When I say I was 12 when I left home in search for knowledge,
people admire me and look at me with disbelief.
I didn’t run away. My father walked with me for an entire hour till the dawn.
My father didn’t have this luxury.
He left home to go to Gurukula at the age of six. All by himself.
Unfortunately my grandfather passed away when my father was ten
and he had to return home and give the final rites.
Since he was the oldest child,
he was responsible for the entire family
and so he could not go back to his school.
Just to savor the memories from the past,
I have spent 3 months in my father’s gurukula,
staying with the same family in Sunaulabazar. Some Adhikari family.
My father had many stories but for me he had only a few.
The hurt he had, the wounds that he could share.
Our family inherited the financial support from Dayabhakta family, the richest at that time.
When my father visited them, Dayabhakta requested him to move to Kathmandu and settle there.
He had offered huge land.
You could not imagine the price for that in today’s market.
But my father declined that and instead asked that he adopt my uncle and one of his sisters
and take care of their education. Which he obliged.
Unfortunately both my uncle and aunt didn’t study and chose to have fun.
That hurt my father so much that he never went back to Mathema family.
So my father would always say, I could not carry on with my studies but you should not give up.
And he made my poor uncle as synonymous to ignorance.
He would always say you can’t turn into your uncle.
I feel sad the way modern generation views education.
I feel sad how they have lost the value of education.
Sometimes when my students are struggling with their homework
they come to my office and start:
professor! you have no idea what I am going through.
I know I have no idea really.
All the relationship problems.
The skyrocketing price for ganja, the old car, not having the latest model Iphone and laptop.
We as humans are destined to confront the problems.
Alas, the problems for this generation are beyond the dreams of the last generation.
My father self educated and
I could never impress him with my knowledge.
The day before he died, he called me and said he has to go.
I said you cannot go now and he said it is his time.
And the next day he passed away with a stroke.