By Hitaishi Gautam
My other doesn’t clip her nails
She doesn’t know how to.
Last Sunday when we sat
On the dilapidated bamboo couch
Outside with a clipper and red nail lacquer
I tarted, “duniya ma afno nong katnu najanne manche pani hunchan hai?”[1]
Like clockwork she responded, “k garnu? Huda raichan.[2]”
Aama[3] is a storyteller,
I love listening to her speak.
She tells us stories about her childhood, and her youth, her tooth and nail.
She speaks of her sister, her brothers
Of my grandparents, and hers.
“I had never even heard of a thing called a nail cutter” she asserts.
Teeth were the only tools we had
"Khutta ko nong chai?” [4]
“They took care of themselves.
Even slippers were a luxury.”
The big toe on Aama’s left foot
Does not have half a nail,
And the other half has turned brown.
She tells me she doesn’t remember what happened.
Apparently she stubbed her toe very often.
Her wonky nails are tricky to trim
“Daath le tokera estoh bhako holai nong haru?”[5]
“Dhunga, maato, mal ma kaam garehko haath estoi huncha, baini.”[6]
I hand her the clipper and ask her to try
She has never held a nail clipper before.
Aama furrows her eyebrows
Brungs her hands close to her eye
Looking at them through her thick glasses
She cuts a small piece off her pinky
“Lu bhayo, haath kaamyo.”[7]
My mother doesn’t clip her nails
I do it for her.
She ells me she could barely see the fingernail
I tease her, “samay mai chasma lagako bha?”[8]
Giving her hand to me she reminisces
About the time I first complained that
I ouldn’t see the writings on the blackboard.
In class two I went to school with my
New glasses. They came with safety straps.
“Gangadhar[9]” I was teased for years.
I threw away the brown straps after a week
No one could find them.
We share a laugh at the distant memory
Aama had made sure my eyesight was
Treated as early as possible because
She couldn’t fix hers.
I clip her nails out of gratitude.
My mother doesn’t paint her nail
She doesn’t know how to.
Red is her favorite nail polish.
Every week after trimming her nails
I cleanly apply a double coat on her hands and feet.
They look brilliant against her fair skin.
She beams and checks them throughout the day.
"Remover le goi ta halcha.”[10]
“Pardaina. Kina kharcha garne howre ma.”[11]
Aama doesn’t like wasting anything.
I hand her the brush and ask her to
Try painting only one of her nails.
She dunks the brush into the small bottle
And takes more product than necessary
In one unclean stroke she covers her pinky
And lathers it on the skin around it
“Lu herr ta kustoh ghinlagdoh bhayo.”[12]
My mother doesn’t paint her nails
I do it for her.
In class five I attended my first art lessons.
She knew I loved painting so she dipped into
her meager savings to pay for my supplies.
As the eldest of four children, Aama couldn’t
go to school after class five.
I've made hundreds of drawings.
Filled sketchbooks from cover to cover,
Painted portraits of strangers, friends and lovers.
But I’ve never painted anything for my mother.
I paint her nails out of gratitude.
My mother doesn’t clip her nails
But she has tried it once.
My mother doesn’t paint her nails
But she has tried it once.
[1] “There are actually people in this world who don’t know how to clip their nails, huh?”
[2] “Well turns out they do. Can’t help it.”
[3] Mother in Nepali
[4] “And what about the toenails”
[5] “This probably happened because you used your teeth to bite them off”
[6] “If you work in the mud, muck, and rocks, this is inevitable, child.”
[7] “That’s enough, my hands are shaking.”
[8] “Only if you’d worn power glasses before it was too late.”
[9] A Comic character from an Indian Hindi-language superhero television show Shaktimaan, which aired from 1997 to 2005
[10] “It can be wiped off with some remover.”
[11] “No, why should we waste it?”
[12] “Now look, it looks hideous.”