"Haven´t you still found the house?" two ladies inquired. Once told that Gyawali was blind, the ladies said in unison, "You should have said that in the first place," and pointed towards a house a few meters away. [break]
Gyawali herself had come outside the house, after this scribe took so long to find her, and probably heard the conversation with the two ladies. "It (blindness) is an advantage," she jokingly said settling onto a mat for conversation.
She may have called her blindness an advantage on a lighter note. But she has made it an advantage in the real sense and believes so. "If I could see, I would not have been here. I would have been long married and have kids, like most of my friends back in village who have not even passed the intermediate level," she says.
Turning one of the biggest shortcomings into an advantage was not easy. "I have to work 20 times harder to compete with those having eyesight," she affirms.
"Your father is dead. I will die soon. You should work hard and not let an opportunity, even the size of a sesame seed, slip," she reminisces her sad mother as saying after the demise of her father when she was six. She has clung on to every straw of opportunity and more than just competed with those having sight up to now.
She competed with 184 ´normal´ Nepali students and then 50 others from the SAARC countries to land the Partnership for Learning Undergraduate Studies (PLUS), the Fulbright Fellowship for undergraduates in 2004. She graduated in Sociology from the Colorado State University in May, 2007, and has been doing a lucrative job of the cultural orientation trainer with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) since March, 2008.
Struggle to overcome difficulty
Born on September 25, 1983, as the youngest of five children of Tikaram and Chun Kumari in Charpala, Durbar Devisthan VDC, Gulmi, she faced adversities right from the beginning.
Her first two elder brothers were normal. But, like her, a sister (Sita) and a brother (Balaram) were all born with total blindness. Her father had typhoid after her birth and he too lost sight.
He finally died of depression, leaving Chun Kumari to look after the five children, the last three of whom were blind. Instead of lending a supporting hand, the villagers turned away, saying that the family was suffering for their wrongdoings of the previous lives.
Nirmala´s sister Sita and brother Balaram started studying at the Laboratory School with the help of Olga Murray, chairperson of the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, after her uncle Jhabindra Gyawali brought them to Kathmandu.
Her sister talked about her with Murray and she was also brought to Kathmandu and joined the school in February, 16, 1989. "It was the happiest moment in my life," she talks about the day of her school admission. With help from her sister and brother, she completed her one-year Braille training in six months and self prepared for the third grade in the next six months.
"It was unfortunate that my brother and sister had no sight, but fortunate for me that they could guide me," she feels. Her sister Sita went on to become the first Nepali with total blindness to get a master´s degree and is currently teaching at Lab School while Balram is also a teacher at Bhanu Memorial School, Panipokhari.
She studied at Lab till the fourth grade and then joined Ideal Model School, where she was the only student with blindness, on advice of Olga Mom, as she lovingly likes to call Olga Murray. "I got 64% in SLC and couldn´t get more because I couldn´t attempt all questions due to my blindness," she says.
Murray paid all expenses including lodging and clothing till she completed her bachelor´s in English and sociology from Campion College, Kupondole. "I had to work hard for my studies. I would take a two-hour bus ride, if I found a person willing to read for half an hour to me," she remembers.
Her stint at the Colorado State University was not that difficult as they had Braille versions of textbooks. "Only books for statistics were not available in Braille and I devoted around 80% of my study time to it," she adds.
She still got an A- in statistics and when her GPA (Grade Point Average) of 3.78 was announced during the farewell gathering of around 100 international students studying under PLUS fellowship, everybody gave her a standing ovation.
Social activism
She calls her present job just a means to financially support her and sees herself devoted to the cause of people living with disabilities in the long run. "I have always considered myself an ambassador for disabled wherever I´ve gone since the fourth grade," she says.
She counsels children with disabilities and advises their parents to provide opportunities to them. "Without education, I would probably have been begging now," she concedes.
Even in Damak, she says, she helped in rehabilitation of a woman with blindness. The woman was married as second wife after the first couldn´t give children but after she couldn´t deliver, her in-laws abandoned her. "I heard that she could make candles and encouraged her to make them. I sold candles worth Rs 5,500 for her," she adds.
The woman is now running the business herself. "I believe people with disabilities should earn their living by selling their skills and not on others´ mercy," she asserts. She has also raised funds for Childhood Development Center run by Pushpa Basnet that is rescuing children living in jails with their convicted parents.
Living with blindness
She is leading a life of a normal educated person. "I use JAWS (Job Accessible Work System) software that reads out texts and have Braille keypad on laptop," she explains. She uses a normal mobile phone and listens to radio for daily news. She cooks her own meal and says she once cooked Nepali food for 21 persons in the US.
She also became the first Nepali representative in Paralympics by competing in shot put during the Athens Paralympic, 2004.
So, doesn´t she want to see the world that she has felt, smelt and heard for all these years?
"I sometimes wish I had eyesight while reading and traveling. But I don´t think too hard. I have accepted and moved on with it," she says. "We don´t make physical images and make perception of personal traits of people we meet," she adds.
"I am satisfied with my life. It is so satisfying to be a giver," she concludes and wishes to be one for the rest of her life.
premdhakal@myrepublica.com
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