When Inu didi introduced me to this name, she said, “Bahini,
you don’t want to miss this woman if you are doing Women’s special month of
March on your radio, She is a very low profile social worker, who had given
half of her life to the prisoner’s children welfare. You must invite her.” When
Inu didi says with such conviction, for me it matters a lot. So I started
researching for this name.
When I searched for Indira Rana Magar on google,the first thing that was shown is the
nomination for Children’s Nobel Prize 2014. I know for a lot of people, the
nomination of a Nepali national in an international platform matters the most.
But for me I was looking for the substance. So I dig in more. Frankly, I am
very impressed by the perseverance of this lady. 20 years in this field and she
has never come to the limelight until some magazine featured her for being a
nomination in a very prestigious award.
After calling couple of places, Elisha bahini from my radio forwarded me with her phone number ( I am grateful to her in all senses). A very
nice humble voiced answered the call and I explained what I am planning to do
and how will the entire interview is going to take place. To my surprised she
thanked me so many times for asking her to come and confirmed that she will
give me the interview happily.
Saturday , the 29th of March 2014, for
two whole hours from 7-9pm, she told her story. Her struggling from a village
girl whose only wish was to educate herself and become somebody and getting
married to a nice guy, to the woman who had already rescued and nurtured close
to 1000 prisoner parents kinds. Highly influenced by Florence Nightingale and
the Nepali writer Parijat, I must say she is a great storyteller. She remembers
every detail of her life. 2 hours were too brief for this lady to tell her
struggle and her pain.
To my answer,” Have you ever thought of giving up on
the things you have been doing for the prisoners and their kids?” , she smiled
and said I thought my trouble was nothing infront of these women who are behind
the bars , a lot of times , for the crime they have not even done. There are
times when they have murdered their husbands and they are convicted and the kid
has to suffer. Some other time it is the other way round, where the woman is
jailed and the husband brings another wife and the child is neglected.
She said there are so many such stories that will
break your heart, but for her this makes her stronger and helps her keep going
on and on. The part that shook me was when she explained her first journey to Kathmandu
on her own. Like most of local migrants, she had suffered the financial crunch.
There were times when she had just eaten cucumber and water to kill the hunger
and this one time she goes to a small eatery
where the Nepali khana set was 12/- rupees (this was back in 1990 AD) and she
asked the sauji if she can have half
of it because she has only 6/- rupees in her pocket. I was choked with tears
when she narrated this story.
Hats off to this lady, her persistence, patience and
perseverance! She is still doing what needs to be done for the children. She
stated that she has not done all this for any kind of award or recognition but
for her own satisfaction. But in the due course of time when people appreciate
her work, she feels happy and thankful.
The lady has triggered my braincells, someone can be
so selfless and humble. Not to forget that,she does speak her mind and is very
blunt and right on the face. That shows , she is very clean in the heart. I don’t
know if she will win the Children’s Nobel Prize 2014 against Malala from
Pakistan and John Woods of Microsoft, she surely is the “Florence Nightingale
of Nepal” for me.
(Based on my first interaction, while interviewing her for the show One on One on www.rvlradio.com)
