The Happy Conductor

Published28 March 2017

Reading Time 2 mins

Author Stories of Nepal

Location Nepal

"I am a happy person and everyone laughs at my jokes and the way I tell them. But my childhood was not a happy one. Ours was a large family. My father had two wives that I know of. The first wife, my stepmother, a Magar bore him 7 children. I was born of his second wife, a Tamang. I do not know how many wives my father had outside of home. My mother fought with my father to send me to school. I saw school until the 7th grade but I do not know what I learnt. I had to pay more attention to the work of the house, fields and animals. And I almost forgot to tell you that I was married at 13. My wife must have been 10 or 11. We did not know each other. We did not know what it meant to be a husband or a wife. Such a sad thing. But we are still together with 4 children. We send all of them to school from what little I earn. I use to drive a tractor transporting goods from one place to another but I did not like it so much. I was very tiring so eventually I chose to work as a conductor. I have been doing it for the last 14 years. Life is spent on the road. I return home sometimes. My wife is happy to see me and so are my children. I am a fun person. I even make the passengers laugh during long and boring hours in the bus.” (Suman Kumar Raika Magar, Beltaar, Udaypur)

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