A handful Nepali Cultures: impracticality at use

Every society has their share of traditions and practices. If individualism defines the mainstream American life style, rich food constitutes a major part of Indian culture. In the same manner Nepalese have their own share of cultural practise and traditions ranging from the celebration of mainstream Nepali festival Dashain to illogical practise of menstrual untouchability. 

photo courtesy: Demotix.com 
A Nepali Women who when menstruates is sent to this small mud hut to live for four days after which she
needs to purify herself. Then only she can enter the household. Menstruation is seen more in term of
Untouchability than a natural physical cycle in the remote areas of Nepal. 

Life in home is hard especially when you are not used to it- used to anything that constitutes a home (as according to societal notion) from clean rooms and no hanging socks to cleaning and cooking and spending time with parents. Certain things which i used to take as privileged  freedom-taken-for-granted is all coming back to me kicking me hard in the gut making life harder than it could ever be. Everything sucks - from waking up in the morning to sleeping in the night (which seldom happens). 

My mom comes in the morning with bland announcement that i have to clean myself up today. I don't get it or putting it in a little more mild manner, i must have forgotten the "Traditions" Nepali society holds - not trying to be a rebel or anything but when you don't follow a ritual for so long, it becomes "bygone begone" sorts. I look at her- simple, blank look. She mentions with a little anger to her tone that it is the fourth day of my menstrual cycle and that i have to clean myself up, change my bed sheets and the night dress i wore. And i plainly ask "What about other clothes i wore the whole four days while going to office? or while sleeping? should i not laundry them?" She must have thought i was teasing her sentiments and she cried off with how insensible i am despite the fact i have an extremely supporting family and how i will regret if i get married to a more stringent 'Bahun' Kathmandu family. 

the question poised by me was not a tease, it was an honest question. If the clothes i wear on the fourth day needs washing just because it is the fourth day of my periods, what about the other three days? Was i not menstruating then? 

logically and historically speaking i think the whole idea of washing clothes on the fourth day comes from the fact that a woman during her menstruation bleeds for four days (least) and then some completely stop while some don't. We did not have sanitary napkins and "Why should boys have all the fun?" related things to make woman's lives easier then. Women then were confined to a cow shed or a room (not a concrete room) for four days because bleeding and staining the whole house would have increased the amount of work a women naturally is expected to do. This is the logic behind sending a woman to a shed (because then, people hardly had a concrete house, having two would have been nearly impossible). 

Slowly as times passed by, the practical and sensible side of a custom disappeared leaving the impractical and senseless side for people to COMPREHEND as they wished. This led to increase of a dehumanizing attitude of anyway patriarchal society resulting in the lower status of women than men burdening her with tag of being 'impure'. What adds on to the in-humanness of these men towards women is when learned men comment on women's well being with statements like "I don't believe a person who can bleed for five days straight and still be alive." Hawking once mentioned, "I deciphered what i had to but could never apply that to a women. They are a species on their own." Statements like this is if spelled by learned men, what can we expect of uneducated men in the remote areas of Nepali villages who are just following what their father did. Who is to blame? 

Some traditions are worth a keep. Some aren't. One needs to focus and analyze how much of a tradition do we actually have in a tradition and how much has been sensitized in order to make people feel their cohesive power in a society.