Almost Done
I’m polishing the final draft of Sacred Threads, my ethnographic memoir on marrying into a Brahman family in Nepal and the ties that have deepened and endured through knotty cultural conflict and painful unravelings for more than twenty years.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2, published in abbreviated form as “Meeting My Future in the Dark,” in The Raven Chronicles.
A LONG NIGHT
Anthropology…is the study of men in crisis by men in crisis
– Stanley Diamond, Reinventing AnthropologyJanuary 1985 ~ Paush 2042
After nearly twenty-four hours of overland travel from New Delhi, I entered Pramod’s homeland for the first time at the nondescript border town of Bhairawa. Like beads broken off a cheap necklace, ramshackle buildings made of cement, wood and tin lined the muddy highway.
A second year doctoral student in anthropology, I planned to study poverty and social inequality in India and tried to temper desire for postcard images of Nepal. But I had come to the country to meet my potential in-laws and secretly longed for a hint of beauty in my future: hillsides dotted with red rhodedendrons, rice paddies carved from steep slopes, snowy peaks so high they appeared more rooted in clouds than earth.
On the crowded bus ride to Narayanghat, dense fog – and later, a moonless night – hid the famous landscape. Recovering from what a Delhi doctor called gastroenteritis, I hadn’t held down more than yogurt and boiled rice for several days. My stomach hosted a war between churning nausea and fierce hunger. The odors of masala, peanuts, urine, chai, vomit, and cigarettes from fellow passengers appeasing their own bodily battles intensified the discomfort. I consoled myself with pride. Although I hoped to marry a Nepali, I doubted I would everspend much time in Nepal. I wrote it off as a place for tourists, seekers of enlightenment and anthropologists who study shamans and tantric rituals. I was proud not be to be any of those, proud to have little interest in Nepal….
Where You Can Read More
Trust me, I’ll let you know when Sacred Threads is published and available for purchase. Meanwhile, you can read excerpts in these literary journals:
“Natural Births,” The Gettysburg Review, Spring 2009 (Honorable Mention for the 2011 Pushcart Prize).
“Ama,” The Crab Orchard Review, Spring 2009 (Finalist for the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize and 2010 Press 53 Open Award for Creative Nonfiction, and Notable in Best America Essays 2010)
“Fieldnotes on Flooding in Nepal,” The Truth About the Fact: International Journal of Literary Nonfiction, Spring 2009. A few copies may still available for purchase at Small Press Distributors.
“Witnessing Indra’s Sin,” Fishtrap Anthropology 2008: Speaking Truth.
“Meeting My Future in the Dark,” The Raven Chronicles, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2011.
