Essay: My courageous mom gave me the best in life – my education

By Nisha Thapa Magar

My mother is the strongest and courageous woman I have ever seen in my life. Asha Thapa was born and raised in poverty in a rural village of Nepal where she never got a chance to get formal education.

In her time, it was common in my village that none of the female children was allowed to go to school. My mom is now 55 years old, and she is living her life in the same place where she was born and raised.

Writer Nisha and mom Asha.

My mom’s childhood was tough and difficult. She and all her siblings used to work in the field and grazed goats which was their routine task. After she got married, she moved into the large family of my father. There were strict rules and regulations for every daughter-in-law in the family.

They had to wake up very early in the morning and begin their everyday household work. Some had to plaster the house with mud, some used to do pounding grains using the traditional wooden rice pounder called “dhiki” in Nepali. They were expected to do their allocated duties and tasks without any complaint.

My mom lived through all this hardship in her life. It was never supposed to be called a problem. That was a normal life.

The real problem began when we lost our dad Ran. My mom was just 32 years old. My elder sister Nari was 10, and I was just 8 during that time. She never re-married and decided to sacrifice everything to give the best opportunities for us her children that she never had.

It was never easy for my mother raising us in our patriarchal society in Nepal being an illiterate single parent. All she had was courage and resilience. Living in the rural village, she had to face numerous challenges, including emotional and financial.

The pension she received from my dad’s service in the Indian Army was not enough to cover the growing needs of our family. She labored in our farm to feed us.

Although she is illiterate, she knew the power of education as an equalizer. She never gave up on our education, believing that being educated means to have a better future.

My mother had the courage to send me to private school in Kathmandu, far from our village. She could only afford me for schooling, my older sister had to stay in our village. Luckily, Nari is happily married and has one child.

I salute my mother’s determination to send me to school. She is a strong woman in our patriarchal society, and tried to lift us above her station.

I still remember the days when some of the people discouraged her from sending me to a private school. “One day she is just going to marry someone,” they would say.

And she would answer them in this manner: “Yes, she is going to get marry someone one day but then she will not have to struggle like me. She is not going to depend on her husband for anything. She will be independent. She will be to differentiate what is right and what is wrong for herself.”

Through my mom’s sacrifice, I finished my Master’s degree in Business.

I believe that our patriarchal culture has reinforced poverty by limiting opportunities to almost all Nepali girls in the rural village, including education.  

The story of my mom inspires me every day to be the best version of myself and not to limit myself from achieving higher. I would not have been able to write her story if she had not made the sacrifice for us. #

(About the writer: Nisha Thapa Magar is a Legal Assistant at Cobrador & Associates PLLC in Manhattan. She is a pioneering cohort of the Masterclass in Writing & Journalism with Dr. Marivir Montebon under the auspices of Awesome Media, Ltd. and Women’s Immigration & Communications Cafe in New York City.)