Hello, my name is Sudha, but people here call me Suva. I was born and brought up in the United States to the Nepalese immigrants from Nepal. My parents came to the States in the 1960s. They told me that they had just gotten married when my father, an electrical engineer, was offered a teaching position by the University of Pennsylvania. So, he left my mother with his family and flew to the US in pursuit of a better life in America.
At the time my father left, he was not sure that my mother was pregnant (with me) and neither was my mother. My mother had suspected that something was going on inside of her belly and had told her husband (my father) before he left, but she was embarrassed to let the family know about this. “Besides,” my mother whispered in my ear, "your father didn’t want me to report my missing period to his family or mine”.
Like this one, my mother had told me many such secrets of her and my father when I was a kid. I was too young to comprehend the grown ups' issues at that time. But now I understand perfectly why my father -- a young man of 27 year old would not want to report his family that his wife was pregnant.
My parents’ Hindu tradition was that a girl during her first four days of her period (menstruation) could not sleep with her husband and live separately from all her family members and others. She need to sleep in a bed made mostly out of straws, use only the tin-utensils (e.g., stainless steel cups and plates, etc.) to eat and drink from, clean these utensils right after finish eating and dry them completely before others could use them again.
There is a whole series of rituals Hindu ladies go through during their period. It’s a long story but very interesting one, one of my friends who was born in India says. When I told her my own story about this issue, she urged me to write about it and publish. “There will be a lot of interest for this kind of story,” she said. I’m not sure there will be such interest, but I think the immigrants’ children, like us, will appreciate it.
So, here it is. It's one of the incidences with regards to menstruation and how my traditional relatives treated me when I visited back home quite a few years ago:
My mother and I were longing to see my father's birthplace for many years, so we made it happen in my last visit to Nepal with my mom.
My father’s side of families are from the district of Palpa, in western Nepal, originally. They lived in a remote village, of about less than two thousand families living there when I visited. This was my father's ancestral place, away from the city where my father and his siblings later migrated.
It was the summer time. The weather was pleasant during the days, but got colder early in the mornings and evenings.
We reached there after a day's straight walk and that was after we had one whole day’s bus ride! We’re quite exhausted by the time we reached there. My father's extended families gave us a heartfelt welcome and made us feel right at home once we got to know them.
As the evening got darker, more and more neighbors came to see us with some sweets that I had never tasted before. The name of the sweet was “Kurauni” and it was made by thickening the milk. Kurauni was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted! When I asked my cousins how it was made, they told me that it’s got its own long story, but I got the sense that this is the 'real' thing behind all sorts of milky-sweets made in Nepal. Except, it is called '"khua" in Kathmandu, where my other relatives live.
Getting back to my story, the neighbors asked us all kinds of questions. Since I was new to all of them and could not speak their language fluently, my mother and the cousins did all the talking and replying. I just listened attentively and shook my head “yes” or “no” when the questions were directed at me. However, I could make simple conversations in Nepali, but they had very heavy accent that I could hardly make out what they were asking!
At the time my father left, he was not sure that my mother was pregnant (with me) and neither was my mother. My mother had suspected that something was going on inside of her belly and had told her husband (my father) before he left, but she was embarrassed to let the family know about this. “Besides,” my mother whispered in my ear, "your father didn’t want me to report my missing period to his family or mine”.
Like this one, my mother had told me many such secrets of her and my father when I was a kid. I was too young to comprehend the grown ups' issues at that time. But now I understand perfectly why my father -- a young man of 27 year old would not want to report his family that his wife was pregnant.
My parents’ Hindu tradition was that a girl during her first four days of her period (menstruation) could not sleep with her husband and live separately from all her family members and others. She need to sleep in a bed made mostly out of straws, use only the tin-utensils (e.g., stainless steel cups and plates, etc.) to eat and drink from, clean these utensils right after finish eating and dry them completely before others could use them again.
There is a whole series of rituals Hindu ladies go through during their period. It’s a long story but very interesting one, one of my friends who was born in India says. When I told her my own story about this issue, she urged me to write about it and publish. “There will be a lot of interest for this kind of story,” she said. I’m not sure there will be such interest, but I think the immigrants’ children, like us, will appreciate it.
So, here it is. It's one of the incidences with regards to menstruation and how my traditional relatives treated me when I visited back home quite a few years ago:
My mother and I were longing to see my father's birthplace for many years, so we made it happen in my last visit to Nepal with my mom.
My father’s side of families are from the district of Palpa, in western Nepal, originally. They lived in a remote village, of about less than two thousand families living there when I visited. This was my father's ancestral place, away from the city where my father and his siblings later migrated.
It was the summer time. The weather was pleasant during the days, but got colder early in the mornings and evenings.
We reached there after a day's straight walk and that was after we had one whole day’s bus ride! We’re quite exhausted by the time we reached there. My father's extended families gave us a heartfelt welcome and made us feel right at home once we got to know them.
As the evening got darker, more and more neighbors came to see us with some sweets that I had never tasted before. The name of the sweet was “Kurauni” and it was made by thickening the milk. Kurauni was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted! When I asked my cousins how it was made, they told me that it’s got its own long story, but I got the sense that this is the 'real' thing behind all sorts of milky-sweets made in Nepal. Except, it is called '"khua" in Kathmandu, where my other relatives live.
Getting back to my story, the neighbors asked us all kinds of questions. Since I was new to all of them and could not speak their language fluently, my mother and the cousins did all the talking and replying. I just listened attentively and shook my head “yes” or “no” when the questions were directed at me. However, I could make simple conversations in Nepali, but they had very heavy accent that I could hardly make out what they were asking!
To make my story short, I was enjoying the supper that evening with about seventeen extended family members. Suddenly, I felt something cold and wet running in my panty. I figured what might had happened to me (this was my third period) and shivered with fear. I knew I’d have to leave my dinner and separate from everyone and spend the first four days in a dark dungeon, for there is a tradition that all girls have to be hide from the public for 12 days for the first time, 7 days for the second time and 4 days for the third time. My mother had told all this even before I went to Nepal. So, I decided not tell anyone what was going on with me. However, I had to tell a girl in the family to get her help in this very difficult time of mine!
That evening, I did not use the regular toilet (there the toilet was made out of a pit dug on the ground and two wooden planks laid across on top to sit with legs apart) for the fear that I might “drip” and someone will notice. I went farther away deep into the woods where no one could see me. Then, I stuffed all the toilet tissues we’d carried with us to use during our stay there. We knew that we would need to use outdoor toilet and there would be no running water or toilet tissues to clean afterward. However, now that I used up all the tissues for another purpose, I didn't know where to throw those soaked tissues without somebody seeing it or some animals picking on it.
Back at my family’s home, they were going to have a big gathering (kind of reunion) the next day. Early in the morning, my great-aunt hollered out, “Get up all boys and girls, it’s already 5:30 in the morning. Girls fetch the water and heat it in the pot I’ve made ready for you on the front lawn. Keep the water boiling until Ram does his business. Boys take the other animals to their pasture before Ram arrives...”.
Ram was a man, actually a boy about 18 - 19 years old, lived next door our great aunt. Apparently he like chopping goats' heads in that village. Everybody called him “Ram is good” “He does it at one shot." "He is great!”
The boys were my third and fourth cousins. They got up obediently with our great aunt's shout, washed their face and chassed the animals to near by jungle for grazing. We, girls, carried few buckets of water and started the fire to boil it, so the men (man relatives) could clean the freshly slaughtered goat after Ram kills it with an axe.
I remember how my cousins and I were grossed out with the whole situation there that day! I was never for killing, anything. I couldn’t even kill an ant during my childhood or the adolescent years. I hated the idea of killing an innocent animal for food. I still do! But I could not tell that to my relatives there. Moreover, my mother knew how I felt and she was keeping her eyes on me. There was no chance for me to make any un-friendly remarks to my relatives! And, my girl-cousins loved eating meat even though they didn’t like the killing part.
So, my cousins and I boiled the water until Ram arrived, then ran to the woods before he did anything we didn’t want to see. We were enjoying the delicious fresh berries until our great-aunt hollered us back.
Coming back to my story, I was fully soaked and had started to leak by the time we were called back. I started crying out of the fear and my cousins started scolding me, “You horrible girl from America. What do we do now?” Then, they suddenly started laughing. They laughed so hard, widening their eyes, covering their mouth, steering and gazing at each other. “She hid the whole thing up to now,” said one of the cousins at last and laughed again.
One of the cousins asked me to stay there and ran home to collect some rags for me to use. Others attended great-aunt and did what she asked them to do so.
One the cousin return with the rags, she started to instruct me, "You're not to touch the Gods and Goddesses outside and inside of our great-aunt's home. I was also to stay away from all the foods our families were to eat.
The day before my mom and I was going to return to Kathmandu, my cousins hugged me one-by-one and whispered in my ears, “You want to change our tradition, right? Well, this you did!” All of the conversations with our families there were in Nepali, of course!, but I could understand most everything by the time we left the Palpa.
My visit with my father’s side of families would have been a horrible memory had I not have my cousins so understanding and accommodating. My cousins told me all kinds of stories -- story that how some animals had visited in their neighborhood and had eaten their dogs and chicken right out of their coupe; story about a pregnant woman who had met a rhino (rhinoceros) few years ago while she was on her way to the jungle to collect some woods. Apparently, the poor woman had carried some popcorn in her waist for lunch and the rhino had ripped-open her stomach after smelling the food. Rhino loves popcorns that much;I did not know!
In another story, they told me about a man who was chassed by a tiger and how the other men walking by at that very moment had rescued him by throwing their axe at the tiger and how the tiger had ran away, etc., etc...
My cousins also briefed me on the rituals Hindu girls are forced to follow when they start their period. They said that I was lucky it was not my first or second time. "More sin I would have committed if it was", they said.
Apparently, the tradition there is that when a Hindu girl gets her first period, she needs to be hidden away from her father, brothers and all other males for 12 days; second time 7 days and the third time for 5 or 4 days. Usually the girls would be sent away at their neighbor’s or relative’s home where they spend their whole days in a small dark room, usually made for storing things (storage room), they explained. They said that the girls could not see the sun or any man or hear men’s voice during those days. “Especially their they could not see or hear their brothers' voices or let them hear her voice.
The superstition was that the consequence of a girl seeing (or be seen), hear (or be heard) her brother during her first three periods could be deadly--mental or physical injury believed to occur to the brothers/father as a consequence!
My cousins not only protected me from the animals but also from the villagers and distant relatives who made fun about the way I dressed up (I wore pants and shirts, instead of the frocks and long dresses the unmarried girls did there) and the way I spoke with the American accents. My cousins were always there whenever I needed them. I was like a queen bee and they were my army. They assured me that I could do what I wanted, irrespective to what others had asked me to do.
I became vegetarian for a period of 2 years after I returned to America, and although, I didn’t follow those rituals when my own girls got their period in the US many years later, I kept feeling guilty inside of me. In my sub-conscious mind the whole ordeal of period kept creeping and I determined not to pass this stupid tradition on to my next generation!
Philosophically, I tell my girls the staying away from everyone during the menstruation period is a good idea. They were preventing the germs from spreading to others by sleeping on the straw-bed and eating from the tin-utensils.
Note: Not all Hindus follow exactly these rituals. Suva's story explains how girls' menstruation is dealt in some Hindu communities. If this story inspired you and you want to know how other religions deal with their girls' menstruation, here are a few links to visit:
http://www.milknhoney.co.il/holy/4.html
http://www.mum.org/religcel.htm
http://sisters.islamway.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=448
No comments:
Post a Comment