5.3 Positively turned Hira
Hira Tamang, a resident of Jhule-7 in Dolakha district was a pretty young lady, admired by many boys from her village. Ramkrishna Ghising, a boy from a neighboring village, was one of her many admirers. Ramkrishna had proposed to Hira many times, but as she was still studying in Grade 8, she refused him. Her father, Bhim Bahadur, and mother, Dilmaya, had struggled greatly to be able to educate her.

When Hira kept refusing his proposals, Ramkrishna forced her into marriage. The Lama community has a custom of accepting forced marriages, and many Lama girls have had to suffer because of this custom.

Having been refused so many times must have hurt the ego of Ramkrishna, for immediately after marriage he started coming home drunk, abusing and beating Hira. She was abused daily, but had no way to escape. She was a married woman and by tradition could not go back to her parents’ home. Her society had accepted the marriage that she was forced into.

Even her in-laws supported their son’s abuse of his wife. Once, her mother-in-law kept her hungry for two days. Starving, Hira went to the fields to look for corn. Her mother-in-law became furious and struck her on the back of head with a wooden plank; she fell unconscious on the ground. When she regained consciousness, she started to breastfeed her hungry one and a half year-old daughter. But hungry for days herself, she did not have milk to feed the child and it went hungry.

The infant was wailing with hunger when her husband came home in a drunken stupor that evening. Hira’s mother-in-law complained to him that his wife had not breastfed the child all day. He dragged her out of the house and beat her severely, and when she fainted, he and his mother assumed she was dead and threw her in the fields. Hira awoke in the middle of the night and decided that instead of being tortured every day for the rest of her life, she would run away with her daughter. Quietly, she took her sleeping daughter from beside her mother-in-law and left for her parents’ home. She had to pass through a forest on the way, but she felt no fear. But when her husband learned of her escape, he rushed after her and seized the child. Having lost her only child, she reached her parents’ house crying. She had lost her mental balance by then and started behaving strangely – she wept, shouted like a crazy person sometimes and at other times she sat alone and stared blankly. Her parents could do nothing for their grieving daughter except console her.

Hira came to know about Navajyoti from her sister. She got in touch with the Center but could not afford the fees. Nor did she have money to go to Kathmandu, and except the clothes she was wearing, she had no other belongings. However, when Mahila ko Haat offered to sponsor her, some rays of hope of a better life ahead flickered within her.

While in Navajyoti, Hira tried to lessen her pain by sharing her story with 16 other girls like herself. But the pain of separation from her infant daughter never eased. She remembers, “One day our trainer told us to share our stories among friends. I cried while telling my story. One of my friends shared that her husband had been shot by the army in front of her eyes. Another lady, like me, had been driven out of her house by her husband. Those stories made me realize that I was not the only one with a painful life and I comforted myself. Otherwise I had lost my mental balance.”

From that day onwards Hira tried to regain control over herself. Time flew and the training was over. Everyone returned home but she had nowhere to go. She wouldn’t go back to her husband’s house and her parents were already burdened with their own problems. She decided to stay in Kathmandu.

One day, while traveling from Koteshwor to Ratnapark[i], Hira met Radhika Basnet. Radhika wanted a household helper and because Hira was looking for a job, they came to an agreement that Hira would work for Radhika in her house in Kupondole[ii].

Her stay in Kupondole was not good either. During the People’s Movement of 2006, there was a water shortage in the house, and Hira had to go to a nearby public tap to wash clothes. Accidentally, she was hurt severely when tear gas fell near her. She discontinued her work in Kupondole after the incident.

Currently Hira works as a maid in another house. She still doesn’t have a comfortable life – her employer won’t let her communicate outside the house or let her use the telephone. Hira says, “This training has taught me so many things but sometimes I just have to pretend that I don’t know anything.”

Hira’s childhood days were spent in poverty in Dolakha district. Her parents have no property except the house they live in, so she doesn’t want to go back to them. Instead, she wants to be financially independent one day and prove to her husband what she is worth.

Asked how she would like to help other women, she says, “I haven’t forgotten anything that I learnt during the training. I would be able to start doing something if I had a suitable partner. I am in search of a helpful friend.”

Hira reveals that it was not easy to work in the village because of the insurgency. But her courage has not subsided. She had not imagined her life would take such a positive turn after all that had happened to her. Today, she wants to raise voice against the custom of forced marriage in the Lama community. “This training has given me a new life and one day I will pay back to all those who brought this positive turn in my life,” Hira says.

[i] These are places in Kathmandu
[ii] A place in Lalitpur, Kathmandu’s neighboring district