Every day, someone was spilling and stealing Mrs. Wasti’s milk saved for making yoghurt. But the thief did not steal or spill anything else. Mrs. Wasti, the only human being living in her house, shut the door, windows and holes to protect her milk, but nothing helped. Meanwhile, rabbit-sized rats and pesky mice began to chew her grains and clothes and make noise all night, depriving her of sleep. Mrs. Wasti was exasperated and frightened. She had never faced such a problem in Todke, Mr. Wasti’s roadless village in the hills, several miles east of Kathmandu. Known only as Mrs. Wasti in the village, she lived with a gray cat in her three-story house, painted white and covered with a gable roof made of thatch. She kept a black cow, which had …show more content…
Wasti for the funeral of his son, who had died from typhoid a year back. He had also been tilling Mr. Wasti’s paddy field, and his two-story, straw-roofed house was built on his land. Cornered, the father had caved in. When her father and Mr. Wasti were talking in the verandah, the high school girl was inside the house, sifting rice and listening to the conversation. The father’s agreement had choked her and made her cry. The girl had never liked the pudgy, uneducated and arrogant 46-year-old man at all. Mr. Wasti used to blame his father for his lack of education. His father and stepmother had banished his mother and him from their house. The girl’s mother had commiserated with her but without success. So the girl had resigned herself to her destiny and looked forward to having a bearable life as Mr. Wasti’s wife. Mr. Wasti had wed her in a modest ceremony and brought her home as his second wife. In her new village, no one had asked her name, and she hand not volunteered it, though she had it in her parental village and in her school. So she was known as just Mrs. Wasti in her new …show more content…
Wasti had kept the cat under a wicker basket whenever Mr. Wasti was in the house. Subsequently, she had freed him because he would not go anywhere close to Mr. Wasti who would beat him up. Now fully grownup, the tomcat was stealing the milk and sleeping most of the time, giving the rats and mice the freedom to chew Mrs. Wasti’s clothes and grain and to create mayhem at night. * Though she was enraged with her greedy and ungrateful pet, Mrs. Wasti first approached him leniently and affectionately. As usual, she gave him the rice soaked in milk, kissed him on the mouth, locked her eyes to his, and said in a liquid voice, “Stealing is bad, baby. You are a good boy. Don’t steal. OK.” She did such tricks several times, but they did not work. Soory continued stealing diligently, constantly and furtively, like it was his pious duty or inherited privilege. She put the milk on the upper shelf, covered it under a vat, hung it in a bag by a nail at a safe height, and locked it in a box. But Soory would jump or climb the heights, overturn the cover, and even turn the box upside down, so the white liquid would spill and he could lick it. He would run away when Mrs. Wasti