- Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

The Nepali word for hand or, more correctly, the forearm is ‘haat‘ and the term was once used, formerly frequently and now occasionally, to denote a measure of length representing the distance between the finger tips to the elbow. But let us not leave it at that but rather ‘haat lagau’ (commence/begin) to give it the real flatter it deserves instead of just a cursory mention. ‘Haat misamis‘ (lit. exchange of hands) means fighting and conversely should the flaying hands come together we get, ‘haat jornu‘, and one would then be asking for supplication: now isn’t that appropriate!

Similarly, another appropriate one is the common expression ‘malai rees uthyoki haat chilai halcha‘ or if provoked I itch for a fight. In the small gambling joints that punctuate our hills ‘haat‘ takes a new meaning in the common expression ‘tas barne kasko haat ho?‘ meaning whose ‘turn’ is it to deal the cards. In both the latter cases hands may be essential for the implied purpose but the intended meanings are entirely different: fight and turn.

But I know that most of us are not fighters or gamblers so let us continue with some other undertones of the word which ‘mero haat pareko cha‘ (or have come to my possession.) and I am inspired to ‘haat halnu‘ or meddle with them. In the English language we are familiar with the term ‘the long hand of the law’ but in Nepali it is just the opposite: only our thieves have long hands and so we are told, “Tyo sangha hosiyar garnu, haat lamo chha!” (Be wary of him, he is a thief!). The meddling hand appears to be everywhere and therefore it is not uncommon to hear comments like, “Tyasko safaltama mero haat chha!” or “Mero bephaltama tyasko thulo haat chha!“.

Now what is exceptional is that the fingers in the ‘haat‘ are given a very unique pecking order and using the word ‘auli‘ the thumb is ‘jethi auli‘, ‘maili auli‘ the first finger, ‘saili auli’ the second finger, ‘kaili auli‘ the third finger and ‘kanchi auli’ the little finger. The alternative is to use the word ‘aulo‘ (masculine) which will then give us ‘buro aulo‘ for the thumb, ‘chor aulo‘ or ‘kalmi aulo’ ( ‘kalam‘ holding) for the index finger, followed by ‘mailo (maila) aulo‘, ‘sailo aulo‘ and ‘kancho aulo‘ down the hierarchy. In which other lingo is this possible!

Before we round off this part of the essay let me tell you one more thing about ‘haat‘. John Keay, the famous historian on India, would like us to believe that the early Aryans migrating to Aryabarta, the land between Vindya and the Himalaya, had never seen an elephant and seeing the trunk do the job of a “hand” they simply called the beast ‘hat-ee’ (Sanskrit: hasti).

Talking about the early Aryans there is another contribution of theirs to our lexicon, so says another historian. The Aryans traveled from west to the east, towards the sun, looking for a better future. So ahead of them was their ‘purba‘ or ‘before/future’ and that became east, ‘purab‘. At the opposite was what they had left behind or ‘pachhim‘ (cf. Nepali ‘pachhi‘) and so we got our west. In the left direction were the Himalaya, the high mountains or ‘uttan‘ or ‘uttara‘ and that came to be known as ‘uttar‘ or north and the land on the right hand side became ‘dachhin‘ or south (Sanskrit: dakhsina = right or south). So if an Englishman blows his trumpet saying that NEWS means North, East, West and South you can tell him that where cardinal directions are concerned we have a much richer and more profound history.