The Story of a Pumpkin' has roots in Bhutan but was written in Laconia

LACONIA — Tomorrow, the Bhutanese Nepali community, the largest group of political refugees in the state, will gather in Manchester to celebrate the publication of a very unique book — "The Story of a Pumpkin" — which had its genesis in Laconia, the home to both the storyteller Hari Tiwari and the illustrator Dal Rai.

The Bhutanese Nepali, known as Lhotshampas or "southerners," were a minority people and culture living in the southern reaches of Bhutan, practicing Hindus in a Buddhist country and speaking Nepali, not the national language Dzongkha, one of 53 variants of Tibetan. Between 1989 and 1995 more than 100,000 Bhutanese Nepalis left the country for refugee camps in Nepal after being branded illegal immigrants and denied gainful employment, political rights and land ownership. Approximately 60,000 Bhutanese Nepalis have been resettled in the United States, including some 1,600 in New Hampshire.

The bilingual book, with parallel English and Nepali text, sprang from the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) class taught by Laurie Lalish of Lutheran Social Services at the Congregational Church Of Laconia. Terry Farish, coordinator of "Connections," the adult literacy program of the Humanities Council, explained that many of the older Bhutanese Nepali were farmers and herders with little or no formal education who had not encountered, let alone mastered, the printed word in their native tongue. She said that confined to an oral tradition and verbal communication, added to the challenges of learning English.

To clear the hurdle, Farish said that they tapped the oral traditions of Bhutanese Nepali and struck a rich vein. Accompanied by Jo Radner, a folklorist from Maine, and an interpreter, she came to the Congregational Church and encouraged the elders to share their folktales. After swapping childhood memories, Radner asked "how did people tell you stories?" Shyly Tiwari replied "my father told me this story" then, through the interpreter, Nilhari Bhandari, recounted the tale of the pumpkin, inspiring others to recall the stories they heard as children.

Tiwari tended cows and goats on the farm where her father grew rice, corn, cucumbers peas, beans, lentils and potatoes. She did not attend school, but thrived on the stories her father told her, which she passed along to her daughter and the elders in the refugee camp in Nepal, where she spent 18 years after leaving Bhutan.

To introduce the Bhutanese Nepali to a reading culture, Farish said that the Humanities Council arranged storytelling sessions, in which folktales, along with drawings and artifacts associated with them, became a vehicle for acquiring vocabulary. The book, she described, as "a welcoming tool, a linguistic bridge between the two communities."

Farish said after listening carefully to a dozen or more stories, a committee of Bhutanese Nepali teachers and artists, in collaboration with the Humanities Council, selected Tiwari's "The Story of the Pumpkin." Hari and Ambika Sharma, who last year moved from Laconia to Concord, helped to construct a narrative suited to bilingual presentation from Tiwari's tale.

Tiwari's close neighbor, Rai was chosen to illustrate the book. Like Tiwari, he too grew up working on a farm in the hills of southern Bhutan. He said that he drew on his memories of terraces of rice, millet and barley as well as the pumpkin patch, to paint the scenes that grace the book. As a child Rai went without so much as a pencil, but was given one by a teacher when he reached a refugee camp in Nepal in 1990. At 13 he earned enough to buy crayons and, after selling some pictures, bought water colors. At the ESOL class, Rai drew the pictures his classmates matched to words.

The story tells of a magic pumpkin, grown on a small farm where it helps the farmer and his wife with their chores. When the pumpkin reaches maturity, he leaves the farm to find a wife and, after conjuring a tribute of 300 horses, 300 elephants and 300 people, weds one of six princesses. Returning from their honeymoon, the pumpkin offers to pick the princess a mango to quench her thirst, but it jumped to the ground, it shattered, revealing a handsome young man inside. The king took the couple into the royal household, but theater princesses envied their married sister and one betrayed her in a vain attempt to take her place. The treachery was discovered, the wicked sister banished and the man who was a pumpkin, his royal bride and their child "spent their remaining lives happily and joyfully."

Farish said that many of the refugees found that with its mix of magic, transformation, terror and tension, the story reflected their own experience of leaving their homes amid the hills, valleys and rivers in the shadow of the Himalayas, enduring the rigors of refugee camps and making new lives in the United States.

With support from the McIninich Foundation, Lucia Ewing and Kathy and Bill Gilley, the Humanities Council will distribute the book to every public library, selected schools and all Bhutanese Nepali families. "The Story of the Pumpkin" will be the centerpiece of the Folktale Festival hosted by the Humanities Council at the William B. Cashin Senior Activity Center at 15 Douglas Street in Manchester on Friday, August 17, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Those planning to attend should RSVP to 224-4071 or tfarish@nhhc.org.

CAPTION: Hari Tiwari, second from right, told the story and Dal Rai, left, painted the pictures for "The Story of a Pumpkin," a Bhutanese folktale with text in Nepali and English published by the New Hampshire Humanities Council. With the two at Rai's home in Laconia are Tiwari's husband Kamal, to her right, and Rai's wife Birkha and their son Anmal, soon to join the first grade at Plesant Street School. (Laconia Daily Sun photo/Michael Kitch)