Aunty Nako

Bhavna Kher writes about an obscure Himalayan village in the peak of an isolated winter where reticent Aunty Nako discovers a strange talent that changes the lives of everyone around her.

Illustrated by Bhuli Art.

A great wall of snow surrounded Aunty Nako’s house, distancing her from the world outside for four long months in winter.

Every year, in anticipation of this seasonal sabbatical from her worldly life, Aunty Nako diligently stocked her tiny Spitian nest with onions, potatoes, tea-leaves, sugar, rice, kerosene oil, spices and other essentials. Her home smelled faintly of mildew and was comfortable in its inherent dampness. In these abandoned months, the old woman and her husband carried out the routine chores – cleaning, cooking meals, chanting Buddhist hymns and sometimes, smoking sulfa. There was no TV or radio, and making love wasn’t a possibility anymore – for the years together had fully quietened their desire for each other. 

Seventy-year-old Aunty Nako was devoid of any texture. She had no talent or interests, no goals or ambition, no anxieties or insecurities. She was the quietest, most content creature around the village – displaying an antique serenity in her persona. The wrinkles on her face looked like tributaries of a tame river going about its course, sans any ripples. Dressed in a brown pattoo and red wool boots tied around the calf – stocky and with flesh hardened like leather – Aunty Nako lived her uneventful life, in an uncomplaining manner.  

The village she lived in was small enough to be covered on foot in two hours, that too if someone was an exceptionally slow walker.  Its highlights were its proximity to China, a geographical feature of no benefit and an 11th-century monastery, a part of which was perpetually under construction. A lone, stunted donkey was a permanent fixture on the stairs of the monastery – his eyes half-closed in meditation. The area it covered wasn’t much in terms of kilometres, however, in its own little capacity, the place was tough bread to chew. The terrain mostly treacherous and the climate, punishing. Surrounded by a purple mountain called Reo Purgyal, the village also had one small Tibetan eatery, one departmental store and two basic motels. The houses were small and built close enough to keep each other warm.

The only mode of entertainment in this remote Himalayan village was the game of carrom. Women would go to work while men struck round discs on the carrom board listlessly all day. Aunty Nako’s husband played too but she remained aloof from the carrom culture as well.

October was here. The weather was changing. Winter was announcing its arrival through winds from ice-bound passes and rows and rows of balding trees. Also, in the form of nights that had begun to shoot up all of a sudden. Soon, the village would be covered in sheets of snow and Aunty Nako, ready to step into another prolonged period of isolation. A creature of habit, she had stocked up her home with the necessary supplies. A carrom board, however, was a forced addition this year. With the last piece left, the shopkeeper had insisted, offering a discount and Aunty Nako was happy to be a pushover.  

One fine morning, Aunty Nako and her husband woke up to heavy snowfall. And a day later, expectedly, found themselves on the wrong side of the tall wall of snow. The contact with the outside world was broken once again, barring a single ray of light that managed to trespass through the ventilator. It is this very sunbeam that fell on the carrom board - the square piece of wood standing in some sort of punishment, facing one of the walls. The light drew Aunty Nako’s attention to the board and for the first time, she laid it flat before her.  

A nudge from within made her sit cross-legged on the floor and she gently placed the round discs and the striker on the board.  The unfamiliar, fresh sound of the discs on this wooden surface was a refreshing distraction from the mind-numbing monotony of her surroundings. Carrom had been a big part of the village ethos and so, her subconscious had picked up the basics of the game. She arranged the discs in the middle, like a flower – the queen disc as the pistil and the white and black discs as petals. She then took the striker and struck it forcefully with four fingers - the discs spread across the board, slipping in various directions, shattering the circle, creating their own rhythm. In this moment, something shifted inside Aunty Nako. It was like being touched for the very first time. Or, being touched by someone you yearned for, after years of holding back. The mysteries of the universe were communicating with her, after an extended spell of demystification. Aunty Nako hadn’t experienced any sensations in as long as she remembered but one forceful push of the striker stirred her in places she had forgotten existed - a rumbling in her stomach, chills on the crown of her head, a thump in her heart, a sort of flush on her face.

Aunty Nako experienced the signs of life. 

She began to play every day. The first few days with four fingers nervously stuck together, then with one awkward finger and eventually by forming a perfect circle with her index finger and thumb. She invariably played alone, arranging the discs in the middle, striking them into the circular corner pockets. Even a single disc tumbling into the net motivated her to practice for an hour or two after lunch regularly. Her husband was happy to see her pursue a hobby. 

Days went by, her aim got better and then one afternoon, she made a nice meal of potato curry with rice and right after lunch, invited her husband to play. 

He readily accepted her offer but that doesn’t mean things went her way thereafter - Aunty Nako lost the very first game she played.  Seeing the tower of discs on her husband’s side become taller than hers, Aunty Nako experienced a sense of competition and seething jealousy. It truly surprised her; she hadn’t felt like this ever before. Almost in the autumn of her life, Aunty Nako was suddenly becoming aware of herself. Although her new thoughts were not well-meaning and agreeable, yet the movement in her otherwise numb insides was terribly exciting for her.  

As days passed, she went deeper into the process of self-excavation. On the one hand, she had found envy lurking inside her but in another corner, there was also the drive to accomplish something. Aunty Nako now stretched the hours of practice. She would sit in front of the carrom board in a stoic meditative pose right after breakfast, then soon after lunch and through the evening under the feeble light of the lantern. Fifteen days of manic practice later, once again, she summoned her husband to become her opponent. 

This time around, Aunty Nako won hands down. Her aim, her focus, the strength with which she struck the discs had improved dramatically; she beat him black and blue – it was literally the colour of his nails by the time the game ended. She let out a triumphant scream, and laughter that contorted her face to look almost evil.

Victory had given her wings. She continued to play with her husband, beating him game after game. She had forgotten to cook or clean, sleep or eat, talk or think. Her fingers moved around the carrom board so swiftly and with such expertise – it felt like she was possessed by some greater power. Her husband began to pray for the snow to melt. Her obsession had begun to worry him. 

Four months later, as it always does, the snow melted. But unlike always, Aunty Nako did not step out with a mild hunch and a slowness of being – her walk, as a matter of fact, had completely changed. The village and its people, the mountains and the meditating donkey outside the monastery were frozen in time but the same could not be said about Aunty Nako. Her newly acquired skill had inflated her with pride and a shining confidence -there were conspicuous changes in both her demeanour and her behaviour. She began to nod when someone greeted her; her chin was always at a slight elevation, her chest broader and her nose a bit in the air. She now argued with shopkeepers, she wouldn’t give way to the shepherd and she was shrugging more than ever. Everyone was curious yet clueless about this transformation. 

Since the first victory, Aunty Nako had regularly served failure to her husband at multiple games of carrom but that wasn’t enough for her anymore. Her appetite had grown. Led by this insatiable hunger, Aunty Nako issued an open Sunday carrom challenge to the village. Some were surprised. Others, amused. Some thought of this as a pitiful side effect of old age. In the seven decades of being around, no one had seen Aunty Nako play a single game of carrom and now, all of a sudden, she wanted to organise a carrom championship.

The following Sunday, Aunty Nako woke up earlier than usual. She said her morning prayers, placed the carrom board on the porch outside her house, fixed herself some tea and began to wait for the participants. No-one turned up. The sun rose and came close to setting; Aunty Nako didn’t lose hope. The tea stall owner opposite her house finally let pity get the better of him. He rolled up his sleeves to humour her and volunteered to play with the silly old lady. A kid with flaky, parched cheeks and curious light brown eyes was the only spectator of this unique match. Aunty Nako rounded her fingers with steely determination and before her over-confident opponent could get into the groove, the old village woman beat him outright. He only managed to grab two discs. She had hunted the rest of them. 

The little boy ran across the village like a guerrilla advertisement of brand Aunty Nako. Word of her alarming victory had spread like wildfire. Soon after, more villagers turned up to snatch success from her wrinkled hands. But Aunty Nako was on a rampage and did not break her winning streak. One day slipped into the other, a handful of villagers turned into a long queue of village folk. With unfailing consistency, Aunty Nako kept crushing them at a game they had played all their lives. Many brushed off this sudden emergence of talent as a mysterious occurrence or an act of God. After all, how could a woman with no contours in her personality suddenly transform into an unbeatable champion? 

Small stalls came up around her house; womenfolk joined the audience and gaped at the spectacle while knitting booties for their unborn babies. The village had never experienced this kind of entertainment, nor had it ever been so alive. As days turned into months, Aunty Nako’s husband doubled up as her manager – for each lost game, he began to charge Rs50. People would play as if they were playing the lottery – one day, hoping to beat the old woman with the magic touch. The stakes had also peaked. The winner stood a chance to earn immortality in the annals of the village, for defeating the unbeatable Aunty Nako. The queues got longer and sometimes extended into miles – forcing hopeful participants from nearby villages to squat and exchange gossip while they waited their turn. 

The change was doing all kinds of things to Aunty Nako. From the once plain old local, she had now turned into the power-centre of the village. She was often temperamental, sometimes abusive, and whimsical. While she enjoyed free favours from the villagers, even the stunted monastery donkey had begun to follow her everywhere.

An entire summer saw the shenanigans of Aunty Nako. Until one day, nature’s clock silently ticked again and icy winds from the Himalayas began to blow, bringing news of the snow that was to follow. The curtain on the game of carrom and Aunty Nako’s wild dance of glory now had to pause for the upcoming winter months. The sleepy village that had been injected with life had no choice but to wait through winter. One October morning, on the ticking of nature’s clock, snowflakes began to gravitate towards the earth and in a few days, as always, rose up to cover the door of Aunty Nako’s house. Once again, she was behind it, in a long interval of sorts. 

Like every year, there she was – stocked up like before, isolated like always but with new dimensions to her being. Aunty Nako was now like a river that had suddenly discovered its own depths and currents. The carrom experience had expanded her in ways that could not shrink back.  Not much of a dreamer previously, homebound Aunty Nako now began to have vivid dreams. Most nights, she would lie awake but whenever she managed a few winks – the old woman would find herself in unfamiliar geographies. Flying alongside bearded hawks, floating on water, crossing gigantic bridges and running on long stretches of road. Months passed and the season changed. Not one to overstay its welcome, winter prepared for a timely exit and the snow began to melt. 

The village had waited patiently and finally on a clear day, in grand welcome of the luminary, a long queue of villagers gathered outside Aunty Nako’s house.

But she was missing. 

Sitting on the wooden floor, unable to speak the truth about his wife’s absence, her husband had gone mute in shock.  

Whispers indicate that Aunty Nako was last seen at the lowest hair-pin bend down the scissor road, going towards the confluence of Sutlej and Spiti river – on top of the stunted donkey, her carrom board tied firmly to a rope. 

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Bhavna Kher is an independent writer and creative consultant. Her writing is deeply influenced by her travels and her fascination for the human condition.