Royal Link-up

When Shova Acharya, was admitted in the Bal Mandir, in about early eighties, she was around ten years old. There were bruise all over her body, specially her back, blue and purple. One of my friend remembers even today, that there were hardly any space left on her body, where the bruise was not there, except her eyes. She was so traumatized after sever beating and electrocution, that it took her months to recover from that nightmare like realality. She was so scared of the sites of an adults specially men, even passing from her side. Although, Bal Mandir, has more ladies staffs compared to male still even a shadows of men haunted her many more months after that.

As I was collecting the information about her, half of which I have already forgotten but chatting with my old pals from the Bal Mandir, was very helpful. Many name keep coming up and all the names sounded so familiar, which had been buried in the time memory zone.

While living in the Bal Mandir, generally we do not dig any information about our roommates or other big or small ones but we do know his/her story from the housemothers. They tell us those in very wrog way, when they get angry with a particular person and use the persons history to scold them, to shrink them and to abuse them. Very few people talk about how they have landed in Bal Mandir, its not that they are shy about it because every body has almost the same story. They are children, normal children wanting to forget their horrible past and more that that the normal life in an orphanage filled with 200 people keeps you busy in many different task rather keeping your mind occupied thinking, all the time what landed us there.

But Shova’s story of landing in Bal Mandir, was a lot different than most of us. Her story was rather unsual.

Shova Acharya, was a domestic maid, she had been working in that house ever since she was very young to be a domestic maid. In fact, as she shared it with her room mates in BM, it was her mother, who had sold her to a very influential people of the society. Her mother told her one day she will come back to meet her, but Shova, shared with her room mates, she never came during her stay in that home. One name she will never ever forget even if she wants to in her life, is Pushpa Chalise, resident of Dilli Bazar, Kalikasthan, who was the main culprit to torture her brutally. What she had gone through, was the height of brutality only the kind of people face it on war time prison not outside the prison cell. No child or even adult should suffer and go through what she had gone through.

The story surfaced like this: one day Shova, saw the lady having physical relation with other man, when her husband was out. She feared that this girl might fill the ear of her husband got her so much so that, she started torturing her to the max. The kind of brutal behaviour that force any civilized citizen of the society to think; is this human behaviour ? Is this kind of punishment is normal for such situation ? She was beaten with sticks, smacked with whatever she could have hands on kicked and she was even kept on top of burning electric heater, the policemen ran the electric rods on her body and also tried their kicking power on her when she was only around ten and lean, she was very helpless to help herself from any angle. Its also rumoured that once they had even rolled her in a bundle ready to take her to bury, presuming that she was dead, meaning that such was the force of torture. How the story was out from the boundary of the Lady's house is also pretty interesting. Irony of the truth is that it was, one of the sons of Pushpa Chalise, who had let the cat out of bag. The details of how is not know clearly. The people I am in touch, can give me only the details of after she was in BM, and then what she told and what surfaced on the courtroom while fighting for the case.

After she was admitted in the Bal Mandir, one of the manager, Bhubaneshowery Satyal, who was on Sr. management of the NCO, had fought for Shova. She had grown very personal attachment after hearing her horrible story. I came to know that the managers of the NOC had lost the case because of Pushpa Chalise’s link-ups to the Royal palace, mainly to the late queen Ayshwora Saha. Bal Mandir, was running totally under the royal family, which made Pushpa Chalise, untouchable and nobody could budge her off even in the courtroom. At least Shova, was rescued from the death trap and landed in Bal Mandir.

But right now my mind is racing fast, why those policemen was testing their kicking powers on that helpless child ? How come those policemen were used to kick her ? was she married to any high ranking police personnel ? or does this indicate that the other man was from the high ranking police officer ? How come Chalise family have the royal link ups ? who was related to royal family ? what was the connection that made her above the law ?

But when I was growing up in BM, what I knew about her was that she was beaten brutally because she had stolen and sold some of the household stuffs when the masters were not in their home. Keeping in mind of her age and physical and mental condition, nobody could believe she was beaten that way for something like that. Now it makes more sense with the above story and the blue and purple stains all over her body. Perhaps that was the first time we have seen that kind of blue and purple bruise on some body's back.

I do remember one more name in this whole story; Ananda Bhattarai, who had covered one article for the ‘Balak’, a children's magazine, which NCO published every month. Shova’s story was published along with all her pictures following the month she was admitted in the Bal Mandir.

Shova Acharya, was sweet and in her later years, she became like any other teenagers careless and carefree about the future. Even though, some of the management members wanted her to do best in her studies. Of course, she was a very bright student never came below third position in her class thought out her school life. She fell in love with a guy who lived near by Bal Mandir, Naxal and married very young, disappointing some from the management team of NOC, who wanted her to be very successful in life and show the lady who had torture her when she was so young. She married young and became the mother of two son, and then her husband died when her two children was still young.

I have bumped with her on the busy street of New Road, more than a decade ago. Her eyes was beaming with the picture of bright future when she was talking about leaving the country for America.