A young mom's urge

Beads, braids, blouses and bordered saree (a garment consisting of a length of cotton or silk elaborately draped around the body, traditionally worn by women from South Asia.), were the fantasies of my childhood once. I dreamed of being like my mother. I used to pray God that He would provide me the life and beauty like my mother; whenever I would get a chance, I used to play my 'Doll House' and be a housewife pretending as if like my mother.

Today, I turned 16, the age when a young girl blossoms and here I am a mother just like my mother. At 16, a girl is in her peak of beauty. She dreams of her Mr. Right. But I here, in the most colorful days of my life, am in the darkness playing with my one year old daughter. I am a mother and I am proud of my motherhood but at this moment now what I desire is that may my daughter would never have the same dreams like that of mine.

I had the dream as my society grew me up with the same dream. I had seen my mother and my sisters and taken them as the role models. I never thought that there is a life beyond this and there is a space, my own identity as a woman in this world. Nobody made me realize the importance of education in my life. No body told me that I can fly; fly like a bird in my own world with my own ambition.

I was made a bride in a very young age. They draped me in a red dazzling saree, made my hair and gave me golden ear rings and I thought I really was the doll like that of my Doll House. I thought I was playing my own game where I am really like my mother. But I never knew that what happened that day wasn't a game. With the each homage on fire with the partner on my side, I was being burnt. My dreams were being burnt. I am not finding any words to express my pain when I was begetting my daughter. I thought I was going to die. At that moment I questioned to God, "God, why you chose me to give this pain?"

A sister from the next village working to raise awareness about female education told me that not only me but every year 15 million girls are married as children world wide denying their rights to health, education and opportunity and robbed of their childhood and in the developing world, one in nine girls are married before her 15th birthday and some child brides are as young as eight or nine like me when I was neither physically nor emotionally ready to become a wife or a mother.She also told me about the law that children there is the law for abolishing child marriage but I think the people of our village are not aware about it. Otherwise, why would they go against it? 

I was wedded in my early age. I had to leave my dreams. I had to be away from my rights. Now I don't want other girls to be the victim of the same culture. I even don't want to trap my daughter in the same problem. I was innocent but also I had to suffer. Will you, the respected people, all the society members please make a society safe for the young girls? Will you please allow us to read? Will you please show us the  new dream of flying higher rather than being a bride? I urge you to listen my prayers and help the young girls lead the life of their choice. I don't want my daughter's fate to be same as mine. 

((Many young girls of Nepal have the similar story. A UNICEF study reports that 60% of Nepalese women are married by the time they reached 18.)

http://yjaw.blogspot.com/2014/11/ayoung-moms-urge-author-bhawana.html?spref=tw (published on Young Journalist and Writers blog)

Losing sparkle

At this moment when we have celebrated Dashain and Tihar, we can say that we have bidden good bye to the major festivals of this year. I too celebrated it but this year when I went home to celebrate it, what I felt was the charm of the festivals has been declining than those days when I was a child. When the festival ends, the reminisces of the enjoyment and the recreation would be there with us during our childhood but this year I couldn't feel it. Upon inquiry with some of my friends, I found that they too felt the same.

When the festive mood knocks our door, there is excitement, planning, preparation and saving. We start to be busy with so many things to celebrate the festival. The festive mood is high with Dashain and Tihar when kids and adults are seeking for fun and long holiday to rest their job burden for a while. We also take Dashain as synonymous to swing rides, fluttering kites, buying new clothes, playing cards, tika, jamara and the blessings. Similarly we take Tihar as the most colorful festival where there are lights, flowers, decoration. Well, how can we forget 'Deusi' and 'Bhailo'. But this year, I missed the colorful kites fluttering in the sky, rote pings (swings) that used to be the beauty of our yards and play grounds and not only the kites and swings I too missed the excitement of people celebrating the festival. Not only that much I even couldn't find children eager to go for 'Deusi' and 'Bhailo'.  

I still remember my childhood days when festivals used to be live, exciting and completely participative among the family members, relatives and friends with full of cultural values. Every morning and evening in each and every place, the folk lures, tunes and vibes used to attract all of us. Festivals really used to be a medium of sharing our joy and delight where every people whom we used to meet had the same joyous mood.

But now, I don't feel the same mood. What I felt this time is that our celebration and participation is gradually diminishing. Yes, there have been some sorts of advancement in its celebration and the most important part was that the celebration was not culturally valued rather it was taken just as a way of showcasing it in social media.  What I felt was only the Facebook walls were colorful during the festival which too had missed the true feeling of celebration.

At some point I made my opinion that may be festival is joyous just during childhood. Eventually, I changed this opinion too after talking to some of the children as I found that kids are also not so much interested on it now a days. Though they have blamed homework and assignments as their lack of interest, what I feel is that these are just the arguments to beat around the bush; may be we as their guardian are not being able to cultivate the feeling of celebration and the importance of it in them from our behaviors. The fault is in our way of perceiving the festivals which our kids are learning.

This behavior is related not only with the festivals of Hindus but with all other festivals and cultures of other religion as well. Every curriculum has a chapter on festivals and its values but we will never understand the value of celebrating these festivals just by going through the lines carved in the book; so it seems that now it's a high time that we start realizing this issue otherwise, if our festive celebrations would keep on losing its sparkle in the same way, then the day is not far when we would only read about the festivals and its celebration in the holy books and our future generation would be blaming us for not preserving it.  

A New Look

When the world is celebrating its third 'International Day of the Girl child this year, a new look towards the adolescent girls is important in the context of Nepal where the societies are so diversified. There are some societies where modernity is flapping its wings so fast  and females are considered equal as man and working hand in hand with them where as there are some societies where still the evil system of 'chhaupadi' exists.

Most of the time because of some complex set of reasons, most of what is known about adolescent girls focuses on the problems what our adolescent girls of traditional societies face. At the mean time we forget that many adolescent girls of Nepal are showing remarkable resiliency and stamina during the stressful time of adolescence in the modern society. There are many strong adolescent girls who are not mere victims of male dominance, criminal activity or poverty. The new generation of growing up adolescent girls of Nepal is more literate and more gender-egalitarian than ever before; which obviously doesn't mean that they aren't prone to any kinds of problems rather the lens through which we are looking them should be changed.

There should be change in the topic of discussion that we are holding regarding the challenges of adolescent girls. A new understanding of adolescent girls affirming their strength and resilience needs to be developed in the present day which may be a bit different than the age old motions which were discussing. As the Nepalese society has been changing so rapidly, the modes of risks and challenges of our adolescent girls are also changing. That's why our shift of focus is necessary at this stage.

Adolescence is the period of physical, psychological and social maturing from childhood to adulthood. Generally, the term 'adolescents' refers to individuals aged 10-19 years. Though this period is challenging irrespective to gender, adolescent girls are considered to be more prone towards victimization; and the number of victims is more in the developing countries, where adolescent girls typically have more household responsibilities than boys do, allowing them less time to work outside the home and more or less no time to think about their personal well being.

Adolescent girls live at the interface of inequity, vulnerability, disparity and discrimination at all levels, from family to community to the state, curtailing their development opportunities. Nepal, too a developing country isn't far from this pathetic reality where adolescent girls are considered vulnerable to various problems such as trafficking, sexual exploitation, child labor, HIV and AIDS, early pregnancy, substance abuse, suicide, accidents and violence.

Realizing the problem, there are a large number of initiatives also being promoted by several governmental and non-governmental organizations addressing the concerns. Apart from all these, what generally is being overlooked is the transition that adolescent girls of today's Nepal are going through. Yes, we must work for the inequity our girls are facing in the society and we must rescue them from the vulnerable problems that our uneducated adolescent girls may be victims of but at the same time we also must not forget those modern adolescent girls who may be suffering from new sets of challenges of the modern complex society.

Change is inevitable and our society too can not be away from it and with this our new young girls are also surely bound to adapt the change. Along with this change new dreams and possibilities too arise with in them. Thus, it's important for every part of the society to welcome the dreams our young girls of modern Nepal would see and prepare the environment for them to experience their mobility, freedom and material wealth which may be much more than we as a traditional adult may expect for them and make them aware about the new risks and challenges. With due respect to the dream and desires of our young girls, what we need at the moment is a new look at the adolescent girls.