Jurshital Mithila Art Institute celebrates 3 months today since its official registration as a non-profit organization. The institute is doing very well as it obtained an additional funding from Clinton Global Initiatives University at the end of Summer of 2010. This has further funded two more months of training from the month of October to November. These Mithila women have now learnt enough to produce sellable paintings in markets of Kathmandu and Pokhara.

Indeed, we have found a vendor in Kathmandu, who runs a book and antique store in Thamel, the art of tourist center in Kathmandu, who has agreed to dedicate some space in her shop for selling these Mithila paintings for no additional cost. There is another trekkers company in Pokhara that works for women empowerment by training women to become tourist guides. This organization has also offered to promote these paintings among their clients.

Losing is Never Pleasant

Today I went to the Institute only to find that two of my trainees were missing. One of them names Sushma Mishra has been married for 6 years with a son and a daughter. Her husband works in a factory in India but she does not know what kind of factory it is. He visits her once a year during the time of Dasain, which is the national festival of Nepal. Even when he is in the village, he hardly spends time with his wife. If Sushma demands his presence at home then she gets beaten up and abused. I tried my best to convince her to come to the painting institute but I failed. I really hoped that this Mithila Art training would strengthen her economically and socially. But she says that she does not have time for the institute since she needs to take care of the house and the children by herself as her in laws are dead.
Another woman named Rajdevi Yadav has a family of nine. Her husband works in Malaysia in a very low-paid job. She left because her husband that it was a disgrace to the family when women stepped out of the house in search of economic gain while their male partners were alive and healthy. He said that he would instead work harder and earn enough for the whole family so that she would not need to even think of getting a job. It is very frustrating that I cannot convince someone as far as in Malaysia. Even though I am usually not afraid to put my opinion in front of my own family members, it is different when it comes to other families, especially when they are husband and wives. The fact that I have been an outsider in my own village since I left at an age of nine for education puts me to a greater disadvantage. Again, it is not accepted in Mithila culture to speak against our elders. And her husband is way older than me.
This is the first heartbreaking experience at my institute. As sad as I am to lose these two precious women, I notice that even other trainees are sad to miss their mates. It is amazing to see how a short period of time spent together with someone brings us so close to them and creates a whole new chapter in our lives.
Rest of my trainees are enjoying the Mithila Painting classes that keep them away from wondering from door to door in this heat, afternoon nap and getting involved in meaningless fights.

The Magical Motorbike

This morning a kid came running into my house in Halkhori. He was excited and overwhelmed with joy as he had seen a magical bike outside. He explained how the magical motorbike started producing weird sounds as soon as someone touched it and the engine could start just by touching a small red dot on a rectangular object that the owner had in his hands. His mother, whom I call chachi (meaning aunt), said even she witnessed how the engine started roaring when other people than the owner tried to touch the bike. She further added, “it seemed as if the bike knew its owner and would cry the hell out if anyone else than the owner tried to take it away by force.” I agreed with them only giving them a small fact that the bike was shouting not only when touched by strangers but also due to an alarm system that triggered the sound. As for the remote control system, I could not find enough words to explain them why the bike engine started even from a distance just by the touch of a button on it in the owner’s hand. I let them enjoy their joyous moment of having seen the magical bike. It is in fact fascinating how small things like that can bring joy to people’s lives in my village.

quick update

Hey all,

Very hot and humid regards from Janakpur, Nepal!!!

Because I've been busy setting up the institute and due to the unavailability of internet service, I haven't been able to update my blog. Nevertheless, I have some great news. The project is already into the fourth day of training. We had a small inaugural ceremony on Monday morning, after which we started the training. With three trainers and twenty trainees, most of whom are still learning to hold the paintbrush and others who show great skill already, the project is starting to take shape. The project seems more demanding of my time and effort than I initially expected but everyday is a learning experience. I would like to write more but the forced power cut starts in a few minutes. I promise I will get back to you all soon.

PS: All the mosquitoes say hi!!

Am I Different Now?

I rushed back to my hometown Janakpur where my parents were anxiously waiting for me. Last time when I was in Janakpur, it was during winter days. Although there was no sunshine for days, I did not complain. I was happy wearing winter clothes after a year of hot weather in GA, USA. This time, everyone that knew of this place had warned me about the extreme hot weather. Although I supposed it must be as hot as they fear it is, I had not imagined how hot, extreme hot meant here. Taking a bus ride to Janakpur was one of my worst encounters with heat. The bus was full of sweaty and hence smelly people. Though the bus said express service, it stopped at every point it could find passengers, stuffing humans as if they were boxes of non living things. Even worse, the guy sitting beside me was dead asleep occupying his own and half of my seat as well making a sweaty contact with my right hand. After a while, I had to wake him up to ask him to keep to his own seat. Turned out, he was a nice guy, gave me some cold water to drink during the steaming journey.

The twelve hour journey from Kathmandu to Janakpur put me to a day rest the next day. Then I started inquiring about other Mithila painting institutes in hope of finding some cheap trainers. As no one would tell me anything on the phone, I took an appointment for the next day. After taking a long walk of fifteen minutes in the scorching sun it turns out, the institute owner could not make it as he had a meeting. So I had to walk back again fruitless. I made more calls later taking appointment with two more institutes the next day. After calling them again several times the next day, they were finally available during the day. My father and I left home after lunch in the heat again and visited one of them, took some pictures and headed for another. Luckily I found a relative’s house in the middle to skip the sun for a while and drink a glass of cold refrigerated water. After a fifteen minute rest, I headed back to the institute. Apparently, the owner had not found anyone to talk to in a long time or so I thought. Starting from Mithila Painting, he talked to us about his personal life, his thirteen year old son, today’s education system where students don’t have respect for teachers, etc. I am usually a good listener but he took away all my patience. After a four hour long talk, we finally left fruitless.

Later that evening, I started sneezing. Overnight, I became so sick that next day I could hardly breathe. Turns out, I no longer am accustomed to my own hometown. I am not used to the crowded public bus, the dusty air, the scorching sun, the spicy food, and so on. I have been sneezing every minute since yesterday, not to mention the irritation of cough in my throat and my nose. I am hoping for a quick recovery and getting back to work soon.

Cat-Man-Do

In my last post, I was talking about home sweet home. And by that of course I meant the first and only city where I landed before I could leave for my home town. As soon as I exited the gates of the airport I was surrounded by more than ten cab drivers, each of them firing questions at me about where my destination was, where I came from and if I wanted to take a cab. Since I knew that saying US would lead into more crowds, I told them I came from Doha. I also informed them that I did not need a cab as I was being picked up by a relative. Then after, the drivers started to offer me their cell phones so that I could call him and ask where he was. I was growing impatient by this and shouted at them saying I did not need ten of them to call one person. So everyone except one guy left me alone. As frustrated as I was, I realized later the desperation of these jobless drivers in a country where political conflict destroyed everything and is still going on.

By the time I reached the house of my uncle, I was too tired to do anything. The 30 hour long journey sucked all my energy. I took a long shower, rested for a while and after dinner I slept until 9.30 AM next morning, which is considered really late as everyone wakes up around 5 AM in Nepal. I had light lunch and went to see my sister Puja who goes to Pentagon High School in Tinkune, Kathmandu. It was then I noticed how Kathmandu had changed drastically during the last 5 years that I had left. Sadly though, the change was only negative. The road was extremely dusty and filled with black smokes coming out of both public and private vehicles. It would have been a good idea to carry a handkerchief with me and also an umbrella. The heat had grown so much that one could not stand in the sun for an hour. The Kathmandu I remembered used to be a lot cooler and cleaner. Now, there were more houses, squeezed together and of course more pollution.

It was strange seeing Puja in formal shirt and nicely ironed navy trousers, as she always wore traditional Kurta Surwal at home and during non school hours. She had so much to share that out of the four hours that we spent together; she talked for more than three hours. At least that relieved me of having to share my same old American stories of non spicy bland food and what not. Then I met few friends from school in Kathmandu that were typical example of stereotypical Nepali society. I am saying this because they used to be among top students and most of them are now into medical studies just as the society predicts one would be, given one is extremely good in academics. The rest they say should be engaged in art and commerce fields. Again, a friend of mine who used to fail in school is studying commerce and doing very well in it.

All of us went to Thamel, the most popular tourist spot and youngster hang out area. I kept wondering where the impoverished was and conflict victimized Nepal when I saw how my friends spent a thousand rupees in no time. A thousand rupees is a week’s salary for an average Nepali citizen.

I love Kathmandu, pronounced as cat-man-do by foreigners. Though I come from a village I grew up there since I went to Budhanilkantha school, which was away from the crowds of central Kathmandu. There I met people from all over Nepal and we shared our cultural differences. That was my first step to globalization, where I learnt to embrace the differences and appreciate them.

Flying 1st Class in Economy Class

Being from Nepal and a student is self explanatory why I bought a cheap ticket to Kathmandu from NYC. Although Qatar Airways is not obvious as an economy flight, I bought them cheap through STA, a special discount travel site for students. And thanks to this cheap ticket, I would have had to wait a total of 18 hours at the Doha airport for a 5 hour flight from there to Kathmandu! At first I thought that I could get by the wait time by obtaining a visa and taking a lonely tour of Doha. But after constantly calling Qatar Airways, Qatar Embassy, the consuls, I found out that there are only two ways to get a visa into Qatar, one of which is if you belong to one of the 33 rich nations listed under their airport website and the other one is through Qatar Airways itself. As one might guess, Nepal was clearly not among their exclusive 33 nations and Qatar Airways denied to sponsor my visa since they said that my ticket was not issued through their airline. Later I found out that arranging a hotel by myself would cost me about $125 but then that would make my cheap ticket cheap no longer so I decided against it. My 12 hour flight from the JFK international airport to Doha Intl seemed shorter as I thought of the 18 hours layover at a small airport like Doha.

I deliberately took longer than usual at each shop at Doha and memorized almost all the products and their prices. I became a true window shopper! Then after, I found an Internet Point, which to my relief again, took longer than usual to connect. These actions killed time better. Despite being on my own, the sign family lounge attracted me and thankfully it was not mandatory to have a family in order to enter that section. I slept for a couple hours there and woke up with a strong urge to get home earlier than planned. I went looking for the transfer section counter, where the officer told me that I could not be put onto the next flight since there was not enough empty space and I had too many luggages. At that point, I almost promised myself that I would travel without any luggage from then on.

After the unfruitful meeting with the Qatar Airways transfer officer, I went back to explore the airport with a slight thought of wanting to rent business lounge, which was supposed to be very comfy and cozy. Then my eyes came across a signboard pointing towards something called quiet rooms. Though this reminded me of torturous quiet study hours during my middle school in Nepal, I was willing to explore that one out of boredom. So with hesitance and unsure of what I might find behind the double glass doors, I dared to open them. To my surprise, I found nice long comfy chairs filled with tired asleep passengers. Just when I was about to turn back, an empty chair from the corner of the room attracted me, where I slept for another couple hours.

Then I went back to the transfer counter, where I was told that there were empty seats on the 9 AM flight but the company wanted to wait until the last minute to see if they could be sold. So they gave me a later time to come back, which gave me some time to check out the restroom where I found a woman from Nepal that was the cleaning lady. I had known all along that male went to oil reach countries in search of physical labor intensive jobs but had never known that even women went out in search of similar jobs. Her name was Sumita Rimal and she shared her family story with me. She had lost her husband in the Maoists movement and was left with two daughters and an old father in law to look after. After the emotional story, I went back to the counter only to find that the earlier officer was replaced by another kinder looking one. I pleaded my case again and to my surprise, he gave me a boarding pass to the 9 AM flight, making my stay at Doha shorter by 6 hours. I was so happy that I thanked him with an unusually big grin on my face but he did not even bother to smile back.

I was excited to finish second halves of two movies on the flight to Kathmandu that I had seen on the movie list of my earlier flight. However, my excitement came to an end as soon as I became aware that there were no video screens there. But my disappointment did not last long as I saw two rows of three empty seats at the back of the flight. As soon as the flight took off and I was allowed to move, I took all my belongings to the last row. I made a comfy bed with the use of one blanket and three pillows from the three seats. Then I used the rest of the two blankets to cover myself and slept peacefully for the first time in the last 48 hours. Even though I had never flown first class, I could tell this was even better than first class. This made my journey quicker and I was happy to be home again.