Kamala Sarup: Poverty Made Them Terrified

This is the real story from my Diary.

Again a huge uproar began to rise in his area of settlement. Although it was not at all a strange thing that an uproar is heard once in a while and yet the mixture of the uproar made by people and commotion creaked due to poverty made them terrified.

Kishor was playing on the meadow yonder. He stopped his play all of a sudden and shouting and shrieking ran into his house. He looked frightened at that time and understood easily that any time a strange thing was going to happen. Although his children's mind didn't draw any definite conclusions and yet he was the only reality he had comprehended.

The condition made Kishor extremely scared. He asks his mother," Mother, are they going to start a movement like they did a few days ago again?"

No sooner had Kishor expressed this than his mother felt as if she was falling from the roof and began to look for her fourteen years old daughter. Her daughter Radha hasn't come back from school yet. A chill runs down her spine, "A girl at the threshold of youth, she could be abducted and mistreated and there is a strong rumor that these days that abductors take girls beyond the border to sell them to brothels."

All kinds of apprehensions crowd the mind of the mother. She really dislikes the human commotion and noise and is full of love for her daughter. Kishor by now is warming himself by the fire near the kitchen.

"My son! From now on, do not talk of movements. Nice people never talk of such movements. You talk only about your studies." The mother is overwhelmed with grief.

Last year her elder son while taking part in the movement had lost his life and become a

martyr together with his father. Both the father and the son who had gone to the town to agonizing incident was unbearable for her. All the days after that were almost vacant for her. Then on, her face becoming pale with poverty and want, used to be distorted even by some small incidents. But there were problems in front of her. On the one side was a terrible poverty as she had no sources of income and on the other hand she had for the future to live her daughter Radha and son Kishor. This thought that she had to live forced her to compromise with time. The feeling after she had Kanchha coming from the town had told her about the sad incident and the feeling after she heard just now a movement what Kishor said actually turned her blunt and harsh.

She too had an ambition these days, dream to exchange pleasure and pain mutually with her husband, to smile and love each other fully. But all her dreams were paralyzed. Like the pieces of glass broken and scattered badly, the imagination of her happy and joyful life with her husband proved extremely momentary and flitting.

In the mean time the commotion outside was suddenly quiet but still she was painful at heart as her daughter hadn't yet returned home. What a deplorable day! Everywhere these human settlements were embraced by the naked hot sun. The mother of Kisor took in long breaths and waited for her daughter's arrival. Although the uproar outside had fully subsided, she remained quite disturbed. The time was ticking away and the darkness had enveloped everywhere.

She saw that Kishor was studying attentively as if he had now no concern about this noise outside as he was concentrating to his studies for the examination the next day. She sat down by her radio and switched it on slowly.

The news broadcast was going on in the radio," The most serious problem of Nepal today is the trafficking of our young and innocent rural girls to be sold to foreign brothels, and the incidents are increasing everyday. It has been extremely difficult to nab the criminals. Some criminals have accepted that this has become a regular profession of earning a good amount of money."

Nepali Journalist and Story Writer Kamala Sarup is an editor of peacejournalism.com. She is specialising in in-depth reporting and writing on Peace, Anti War, Women, Terrorism, Democracy, and Development. Some of her publications are: Women's Empowerment (Booklet). Prevention of trafficking in women through media,(Book) Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in for Media Activism (Media research). Two Stories collections. Her interests include international conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, philosophy, feminism, political, socio-economic and literature. Her current plans are to move on to humanitarian work in conflict areas in the near future. She also is experienced in organizational and community development. Kamala Sarup has been nominated as Universal Peace Ambassador [2006] in the framework of the Universal Peace Ambassadors Circle, Geneva Switzerland.

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