Best known for his penetrating social criticism, Khagendra Sangroula is an independent leftist whose writings are deeply concerned with the social and political upheavals of our times. His most poignant stories and essays focus on the hard fact of exploitation, and on the difficulty of attaining justice. Sangroula often treads where few Nepali writers dare to venture: far into the remote hinterlands of the country. In his recent novel Junkiriko Sangeet he tackles caste discrimination head-on, examining the economic, social and personal devastation it wreaks in rural Dalit communities.

The story below displays a lighter side to Sangroula's oeuvre, though it raises prickly questions about change and progress. It displays the author's characteristic flair for high literary language mixed with colourful spoken dialect. The allegorical quality of the story makes it particularly suited to a younger readership.

The Bhoto Shirt
By chance, they met at the banyan and bodhi tree-the tiny farmer and the wandering ascetic. At the end of the day, even as the sun sought shelter on the far side of the western hills, a few rays of light still remained suspended over this side. The farmer had returned from tilling the headman's fields, as in his father's and grandfather's time; the ascetic had arrived to perform the last rites of his day's wanderings. They both cupped their palms and drank heartily from the clear waters of the stone tap. Then they sat on a shaded platform, fanning the cool air.

"That's extremely old," said the wanderer, pointing at the farmer's bhoto shirt.
"Yes it is," the farmer replied. He placed his hands on the bhoto, as though the unknown wanderer might jump up and grab it.
"Take it off and throw it away," the wanderer said, smiling. He took out a new shirt from a bag, and held it up. "Here, I have this."
Two separate expressions stirred in the farmer's face: one of fear, and the other of greed. "No." Sounding anxious, he said, "I won't throw this away. And yet.." Clasping his bhoto with his right hand, he reached for the new shirt with his left hand.

The wanderer looked with disgust at the farmer's bhoto. He pinched his nose shut. "Tell me, doesn't that stink to you?"
"Why would it stink to me?"
"But brother-it stinks to me."
The farmer's bhoto was in fact quite dreadful: torn into strands, caked with dirt and grime, it had lines of lice crawling along its surface. It looked as though it wasn't from this age, but from the time of his grandfather. "That's true," the farmer said, lending witness to this fact. "It is indeed from my grandfather's time. It covered my grandfather's back, and then my father's, and now mine-and after me.."
"It's become really old, hasn't it?"
"It has."
"So take it off and throw it away. And then.." The wanderer held up the nice new shirt, which fluttered attractively in the wind.

Still clasping his bhoto with one hand and reaching his other hand forward, the farmer said, "But this is a memento left by my ancestors. A token of love, a sign of compassion, a relic of their remembrance."
The wanderer spoke in a harder tone: "Take it off and throw it away." He pinched his nose even more tightly, and looked as though he was trying to hold down the bile that was rising in his throat.
"I have to uphold my ancestors' honour," the farmer said proudly, as though the bhoto smelt of fragrant rajanigandha flowers. "This is the mark of my hope. This is the package of my aspirations. This is the symbol of my dharma. This is the fruit of my karma, the source of my cultural mores.."
"These are lies. They're delusions," the wanderer argued, raising his voice. "These are your three generations-long foolishness."
"The man's quite stubborn," murmured the astonished farmer in a voice so low that only he could hear. Then, filling his voice with a little force, he stuck a combative pose, "You act like a clever man. Tell me: who are you?"
"I'm an ordinary person."
"You try to act quite clever."
"I don't know a lot of things, brother. But I'm sure of one thing."
"What?"
"That patched-together bhoto is a bundle of your patched-together delusions." Then, roaring like thunder, he cried, "Fool! Take off your stupidity and throw it away."
The nice new shirt kept fluttering in the wind. The farmer continued to clasp his bhoto with one hand while reaching for the shirt with the other. One of his hands was quaking in fear, and the other was desperate with greed.
"Go and bathe. Then throw that away and wear this."

The farmer finally went down to the tap. He rinsed a smooth stone, and put his bhoto on it with great care, the way a loving mother puts down a baby. Keeping his eyes glued to the bhoto, he hurriedly wet his body, and then at the speed of light he put the bhoto on again.

"You'll get this shirt only once you throw that away," said the wanderer, still pinching his nose shut in disgust.
"Baba! May I be allowed to pull that shirt on over this one," pleaded the farmer, his greedy hand thrust out.
The new shirt hung in the air. With the billow of the slow-blowing breeze, it danced slowly, slowly, in a mesmerising way. The farmer didn't dare reach for it. And would a river twist and turn just to come to a thirsty person? No, it didn't look like the shirt would come to him all by itself.
"I'll just pull it on over this bhoto, Baba. I have a strong wish that my son should wear this bhoto after my funeral."
Something burned like fire in the wanderer's eyes. "You're a fool! You're an idiot who thinks that a rotten corpse smells fragrant."
Afraid that he might leap on him and tear his bhoto to shreds, the farmer kept clasping his bhoto with a shaky, but crab-like grip. This bhoto was a priceless object, which must never, ever leave him. It was like an authentic form of life, and he was like its submissive shadow. At his wedding he had worn a fine daura-suruwal; but even as he sat at the ceremonial fire, this dirty, grimy bhoto was stuck to his skin, beneath the fine daura top. At the time of the Dasain festivals, he always ordered a new pair of clothes, as befit his stature. But beneath the new clothes, this old bhoto always remained. For fear that it might fall apart when squeezed, twisted, or pummeled, he never washed the bhoto. For fear that it might get lost if he hung it on a dresser, he never took it off when he slept. How could he throw away a bhoto that he had been saving with such love, such care, such attachment? "No," he said. "This is a remembrance with which I can uphold my ancestors' honour. I won't throw this away even if I have to lose my own life."
"So you're not going to wear the new shirt?"
"Baba, I'll wear it. I'll just pull it on over this." Still clasping his bhoto with one hand, the farmer reached for the new shirt, and almost-almost-touched it.
With a look of disgust on his face, the wanderer told a tale. "Lord Mahadev once asked-oh pig, will you go to heaven? The pig said-I wouldn't go, Lord! Hell is dearer to me. Understand, cow dung? You're a pig." Saying this, the wanderer stunned the farmer with a strike to the neck. Then, without turning back, he set on his path like a fast-sweeping storm.

Flat on the ground, the farmer just watched on.

Later, much later, that bhoto-clad farmer got into a huge altercation with his headman. The headman's vast properties bordered the edge of the farmer's loincloth-sized land. The headman took over about one inch of his empty border. Well, then, the two of them got into an enormous row. The headman was brawny, like the legendary Bhimsen. The farmer was bird-like of body and impoverished of strength. Bhimsen lifted up the bird and dumped him on the ground, then clobbered him on the back, with fists like iron pestles. Then, pouncing on the farmer, he scratched him with his nails and teeth, and ripped his bhoto to shreds.
The tiny farmer, lying defeated in the mud, stood up flinching in pain. When his pain subsided, he looked down, and what did he see? Oh mother, death! Like rags hung on a rope, the threads of his bhoto hung off his body-in the front, to the behind, on this side, and on the other side.
He sat beneath some banyan and bodhi trees, and studied, with his accursed, teary eyes-oh Lord! His bhoto had been destroyed. His truth and cultural mores had been destroyed. The shredded scraps were all covered with blood: there was nothing left to patch together.

Till now, four of the farmer's children had died of hunger. And his was a father's heart, after all; each time a child died, he released a torrent of tears. The mental anguish he felt now seemed more acute than if all his children had died at once. The bhoto that upheld his ancestors' honour was gone. He lifted the bhoto and looked at it with a soft, melted gaze, as though it were a mirror, and his soul's truth were quivering in it. As he looked on, the bhoto slipped from his hands and fell to the ground.

Paying his last respects to the bhoto, the farmer sighed a long, joyless and harassed sigh. Then he remembered the wandering ascetic's piercing words; and with his naked, blood-splattered back, he set off to find new clothes-walking slowly at first, and then progressively faster, faster, faster.