"Leave, Gentle Spirit" by Neera Kashyap is a fascinating story narrated by an American ethnographer living in a small village in the Himalayas. Her mission there is to develop an in-depth understanding of the culture, folkways, religious beliefs and customs of women in the village, she learned to speak Hindi, widely spoken in the area. As much as possible she lives like the women she is researching..
(Ethnographic research is an approach that looks at: people in their cultural setting; ... their language, and the symbols, rituals and shared meanings that populate their world, with the object of producing a narrative account of that particular culture, against a theoretical backdrop.)
We can see how she preceives her mission:
"Like many ethnographers, I had learnt to live like the women I researched, becoming a part of their lives and their seasons. A year and a half and I could walk long distances like them, use the sickle and carry headloads of grass like the younger girls, even a bucket of water on my head without getting splashed. I learnt to dress like them, to cook the way they did, and to joke in between chores. Early on, I felt it was my white skin that kept me from belonging, but then I saw it was my reserve. I had been ready to leave in three months, at first, but not anymore after I began to relax. Now my life in the US felt more like a chimera. And this despite the fact that there was no heating, no running water, no TV, no reliable electricity, no entertainment, and food utterly different from what I was used to."
Ethnographers are not aloof observers studying their subjects from a blind. Ellen lives among the women she was researching. Slowly the women begin to make observation on Ellen. They wonder why she wears no gold. I loved this segment:
"Just as I would observe and record my target group — women — I had to submit to being observed and recorded as well. It was from our landlady Mansa Devi’s verandah upstairs that most of the laughter resonated. Sometimes, I was made to sit on a low stool so my hair could be massaged with mustard oil as it had been pronounced “too dry.” There was genuine astonishment that I wore no gold. One evening, some of the women put their own ornaments on me — necklaces of varying length, dangling earrings, bracelets, armlets, toe-rings, revealing my “beauty” to me in a cracked discoloured mirror.
Mansa Devi was struck by a thunderous thought. “But why are you not married still? Is there no one to arrange a match for you?” she asked.
“Maybe she is not marriageable,” Panna slyly suggested. Neema flew at her for her rudeness and tried to calm my ‘ruffled feathers’, but Mansa Devi came up with a solution: “Maybe we should find you a match. Not like us. Someone like you who is always writing, writing, writing… also who can talk like you in English… chutter putter chutter putter… there are men like that in our bigger towns… we will see.”
Kashyap elegantly individuates the personalities of the women. The region has few economic opportunities so most of the husbands are working in big cities or in the army, coming home maybe for two weeks of the year. The women run the households, take care of a few animals and usually a small plot of ground.
As the women begin to become comfortable with Ellen, she is able to learn more about their culture. Here is a beautiful story about a song:
"“It’s a nyoli — a forest song,” she finally offered. “A sad song, like when you miss somebody, no? Ghughuteeis a sort of bird. She sits on the branch of a mango tree. The singer feels sad when the ghughuteesings because the singing reminds her of her husband. He is in the army and posted far away in snowy Ladakh. There is war and she worries. It is the season of chait — you know chait? Spring! She misses him more because it is spring and everything looks beautiful. She wishes she had the ghughutee’swings to fly to him, to look at his face to her heart’s content. She knows she can’t… so she tells the ghughutee to do her a favor… to fly to her husband and tell him all that she feels for him.”
The women are all going tommorow to a religious ritual designed to drive what we can call evil spirits from a woman. They tell Ellen she may attend as long as she is not mensursting, if so she would poison the ritual.
There is a long account of the jagar:
"The story behind this jagar had done the rounds, so I was familiar with it. In Mansa Devi’s natal village in the valley below, an eighteen-year-old girl, Phula, had been possessed by the spirit of an old female relative who had died even before Phula was born. For two months, Phula acted increasingly crazy. While working in the fields, she would take off into the forest and disappear for hours together, only to return home looking wild, with no memory of the events of the day. She had eating disorders and often felt that an old woman was reaching for her. When she began to babble incoherently, her mother forced Phula to articulate what she could about what was going on with her.
Phula said it was an old woman, related to them through marriage, who’d possessed her. This woman had two daughters and no son. The daughters had married and moved away. The old woman had died both a widow and alone and had been unhappy at death. By the time one of her daughters could reach the village, the deceased woman’s house and land had been appropriated by her husband’s male relatives — Phula’s ancestors. The ghost wanted justice for her daughters who were still alive. Until then, she would stay in possession of Phula’s body and mind."
As the story closes Ellen is back in her apartment in the city, speaking with
a founder of an NGO devoted to helping the women Ellen studied:
"I stared at my desk – a flurry of papers, clothbound notebooks, writing pads, and stacks of red spiral notebooks. I read and re-read my session with Kamla Behnwhose name was underlined in my notebook in red: founder of NGO Sahaj, activist for livelihoods and health rights, my guide and mentor. At first, I had spent months with her and her staff, trying to understand the issues that affected the women.
Kamla Behnhad dismissed ghost-possession as superstition, not to be encouraged. She reeled off statistics on how this increased mortality rates especially in villages, as people simply would not take the sick to scientifically trained doctors or hospitals without the express permission of the family priest. Their spirit possession theory is not limited to cases of mental illness but extends to physical illness as well, she had said, her face warm with passion."
As I read this I thought of my wife's stories of native faith healers in very rural Zambales able to cure illnesses highly educated physicians could not. I know mapped over western science and Catholicism is something much older which gives strength. To discount it is a mistake I don't make.
"Leave, Gentle Spirit" is a wonderful work, deeply informed and wise. It deals with cultural divisions and gives us a look at life within the Himilayan region.
Neera Kashyap has worked as a newspaper journalist, as researcher and editor on environment and health, and as social and health communications specialist. She has published a book for young adults with Rupa & Co. titled Daring to Dream, 2003. Her stories for children have been included in five prize-winning anthologies published by Children’s Book Trust. As a literary writer of creative essays, poems and short fiction, her work has appeared in various online and print literary journals including Out of Print journal & Blog, Earthen Lamp Journal, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Muse India, Reading Hour and are forthcoming in Indian Literature and Papercuts. She lives in Delhi.
Next month we plan to post upon another of her short stories, "Quiet as a Feather", from India Review, 2018. The link is below
We hope to feature Neera Kashyap many more times.
Oleander Bouswesu
Mel u
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