In the first week of June, some of us friends were in Loharpatti village near Janakpur. The purpose of going there was to sit and listen to the Madhesi Dalit women for two days. We wanted to see and feel the life dreams they see through their eyes.

We wanted to find in their faces the reflection of our state, politics and parties. And we wanted to hear their sighs, their outrages and their rebellions. It was not a development sponsored program. We reached there in our own Joho and named our meeting – 'Thinking Camp' which was coordinated by political/social leader Kailash Mahato. The

event was in the courtyard of a local temple. It was a small hall. A rope was laid on the floor. Food was arranged there. Tea and breakfast were cooked there. Dalit women were the majority participants in the two-day event. Where from dawn to dusk, the things of life. Injuries. About poverty and hunger. A matter of politics. And there were dreams that died in Chichilai, crushed by the stones of poverty and humiliation. 

The program of the first day began with an exchange of introductions. An introduction beyond just name and address. An introduction to the joys and sorrows experienced in life. Introduction with experience and feeling. In that session, we all told our own stories of happiness and sorrow. Stories of struggle and told dreams. But what one woman said there was the most different. She said, "I have no happy stories to tell sir." I neither saw nor experienced happiness until today. Life is full of sorrows and sorrows, so where can I get happiness from? She took out one sorrow from her chest of many sorrows and told it, a tale of misery, humiliation and hundering from meterbagging. Ten years ago, he couldn't pay the eighteen million loan of three million. And, that's where his other suffering started. 

All the money I have earned so far with three lakhs taken to send my husband abroad and avoid house expenses is enough, the house is enough, the dream is enough and even the night's sleep is enough. However, the loan is still not over. Now she lives on rent (?) in her own house. Where every month the moneylender comes and threatens to pay the rent. She rushed to the CDO office. The yard of the party, the window of the leader. But she did not get a sweet speech, nor justice. She asks, 'Sir, is justice dead in this country?'  During the

conversation, I had my attention from day one on a teenage girl. That's because she was silent almost throughout the show. His eyes were dim. And, the face was sad. It seemed that the skinny girl had no ambition in life. When it was time to eat, I approached her and started talking. I asked, why don't you laugh? I asked a question I shouldn't have asked. She was a little shy at my question and said, "Laughing requires a dream sir, I don't have a dream, how can I laugh?" Her answer was like slapping my question.

Her name was, Pavitha Sada. Ghar Balwa-9 Adyayanpur. I asked, 'How much are you studying?' She said with a little hesitation, 'I don't study sir.' 'And what do you do?' She thought for a moment how to answer my question and calmly said, 'I look after the children.' He is married and he is 23 years old. He has three children. Son 8, daughter 7 and 5 years old. I asked her again with surprise, 'And the husband?' She said in a dry voice with pain in her eyes, 'The husband is dead.' I was speechless. My heart suddenly filled with pain. What should I do, what should I do? After that I was speechless and kept silent. 

It was during the covid period, when Pavita's mother-in-law was sick and in the hospital, then her husband passed away. Suddenly, his world became empty before he knew what had happened. Then, a mountain of sorrow fell upon him and all his desires, dreams, dreams died. Married at the age of 12, Pavitha was widowed before the age of 20. And she forgot the joys of life for this one. She was empty when I met her. Empty means, he has no citizenship, no house, no land, no job, no dream, no name, no identity. There is neither a party nor the government to see their suffering. Only with him are the sorrows that he cannot bear and the wounds that have been slapped by time.  On the last day of the

program, we were invited by three Dalit settlements for a meeting. I asked, "What is there to see in the slum?" To my question, my friend Kailash Mahato said, "Everything is there." There is unemployment. There is poverty. have disease is hungry is untouchable. It's insulting. There is a desire for development. I asked, 'What is not?' He said sarcastically, 'There is no government. For the Dalit women of Madhesh, the country, party, government and power are all illusions, sir.''A young man who was sitting next to us and listening to us, narrated his experience and said, 'Going to a ward, the ward says go to the municipality, the municipality says to go to the province, it goes to the province, it says to go to Singh Darbar. I don't know where the lion palace is located and who lives there?' After hearing his anger, I thought that some of them entered the palace with their own votes, but they left in the dust. Why did this happen? Why are the rules of the game so biased? They don't know much. But this much is known, something must have gone wrong. And, until the rules of that game change, there will be no change in their lives. 

On the last day in the morning, we went to the Dalit settlement. It had rained the previous day and the road was slippery. The houses were damp. Cold and muddy everywhere. The children there were as muddy as the road. Who are mostly all half-naked. The village must have been crowded with rumors of a new arrival, and among the crowd were unemployed youths, who spoke briefly and seemed disaffected by the conversation. Most of the crowd were women, who looked almost 20 years older than their age from overwork, hunger and humiliation. They used to speak loudly and insulted the government in conversation. But the men looked weary and dry, burdened with work and debt. The atmosphere was like this, as if there was no light of hope anywhere. What is there is poverty and the wordless pain of humiliation inflicted for six generations. 

Janaki Devi Sada was found in the same settlement we reached. Age was 35 years. She stood a little apart from the crowd. His eyes seemed to be pools of tears. Seeing her puffy face and her expression that forgot to smile, I asked, 'Why are you sad?' She stopped for a moment and answered, 'My husband died only yesterday, sir.' Hearing her answer, my speech stopped and I felt like I was about to burst. Why are our people in such a big sea? I thought that this question that arose in myself would not bother me. 'What happened to the husband?' I asked in a small sympathetic voice. In the night the life grew cold and he passed away. She said that as if it was natural for people to die of cold. Or listening to him, it seemed that all that is the destiny of the poor. When her husband died, she was left with a huge mountain of five children. He has 2 sons and 3 daughters. He was married at the age of 13. Listening to her, it seemed that her husband had left her, leaving with her the same hunger, disease, unemployment, poverty and humiliation. She said in a soft voice, "I could not mourn my husband, sir." After all, the poor don't even have time to cry.' A woman standing next to him said, 'You have to have money to cry, what sorrow, what crying for the poor.' 

dream

When we reached the settlement, we found people sitting there waiting for us. All Dalits. It seemed that they were not there to listen to us, but to fight. When you are angry, you may want to fight in conversation. At the same time, I asked the people sitting in the courtyard of a house, 'What do you want?' Perhaps my question was meaningless to them. Perhaps, I was displaying my arrogance and superiority by asking that question. For those who want everything, how can it be justified to ask them what they want? What did I have to give again? I explained, 'I can only express solidarity with your movement and demand. And, I can add a voice to your voice.' A young man who was listening to me said, 'We don't need mercy, sir. We need rights. We want the government to see us. And let us have ownership in democracy.' 

I responded to his words and asked again, 'This is an abstract thing.' But where are we, where do we live and what do we eat? Shouldn't the state know? We have endured discrimination, untouchability, humiliation and hunger for hundreds of years, should this government not care about it? We have not become poor by desire, nor have we become Dalit by desire. Either we have to be told that we are not human, or else we are citizens of this country, we need the respect of citizens. Grass, housing, cotton, employment, education, health, respect and recognition are our demands. As much as we are asking now, these are things that were taken away from us years ago. We want it back now.' He was very good at talking. He challenged me and said, "We don't need anyone's love." In particular, we want Antyodaya. And only Sarvodaya is possible. Otherwise, Kathmandu is a lie for us. Janakpur is a lie. Federalism is a lie. And, democracy is false.'