This 1950s classic of Nepali literature, published in the United
States for the first time, traces with great simplicity the life of
a family in a traditional village.Dhane Basnet is a farmer with a
wife and three-year-old son. His desire is a universal one: He only
"wants to burst through the net of his money problems and bring his
little family happiness and the cool shade of peace." But things in
his life suddenly, heartbreakingly, start to go wrong. He "leases"
a buffalo and is obligated to pay interest on it every month. While
Dhane confidently "expected to profit from the buffalo in every
way," the buffalo's calf is stillborn and Dhane quickly falls
behind in his payments. He's then rescued by the well-to-do Nande,
who lends him money to buy oxen and rents him land on which to
plant his crops, but he makes Dhane put up his own house and land
as collateral on this loan. More disaster strikes when Nande's
spoiled son Sane diverts water from the fields Dhane hopes to plant
and then in an act of petty revenge lets his water buffalo trample
the seedlings. In a rage Dhane kills the water buffalo and is
assessed a fine far beyond his capacity to pay. His life continues
to spiral out of control when his young sister Jhuma innocently
flirts with and is later raped by a soldier, an outsider to the
community, bringing shame on the family. Dhane eventually undergoes
a radical transformation - "having suffered so many blows of fate,
he had become hard" - and by the end he and his family lose their
house and land and are forced out of the village, not knowing where
the next stage of their journey will take them. A moving novel of
social realism. (Kirkus Reviews)
Since its publication in the late 1950s, "Mountains Painted with
Turmeric" has struck a chord in the hearts of hundreds of thousands
of Nepali readers. Set in the hills of far eastern Nepal, the novel
offers readers a window into the lives of the people by depicting
in subtle detail the stark realities of village life.
Carefully translated from the original text, "Mountains Painted
with Turmeric" tells the story of a peasant farmer named DhanA(c)
(which means, ironically, "wealthy one") who is struggling to
provide for his wife and son and arrange the marriage of his
beautiful younger sister. Unable to keep up with the financial
demands of the "big men" who control his village, DhanA(c) and his
family suffer one calamity after another, and a series of quarrels
with fellow villagers forces them into exile.
In haunting prose, Lil Bahadur Chettri portrays the "dukha," or
suffering and sorrow, endured by ordinary peasants; the
exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful; and the social
conservatism that twists a community into punishing a woman for
being the victim of a crime. Chettri describes the impoverishment,
dispossession, and banishment of DhanA(c)'s family to expose
profound divisions between those who prosper and those who are
slowly stripped of their meager possessions. Yet he also conveys
the warmth and intimacy of village society, from which DhanA(c) and
his family are ultimately excluded.
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