Children of lesser gods

Pasang Tamang has the kind of smile that stays. If he smiled in a roomful of people, it would be the warmest spot in that room. Seated on a bench in the sign language classroom watching deaf tv, Pasang turns away from the screen and smiles.

After being rescued from Rasuwa in the 26 August flood, he was brought to Bhairabi Secondary School in Bidur where he has been living since. The 13-year-old is among 17,000 children impacted by the flood.

Without parents, Pasang was being brought up by his uncle and aunt. When the disaster struck, their house in Syaule quickly disappeared and his relatives went missing, snatching away the only feeling of home he had ever known.

Pasang was brought to the school with 38 other children, and over the weeks, the children were identified by their families and taken to new temporary homes. But no one showed up for Pasang.

“He wept the day the last rescued child left. No one came to get him and we later found out his relatives had died in the flood,” says Rajendra Shrestha, who has been teaching sign language at the school.

The power goes off and so does the tv Pasang has been watching. He gestures at Rajendra Sir and gets up to bring out a folder of drawings. It is a collection of his and that of his friend Roshini, another child displaced by the flood. One of the images shows four friends who lost their homes, seated together.

Pasang’s drawings are eclectic. There are those of the village landscape that have changed since the flood, but there is also one of Indra Jatra, of reindeer and one of Naruto.

In another drawing, he is outside his home in Rasuwa, filling a water bottle, while the elders appear busy in the front yard. A village home in the shadow of the mountains, not far from a raging river.

PAST LIFE