Prabha, who works as a gardener at the office, has been feeling sad for a couple of days now.[break]
Every year she feels bad when April comes because it was on April 20, 2006 that her husband Pradyumna Khadka was shot during the popular April movement. He breathed his last in New Delhi on the 29th of that month.
A local of Syuchatar in Kathmandu, Pradyumna actively participated in the people´s movement that later abolished the 240-year-old monarchy and ushered a republic in the country.
A driver by profession, Pradyumna would come every morning to Kalanki square, which was one of the epicenters of the protest movement, and participate in the demonstrations. It was the same place where Sagun Tamrakar, Basudev Ghimire, Dipak BK and Bishnu Lal Maharjan were shot by security personnel and later succumbed to their injuries.
"Every day he would leave home in the morning. On that morning, I had requested him to have our meal together but he was too impatient to wait," Prabha recalled the day, seated on the rooftop of the office building.
Ever since Pradyumna passed away-- he was in his early thirties, the responsibility of caring for their two sons and Pradyumna´s old parents fell on Prabha´s shoulders. Pradyumna´s father, who at times suffered from mental disorder, died some months ago.
Prabha, now the breadwinner for the entire family, has been working at the office for the last two years on a six-monthly contract basis. At first, the Madhav Nepal government gave her a job as office assistant at the Administration Restructuring Committee. Later, the body was dissolved and she was then given a job as gardener by the Jhalanath Khanal government, at the Higher Secondary Education Board.
She doesn´t have great expectations of the state. A few months ago a position for office assistant fell vacant. Now she wants that position. "If I get appointed under the darbandi (vacancy), it will be a relief because I won´t need to get my contract renewed every six months," she said.
Prabha, who is vice-president of the committee of families of martyrs and those disabled during the people´s movement, finds herself luckier than family members of other martyrs. "The situation of martyr families outside Kathmandu is more pathetic," she said.
She gets frustrated when political leaders keep bickering over trivial issues and make the country hostage to indecision. "Leaders from major political parties agreed to form an election government under the leadership of the chief justice as they could not accept each other´s leathership. This speaks volume," she said.
She added that what all the martyr families want is to see the country taking a right political course so that their children wouldn´t regret the sacrifice made by their kin for the sake of the country. "Once the country forges ahead the children need never regret," she explained.
According to Kashinath Marasini, acting chief of the compensation and rehabilitation unit at the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, altogether 26 martyr families are getting state support. The families of another 28, who were seriously injured, and their children also get financial support.
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