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GLOSSARY Nepal glossary |
transcript |
| Section 1 | Since how many generations before did you start to live here? This is approximately the fourth generation. |
Where did your forefathers come from? Our forefathers actually migrated from Western Nuwakot to Kathmandu and from there they went to Dapcha, Nangaltar and settled down in Chapauli. Then from there they went to Nibuwatar and kept some cattle. In those days, there were very few villages so there was plenty of forest and grazing land, so our forefathers settled here and raised the buffaloes. So counting my father, myself, my son and the grandchildren its our fourth generation here. |
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Did your grandfather or father settle down here? My great grandfather used to keep cattle here and my father came to settle down. |
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Till what age did your father live? My father died at the age of seventy-seven. |
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How many brothers did your father have? There were four of them including my father. |
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Did all four of them live here? All lived around here. Two were in Nibuwatar, one in Tarukhola and one lived over in Ritha Danda. |
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Where is this place Ritha Danda? It is in Ward No.8 also. |
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How many brothers do you have? I have two brothers and I am the second in line. |
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Do you have any sisters? We have three sisters. The eldest one is now living in Rajghat, Sarlahi and the youngest sister is still living here. |
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Are all the brothers still living here? Both my brothers are now living in Rajghat, Sarlahi. |
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What do they do there? They are also farming there. |
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| Section 2 | How many members are there in your own family? I have my wife, five sons and two daughters. I also have three daughters-in-law. From my son, I have one granddaughter and two grandsons newly born. And a grandson from my daughter. The eldest daughter is already married. |
And the other daughter? The youngest daughter is studying in school; she is not married yet. |
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Have you had any education? I can read simple letters and all, but I haven't studied. |
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Did you learn from the school? No, I learnt at home. |
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With whom did you study? My brother-in-law taught me ka-kha (A, B, C) etc. |
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Has any of your family studied in school? My fourth son has completed school and now studying Arts in Intermediate level. The youngest is in class ten and preparing for sent-up test, and the third son failed in SLC (School Leaving Certificate). |
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Your eldest son hasn't studied? He has done up to 2-3 in Nibuwatar. |
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Have your daughters-in-law gone to school? The fourth one has studied up to class 5 but others haven't. |
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Do you know how this village was established, have you heard anything? According to the stories, I heard from my grandfathers, people from all over like, Ramechhap district, some from the east or west came here and settled sparsely. Then the Waibas settled down in Bahore and the Moktans in Gwangse. And those people went and brought the land-lordship from Makwanpur Mal (land reform office), thus they started the landlord system. |
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Who started this landlord system? Moktans were the first one to start it. There still are Moktans around but I don't know their names. Then the Waibas came, after that came the Things, Yonzons and Pakhrins in small groups. In Pachvaiya there were five houses of Golay's, then the Lamas came and so they called the place Panchvaiya. On this side, the Bohore, Padurebenshi, named after a tree called Padre which is still there, few people came and started to live. Before these people lived here, they say there were Tharu, Haiyu and Kusundas, the jungle people who lived in caves and ate fruits and roots, used to live here. We even saw a cave of Kusunda. After the settlement, the Kusundas saw cattle and dung and so our fathers say that those people started to migrate to some other places. They are not here anymore. |
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| Section 3 | Do you think that the jungle people have left just because of cattle raising or are there other reasons too? Our grandfather-in-law used to say that the Kusundas could not stand the smell of cow dung, maybe that's why they left. The Gotames say that there were beautiful bamboos, grasses and big-big trees so the Kusundas lived here. In this Mahabharat range, there used to be beautiful forest with lots of bamboo with green grasses, we could cut any amount, but now the forest has thinned down the bamboo are scarce, it is not like the olden days. |
What kinds of grasses used to be here? We used to have grasses like bamboo, amrisho, tanki, and dubbabe and the creepers like kanshe were all over the place. On the way to the forest there were sishnu bushes all the way. In Chaitra, Baisakh and Jyestha we could find sishnu without thorns but now even if you find some they are full of thorns. We fed the buffaloes with such good sishnu and they used to give us a lot of milk. Since the grasses and the grazing land was so good our fathers settled here so we are still here. |
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Was it because of the five houses they called the place Panchvaiya? Yes, since five houses settled down at first they called it Panchvaiya. |
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Can you explain how the other villages were named? I have heard a little about those which are quite near but I have no idea about the other far off places. In Bhadrakali also we have a multiparty system after the Panchayati system. Now it is ward No. 9 and before there were only names of the villages like Bohare, Panchvaiya, Gwangshe. So now this place is called Bhadrakali Gaun Bikash Samiti (Village Development Committee). |
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In the beginning how many houses were there in Gwangshe? They say that one Moktan came and lived in Gwangshe, who had brought the landlord permit. That is what their forefathers used to tell - so the story goes. |
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And in this ward No.9? First there used to be Waibas, Thing, Pakhrin and Yonzons, maybe one family of each and slowly there were about twelve houses or so but it was the Waibas who brought the landlord permit first. Maybe it was your (the interviewer’s) forefather [laughing]. |
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Around which year were there twelve houses, can you tell us? This was before the year BS. 1990. |
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How was the village established in Nibuwatar? When the people started to settle down they didn't have to pay tax. They had to carry soda for gunpowder to Khurketi-that also once a month only and the tax was exempted. So they started farming here. In those days people didn't plant rice, because there was no canal and water was scarce, but now you see farming everywhere. As far as I now, there was big earthquake in 1990 BS, you can still see the landslides caused by that earthquake. Then in BS 2011, there was another big flood and landslides, then in BS 2026 and in BS 2038, again in 2041. Then in BS 2045 there was another big earthquake and in BS 2050 another big flood and landslides and all the forest was washed away, the trees planted in forestation programmes have also been lost in the landslide. We had an afforestation programme in ward No.8 and 9 about 2-3 years ago, but the saplings have started to perish, the people cut them for their animals. There is no discipline in people, they say in a democratic country everybody is the same and equal so nobody listens to anybody, but this is bad not be disciplined. Life is like this. |
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| Section 4 | During the earthquake of 90 and the landslide of 2011 what kind of situations did the people have to face? According to what I heard, during the earthquake people were crushed in their houses, and died. In 2011, we heard many people died due to the landslides. It was the same in 2027/28 where people were washed away in floods and crushed by the landslides and in the earthquake of 2041 was also the same. Many houses were destroyed one of our neighbour Jaman Singh's wife was also crushed to death in their own house. And in 2050 also the landslides and the floods created much trouble, it washed [away] the fields, the canals and the forest. You see only the landslides everywhere. |
Have you met anyone who had to leave everything due to these calamities? Some had to leave their houses since it was wrecked beyond repair. The government has distributed some food so people are surviving somehow. Life is difficult. |
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People have come and settled here before, and now because of the calamities have the people left this place? Yes, about half the people have left this village. |
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In which years have people left? In the year 2011 and BS 2028 people left because of poverty and difficulty to live, so whoever are still here are surviving with great difficulty. Life is hard. |
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Can you tell me about how many houses have gone away? I haven't really counted but, before in this ward No.8 we had about one hundred houses but now there are only about 60-61 houses, and according to last year's count, it was the same in ward No.9, and in Ward No.16 also half the people have gone away. It's the same with all the other wards. Even from our own Bhadrakali Gaun Bikash Samiti almost 35 percent of the people have gone away. |
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Where did they all go to? Some have gone towards Chure Chanch and some towards the Terai, some towards the west and some east towards Morang and Thapa, like our Motilals have gone there just 3-4 years ago. The Funyanlos have gone to Sikkim and I hear they are working as kulis (labourers) and the sons of Baral from Tarukhola have gone to Biratnagar and working in the jute mill. |
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These people working in the jute mill must be coming here frequently? They don't have land and enough to eat so they come here. They came here yesterday also, those sons of Baral, they have just enough for themselves over there. Whatever land one/two kattha they had was also washed away by the landslide. |
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Like the flood and landslides have you ever had to go through drought? During BS 2011 there was a big drought, we couldn't even plant maize. I remember, it rained on the 11th of Jyestha so we started the planting on 12th, 13th and 14th of Jyestha but that year we had corn. That year people ate githa, vyakur even the tree barks. Our fathers had stored 2-4 pathi of crops and 2-4 manas of seeds so we gave some to some people but there wasn't enough, so many people died due to starvation and due to eating whatever they found in the jungle. |
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| Section 5 | Can you remember how many people died due to drought and starvation? In this area about 13/14 people died due to starvation, that is for sure, but I cannot say about other places. |
Was there any kind of epidemic disease in that time? Those days we didn't have diseases like today. But in the year 2018/19 we had a disease called mai khatira (measles), during which about 25 to 30 young boys and girls died, even my niece died of measles. |
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Can you tell us more about the forest and jungle of this area? Before the forest was very dense, there were big sal trees which had 6-8 feet wide trunks. They used to be cut and taken to Jalkanya and Majhuwa Gaun Bikash Samiti. Then this kind of tree was everywhere, even in our ward No.8 & 9. Now we have small sal trees not like the ones we had before, people cut them for firewood, to make houses and some were burnt. We could even see those trees getting burnt but we couldn't do anything. |
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Were there herbs also found in this region? There weren't that many on this south side of Mahabharat, we could get one called parwanbet, and now we find chiraito - it is a very bitter grass which people eat when they have fever. Nowadays this chirantos are exported outside. |
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Why is it exported, what is the reason? Because they are sold easily. Now all the poor people collect them from the jungle and take them to the Sindhuli Dhure Bazaar so that the people from the city buy them. Since these people get money for the herbs they collect and sell. The others are the creepers we call it jhyau, they are also easily sold. So since 8-10 years ago people are selling them too. |
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What kind of wild animals were there before? Before, a little above our village people planted cardamon, hence the name of the place is still Alainchi, above that, our forefathers told us that elephants used to come and graze even the wild boars, deer and mountain goats used to come which we saw by our own eyes. Then, many tigers used to come but now you can see one or two sometimes. |
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And what about the birds? We had pheasants, jungle-fowl, parrot, myna, doves, nightingale, cuckoo, those kinds of birds. |
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Do you find any change in the birds of before and today's? We still have as many doves and nightingales around but the pheasants, deer and mountain goats and boars are quite difficult to find. They are almost rare now. |
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| Section 6 | What do you think the reason behind this deforestation and the loss of animals? It is because the people before us cut trees and the grass cutters cut the trees too instead of just the leaves. So the trees died and when there was heavy rain there was soil erosion and with another heavy rain there were lots of landslides. |
What do you think of the population growth? Before we had a saying that “son is wealth” but nowadays people have started family planning. I think there has been some changes for good in population growth and marriage customs. |
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How was the system of land distribution here? Before the landlords with the government stamp used to come here and let the tenants stay and farm in their lands for free, they even let the villages to be formed. Then, there started the system of carrying of soda as a tax for the land and after 1990 BS the land was measured. With the land reform started the tax system. Then the landlords distributed their lands, the tenants if their documents of land in their names (lalpurja). After that some people sold their land and went away and with the same document people are still living in this land. |
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How did the landlords distributed the land? They distributed the land like presents, people got whatever they asked for, they even built small huts for people to live in and live freely. During the land reform programme, keeping the condition as it was, the lands were measured in 1993 BS. Then we had to pay a mohur (an eight aanaa silver piece) per house every year. |
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Did you all settle here by cutting away the forest? We had to cut trees. There were trees all over the place, there were grounds and steep lands with big trees so in some places we cut down the trees. |
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In those days how did you farm? When it rained or a little after that we could just plant maize in Khoriya and in some place the lahari, barley and in some bhaiya. When the village started to get crowded people planted maize and millet and later they even wanted to plant rice. Before in the Dasain festival we couldn't eat rice so we had to bring it from Marin khola, it was a very difficult time for us. So we decided to plant rice here. We brought the canal from the streams and when we had enough water we started paddy fields. |
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Which is the oldest canal of this area? The Mulkulo of our ward No.9 is the oldest one. This canal was dug from Tankhola to Dube, it was the first canal, then they had another one in Nibuwater and then everywhere. |
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By which methods were the canals dug? In those days money was expensive, one could hire a person for 8 aanaa a day so with Rs. 400-500 the canal was ready. |
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| Section 7 | Who were the labourers? We hear now that the Waiba leader Jasman brought the Narayandal from the Gadi to build this canal. |
After that many canals were built, the way of farming also changed, so before that what kind of rice and maize were planted then? Before in the old system, we had rice like thakar, kalo-mashino to grow and now we have new kinds of developed rice like, sabitri, mansuli and taichini. |
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What kind of change do you see in the production? Naturally, the production has doubled where we still have the fields but most of the lands are lost in landslides. |
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What is the reason? Now we have chemical fertilisers like urea and complasol which also help. We also use manure. Sometimes JTAs come and teach us to farm. With their help we now have an orange plantation. We have planted 50-60 trees. So I think it has improved. |
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Since how many years ago did you start the new method of farming? In this Sindhuli area it started in 2023/24 BS, but then only a few applied this method and nowadays more and more people are applying it. |
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Who started the new method? As far as I know it was Aita Singh Waiba who brought the developed high grade wheat seeds from India to here. He used to go to India quite often, so at first he brought only 10-12 seeds and planted in ward No.9. Then later on he again brought the taichini rice and also taught others to plant the potatoes by the new method. And then I also started the same way. I took the wheat seed from there that's why I know these things. |
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What was this new kind of wheat? I forgot the name, but the seeds were reddish and the plants were about three feet tall and the bala (crop) was quite long and reddish too. |
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Do you still have them? No, we do not have that kind anymore. Nowadays we have the ones called I.R-21. |
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Do you find any difference in the production of that wheat and the kind that you have now? Then the what was new so the yield was good, and now there is a change in the soil, so there isn't really a big difference in the yield of the wheat. |
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How much could you get from 1 kattha of land and how much can you grow now? There used to be approximately one muri from one kattha of land and now also it is only 1-2 pathi less than a muri. Now there are lots of grasses growing in the wheat field which I think is affecting the yield. Since the yield has dropped down a little we are now planting the new kind of wheat. |
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| Section 8 | And are there any differences in raising cattle and other animals? It was better before. Then the grazing land was available. We had enough grass for the cattle, buffaloes and goats. Afterwards, people brought buffaloes from other places-Lahure Bhainshi. Now the animal raising is not so popular because of the disease, before there were no diseases in animals. |
Weren't there any diseases before? I really don't know, we only heard about the death of the animals, but never heard of these unusual diseases which killed the animals. |
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Now what kind of diseases do the animals get? We don't know the names of the diseases, but the animals die of pain, swollen stomach; they die immediately as if they were shot by an arrow. We don't know the names, maybe the experts do. |
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Why do you think the people and animals were free of diseases before and why not so now? Before everything was pure and fresh, we didn't travel much and exchange of goods was also limited. But now people travel more, they take and bring things from one place to another. So, if any diseased element was brought here it spread the disease all over and some disease nobody knows how it spread here. |
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Can you tell something about education? We didn't get any education we neither had a teacher nor the school. In such conditions also we learnt a few letters so that we can now read and write a little. After that during the year 2020-22 BS, after a very long and tiring effort we were able to build a primary school in Nibuwatar. After that we managed the secondary school and now with a big effort we have been able to run the high school with much difficulty, all the funds are raised within the village. I have also donated around Rs3000. We have raised the fund four times but still there is not quota. |
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What is the reason behind such a development in education? Before all the education we had was from the family, we even used to have personal teachers, who taught us at our own house. After quite a long time we had one school in our Sindhuli district, its name was Kamala High School. Then people realised the importance of school and education. In the Bhadrakali region, the first primary school was in Dhungre Bhanjyang, but they couldn't run it well so we brought that school in Nibuwatar. After sometime we had our own Bhase school and the first one was returned back No.1 Dhungre Bhanjyang. From the Bhase school we developed this primary school. |
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What do you think of the education and how is the school running? Due to the unhealthy relationship among friends we haven't been able to improve the conditions. There are 12 primary schools in our Bhadrakali Gaun Bikash Samiti, with so many schools we need one high school, but the people do not understand nor do they agree upon it. Since the people around here are not really eager, the education hasn't improved, we don't have enough teachers and the District office has not given any quota for the high school in this area. Maybe that is why the people haven't shown any interest. I'm sure it will improve but the villagers also have to take interest in it. |
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| Section 9 | Why did the villagers opt for school education? People started to understand that with the school education, only then can they have a better idea in agriculture and health. Some people went away to study and came back here and taught us the importance of education, what we can do with the good education, people learnt these things. |
You have sent your son and daughter to school, so what do the villagers have to say about it? There are still some villagers who don't send their children to school, in Pachvaiya we have Syangbo caste. Ganesh Bahadur is the other one whose children do not go to school, he has about 5-6 sons and a daughter; what can we say, he doesn't even send them to our own ward's school. People are still in the dark; they are still not educated. |
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And what do they think of educating their son and daughter? They all treat them equally now, they all go to school, but it was not so before. I also didn't send my eldest daughter to school but now my youngest one is going to school. There are still a few who do not understand these things. |
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What can you tell us about the water or rain, the rivers, the forest, the fertility of land and the environment itself, how do you compare from before to now? I think it rains more now, maybe that is why there are more floods and landslides. So whatever production we have in the lands remaining is more than before. The environment has also changed too. Compared to the people of old days, these days people go away to work, they learn good things and tell us how things should be and should be done when they come here. So it has definitely improved now. Nothing is like it used to be. As far as we know, there were people who didn't know how to speak, they used to run away when a man in black daura-suruwal (Nepali male national dress) came to the village. My father told us that when the soldiers came from Sindhuli Gadi to do something the villagers would have already run away. That was the situation, but now nobody runs away from anybody, or anything. Now the water is better and we are hoping the forest will grow back. The trees we planted in the forestation programme are slowly growing, but still the forest is not like the one we had before. |
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So, what plans do the villagers have regarding forestation? We have decided to plant more trees, so that it will again be like it used to be. But we still have differences. Only perhaps half of the villagers agree to it and the other half still does not understand the importance of forest. They have even cut the trees planted along the roadside, they have become a menace. They think that in a democracy people can do anything. So we are hoping that some trees may grow big where we have planted. |
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Do you have a committee? No, we don't have one. The plants were sent from the nursery in the district and we participated in the forestation programme. The whole programme was financed by the forest division of this district of the then Panchayati system and in this Bhadrakali area we all participated in planting the trees in two wards. |
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| Section 10 | In which wards? In No. 9 and No. 8 wards. I live in Ward No. 8. |
How many of those kinds of forests are there in this area? In these two wards of Bhadrakali area. |
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Is it in the whole ward or in places only? In the Gaun Sabha we had decided the area north of here, from the Mahabharat to the south and the north of the settled area and the area in the forest where the trees are few, to plant the trees. |
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In the old days, did you have any sort of committee to decide when you had to build the schools or canals like that? Before, if we had to dig a canal, first we would find from whose land we had to dig then we would all get together and discuss it. So if it was decided to dig the canal we would all give Rs100-200 each and get the labourers to dig. If the route was easy we would dig the canal ourselves. But if there were any rocks we had to bring the stone-cutters called Agro, they were the experts. |
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So you had to have a meeting to decide such actions? Yes. |
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How many meetings did you used to have in a year? We dug canals in the Jyestha, so we had to have the meeting in Jyestha. Then we had two meetings in Bhadra, one to discuss and to decide on which day to dig the canal and the other to make the bed for rice. |
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Who would chair the meetings? The one who had more land would chair the meeting and we all had to follow what he said. Say a jamindar, he could be from the other village too. The jamindar would call for the meeting and gave us the programmes. |
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Did you go to these meetings on your free will or were you forced to attend them? We went on our own will. We also needed, we also wanted to have rice fields. The rice was something then. So hoping to have their own rice fields also people attended the meetings. Nobody was forced. |
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So what is the practice these days? Nowadays we take attendance. If anyone doesn't come to work, like to clean or repair the canals, he has to pay in cash depending on how much land he has. |
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So who calls these meetings or decides on such matters? In the matters of land anyone can call a meeting, and regarding other matters in the ward, there are ward committee members and old and wise men. The villagers have elected a person or people go to someone who usually has answers for everything. There are other committees like the Gaun Bikash Samiti; it also has a president, they can give good advice but regarding farming we have to go to someone experienced in farming. |
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| Section 11 | Like the people coming in a group to dig the canal, in what other matters do people get together? In the public work like: building the roads, school buildings and grounds we work in groups. But now people think that it's government work to make the roads so they do not work, and they are also waiting for the government to bring them drinking water. In our ward 8 and 9 the drinking water was provided by UNICEF, and now when the upper house is using the water there is not water for the other houses, but people say the government personnel will come and solve the problem. But if we had just asked for an expert and built it ourselves, maybe we wouldn't have this problem. We do have the water pipe line and the tap in ward No.8 and 9 but unfortunately there is no water. The people living on the top have water, the upper Bohore to middle of the village have water. In the Magar gaun, there is water up to the Pradhan Pancha (village mayor) Bakhat Bahadur's tol but below them in Prem Kumar's to there is not water. Some have broken the BBT, I saw that when I was coming that way. |
You think this is good or bad, how do you feel? This is wrong, people shouldn't behave this way. I always tell my people to participate equally and we must maintain those we had built. It is our, the customers, duty also to look after and maintain the water pipe line so that we will always have a good supply of drinking water. The same with the school building and if the road is in good condition it is nice to walk along, but now there people depend on the government to maintain the road rather than doing it ourselves. That is why without the active participation of the local people you don't see road building and everywhere the water supply is not good. |
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How did you settle your fights or arguments of the village in the olden days and how do you do it now? Before the year BS 2015, everything was settled by the jamindar. He would ask the guilty to apologise and pay due respect to their elders, the land disputes were also settled by him. But the cases of murder and against the government were out of his hand. Like the jamindars and the old and wise men of those days, now the president of Gaun Bikash Samiti and the members of the ward committee sit together and settle the disputes. But like before, other cases of action against the government and murders are dealt by the police and other officials. |
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Which system do you prefer the old one or the new one? We are now used to the new system, so I think its good. In the olden days the big and strong or the clever ones can dominate the weak and meek ones. But now with the democracy we all have the right to defend ourselves, we can take for ourselves, so I think it is getting better. |
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Why are the different castes of people living in different wards, i.e. Tamangs in Ward No.9, the Chettri and Brahmins in Ward No.8, Newars in Ward No.4 and there are Magars in Ward No.2 & 3, why are they living like this? It's like the saying 'Birds of feather flock together', people are also attracted to their own kind. It is easy if you stay with the people of same language, customs and culture, so they bring or call their relatives and brothers. In those days, the Brahmins were called the pure people, they had to pray and meditate, eat and self cook food only, they were the orthodox type, if any of them was found or known to have eaten anything in other castes house they could be exiled. Now the people have changed, they can eat whatever they want, they can have any religion, no one would ask or stop them, nobody really cares. |
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| Section 12 | What kind of relation did you all have? I mean the inter-caste relationships? It has changed a lot. Before the inter-caste relation was not so good, people were not so friendly with each other, they didn't trust each other. But now, people have realised that we all should live in peace and harmony, they are now friendly and trust each other. Now they respect each other and respect the customs of other castes. In those days, people were selfish, they'd give importance to their own language only and they'd never go close to other's kitchen. It is not only not respecting, but actually they hated it. Like there are Magars who have their own language and culture which other people have started to respect now, but in those days the other people hated them. |
Do you think this kind of change is good or bad? From the things I've heard and learnt from the wise men, I think and say that there is only one god, Brahma is the creator of all and live and let live is my ideology. And when you die it is a different story. We have our own culture and system, even a person dies people remember him, they talk about his good deeds and behaviour, so I think it is better these days. |
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What wish or hope do you have for your life in the future? What can I say, I was born in 1995 BS and am now running on 56 years, so how can I put it, we should learn from others that we shouldn't say more than needed, nobody can harm anyone who is good and nobody should do any wrong. Our forefathers have left us the written Sashtra and Purans and from there the pundits recite the sayings, I think they are true, like, we shouldn't forget our religion. We should not criticise other's religion and culture and we also shouldn't think of our religion as the best. It is bad to criticise others’ castes or to disseminate. So as long as I live I want to be good and do good and teach others to do the same, I hope I'll be happy then. |
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What do you hope from your children? I have spent all my life farming and now I'm getting old, so I wish my children to have good jobs, lead a good life and do good to everybody throughout their lives. |
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Has any incident occurred in your life which you haven't forgotten until today? I would like to tell, but it may take a long time. My mother died when I was five and in the same year my Bratabandha (rite of passage marking the entry to manhood) was celebrated. I had an older brother and a very young one and half year old younger brother, we had to perform the rituals of our mother's death. From that day on I haven't seen the happy days. I don't remember a day when I was happy or a nice and easy day. During my lifetime, I have been through floods, landslides and fire time to time. Even my second son died in the fire, that also in our own backyard, what could we do it was god's will an accident. Then my house burnt down in BS 2032. My son died in BS. 2034, after that the flood and landslides of BS 2040-41, the earthquake of 2045 and again the landslide of 2050 has washed all the fields. When can I make those fields now, I maybe 60 years old by the time its completed, I would be spending my money only, when can I live in peace and enjoy the fruits of my hard work! Now I have finished my new house by the old woods which didn't get burnt, but the sun never shined in my life. Maybe I should not wish for happiness and prosperity, what is the use of happiness anyway. We must live through happy and sad times. |
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| Section 13 | Why did your mother die in such a young age? She died at the age of 32, I was then five years old. |
Was she sick when she died, or was it due to the delivery of your younger brother? No, it wasn't so, my younger brother was one and half years old and I was five. She had fever and some disease called the khalharo - when someone is down with khalharo, the sick loses lots of blood. She really suffered from khalharo for seven days and on the seventh day she passed away. I was young then, I cried a lot I myself almost died. |
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And your father died when he was old, I think? My father died at the age of 77, he died of jalgada - the stomach gets swollen, but he wasn't sick for a long time. He had married again so we were living separately, but he was still working, he looked after his cattle, milked the cows, made mahi. He couldn't work only the last six months of his life. |
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In which year did he die? He died in BS 20026. |
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Do you have anything else you would like to tell us? I have told you almost everything I have seen and gone through, that's all I can remember. |
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Thank you very much for your information and time. |
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