March in the Mountains

Krishna Upadhyaya

Around midday, on a cloudy, lukewarm day, exactly three weeks after the death of Ramesh, Janaki was in her room for an hour’s rest. She then saw a boy running on the cleared hilltop positioned next to the barracks. The next day, at the same time, he was running to the hilltop again. She curiously noted him doing the same thing for the next two days, always by himself. One day, after lunch, before he made his way to the top, she went up to him and asked, ‘Why are you going up to the hilltop every day, Comrade?’ 

‘Come with me, I will show you,’ he said. Curious and slightly apprehensive, Janaki followed him. 

‘I know you and Ramesh used to sit here,’ he continued gazing down to the Rapti River after arriving at the hilltop where Ramesh and Janaki used to sit. 

‘How do you know?’ she asked, surprised. 

‘Ramesh told me on the day before he died.’ 

‘What did he say?’ Janaki gazed at him, trying her hardest not to show her sadness. ‘He said he felt the happiest ever in his life sitting and chatting with you here as you both were in love.’ 

‘We were,’ she said softly. She suddenly had flashbacks of Ramesh softly holding her flickering hair from her face and giving her a soft, caring kiss on her lips. Her neck suddenly felt clamped and blocked, and her tears burst out of her eyes uncontrollably. She just could not get over him –she had not returned to the hilltop since his death, and coming back just brought out her pain as if his death occurred yesterday. Embarrassed, she quickly composed herself and wiped away her tears. The boy looked awkward but hesitatingly continued. 

‘He knew before we knew that we would attack the police post’. He solemnly said as he knew how deeply affected Janaki was. ‘And he said that any of us might die.’ 

‘So?’ 

‘If one of us died, this would be the place to come and show respect to the dead. Ramesh said that this was the place he loved to be in the most. And I feel that I am with him when I come here. I pay my love and respect for him in this place. I feel a part of him still lingering around this hilltop,’ he narrated. 

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, looking at him curiously yet cynical. ‘You don’t believe that spirits wander around after death, do you?’ she asked, burrowing her eyes into his, almost penetrating him. 

‘No’, he said nervously. ‘I mean like my mother used to say that she could sometimes feel the spirit of my grandfather when she went to an orange tree he planted for her when she was a child. Who knows, maybe the spirits of our loved ones visit us sometimes when we call out to them, even if we call them in our heads’. 

‘You were his best friend?’ 

‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘We left home together, walked hungry together in the forests and joined the party together. We are from the same village, the same clan, and we are cousins’. 

‘So you are Pun as well?’ Janaki asked. She looked at him. He looked like his brother, same voice, same height and similar age. 

‘Yes, I am Dinesh Pun’, he said. 

‘You look his carbon copy, and your voice is similar to his’, she observed. 

‘Coming here, I remember all our times together.’ He said thoughtfully. 

‘Oh’, said Janaki. ‘I love the emotions I feel when I come here. I feel like I am with him, but I cannot even imagine being here all alone.’ 

‘I can join you if you want. This place haunts me every time I come here, but I can’t keep away from it’, assured Dinesh. 

Since then, they went to the hilltop every day to ‘feel Ramesh’s spirit.’ This happened every day until they were both moved to the Myagdi hills in February 2004.

March in the Mountains is an excerpt from Krishna Upadhyaya's newly published novel The Ghosts in the Hills. Mr. Upadhyaya has been active in human rights and anti-slavery work for more than three decades through campaigns, development interventions, research and teachings. He received his PhD from SOAS (University of London) on 'International Humanitarian Law and Vulnerability: The Tharu Experience of Nepal's Internal Armed Conflict'. Born in Nepal and raised in Assam (India), he has extensively worked in and on the issues of human rights in the countries of South Asia. He currently resides in London.