It was an unpleasant car horn to wake me up while I was dozing off for a while on a pile of hay in one corner of the inner courtyard at my mom's birthplace. Sounds of Children at play coming to peep at the taxi round the doorway fell down on my ear. What I saw was two bulging stomachs marching towards the courtyard. They were already treading the outside field, which takes to the courtyard through hedges. Apparently, they were nodding their heads in silent agreement. They were coming in closer endowing on me a feeling of surprise that they belong to my place at town. Mulling over the prospect of what brought them here at the village, I ran up to the first step of wooden stairs and bawled out: "Look Mummy, Who are here!" There was no response until I heard my maternal grandfather's footsteps rattling down the stairs. The old man landed at the courtroom and courtly greetings were exchanged.

What struck me most about their conversation was that they were just nodding. Visitors uttered something and all of a sudden my grandpa's countenance sank gloomy and silent among the visible lines of wrinkles over the cheeks. For a second, I had ridiculous feelings that these men from my neighborhood are lodging complaints of my stupidities to my grandpa. For even Shikhar, my friend from town who called at my Mama's shop a day back was telling me that neck of the woods still gossip on a fierce wrestle that I had with one migrant's son at my locality. I had even hurled insults and red bricks at him. Expectedly, as its aftermath effects, Mummy drove me to Mamaghar. Since then I was here. The red marks dispersed over my academic progress report had further deepened my lack of interest with guys at my place. Here, at Mamaghar, I easily roll up my sleeves. But with the arrival of men from neighborhood, a new sense of urgency started haunting me. They sat down without a single chair creaking. One among the two leaned over and said something to my grandpa; but he shook his head, mumbled something and threw a gaze at me. "That incident of the fierce wrestle had become an old memory, a fading idea," I soliloquized. But given the situation, I thought better would be to join children at play in the lawn. Season of marbles, kites, and lights was on the threshold. Green, red and colorful marbles. Kids kiting in the open fields. Sounds of firecrackers purchased from bhaiya's mobile shop were on the rural air. But today harsh sunlight was creeping up over the sky. Two visitors were calmly sitting down on the chair offered to them and crossed their short legs. My grandpa, with his chin resting on the back of his hands was talking on. Everything in this eastern outskirt of Kathmandu had been a kind of relief to me. But this early afternoon, sun was turning the whole landscape skimmer with heat. Precisely, the glare from sun was unbearable. Meanwhile, I heard the little sister of my mother calling my name. Her shrill cry rocked me to the rhythm of my earlier assumptions about the visitor's stopover at my Mamaghar.

Giving a little chuckle, I ran to the inner courtyard, where I noticed a strange happening, which fortunately provided a plenty of evidences to prove my assumptions false. It was not the first time I have seen my mother crying. But this time sobbing continued for longer; tears running down through her cheeks. Finally the courtroom drama was unveiled to me after my mother's little sister whispered into my ear," Your Thulobuba is no more. He killed himself away from home." Thulobuba's face came to me for a while and that was the all heed, I guess, I had paid to that unexpected news seeking a place of memory into my childhood psychology. I felt I am not a good son to put my little arms around my weeping mother. Mummy was made to go with those two visitors back to her husbands' place. Actually they were assigned to take my mom back home to mourn for the man who killed himself. I felt my vacation is ruined. Her suitcase packed without my clothes inside obliged me to put a question to her: "Am I not going with you?" She replied in sobs, "No! You are staying here. You will be coming only after your vacation." My childish arguments were intolerable and she was not in a mood to debate. So finally, we, son and mother, and two visitors got into the taxi, which then moved on being engulfed by the noise and dust. Quietness stayed and spread to all corners of the cab, for the most part intervened by my mother's sobs and visitor's consolations until we reached our residence. The streets of Maijubahal, which I had been passing for seven years, were empty and cold, distant and alien. I saw Shikhar and guys at the junction, defying a dare to call them aloud from taxi's window. In the process of solacing, visitors had already made me understood that all the male members of my family had gone to Hetauda to complete the ritual placing of a corpse in firewood for Thulobuba had killed himself at Tandi, Chitwan in a lodge. Stepping down from taxi, my mother sprawled near grandma's feet with her hands outstretched. Thereby she released all the moans that seemed to pierce into her own body. All eyes around were moist and panicky. The smell of flowers from outside lawn was entering the room through the open door. All were in sobs and I thought they would never stop. They tried to converse with each other and went on crying as much as before. Their sighs and sobs were torturing my mind. It was such a strange noise and I could not figure out what it was. Convulsions, sobs, consolations, moaning and mourning overruled the room. No one was there to ask me whether I had my food! The breeze had brought a strange odor into the room. I thought of my classmates at the school. Suddenly I found that I was missing them. For me, that was the most difficult time of day. I thought about my friends a little more until I was distracted by a huge round of wailings of granny from the adjacent room. Meanwhile, a close relative came to me. He just pronounced my name with a voice drifting and disappearing into the room where I was sitting alone on Thulobuba's bed. I could not wail and weep. As soon as he left the room, my eyes fell on the object of my desire, which was placed conventionally inside a glass-made cupboard. If only I could hold that elephant! If only I could put it inside my pocket. If only I could show the object of interest to my classmates after my vacation. A dissolute desire in the brooding atmosphere suffused over me. I had always harbored a faint resentment against my thulobuba for his demanding and authoritarian attitudes and it was with that thought I silently took the gold-plated elephant, the object of my desire, slewing the transparent glass sideway. Though I spotted the alienation of cervids, antlers and rabbits inside the glass prison, I took the trouble to leave that room with a bulgy pocket. Bare footedly I reached a narrow alley next to Thulobuba's house to be alone for sometimes with the object of my desire. Familiar smell of Thulobuba's room was coming out in the air from the elephant. Hidden spiders had spun cobwebs on the walls almost touching my long nose. Therefore, I decided to leave that place and wander up to my parent's bedroom, where I saw my mom's belongings scattered on the bed. There, I took some amount of money from my mom's purse. I felt a little lost between the greed inside me and the grief around me. People, voices, the community had thronged at our residence to console us. I was little bored and wandered around the veranda. I lifted the weight inside my pocket to have a pleasant gaze over the object of my interest once again. My veranda overlooks the garden in the neighborhood, where I saw Kancha gesturing towards me. Kancha was paid monthly by my neighbor for cooking, cleaning and looking after the house for its owner. His call made me pause and thought. I went inside to hide the object of interest and went back to veranda to respond Kancha.

Until then, elephant had been already imprisoned inside my wooden wardrobe. Passing clouds had left a hint of rain, and I went to Kancha, sat with him for a long time failing in every endeavor to answer his question over Thulobuba's suicide. He expressed his sympathy over the grief-stricken family. His last words were, "Poor doomed soul! Fate cannot be altered!" Yes, it was also destined for the elephant to return to its glass prison from the wooden wardrobe laying all curse and blame on me. I went crimson once again and dallied in its memory fruitlessly. Even its contemplation used to fill my soul with ecstasy. Its alluring charm had daubed the wardrobe golden. With the passage of time, joie de vivre was reinstalled however. His son is a grownup chap now and in the nubile stage. The way he amends his facial expressions, the way he talks, the way he greets visitors, the way he takes in meal and sits resemble his father's gesture. Last week, a toddling baby, whose mischievousness had been a burden to all the invitees for Puja, tried to reach to the elephant, which is fitted in to be seen only through the glass prison.

An object of rare worth, an exquisite masterpiece of antique artisanship, and what I always feel seeing this object these days is I have neither the audacity not the temperament to describe this artwork. She had almost bagged it until he managed occlude kid's path by forestalling her view of the object of her interest. Yet, he did so in such a friendly manner that the child clung to his body with gleefulness apparently dismissing from her mind where she was about to proceed.

"May be that's the difference between father and son... but still a big one," I guessed without sharing my guess with the guests.