The only motorable road in Mukteshwar enters from east of the town, where the market is, shops line the left side of the road, as it goes up meandering like a river, as is the case with most motorable roads in the mountainous regions. It leaves the market behind with the last shop of Shahji, combination of a general store and stationary besides being a medical store and functioning as a phone booth too. Between Shahji's shop and the butcher, which stands apart from the rest of the market, is the only blind curve the road takes in Mukteshwar, a bend, as called in the local language. Left to the road at this point is a vertical dip, going down hundreds of feet and on the other side is the slope of the mountain, leading to the verandah of the Bist family's home, whose kids were very unhappy about, among other things, the position of their house as every unstopped straight drive during a verandah cricket match was likely to send the ball flying, hundreds of feet down the hill. They had lost a lot of balls.
After taking some meaningless turns, going up, crossing the pale yellow building of the church, the road forms a circle around a little park, at the center of which stands the forever standing flagstaff, on which the national flag is waved during a national day, if its not precipitating. The circle also acts as the only U-turn for the two government buses and other heavy vehicles that enter Mukteshwar. From there, crossing the State Bank, it goes straight up for sometime before it passes the surf-blue and white single story building of the government hospital, next to which lies the trail uphill to the temple, situated at around 7,000 feet above the sea level. The road ends leading to The Red Roofs, a small guest house owned by Shahji, which includes a big dining hall and four separate guest rooms. From its flowery garden, one can see the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. There isnt any proper road after this, which frays into big and small trails going deeper into the mountains.
To Hament Bist, the cook at The Red Roofs, this motorable road was utterly meaningless, for nothing motorable ever came that far, usually taking a U-turn from the circle, leaving him with the only option of walking it back home, apart from taking the milk van, which left a little early and thus could not be taken when Shahji was around. He usually left around half past nine, after dinner was over. But as the rest house rarely received any guests after summer, making it irrelevant for Hemant Bist to stay that late, he offed around half past seven, throughout the year till the next year's summer brought some (mostly misguided) tourists back to the guest house.
During this period, every evening, around seven, Bist would start cooking a meal for Dinesh, who did various odd jobs and was the only other employee at The Red Roofs, a little less than half an hour later he would be hurriedly walking up the road, roughly some four major turns away on it, till the hospital, where he would stop shortly facing the upward trail to the temple, hands folded, head bent impatiently mumbling an inaudible prayer.
He would hurry on after this, not paying any attention to the hospital or anything at all, till he reached the government liquor shop, which stood between the hospital and the bank near the circle, from where an upward trail took him to his house above the bend. He would be drunk by the time he reached home, to his wife and three kids; two boys and a girl, ranging between eight to thirteen, the girl being the second born.
Mrs. Bist, a homily woman, who spent most of her time in kitchen, cooking or in the bathroom, washing, with majority of the time left to her from that being spent in taking care of her younger son, less than half his actual age, mentally, due to an accident during pregnancy, dreaded the arrival of her husband, during this period, stinking of a whole bottle, but this dread turned to horror whenever she saw him carrying another. On these days, Hemant Bist would become insidiously aggressive and vicious with each gulp off of the second bottle and any mistake or mishap by the family members could cost them dearly, though they were rarely sure if anything they did, anything at all, wouldn't be seen as a mistake by Hemant. The kids would even stop breathing in his presence, least it turned out to be a mistake in their father's eyes. Mostly, if he didn't see the kids, who tried to remain inconspicuous, though not successfully every time, the wrath of Bist's intoxicated rage fell on his wife and the night ended with loud snores and subdued sobs, the former outlasting the later on fortunate nights.
