Happy, Angry and Sad Over Dil Shova

Reshma Singh

The news this morning made me happy, shocked me, angered me and saddened me at the same time. I was flooded with a deluge of emotions, because for one reason I was in some way associated with Ama Ghar, appreciated Dil Shova’s attempt but at the same time was disgusted by the way it was managed. 

As part of my social work field work for my freshman year at Mega College, I was placed by my college administration to work as a volunteer at Dil Shova’s Ama Ghar. It was an exciting moment for me because I had heard a lot about Dil Shova’s work on media and was looking forward to visiting Ama Ghar. On the 5th of this month, I had my first visit to Ama Ghar with excitements high and a desire to learn from a celebrity social worker the art of serving. 

But the very first visit shattered everything. When I and some other volunteers from my college went there, the first word that came to my mind was “Limbo.” There was nobody for us to report to, nobody to tell us what to do, the institution reeked of urine and feces, the children dirty, uncared for and without slippers, verily like a 19th century British orphanage with Dickensanian nightmare. It filled me with disgust and hatred. Hatred not only for the founder of the NGO but even towards Bijay Kumar whose coverage of Ama Ghar I had watched the night before on YouTube. 

One the second visit I met with Dil Shova with ire and hatred deep seated in the core of my heart. But surprise! The moment she started speaking most of my anger was gone; she emanated such warmth and love that she reminded me of my grandmother who is not suave and sleek, who doesn’t know much about health and hygiene, who doesn’t know much of the legal obligations that has to be fulfilled, who cleans a kid’s running nose and feds him/her only after wiping it with her sari, who has a whole lot of good intention in her heart but is oblivious of the fact that just having a heart of gold and pure intentions is not just everything. 

Over the days I realized that unlike in Charles Dickens novels where the head of the orphanages dined in ambrosia and underfed the kids, Dil Shova was having the same food that the old mothers and kids were having, she was not indulging herself in things that the inmates of her organization did not have access to. She was like one of those lower middle class Nepali mother for whom survival is more important than getting proper health and hygiene, for whom it is more important to get the kids and mothers go to bed with a full tummy than to get other amenities of life which might be basic necessity for some of us but for most Nepali is a luxury. 

At one moment I had a desire to secretly photograph dire situation that was in the NGO, at other times I would think of other street children who sleep in the cold Kathmandu street with their stomach rumbling. I was having a deluge of mixed emotions. At moments I would plan on informing news programs like “Khabar Bhitra ko Khabar”, and at other times I would not get enough of thinking the great work this lady had put up. 

Once I even took a friend of mine who is at a medical school to access the condition of the old mothers and he said with grim look on his face “I feel pity for them but they are all a living house of disease and it scares me about the health of the young kids in here as the whole environment is extremely infectious.” But he was quick to add with a wry smile “It looks like one of our government hospitals.” All I could say was “OK, I got it.”

I have been working with the people in there for about a month now, I have talked with the old mothers, I have helped the kids in their education, I have talked with them, even brought a kid to stay with my family for a couple of days, taken some clothes and chocolates for them, put shoes on the feet of some bare footed kids, build a kind of rapport with them, and I know their situation is dire, extremely dire which needs immediate attention, but nowhere could I smell the rat about anything like sex abuse. That is way too farfetched and dishonest thing to say.

It might be a little condescending on my part, but in the recent turn of events Dil Shova’s situation reminded me of the movie The God Must Be Crazy where a bushman hunts a domestic animal because he was hungry failing to understand that in the civilized world it constitutes a crime. If Dil Shova is guilty, then she is guilty of daring to start an NGO without being educated enough to understand the legal parameters that she should have placed her program into, she is guilty of treating the kids and the old mothers like they would be treated in Bhagwan Koirala’s teaching hospital, she is guilty of running it like a family of a lower middle class person, she is guilty of having good intentions and bad plans, she is guilty of not having the media skill of Rabindra Mishra, she is guilty of not having the far-sightedness of Anuradha Koirala, she is guilty of daring to do something worthwhile while the so-called elites of Kathmandu cozily watched “Jhola” at QFX and discussed the plight of Nepali women over popcorn and coffee; she is guilty of many more things like this. 

Finally, I am happy that this came in the news because it broached up a new discourse regarding how an elder home or an orphanage should be operated but it saddens me that it came at such a big price for a lady who has a heart of gold.  I concede Ama Ghar may not be the ideal place for orphans and old mothers to live in, but does the government have a better option?