Donation from America - Truck load of cloths

It was late seventies and it was around 9:00 am, an hour before school hour no student had entered the premises yet. I was standing in the center of the entrance. When I am writing this, I am just wondering, how come at that young age - I could have been around seven or younger than that - I was there where a child of my age was not supposed to be, especially at that time. It looks like that scene happened in my dream, only that it was not a dream, because those dresses lasted for 10 years and more.

Although, there are three entrance gates on front face of Bal Mandir; once you enter from the main gate of the Bal Mandir, but in those days all the people used just one entrance to enter inside the Nepal Children’s Organization office, NAFA Art Gallery including the school in the Bal Mandir. The entrance gate, is located at far right side of the Bal Mandir premises. Center one was for the Royals only. Far left side get used for mostly children and the staff at the BM.

On that particular day, when I was there alone, a big truck came. The white color truck was very big. It is the kind of truck they use for you haul or movers/packers company. We see this kind of big trucks only in English movies and then the whole story revolves around, how come a full grown person vanished inside that truck ?

I don't remember how the driver looked like or what he said or asked, I just vanished from there and must have worked as a little bird with a news. This truck was carrying the goods from America, mostly all kinds of clothes including sucks, shoes, caps and blankets. About the blanket, it is rumored that it can not be bought even today here in Nepali market, because of being very high quality of blanket, but to tell you the truth I never saw them or was I just too young to remember all of it . But a blanket of that high quality should has lasted for more than 10 years rights ?

When they emptied the truck one biggest size room was not enough to stack all the goods. In that big room it was filled from floor to ceiling and from this corner to that corner and it took more than four years to empty that room with those clothes and other goods. Then they kept those goods in other smaller stores.

I grew up hearing the rumors that, that big room had three keys, one was with a housemother, Kedar Shrestha, another one was with front office manager, and the third key was with Royal family. When I grew more, I do remember one name more than any other royals, who was particularly interested in those dresses, its Komal Sarkar - as we used to say royals in those days - she is the last ousted queen, her name came repeatedly, who came to select cloths from the piles. Some big girls do keep talking about a ‘poncho’ which was so beautiful, I mean so beautiful almost every one wanted to have hands on it, when it made its way to her home.

First, the royals used to scan cloths, then the housemother used to select the best and good ones, after that we used to get a chance to wear the remaining lot of it. Still it would be too much to say we used to get the tattered ones. There were so much of it, their selecting hardly made any difference. Perhaps for some reason, the donors knew; how the things work in Nepal. That truck load of cloths was enough to distribute 200 children for almost 10 years or may be more than that. Surely in the later years it has dried up a bit but, we were wearing one of those dresses, until I was on tenth standard. That truck came when I could have been in first or second grade.

I was also rumored that the housemother used to select the best one from the lot and then she used to take it home and then sell it from there. Rumor has it, that she had build a brand new house in the heart of the city - Ason, with the money, she made from those selling. But she died long before she could even move in that house.

It was not just the royals and the office staff at NOC and housemothers and supervisors of the Bal Mandir, even the children at the Bal Mandir, used to steal cloths ans sell good quality sneakers.

Children used to steal those cloths mainly as a give away to others, who came in Bal Mandir, to admit their child but could not get in their child due to limited sit or the parents or relatives who visited their kins occasionally. Some gave it to class mates who were not very good condition than that of us. But some of the big boys and girls used to steal it and then sale it. Couple of boys and girls were expelled from Bal Mandir, due to the same reason. Those who got caught, were not smart enough to escape from the loot. Some of the staff at the Bal Mandir, made house out of those selling, yet they never get caught.

But one more important mention is a must here, that big truck load of goods was the first and last I [we] have seen in the Bal Mandir premises. There was a rumour that Uma Panday, who was on the highest ranking position of the NCO, was not happy that other people rather the the children are benefiting from those cloths. So, it is said that she wrote a letter to the sponsoring body in USA, not to send any more, ‘whats the use, if the needy does not get benefited in pure senses from those givings’ was her logic.

That logic has weight on it, has not it ?

Perhaps she knew a lot more what was going on there, I mean a lot more than what I have written here. Otherwise why would she write such letter to those sponsors ?