I knew her well.
I knew Priya as I knew myself. She was my best friend. The only flaw she had according to my Lata (mute) Baje was that she was believed to be a granddaughter of a witch; a Boksi.
Her grandmother was from an unknown tribe from the plains. To be honest, her grandmother was the most wonderful lady in our village; she fed me lunch whenever I was at her house with Priya.

• 

My parents made sure to send me off to my grandparents in the tea estate during my winter Vacation, I was treated like a celebrity there. As I was marked bazarey, someone from the bazaar (town); I enjoyed the attention. Some of my playmates like Priya had never been out of the glen, some I believe have only heard tales of merry go round and ice cream on wafer cones.
I made sure to treat her with sweets, whenever I made a visit. My mother used to pack a separate bag for Priya filled with delicacies from town and some clothes that I had outgrown. Priya was small, petite girl unlike me.
I usually spent my birthdays with her, which fell on the Christmas Eve. My Dasai too was spent with my grandparents and her. She didn’t know her birthday, her granny was so careless and illiterate to note it down. Though her mother was working somewhere in Delhi. She was a fatherless child, who was more or less an orphan raised by her senile grandmother.

• 

When I asked her granny about Priya’s birthday she once said that she was born in Vadaw (monsoon ) and curtly said that it was why she was a cursed child. She separated her parents at birth, killed one without being involved. That was the power of a Vadaw born. That was how her granny spoke about her. She was never kind. Now, when I think about her harsh words, maybe she was Boksi because of that.
It was later I came to know, Priya’s mother eloped after giving birth to her and her father died due to excess intake of illicit alcohol.
My parents and grandparents weren’t bothered about the superstitions and rumours that surrounded our small village. They knew Priya’s grandmother well.
They knew that witches and spirits are an illusion that humans feed themselves to avoid reality. For Priya and her grandmother it was one horrid reality.
They survived on a meager salary of tea workers that she received, 90 rupees per day. Priya went to a government school but she hated studying. Whenever I came to the village I gave her books to read and taught her few English words. She loved learning, she was curious I don’t know why she hated her school.
I had a mute grandfather, not entirely voiceless but he spoke in words incoherent. He was my grandfather’s half brother who lived with us. I was told that he had a twin brother but he died in his infancy. I was very much scared of this grandfather as I was told that he used to be a shaman. I don’t know where he picked up the habits of the priest. He did his rituals in the evening, muddled words pronouncing the spells and mantras in front of his deity. He didnt eat beef, he was vegetarian once a week. Yet, he was strong. He would carry huge logs like it was a heap of clothes. Life didn’t treat him so well when he suffered a stroke and was paralysed. My grandmother took good care of him. He was called Rama and his twin who died was called Laxman. Ramey as we used to call him, had broad forehead with strong, distant creases.
He used to sit at one corner of the kitchen drinking black tea and rambling which took me minutes to decode it’s meanings. But he always had a story and was always demanding tea.
Once when I was young, I was running around him, he got hold of me tight and asked me to sit beside him. I was unwilling at the beginning, in a nasal voice he said ‘Dont play with that Priya”
I was red with anger “Why?” I asked.
He released me and made an eerie gesture with his palm and claw the air, “Priya’s grandmother is Boksi'”
I was aware of such rumours, but this kind of threatening was new to me. I tried to keep distance with Priya. I was less attentive towards her and kept by myself. I remember, then I didn’t take part in outdoor activities. My mute Baje whom everyone fondly called Lata Mama was happy to have company.

• 

Priya sensed my uneasiness and asked me the reason behind my curt behaviour. I had to ask her and I did.
“Why did you keep it a secret?”
“What secrets?” She was surprised. “That your grandmother is a Boksi'”
She laughed at this. “Boksi!” She laughed heartily.
“You should know that Boksi women are dark and have long hair and they do bad things to people, Priya be honest with me, are you a Boksi too?” I confronted her.
Her laughter died and she cried in front of me.
I felt horrible after that, I wanted to go back to town to that notorious institution called school. I hurt her knowingly. She stopped coming to my house. It was understood that her grandmother was also aware of the knowledge I had of her.
A week later, there was a big commotion. One of the teenage boys entered Priya’s house with a Khukuri to behead her grandmother. He was drunk and could hardly hold the weapon but he was strong. His accusations were that his mother had been hallucinated Priya’s grandmother in their house. From the day of her hallucination, the woman was bed ridden and on a verge of death. Surprisingly nobody bothered to take the woman to a doctor.
The boy muster up the courage to kill the witch to save his mother. Few men saw the young boy entering the senile woman’s house with the weapon but they waited for the drama to begin. It was only when granny screamed they entered to save her.
It was evening, the sun was sinking between the mountains, the sky was a darker red; the crimson hue had the effect to produce a sad illusion of emotion inside one’s head. There was some struggle, between the youth and the old lady. He pulled and yanked her hair, which caused her to fall back.
They somehow managed to draw out the youth from the old hut but the men cooked up stories as how the old witch lived and on what condition they found the old witch.
The men told the village that she was amidst the rituals. Knowing not that it was the evening prayer for the old hag, and she had been worshipping the god of her ancestors for many decades.
Even her god was hideous to those men who didn’t consider such dark idol as god.
For the first time I saw the old granny cry. She wailed all night, her cry still echoes in my memories. That evening, the sun spilled it’s crimson rays across the horizon . The old woman kept on wailing aloud beating her chest. Her only flaw was that she was dark skin woman and didn’t worship the same forest god, the nameless God that many of her neighbours worshipped.
That her god had mud face and was dark like her. That she was without a man. A severe flaw to defile a woman in her own house without any valid proof. I tiptoed to her house. I saw her head on her knees crying, her hair was open dark and a greasy curl, disheveled, covering her body as she squatted and wept. Her clothes were torn at the shoulder. It was a case of an assault. I was too young to understand this. Priya was at one corner, her eyes were dry but in utter shock.
My grandmother grabbed me from behind and took me home. They didn’t tell me what happened next.
But they found the woman dead the following morning. They didn’t tell me how she died but I knew why she died. Priya was crying and I cried because she was crying. Strange world isn’t it? we can’t see the one we love in pain.
My grandparents took her in.
Strangely the youth was charged by the Panchayat to pay the fine. He happily payed five hundred rupees. His mother surprisingly regained her consciousness.
When the spring arrived. It was decided that Priya would stay with my parents and she could also join my school. Fate had different stories to tell.
Her mother came from Delhi to take her away. She was very happy to be with her lost mother. I on the other hand, was sad to part away from her.
When she left, I remember, she wore a Barbie pink dress that had glitters. Her curly black hair was pinned with white curved clips.
Her smile was so radiant that I forgot that she was dark and that she was what everyone called her to be, a Boksi.
She waved me goodbye. I smiled and waved back.
I don’t know where she is now.
I stopped visiting the village there was nothing left. All the new houses replaced the old huts and all new faces replaced the old wrinkled people that I knew. There are young generation parents I know not . I still remember my playmate and her generous grandmother sometimes.
Last winter when I visited the village, I saw a brick house in the place of a humble mud house, where she lived. I had gone to meet my grandparents. I was taken aback by a dark figure at the window sill.
She kept watching me in silence. She had curly black hair and smiled apologetically knowing that she had startled me.
She introduced herself as my neighbor. She had married someone from the village and spoke fluent nepali, being a non Nepali. Her Hindi however, was heavily accented.
She had been working in some film stars house in Mumbai when she met her husband who was also a helper.
She had a warm presence. Her smile touched her eyes, she had a profile of a beautiful cover girls, her eyes and her lips and her neck they all magnified the beauty that she tried to hide behind the insecurity of colour. She was beautiful charismatic woman in her early twenties, around my age.

She told me her name was Divya, she was born in the same year as Priya.
Her husband called her for dinner, they were still in their honeymoon phase. She told me how lucky she was to meet me, I told her she was too kind. We said our goodbyes for the night.
I didn’t know I was being watched, Ramey baje caught hold of my hand and said ” Don’t speak with Divya”
I was irritated at the old man and nearly shouted but managed to ask him “Why?”
With the same hand gesture, clawing the air, he said
” Don’t befriend her, she is a Boksi

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-Kate Sarah