Retirement celebrations were a big deal in the our village of Tangbe in Mustang District. But before 1990, even with a sizeable number of the people living in Pokhara, I don't think many held their celebrations in the city because of the shame they felt in being ethnic Tibetan. Things have changed a lot since then. Here's a glimpse into a celebration that I attended last month.
An incident last October brought back memories of the untimely death of my dear maternal grandfather (the same year my classmates ostracized me at St. Xavier's Godavari School). But determined not to let the same tragedy befall the cousin who had suffered a fall that October night, with help from his older brother, I defied the rest of the cousins to do as I saw fit.
Violence against children in Nepal, in homes and schools, was routine in the seventies and eighties when I was growing up. Results of surveys show it to be so even now, more than two decades later.
Instead of raising children, who have to recover from their childhoods, we should and we can raise them to be kind and compassionate human beings!
I used to really feel uncomfortable introducing myself as "Dorje Gurung" to fellow Nepalis as a young student growing up in Nepal in the eighties.
I still do...but for the exact opposite reason!
I may just have found a way around it thoug!
Something -- ten-year (1997) high school reunion -- that I should remember! I should have memories of it! After all, I had been heavily involved in its organization! But, strangely enough, I don't, while I do our one-year (1988) reunion, for all the right and two wrong reasons!
How people are in some respects -- and also how power dynamics -- work don't change with time. Should you suffer in some way because of that, hardly any of it is about you AND as such you can't do anything about it really. And that's ok!