We get by with a little help from our friends.
Mann Badhu’s story really struck a chord with many of you last year.
A recap of his story: He arrived home after living and working in India for 40 years, only to discover that his brothers had had him declared legally dead so they could divide the family property between the two of them. They refused to file papers to reverse their declaration.
Mann Badhu had come home to retire, but found he had no home, no family, and no way to collect a pension.
After a short while of staying in his village, he began to feel unsafe. He thought there was nothing to stop his brothers from killing him so he couldn’t cause problems for them.
If we take a realistic look at life in Nepal and India, we can’t blame the brothers for their decision. What would you do if you haven’t heard from your brother in 30 years or more? You’d have no way to reach him in India, and no way to even know if he was alive or dead. When your parents die, you have no way to properly split the property because he’s not around to sign the paperwork. So, we can’t blame them for their decision.
We can blame them for not doing the right thing and reversing their statement to the government, though, when he came home.
Since meeting him last year, my feeble, simple, Western brain had the idea that we could find a way to reverse his brothers’ earlier statement, and have Mann Badhu declared alive. The end goal was just to enable Mann Badhu to collect his pension, and we would forget about what property was rightfully his. Both his brothers are dead, but his nephew could at least file the papers. Even though I knew the nephew would likely want a “fee” for his help, I thought it was worth a try.
Fast forward to my arrival a few weeks ago.
Mann Badhu is now 97 years old. Yes, really. He didn’t look a day over 80 last year, but this year is a different story. Age has caught up with him, as has his constant smokeless tobacco habit (by the way, my beloved Bishnu Aama also uses “chew” every single day!). Mann Badhu coughs almost all the time. He is far too aged at this point to survive the long legal battle of declaring him legally alive.
Instead of staying in the dining room to visit with Padmal Singh and Padmal’s wife, Sahrda, Mann Badhu now takes his meals and his tea back to his room.
Instead of joining his friend, Padmal Singh, on walks along the back road, Padmal Singh now walks by himself.
Shaha has found a helper for Mann Badhu, at least for the short term. A few days ago, I met Akkal, whom I’m going to refer to as “young Akkal” so he doesn’t get confused with my brother, Akkal Syngtan, from the Tamang village of Beltar.
Young Akkal is an orphan, and with just a few months to go before he was to finish tenth grade and graduate, his orphanage closed their small, local home, and moved offices to another location in Kathmandu. He had nowhere to live so he could finish his schooling.
Shaha has agreed to keep him at the elder care home, rent-free, until he graduates. In exchange,Young Akkal stays with Mann Badhu and serves as his caregiver, convincing Mann Badhu to change clothes and wash up. (Those who have read the book will recall my own challenges with Bishnu Aama and this task.)
I can’t imagine what Mann Badhu goes through every day, how it must feel to have lost everything – your family, your home, your way to make an income, and your identity as a human being. He lives with the knowledge that his brothers, his flesh and blood, refused to do the right thing on his behalf.
Doing the right thing can be annoying sometimes, and it can come with a cost to each of us – a financial cost, the cost of our time. But doing the right thing has rippling effects outward in life, and those ripples eventually make it back to you, just as when ripples in the water reach the shore and head back out to their point of origin.
Each of us has the power to do the right thing, each and every day.
Thank you for keeping your fellow human beings in your heart, and for doing those little things, every day, to make this world a better place.
Love you all,
Alicia Jean Demetropolis
P.S. You can donate today to help us pay for Mann Badhu’s food and housing. Every little bit helps!
