Over four million people in Nepal are stateless. Bina Tamang is one of the many stateless women in Nepal.
Bina was born 25 years ago in Thulodhurlung. She is the second of five children. She considers two different dates as her birthday. Even though her village is in metropolitan Lalitpur district, it lacks infrastructure and is difficult to reach. She chooses and prefers the memory of her village rather than living there. Bina left her family behind at the young age of 13 to live and work in Kathmandu. To pursue opportunities which would help her support her family, she left behind her childhood and innocence.
When she was only seventeen, she had an inter-caste marriage which upset her family. A few months later, her mother forgave her. She summoned the newlyweds and performed the necessary rituals in the whole family’s presence. Bina was now officially a married woman.
Bina’s mom lost her battle with cancer last year.
If mom were alive, it might have been easier to get my citizenship made maybe Didi. I feel like right now I do not know what mine is really or what my identity is.
She calls the room that she has lived in for the last seven years in Bagdole, Lalitpur her ‘home’. Now, her husband is her friend and her family. Her citizenship and her physical body are two important fragments of her identity. Even though Bina is her own storyteller, instead of her own words, her story is inscribed and derived from history’s complex patriarchal networks and re-shaped to celebrate Bina’s body and story.
This story is my attempt to show Bina’s life in a few photographs.
