SHE....

She fought her whole life to fulfill the needs of others. She challenged the challenges, stood strong and over came all the pain for the better life of her loved ones. She only introduced to thorns, pain, tears.....
But someone entered in her life, introduced to the flowers, colours, showed the beauty of life. She was happy, experienced the tears of happiness, learn how to smile, laugh. She succeeded to win over the pain and dark part of life, there was a spark in her eyes....
but it was a short fairy tell for her. She got punished for forgetting her ground, her reality. At the end she had to get back to her friend of life time that is problems, challenges, struggle, pain, tears and humiliations. And she continue to explore her life journey in the search of guts, strength, solution, peace and respect.

THIRTY FIVE MINUTES in taxi………….

We cannot demolish it, what we can do is only transform. "Chhaupadi" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhaupadi) is their culture and directly impacts their caste and culture. That's why even lots of programs and new thoughts are being useless when it comes to demolish it. It is near to impossible at least a far cry to achieve this goal. It will exist in the community but might be in different form. Well everything changes with time so do our culture but mind my words it only changes, transforms itself but eradication…….

Yes, migration is making a positive impact; you can see they give damn care to this thing. But only because they have to cope with the life style of the new society and another is they don't get that social structure and environment even if they want to follow it, where are they going to get a cowshed or chhaupadi hut to stay? So either they leave it or they modify according to their comfort zone. But those who give damn care here again follow the custom when they get back. They know it very well that they can not leave alone, they need family, friends and society. So, they just find easy to follow the rules and regulations of their society rather than fighting against them. And one more things we should never forget is those cultures are formed by their own people and they know it more than anything else.

You belong to Newari community, right? though you know it very well that "Gufa" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newa_people) effects on girls mental and physical health but still can not stand and go against it because the chain is very strong, stronger than anything else in your life, the chain of your society, culture, where you belong to.  Singing, dancing, wearing, speaking, eating, learning, loving, caring, crying, smiling, breathing…. can you ignore it. Yes, if you are strong enough you might try to convince them if not may be fight like a child but will never go against them. Because even if you don't but your every single sense every single cell knows that this is where you belong this is what you are and this is the only place where you can go back and stay safe.

It took about thirty five minutes to drive me from Tripureshwor to Gongabu buspark. He works as a taxi driver; I don't know even his name.  It was our first meeting but he shared his point of view on redefining our culture.

He is right our culture, society, family defines us but we cannot keep on being blind that our own people, culture encouraged gender disparity and kept and keeping women in subordination role. And in result we can see women and girls are suffering from various forms of violence every moment and turning our father, brother, uncle, teacher……violent and taking them far far away from peace, love and gentleness. And because we are among them, we belong to it ONLY WE CAN BRING CHANGE, ONLY WE CAN SAVE IT.

Never Ending Stories

Amperi, a 11 years old girl, is getting ready to join her girl friends to collect firewood immediately after having morning meal. Washed her face and used a shawl as towel and went to kitchen and get leftover rice which was also less than half of her regular and took some salt and chilly along and packed in the shawl and tighten in her wrest. Again ran inside and came up with big axe and get it inside her wrest and locked by the shawl. Now, is all ready to join her group of friends. She is happy as they are going to chat and sing songs and enjoy in forest while collecting the wood. She did not feel tired even though she just came back from colleting bushes for the domestics and rushing to meet her friends. While she was leaving there was a big smile in her face.

A group of girls of age 8 to 14 was coming down to village with about 30 to 40 kilograms of wood on their back in doko. The load was highly dominating their weight. A 30 kilograms weighted girl carries 30 to 40 kilograms of load everyday, wow! When they got near I recognized that they were Amperi and group, looking tired and hungry. They left at 9 am in the morning and it's already 5pm, exact hours of their school.

The school remained close most of the time, even if it opened there were only two or three teachers and they were also busy chatting in the office room while the students of Early Child Development (ECD) were playing the role of teacher and student turn by turn and rest of the student in the school were hanging around and playing. Most of the students were boys and girls were absent. It's the scenario of the school in Mugu.

Amperi, who was already feeling sleepy, pushed her plate near to her mother asking for plenty of dahl (lentil). But her mother pushed it back to her without serving. She understood that she is not going to get dahl (lentil) so, continue with rice only. Her family (mother, father, brother, sister in law, niece, me and herself ) were having dinner together at 8 pm. Me, her brother and niece were served with curd, dahl (lentil) and rice while her mother, sister in law and she had rice and dahl.  Rest of the member got dahl (lentil) added but except her.

The environment of school, careless behavior of teachers and parents, deep rooted patriarchal society and lack of information, empowerment and motivation all are together draging girls like Amperi out of school resulting on early marriage and early child bearing.

Time for preventive way

Where are you from? Do you put Norplant? It took a moment to get to a lean woman with cigarette in her hand, may be because we were very tired. Well, my obvious answer was NO. After a minute we found out that she has uterine prolapsed (UP). She got herself screened twice and also used ring pessary. “They inserted a ring inside but it was not comfortable at all, keeps on falling. So I took off. If possible I want to do operation (hysterectomy). Do you know anyone who can help me? I got pregnant for six times. I was 20 when my parents marry me off. Next year I gave birth to a baby boy but unfortunately we couldn't safe him. My second baby also died in the very next year of my first child. After that I had four daughters. Elder daughter is 15 and younger one is one and half years, one more child died. I experience my prolapsed in my fifth delivery.  My husband still desire for son and pressure me for that. That’s why I want to get operated.” A woman from Matela Bazar, Jajarkot said to me. And by that time we were already surrounded by her neighbors, who were encouraging her to share her stuff to us.

There are millions of women suffering from uterine prolapsed and it feels great to know that Nepal government is showing some interest to deal with it but still the best of government is not enough when the interest is limited to curative only. Hysterectomy is not the permanent solution. It's a high time to go for preventive approach. Also need to  focus on the quality of hysterectomy services being operated, should proved ring pessary for free and give importance to pre and post counseling to women with uterine prolapsed and family before operating them. It is women's right to have a quality life and the range of uterine prolapsed shows that millions of Nepali women have no quality of life. 

Age verses Attitude

"You know I wear Jeans and top in regular days and when we have meeting with government I either wear kurta or saree" said one of my friend who works in Danish Embassy and studying Women's Studies. I immediately reacted and said" really, why?" She smiled and said "When I wore jeans and top they called me Manju, when I was in kurta they called me Manjuji and when I was in saree they called me Manju madam and behaved accordingly". I remember the very day when my boss called me adding "ji" in my name. I was so surprised because she usually calls me only with my name. Well, usually I wear jeans and top and that day I was wearing Kurta. It sounds funny but most of us might have experience this. Our cloth defining the level of respect we receive.

In Nepali society we have tradition to respect elders. Age and respect are directly proportional to each other, aren't they? And this is true for most of the women/girls that we do look older when we wear kurta and saree comparative to jeans. But my question is, are knowledge, skill, capacity and most importantly attitude based on how mature we look? Is it fair to change the level of respect towards a person according to her dress up?

A three years of girl was raped by her own father, a four years of girl was raped by her own uncle, a 16 years of girl was burnt by her own parents and relatives, many women are being killed by her own husband and family, more than 3749 cases of domestic violence were filed during 16 Days Activism Against Gender Based Violence in Nepal ( Kantipur daily), these are the news we heard and sadly it is becoming very common now a days. So, what should we do respect age or attitude?

In the episode of child sexual abuse in "Satya Meva Jayate", a very famous and one of my personal favorite show in Indian T.V hosted by actor Amir Khan, a participant in the end of the program said we should respect the attitude of the person not his/her age, if we continue respecting age this kind of crime will never end.