Her familiarity with the house is unmistakable. And why not? She’s been part of the house throughout her life. Though it’s her husband’s house, she always belonged to it, her memories of it still fresh from when she was as young as eight years old.[break]
“My life story isn’t a conventional one,” is how Heera, 47, starts off her story. A freelance photojournalist by profession, she’s pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in history and Nepal Bhasa at Tribhuvan University.
She perfectly portrays an example for those who believe that age is just a number. But her guts to go against the traditional norms and to turn her dreams into plans were not easily earned. Mother of two girls and a boy, all in their early twenties, Heera accredits her family for supporting her to pursue what she wished for.
Working as a photojournalist since 2006, Heera has a charming yet a confident personality. Her bright smile holds down all the hardships that she has faced throughout her life. But she isn’t ready to let adversities affect her persona or her determination to move ahead in life.
Plagued by poor financial conditions from early childhood, she struggled through financial crises throughout her life. But yet she says with flair, “I’ve learnt that money is least of all the problems one can have.”
Photos: Bijay Gajme
Her story is like that of those characters portrayed in movies. From a household helper to a photojournalist, she has definitely come a long way, to say the least.
Youngest of four sisters, her father was bedridden since her mother was three months pregnant with her. When the sole bread winner of the family had to stop working, the financial conditions weren’t too good. And for that reason, none of the siblings were sent to school.
But her life changed when she was eight. She was employed as a babysitter at a neighborhood household. The well-off family convinced her mother to send her to their house, trading off her services by sending her to school and taking care of her extra expenses. And she didn’t have the slightest idea then that she would be married off to the same house.
“I basically worked throughout my growing up years in the same house, taking care of the children and helping with the household chores,” she says.
At 16, the landlady for whom she worked proposed that Heera be married off to her youngest son.
“I don’t know why she proposed that. I must’ve impressed her a lot,” says the typical honest and outspoken Heera.
But the impression was not lasting after she got married. Her husband had agreed to marry her on the precondition that she finish her SLC exams before they get married. His demands would’ve been fulfilled if another tragedy hadn’t stricken Heera’s life. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and the families pressed them to get married.
At 19 and still at school, she was married off to Tulsi. Though the family and the house were familiar to her her marriage changed the dimensions of the relationship. And her husband’s family sought after for a traditional daughter-in-law in Heera, barring her from pursuing further education.
They pressured her to bear a child and often taunting her for her failure to conceive. While her husband still wanted her to study, the family pressure had been too much to take for her. So she neglected her husband’s plea to finish her school first and pressed him to bear a child. That was how she gave birth to her first baby when she was 20 and four days prior her SLC exams.
After giving birth to her first baby, her chances of going back to school were nearly nil at that time. But no matter how hard she tried, stepping on to her mother-in-law’s expectation had become a challenge to her. As her relationship turned sour by the day, they separated from the joint family. Though her mother-in-law and the neighborhood women never stopped scrutinizing her, she never lost hope of pursuing further studies.
Photos: Bijay Gajme
A high school teacher by profession and an active member in communist politics, her husband had very little financial aid to offer the family. In such situations, Heera passed her days by knitting sweaters, poultry and mushroom farming to support her family from her side.
“But my husband wasn’t only supportive but pushed me to pursue my education again,” she says. And as a result, she appeared in SLC exams after three years. But to her chagrin, she failed in English. She felt that she couldn’t be more than just a housewife, but her husband knew better.
But still it took her another eight years to reappear in the examination and successfully complete it. By then, her youngest child was already five years old. She says that it took her that long to pursue her studies again because she was so engrossed in her family and raising her three children that she had barely any time for herself.
She praises her children for giving her the freedom to pursue her life outside of home and family. For others, SLC exams no more is an “iron gate” as it is symbolized, but for Heera, getting through the exams was no less than crossing one. With the completion of SLC, she opened the gate to a new life.
However, financial crises never left her. She recounts an incident when they had run out of rice and had no money to buy a new sack. “I had boiled corns that grew in the backyard. After feeding the children with leftovers, my husband and I had corns for dinner,” she says as she chuckles a little from the memory.
Soon she started working as a receptionist at the Mulyankan monthly magazine while pursuing further education. After sometime, she quit her job and started a bookstore at Kirtipur.
“Establishing and running a bookstore wasn’t an easy task. It took a lot of time and I had no time for my studies,” she says. She again had to stall her desire for education to look after her household necessities. “By then, the children had grown up but our poor financial condition persisted. I had to earn money so that we could afford good college for our children,’ she says.
For another five years, her education progressed nowhere. But she wasn’t someone who would give up too soon. She sold the bookstore and went for photography training. From the money that she received by selling her store, she was able to enroll herself in the three-month photography lessons and also buy her a secondhand DSLR, Nikon D50.
In the meantime, she also cleared her pending Proficiency Certificate Level (PCL) exams and kick-started her career as a photojournalist, taking photos for Mulayankan magazine, the same magazine where she was employed as a receptionist before.
“When my friends ask me about my mother’s profession, it feels good to tell them she’s a photojournalist,” says Dipmala Maharjan, Heera’s oldest daughter. Though Heera regrets for not being able to give enough time to them while pursuing her studies and career, the kids are proud to see their mother as a strong independent woman.
“We are basically like friends. But at the same time, I learnt to never give up on my dreams and aspirations, no matter how dire the situations,” says the proud daughter.
Heera, on her own, credits her mother for teaching her to root for what she believed. “My mother used to tell me that when I have a lot of trouble, I should think of other people whose struggles are greater than mine. That thought always instilled hope and motivation in me,” she says.
Heera has never let herself swept away by failure or stagnancy. After repeated letdown and constant financial crises, she had the courage to move ahead in life. She has demonstrated an inspiring ability to rise from deep swamps and look further into the light. One horizon can open up many others and she continues to look ahead at every horizon she comes across.
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