A girl like Krishna | Freestyling

Dressed in simple salwar-kurta, there is an alert brightness about Krishna Kumari Khadga. She flashed a smile as I crossed the mud courtyard in front of the offices of Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve to meet her. Krishna extends a hand, incongruously saying, "Namaste".

Last week when I was in Nepal's far western district of Kanchanpur, I had the opportunity of not only seeing more of this still beautiful country but also meeting wonderful people. No one made quite an impression like the 21-year-old Chairperson of Sagarmatha User Committee, Dodhara VDC in the buffer zone area around the wildlife reserve.

It is her job to liase between the community's needs and demands of conservation. With clear statutes guiding her work, Krishna leads discussions, coaxes reticent villagers to air their views, is an able motivator skilled in the art of a workable compromise and is adept at coordinating the red-tape strewn business of securing grants for community projects. Indeed, much work funded by donor dollar in Nepal takes place through the mobilisation of collective institutions like community-based user groups.

What NGOs call 'grassroots initiatives' is a way of life for Krishna. "I started doing community work in the village eight years ago," she says. "Maybe that's why I won the election for this post a year ago." I do the math and am in awe—Krishna has been involved in gender awareness, health campaigns and social initiatives since she was 13. At that age my biggest project was deciding what to wear for the class prom and agonising over a Hollywood star.

Was she always this confident about herself? "No," she laughs. "The first few meetings I held as chairperson was awkward, not because I am a girl but because I didn't know enough—it's different now and that has made a big difference."

If ever there the female child education cause needs a poster girl, Krishna would be a great candidate. In a district where the schooling for females in 1996 was a mere 1.4 percent of the total population, she has studied till Grade 12. That makes her one among only 26 percent of girls in Kanchanpur who completed secondary school (National Census, 2001).

It's not that Krishna doesn't care about politics when she shrugs off questions about how the insurgency has affected her life. It's something that Nepalis live with in varying degrees. Kanchanpur has seen a high level of violence yet the situation is treated with a resigned normalcy. "It's not that bad in the village," she says, admitting that although some boys have gone to neighbouring India, many choose to stay on.

You wouldn't be incorrect in assuming that most girls too would be ready to shake the village dust from their feet and go to Kathmandu or elsewhere in search of better opportunities—but most girls are not Krishna. "I don't see myself anywhere else but here. This is where I belong so why should I leave when there is so much to do here?"

I think to myself that kind of commitment is in short supply…think of all the people hightailing it out Nepal faster than you can say 'exit strategy.' And sitting there in the shade of a bougainvillea vine I realised that all the other 'Krishnas' around this country are the ones upon whom we depend for a better future. Unlike the crust of talkers, she is among the doers. It's pretty simple to her: "In the end, we all want the same thing—peace and progress."

Thank you, Krishna.

Reality Check

I'll say it a hundred times, Kathmandu is not Nepal.

As a born and bred Valley girl, I once thought there was no place like this hollow in the hills—Kathmandu, the capital of a proud nation. With age and travel I've come to believe otherwise. Off the beaten track of Kathmandu-Pokhara-Chitwan-Lukla is a country ripe with possibilities. It's no Shangri-la, certainly not in these days and times, but Nepal still has beauty. The people still have dignity in times of adversity and more than that, courage to think beyond themselves.

This is something that my friend Kashish, who also happens to be the editor of this magazine, believes. Many moons ago, he and I went for a road trip to Dharan and thereabouts. That he partially retraced in March but this time on the back of a motorbike on a six-city youth survey that is presented in this issue.

You and I are in the unique position of being able to see and experience our country yet we are insiders who choose not to see. When it comes right down the wire, I think many of us in the relatively safe bubble that is Kathmandu take too much for granted. One way to address that is to recognise what you have and then to remember to say thank you.