What has changed since Nepal celebrates Federal Democratic Republic now ? Still a racism, fundamendalism and difference between sex, wealth, caste and power is still on in Nepal. It is not even showing the sign of improving soon.
Lok Nath Dhakal the Founding President of Nepal Dwarves Association.
They might be short on height but their never-say-die spirit and the courage to confront all odds have made them icons. An insight into the little people of Nepal
If Loknath Dhakal had not chanced upon watching Appu Raja, a Hindi film about the life of a dwarf, he might have continued to wallow in his well of hopelessness and misery.
The movie helped him climb out of the well and be a catalyst in the lives of many dwarves like him in Nepal, a country that is home to eight of the 14 tallest peaks in the world.
‘I thought, if people can appreciate a movie about the life of a dwarf, knowing well that the actor who played the dwarf (with the help of special effects) is not one, they might also be fascinated by a film about dwarves in which the actors actually are dwarves,’ says 49-year-old Dhakal.
Sitting in a tiny one-room office in Kathmandu where each afternoon he starts working on his life’s mission of creating awareness about the plight of his kind, he explains how he set up the Nepal Hocha Pudka Sangh (Nepal Dwarves Association).
Getting started
The office of the Nepal Hocha Pudka Sangh is tucked away in the rear of a dilapidated building in a congested, polluted area of the city. Spartan, the office has a desk, behind which Dhakal as the founding president of the association sits.
Across the desk is a bench and a few stools for visitors to sit on. To many of Nepal’s little people, this modest office is the platform from which they can be heard, be given respect and considered as an integral part of the society.
Dhakal who, in his socks, stands at four feet, is a full ten inches shorter than what is considered the average height of the little people of USA. His head barely comes above the desk and his feet do not touch the floor.
Opposite Dhakal sits Sundari Mishra, a very pretty 33-year-old woman whose height is 3′9”. Next to her sits Lok Bahadur Moktan, a quiet 23-year-old man who looks much older for his age. He measures only 3′8′ on a statiometer (a scale that measures height).
Explaining his genealogy, Dhakal says, ‘I probably inherited the gene from the paternal side of my family. Both my parents were taller than the average height of a Nepali – my father nearly six-feet tall and mother over five feet. My father’s aunt, however, was a dwarf.
I have eight brothers and sisters who are all of normal height. So at first, no one noticed that there was something wrong with me. They had no idea about dwarfism. Realisation began to dawn upon us only when I started going to school.’
Stress at school
School is another name for trauma for most of Nepal’s little people. It meant being gaped at, ridiculed, humiliated and treated as a social outcast. But the treatment that girls receive is far worse than what the boys experience.
Sundari relates her nightmare at school. Born to a poor farmer’s family in Nuwakot district in north of Kathmandu, she is one of five children. Her parents could afford to send only one of them to school and she happened to be the chosen one.
‘Though my brothers and sisters are of normal height, my parents chose to send me to school,’ Sundari says with pride. ‘Few parents would do that for their daughters. To reach school, I had to walk for two hours every day. But no one acknowledged the effort. To them, I was just a freak.’
When she was two, Sundari had an accident and damaged her eyesight. Therefore, she began attending school much later than other children. At home, Sundari was never treated like a child with different needs.
‘No one ever said there was anything wrong or unusual with me,’ she says. ‘I thought I was the same as everyone else till I went to school. It was a bitter revelation. Students from other classes would drop by specially to stare at me. They would pinch me hard to see if it hurt. I was utterly miserable.’
continue reading…
Possibly Related Posts:
