? Don’t tell me that you have converted to Islam.”
My family is truly funny, but sometimes our jokes can be quite untimely—especially when you are 32, and only seconds away from soiling your trousers.
“Nature’s call,” I replied gnashing my teeth.
My father intentionally wanted me to be more specific: “Which number?” For some strange reason he asked me that question in English.
Having lived in America for eight years, I semi-shouted in English as well: “Does it look like number one to you?” Then I immediately restrained my voice because shouting was not helping me control the flow of food residue in my small intestine that was approaching my colon.
My father quickly proposed, “Then go to Raam’s bathroom downstairs, he always saves some water.”
Having known Raam’s hygiene and cleanliness, I replied, “Rather than using that gypsy’s bathroom, I’ll release myself on my pants and wear these pants to the wedding.”
There was a resolution of sort in my voice that made my father formulate another idea, he offered, “Then go to the bathroom upstairs next to the family room. I will go pump some water to the tank downstairs. Then I will pump it again to the tanks upstairs. You should get water in that bathroom in the next 20 minutes or so. Just remain in the bathroom.”
Before my father finished his sentence I hobbled upstairs. I did not care how long I needed to be in the bathroom. I absolutely needed to purge myself. I was bloated like a gluttonous pregnant woman on her 41st week.
I found out we get water on alternate days from 6 AM till 9 AM. My father wakes up before 6 during the days when we get water. There is a pump attached to our main reservoir tank downstairs that pumps water from the main source. It is illegal. But everyone in the neighborhood has been doing it for more than a dozen years. Otherwise, the force in the main pipe that runs from the source is not strong enough to supply even a gallon of water to our tank.
That morning when I heard the footsteps, my father was on his way to his ‘Alternate Day Water Embezzle’ operation. He needed to pump water before our neighbor, Dr. Banstola, started his machine. Dr. Banstola, who lives right behind us, I heard, has recently bought a water pump that has three times more Horsepower than our pump. My father had warned me, “If Dr. Banstola wakes up before us there will be no water left for us.”
I was very angry with Dr. Banstola for buying that Indian pump that carried water three times faster than our Chinese pump. That very moment I avowed not to invite he and his family to my wedding reception. I secretly declared a Water Jihad on the man with an Indian water pump.
To make the water matter worse, my father has rented out the ground floor. I don’t know how many people live downstairs, but I am yet to see the same person twice. That is one huge family. I have seen less people march in Washington DC holding signs that read: “Cut Down on H-1B Visas, Americans Need to Work Too.”
Not just the quantity, in Kathmandu the quality of drinking water is quite bad. So bad that the sign on top of the drinking water fountain at my nephew’s school reads: “The school clinic is on your right.”
To be continued…
