It was a perfectly normal Saturday on April 25 when my mother offered to take me to an art exhibition in Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal. I readily agreed to go, as I like visiting art galleries. We were getting ready when all of a sudden the sky grew dark. We then started looking for our umbrellas when a strong wind blew around the house and a dark shadow crossed my face. A moment after the scenario changed, I was in pain with a headache. That was when the whole world around me shook up. This and each aftershock that followed continued to shake me from inside. I kept weeping fearing for my life. I fell sick.During the second earthquake of May 12 I was in my school where we all got underneath our tables as taught in the earthquake drill, and later we went onto the big field where after my brain was able to function and take in what had just happened. I burst out crying and wouldn't stop until my mom came wearing a helmet to take me home.
While living with these utterly unpredictable days, I started to look around and realized that I wasn't the only one facing this uncontrollable disaster. Knowing this I started thinking about the effect of this devastation to the country, which was, believe it or not, just about finally turn into a developing country.
Up and until that very moment, I had lived in this world for myself. But now, I started wondering if I could be of any help to other earthquake victims. One day my mother told me that the following morning I had to wake up at the brink of dawn, get dressed, eat my breakfast, and then stand at the gate.
And I did so. As soon as my mom came in, I skipped towards the exit and we hopped into the taxi. All the way long I wondered how my grand arrival was to take place. But when I did get out of the taxi I was dismayed when I found myself carrying a dusty old cardboard box to the venue where the program was to take place. It was held at the SOS children's village, Jorpati. I was stunned at the first sight. There, right before my eyes were little children I had never ever seen at any point of my life. I can swear that I was about to drop down and burst into tears right there and then. I had never wanted to cry so much before in my life. Seeing the children right before my eyes was much more than I had ever imagined. Some were autistic and some had no legs, some with no hands, some had defective eyes. Worst of all, a vast majority of the little children were disabled. I just wanted to hug them all.
My role was to entertain those children using my talents. The moment my name was announced, I marched forward instantly knowing that I had to be brave and strong for the sake of the children. Starting the event, the manager told me to sing two songs: one in Nepali and one in English. The children cheered along while I sang the songs, and they wanted me to do more. I felt delighted to see them happy. Before the next event started, I went on to see what the cardboard boxes contained, and was pleasantly surprised to see that inside were lovely colors and sketch books.
We organized a friendly drawing competition among the children. I helped in distributing all the colors. I was sweating by the time I was done and then realized how hard it was to take care of children. They were shouting out for the colors they wanted and it was really hard to give everyone what they wanted.
I had done all my duties, but I felt I needed to do more. I went to help an autistic girl to hold her paper while she drew. Her name was Sita. The competition was about to end. She had by then drawn a beautiful flower, however, it had taken her too long and I knew that it was not enough to enter into the competition. So I picked up a pencil and made the shape of hills and below her flower I drew the shape of water. She colored it creatively. Then I picked up a small glitter pen of my own and added some shine onto the drawing.
That was enough to move her; she raised her hands and crossed them, I thought for a second that she was mad at me but I was wrong. She lifted her head and nodded with a beautifully formed smile upon her face. For a moment I thought that the sun had faded from the endless sky and appeared on her fragile face. Every single delicate movement was like another position that God would have taken and every gentle flick of her hair counted. Suddenly rainbows floated gracefully over her head and the sun was shining brightly. Everything was covered with soft clouds and high hills rose immediately from the ground. That was the moment I captured, and stole.
That was when I first felt blessed.
The author is a student at The British International School
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