And the certificates and honors received by 64-year-old Sharma and 41-year-old Sumitra Dangal do not quite resolve the controversy. [break]
While Sharma has a letter of appreciation presented by the government in 1999 and citing her as ´the first woman tempo driver of Nepal´, Dangal claims that she was awarded that title by the Trade Union Congress two years earlier.
It is all about recognition and carving out a niche for oneself, and neither of the ladies is ready to reconsider. Sharma has even decided to file a defamation case against the other.
“In 1999 the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare awarded me the title of ´First woman tempo driver of Nepal´. See this,” said Sharma, handing over an engraved copperplate certificate. “I did not drive tempo to win the title, but I happened to be the one as there was no other woman in this field then,” she added.
As Sharma tells it, buffeted by hardships, the mother of three took to tempo driving in 1981 though her driving license was not made out until three years later. She carried passengers for many years on the Jamal - Chakrapath (Maharajgunj) route before she started making a good profit. “Since I was the lone woman driving a tempo then, I faced many challenges. I had to put up with smugglers and pickpocket and strikes and bandas, and I could not earn properly,” she said.
“It´s for the sake of factuality that I cannot tolerate any other woman claiming to have driven a tempo for the first time as an occupation. Dangal has approached many media outfits claiming to be the first, so I have now decided to file a defamation case against her,” Sharma said.
Dangal straight away denies that her claim is spurious. “I am the first woman to drive a tempo in the city as an occupation and the trade union certified this long ago. Sharma only drove an auto-rickshaw, not a tempo. Moreover, I have made a great contribution in bringing many other women into this field,” said said.
Dangal took to the driving seat in 1998 and set up the Mahila Utthan Samuha Bikash Kendra in 2000. According to her, Sharma only got a driving license before her but never drove a tempo. “If the government awarded her the title it made a mistake and people like you should not promote that sort of thing,” Dangal said, adding that some general knowledge books have also mistakenly named Sharma as the first tempo driver, and this needed to be corrected.
Related story
Nepal's First Lady attends reception hosted by US First Lady
