The heart is the witness of my struggle

Published10 June 2019

Reading Time 2 mins

Author Stories of Nepal

Location Nepal

"The Koshi took away more than half of father’s land. He started talking less after that. The only thing he really knew was how to work the earth and with that gone, he felt he had lost his life. Even though I moved out, he chose to stay there with what little land was left with the few animals to give him company. This event also made me overthink about life and what worse things were to come. But I had to leave. From a nice home, the place had filled with the washed sand from the river and had become uncultivable and unliveable. After I left my village in search of a new land where I could raise my new family, all my thoughts took me back to my father, my friends and relatives and the fields we had lost to the Koshi. I started acting like a mad person. But in time, I overcame my struggle of loss. The poor do not have the luxury of time or of too many tears. I spent my entire life fishing and collecting wood. Sometimes, the fishes disappear and the wood stop flowing through the river and there are days when we go hungry. My age is also giving me problems, my back hurts and my eyes have become blurry but I have to catch fish. There is no other option for me and my children. And I have many. 11 of them. 6 sons and 5 daughters. I feel like I have been in prison all my life. I gave 15000 in cash, some gold, and silver, clothes amongst other things in dowry for my eldest daughter’s marriage. And in succession, I gave what I could to the grooms of my other daughters during their marriage. Four of my sons have started theor own family and left. Today, I live with the youngest. The heart is the witness of my struggle for having the mind of an animal and not knowing how to read and write. This is all I can tell you. Now, I have to go fish."

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