The Royal Ghosts

by Upadhyay, Samrat

• ISBN13: 9780618517497
• ISBN10: 0618517499
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-09
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

With emotional precision and narrative subtlety, The Royal Ghosts features characters trying to reconcile their true desires with the forces at work in Nepali society. Against the backdrop of the violent Maoist insurgencies that have claimed thousands of lives, these characters struggle with their duties to their aging parents, an oppressive caste system, and the complexities of arranged marriage. In the end, they manage to find peace and connection, often where they least expect it- with the people directly in front of them. These stories brilliantly examine not only Kathmandu during a time of political crisis and cultural transformation but also the effects of that city on the individual consciousness. Samrat Upadhyay is the author of Arresting God in Kathmandu, which earned him a Whiting Award, and The Guru of Love, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Author Biography

SAMRAT UPADHYAY is the author of Arresting God in Kathmandu, which earned him a Whiting Award, and The Guru of Love, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize, and a Book Sense 76 pick. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and teaches creative writing and literature at Indiana University.

Table of Contents

A Refugee	p. 1
The Wedding Hero	p. 27
The Third Stage	p. 55
Supreme Pronouncements	p. 79
The Weight of a Gun	p. 101
Chintamani's Women	p. 123
Father, Daughter	p. 147
A Servant in the City	p. 173
The Royal Ghosts	p. 191
Acknowledgments	p. 209
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

A Refugee Pitamber crossed the bridge to Kupondole and found the gift shop where he'd been told Kabita worked. But the man behind the counter said she'd quit after just a few days. "She wasn't right in the head, you know," the man said, "after all that happened to her." "Where did she go?" "I don't know. I tried to convince her to stay on, but she just stopped coming." Pitamber left the shop and stood on the sidewalk, squinting at the sun and noting the intense heat, strange for autumn.This morning he'd woken restless, with a hollowness in his stomach, and thought about the letter he'd received a fortnight ago from his childhood friend Jaikanth. The feeling remained with him throughout the day as he searched for this woman named Kabita, whose story Jaikanth had described to him. "She's in Kathmandu with her daughter, and I know what a kind man you are, Pitamber. Please do what you can to help her. She's suffered immensely." Now Pitamber made his way to his flat in Dharahara, where his wife, Shailaja, was cooking French toast in the kitchen. She turned to smile at him as he came in. "Any luck?" He said no and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. "Why hasn't she contacted us? Jaikanth said he gave her our address. It's been nearly two weeks." "Maybe other people are already helping her. Didn't Jaikanth mention other people she knew here?" He nodded, then told her what the man in the gift shop had said. "I hope she's found another job," he told Shailaja, then said that his stomach had been mildly upset all day. "It must be hunger," she said. "Why don't you go wash your face and I'll give you some French toast. Sumit should be home any minute now." He went to the bathroom, washed his face, took several deep breaths, then went to find Jaikanth's letter. He read it again, and paused as he did: "They killed him in front of her, Pitamber. Can you imagine what that must have been like?" Jaikanth hadn't explained the details of the killing, but over the past two weeks Pitamber had formed a picture in his mind: three Maobadi rebels, barely past their teens (they were always so young in the news), storming into her house, dragging her husband out to the yard, slitting his throat with a knife. The four-year-old daughter probably inside the house, perhaps sound asleep, perhaps with a nasty cold. And after the men leave, a woman standing there, her palm over her mouth. The woman's face was never clear, but Pitamber's mind always flashed with these details: the sun's rays glinting on washed pots drying on the porch, one rebel raising his finger to warn the neighbors peeking from the windows of their houses, the men's footprints on the rice paddies through which they escape. He massaged his temples. Surely she still needed help now. It was clear that Jaikanth was expecting him to house the woman and her daughter for a while, and Pitamber was willing to do this, even though his was only a three-room flat in a small house. He wanted to help her, mostly out of compassion, but partly out of obligation to an old friend of his family, a friend from the village where he grew up. When Sumit, his twelve-year-old son, returned from school, they drank tea and ate French toast, then Pitamber and the boy settled down to play chess. Pitamber had bought the set two months ago, after the first set, a cheap one with plastic pieces, disappeared from their flat. Pitamber suspected that one of Sumit's friends from the neighborhood, who had a reputation for