Written by: Manaswi Sapkota - 26004, Grade VIII
Posted on: 22 March, 2022
Born in 1953, my grandmother is currently 69. She was born in a remote village in Okhaldhunga. At that time life was quite hard compared to today. People had to walk for 2 days just to get food items and water. There wasn’t a good way to communicate either. There weren’t many entertaining games either. According to my grandmother she used to roleplay being a bride and groom with her friends for entertainment.
Studying was something my grandma couldn’t even imagine about, as at the time people only sent boys to school. She was also married at a very young age of 13. I wonder how she felt getting married at such a young age, but at that time it was very normal. She was married to a man who was twice her age. During her time people married off their daughters at the age of 5 as well, she said she was married at an older age compared to her friends. After some years of getting married she gave birth to a daughter. After some years of having a daughter, she again gave birth to a son. Just like that my grandmother gave birth to 6 kids in total. At that time none of my grandparents were educated and nor was the village educated, so it was common to have 4-5 children in each household.
After getting married my grandmother used to color the house using a mixture of red soil and water everyday and work in the kitchen while my grandfather worked in the fields. She used a dhiki and janto on anything that needed to be crushed. She sometimes helped in the field. The field was only capable of producing corn, gahat, daal, etc so they got other food items from the stores, which took two days to reach. There were many animals my grandparents raised at that time like: buffalo, goats, cows, bulls, etc.
My grandmother also only dressed in gunio cholo for most of her life. She has many sarees too. The men of the village dressed in daura cholo and women dressed in gunio cholos. This was what life was like in her time.
Overview | Lesson Learned
The old traditional things like janto and dhiki are still there in our house in the village. To get food, nobody has to travel by foot. I learned that technology is really developing fast and life is becoming easier.
But life isn’t easy for everyone, even with technology. I did know that child marriage was quite common but still hearing that 5 year old children were married off to someone thrice their age still shocked me. I did some research found out that Nepal is in the 3rd place in Asia where child marriage happens frequently. I feel like if my grandmother wasn’t married at such a young age and was given a chance to study she’d be able to write stories she always tells. There were so many other women who would’ve been pursuing their dreams right now if it weren’t for child marriage and sexism.
We need to continue raising awarness against child marriage and sexism. This will help many people. I learnt so many things from my grandmother’s life, including their lifestyle, their clothes, etc.
