“I’ve told him but he just won’t listen,” I told him.
“Security forces are firing indiscriminately. Ask him to stay behind,” my father suggested. [break]
But it was already too late. He had already reached Kalanki that fateful day on April 20. While I was busy planting maize in a small tract of farmland that we own near our house, he would stay out all day long to participate in the protests at Kalanki Chowk.
I had already ploughed the plot a day before. I was in a hurry. I cooked food and fed both my sons before heading to the farm. A large number of people were seen heading toward Kalanki that morning.
I did not notice he was already home at around 10:30 am.
“Don’t you need to have lunch?” he asked.
I always waited him for lunch no matter how late it would be. However, I didn’t wait for him that day thinking he wouldn’t show up for lunch.
“I’ll be there after finishing this work,” I told. “You have your lunch.”
He insisted that I join him assuring me that we would together finish the work in the evening. This made me believe he wouldn’t be out on protests that day.
“But I have already eaten,” I said.
He then left for home. After some time, even I left for home.
A huge crowd was heading toward Kalanki. I also felt like going there. I met both my sons on the way. I decided to take along both my sons.
As I reached Kalanki I saw that protesters were running helter-skelter to avoid police action. It was about 12 noon. We reached near Bhagawati Petrol Pump which lies on the way to Thankot. We could see all the happenings in Kalanki Chowk from there.
Ambulances were seen plying the streets. A helicopter hovered on the sky at about 2 pm. It went round Kalanki Chowk three times before heading for its destination.
Sounds like that of fire-crackers could be heard soon after the helicopters disappeared. While some received head injuries, several others had their limbs broken.
Actress Bipana Thapa was actively working to make the protest a success. She helped us hear the news through her cell phone. The sound of firecrackers that we heard before were actually gunshots. Fear swept over me as someone announced the number of injured and those killed in the incident.
In the meantime, my sons began asking for food. I gave them water to drink before heading home. Only my way home, people looked at me strangely.
“Where have you been?” asked Mane Thapa uncle. “Were you not at home?”
“I had gone to see the protests,” I said.
“I heard Pradyumna received a bullet injury,” he said.
“How can this happen? He is watching film today,” I replied.
But he repeated that Pradyumna had received bullet injuries.
“Do you have any idea who saw it first hand,” I asked. My legs started trembling with fear.
“He received rubber bullets,” he added.
Tears began rolling down through my eyes and everything in front of me blurred. Nothing but his face began dancing before my eyes.
He would go to Kalanki everyday to take part in the protests since the day it began in April 6, 2006. He would be at the forefront.
I came to know in the evening that he was rushed to Kathmandu Model Hospital, Bagbazaar. It was not possible for me to go to the hospital as the authorities had clamped curfew. I passed the night crying. I was desperate to reach the hospital and see the face of my beloved.
I finally reached the hospital at 6 am the next day. He was sleeping on the hospital bed. “Nothing has happened to me,” he said, asking, “How did you come?” All his clothes had stains of blood.
Only when I reached the hospital did I come to know that he had been shot at his stomach, not his thigh. The bullet had pierced through his body. I couldn’t stop myself from bursting into tears.
“I must say this to you,” his physician Bijendra Dhwaj Joshi told me. “His large and small intestines and kidney have been damaged. The bullets have also damaged his bones. We are trying our best to save him.”
I wouldn’t have left him alone in the hospital. But he asked me to go home and take care of our sons. I came home in the evening. It was difficult for me to answer when our sons asked what had happened to their father.
As his health gradually deteriorated, I asked my relatives to take him to hospitals abroad for necessary treatment. However, doctors would not take this seriously.
As I continued insisting that he be taken abroad for treatment, he was flown to New Delhi on April 25 -- a day after the success of Jana Andolan II.
On April 29, I came to know through actress Bipana Thapa that my husband had breathed his last in Delhi. She had come to our home after learning about his death. “Doctors could not treat him. Brother is no more,” actress Thapa told me.
I broke down into tears after knowing about the death of my beloved. I almost passed out.
His dead body was brought to Kathmandu the same day. His last rites were performed at Pashupati Aryaghat the next day.
It was in May 26, 1994, I first saw Pradyumna. We were engaged the same day. I was merely 16-years-old when I married Pradyumna, who was two years elder to me. While I was studying in class VIII, Pradyumna was studying in class X when we got married. Our studies came to a halt after the marriage.
It’s already been four years since he received martyrdom. Often when friends and well wishers come to me, we talk about him. They watch video footage of our wedding. I have watched that video three times after he received martyrdom. It brings his memory back. I start crying after all others go away.
He also comes in my dream time and again. I see his body full of scars. He asks me to open the doors. And that awakens me. I find my sons sleeping. “I must live for them,” says my heart.
(As told to Surendra Paudel)
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