Fiction: Did Kanchhi escape to the city from her village in Nepal, or did the civil war claim her?

Kanchhi was sixteen when she disappeared. Sixteen. The age apsaras are when gods send them to lure sanyasis out of their deep, meditative state. Sanyasis who are supposed to be old and wise and beyond the pettiness of love, lust and seduction. A knock on the window. A romp in the hay. A dance in the millet fields.

A sanyasi.

A future a Nepali teacher once read on her fingers. That or a king, he had said. Both were extremes. One gives up everything that is power and pleasure, the other hoards them in abundance. Both of whom Kanchhi had weighed the possibilities of becoming. Neither, she wanted to become – especially not a sanyasi. A sanyasi was forged out of tragedies. Tragedies that Maiju, her mother, had hoped an old, rusty razor blade would forestall. A chipped and blunt, handleless barber’s blade that once belonged to Kanchhi’s grandfather. Maiju had left it out all night outside Kanchhi’s room, out by the pillar supporting the porch roof. Its job was to stand guard and ward off evil. When Kanchhi left, she had taken it with her, along with a clear instruction from Maiju to leave it in the bag until she reached Pokhara. It did not work. Kanchhi disappeared....

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