Playing the role of a mother, a wife and a student all at once has been difficult and I end up having no time to study or to stay updated about what goes on in the university classes. It’s a never ending process where I clear one exam and fail in some other. I sat for my final exams after I got married completing my bachelors 4 years ago. I am around 25 years now. My husband got me into LLB course. After I had my daughter I got my admission into college, it was my husband who helped me with all of it.

Finally, I have cleared all my papers and await my final LLB results. I was mentally preparing for civil services but then there was an opening for the post of a teacher in our village community school. I applied and got selected. I am a temporary teacher so I teach whatever subject is required to be taught. I see many students do terrible in their studies. I wonder if it is a part of the rural degradation, urban evolution or just a very bad trend. Now the more influential, educated youth choose not to stay in these villages. Which is unfortunate because their presence made a difference.

My daughter is 4 years old and goes to a government school here in our village in Saptari. It might be too soon to say but I can already see the kind of changes in these institutions. Students are much lesser in number, results are not as good, and there are many dropouts. Rising demand in instant gratification and a burning desires to avail contemporary resources probably is pulling people towards cities.

I have always been a government school student; the quality of education was better in our time. Teachers were regular, people from all economic backgrounds lived in the villages and there was quality control. Today I see children and families getting inclined towards private schools. It is happening probably because there is such a big rural-urban divide, with the larger part of the village vanishing. We might have better quality of sustenance in the villages but that doesn’t seem to be enough.

I know that I will be staying in my village. I believe it is my duty to make positive changes in life and to eradicate issues which I don’t like and which matters to me. We have to understand that nobody will come to our rescue. Once we realize our individual strengths and contribute accordingly, our communities will be more sustainable that cities. We need to stop being ignorant and complaining. We have to break free of the myths that we are brought up with, relying on others is never an options. We have to ask ourselves who makes our society strong and what our responsibilities are as human and social beings.

It is known to everyone that education is the most important support in bringing development and sustaining it. I agree that we do not have enough institutions to make the most progressive developments with the quality that we would ideally like, but it is imperative also for us individuals to do whatever we can to take care of our present and future.

I have understood that people can only show you the way but it is you who will take that journey. I see no reason why you should not try, you might fail but it will be your journey and the success will be yours which no one can take away from you.

As a Madhesi woman I feel our culture expects too much out of us. Even if we are ace students it is only useful as a badge on your marital CV. Our culture and norms should move parallelly with demands of the changing world. My culture is a part of me and I want to contribute to preserve it but I would never allow it stop my growth. I wish the new constitution was a little more caring of women like me who have emotional, cultural and social ties across the border too. My mother is an Indian and we have had deep ties with what we call our neighboring country but considering how the political rights are structured now we women cannot choose men that we want to get married to if we follow our age old tradition.

My father was a vetenary doctor and had a government job but he passed away when I was only 3 years old. It was my mother who nurtured us into what we are today. I do not think it was at all easy for her to take care of two daughters with no financial or social support. I think the traveling my mother did with my father because of his job made her notice how important education was, hence she did her best to assure we got quality education even when she was completely illiterate.                                

My mother fails to understand why I am unemployed and I fail to understand it myself. There are benefits of living in a village but it has many disadvantages too. I have a degree that is good enough to get a job but it is actually the smaller things that hinder my growth.

When the whole world speaks of gender discrimination we did not feel it in our home. We were never treated differently and if we ever were, it was only because we were different individuals with a variance in the way we understood and learnt things.

Dibya, my daughter is five years old and things will start getting serious very soon. I will have to make sure she gets a good education but it troubles me sometimes to think how I will be able to make that kind of money to survive. Though things are not very developed here, there is a sense of security and belongingness in our simple village life.