Sarita (The Social Worker)

¨I am a conservative (traditional) girl in the modernized form… (laughing)…I highly believe in god and religious rituals…It is a gift to us and we must preserve it by respecting other religions at the same time…¨, said Sarita accounting major degree holder, Director of Mala Home.

Mala Home looks after the prison born children. It is funded by a Spanish organization. Currently, there are 16 children. The children are either born in the prison or parent-less. It provides shelter, accommodation, and education. It is located at Narayanthan (Few kilometers outside Kathmandu to the north).

Sarita is also a member in Absolute Gurkha. It was established after the 25th April earthquake. Their established it to distribute basic needs to different earthquake affected villages at first. However, currently they build schools and carry medical facilities. They have also constructed a water tank in the same village (Maji, Ramechhap) that has nothing. The school is 80% complete and will be completely done in another 3 months according to Sarita.

¨Can you tell me about your Koi fish?¨, I asked jumping from the topic Traditional girl or modernized girl (Laughing at myself).

¨…..I wanted to get a a pair of Golden Fish. However, I could not get the exact design. So I got Koi (Japanese Fish) instead. My friend (Phuchung) inked it..¨, she replied with a laugh. And, so I laughed with her. However, it was short, real short. You can count on me about that.

¨What does it remind you of? How much are you related to it?¨

¨Well…..Koi is traditional fish....It faces a lot of struggles to reach the top of the river. It works so hard to reach its goal.....so my Koi represent the year I was born to face the world…to me personally speaking we can learn the human life cycle from the fish…for example, those fish who are ignorant come to the surface and die.....similarly we have to surpass many obstacles to reach our goal and if we are as ignorant as the ignorant fish we will never reach instead we will all the way down from where it would be impossible to come out....In general, it is called Pisces (Nepali Horoscope) while it is cancer in English…..I am confident that Koi represent me as a whole.....my struggles to help these young kids to reach their goal.....my happiness I achieve every single day….and my future aim to provide education to the poor kids.¨, replied Sarita. She said it with much confidence.

Her answer made me think for a while. There was a short silence. I could not say anything. I went like ¨Okay, Okay, Okay.......¨. But I thought about the project ¨English to Nepal¨ that I never put into action. The whole plan is on a paper and so the lawyers. I had this idea when I was in the mountains. Today, English is more a native language in Nepal. Everybody knows English. The taxi drivers knows it, the rickshaw drivers speak it, the bartender flirts with the girls in English, the local singer sings Justin Bieber and so the waiter takes the orders in English. However, it is completely different in the mountains. Mountain people hardly know a single word. All they know is ¨Hello¨. However when they said it, it sounds like ¨Hallo, Halo, Ola, Ello, He-low, Heloo¨. And this is why I wanted to run this project.

The other tattoo she carries is a ¨New Mexico design¨. She got it randomly about 5 years ago. Her girl-friend was super scare to get inked. So she stood up for it and got it inked. Soon she plans to cover it with something meaningful and related to her.

¨Do you live by in the Mala Home?¨

¨Sometimes I crash out in the building. But I live with my family. I just like it. It makes my day even much better and joyful. The great part is that, you get unlimited amount of love and affection. It´s just so superb and peaceful….I do not have plans to live all by myself….

¨Why not?¨

¨Because I do not want to do the house chores.....like dish washing, cleaning the house and cooking stuffs…¨, she said with a big laugh. This time, we laughed even louder. The bartender heard us and he laughed too. He had no idea why we laughed. He just did it for respect. He had the face that of ¨I do not want to annoy anyone¨.

In the near future, energetic and confident Sarita wants to become a full social worker. She wishes to do adoption. She says that there are so many children running naked, begging in the traffic, selling crackers to earn a daily bread, lying on the streets with no food and clothes to wear, a young mother crying for a penny to feed her child and so on.....The street scenes are completely terrible. It brings tear in her and pain in her heart. And to bring a small change in the street she wants to earn money so that she can provide education to all the street children. ¨I may not be able to provide them modern education, But even if I can provide them with basic daily needs and basic education I would be the happiest person in the world…¨, said she.

This time her voices was softer but confident. She turned very passionate. Her eyes turned watery. All I could say to her was ¨I pray that your dreams come true¨.

The other interesting part is that she is not a typical Nepali girl who wants to get married, have a family and run the house. When the time comes, she wish to have a run-away marriage. This is not common in Nepal, at all. Here girls get married at young age typically. She said that doing such a marriage has a lot of stories in it and there is much entertainment. The normal weddings are very boring and uninteresting; same music, same band, same style, same emotions, everything is so same.

And then we talked about the society; yesterday, today and tomorrow (that never comes). I showed her the past stories I had written, tattoos pictures, and made sure she like my page ¨Story Of My Tattoo¨ (Laughing). She also opened my eyes about the prison children. I was totally stuck in one concept ¨How can women give birth in the prison? The father are the policemen.¨ She shared that many young mothers get arrested while they are pregnant mostly. And, some become homeless when they parents get arrested and so on…….

Findings:

Ashtamangala (Eight Auspicious Signs) is a pair of golden fish that generally symbolize happiness. In the Indian tradition, they represent the two rivers of north India, the

Ganges and the Yamuna. Besides their universal appeal as symbols of the beauty and the abundance of the natural world, they also represent the condition of all samsaric beings.

In traditional woodcuts, such as the one drawing at the top, the fish are released from the bondage of samsara and their noses almost touch the very rare right-turning conch shell that announces the Dharma. Sometimes they are depicted saluting the Precious Jewel that their tails have churned up from the depths of the Ocean.

Traditional Indian literature sometimes compares the form of a lovely eye to that of a beautiful fish. Thus, the two fish are symbolic of the elongated brows of the Buddha.