Keshar Maya Jimi

‘A life full of struggle, hard work and a helping hand to a successful man’

It is a story of my grandmother Keshar Maya Jimi. 

In the village of Tamaphuk which was famously called ‘Dash Majhiya’ ( Land of ten landlords), there was a beautiful neighbourhood ‘Otema Tole’ ( Plain land). By it’s name, the village had large plain lands unlike other hills of Nepal. The village faced north to Mount Makaalu, which meant it was full of greenery and water resources.

The people depended on agriculture as their livelihoods. They produced grains like maize, barley, soybean, rice and mustard. The village was also famous for kitchen garden. They had broad mustard leaf, raddish, Chayote( Iskus)onion and chillies. The villagers used to produce garlic and mustard seeds for the cash crop and used to sell in the far market of Chainpur (biggest in the district).

 Some people opted for British Army and some people used to go to ‘Assam’ (Mostly to North East of India) for searching their fortunes.

Among these families, there was a family of Mr XXX who was the landlord of the village. He had two sons, but no trace of daughters. The youngest son’s name was Yamun Sing Lingkha who had two wives. When he was a child, he was married to a girl and that girl as a tradition remained in her ‘Maiti’( Parents home).As the time passed, the girl was expecting a child from different man while her stay in Maiti. The Maiti people wanted to give the responsibility to formal married husband to save their pride. But Yamun Sing Lingkha didn’t accept the baby so he had to face legal procedure to prove his innocence. He struggle his whole life in this matter but he couldn’t get justice at the end too.

The second wife was .......... He had four daughters and two sons with his second wife. The two sons died at an early age. The second wife died after giving birth to last son. Then he never got married. He provided his family by agriculture and he was also a good carpenter. He used to go to Chainpur for the carpentry work. The income source was good and so was his daily living. He had a large house and the design was like a house from the Chainpur. He had a large garden with a large pond near his house. The garden was full of flowers like scented roses, red flowers, pink flowers, night queen flowers. The aroma of the flowers spread day and night.

The large pond had it’s own story. Once, the village was caught with fire and the water from the pond was used to extinguish the fire. Similarly, a person was chased by the large murder hornet and he went beneath the water in the pond and saved his life.

He was a progressive man as he travelled to Kathmandu many times for this justice. It used to take one month to travel to Kathmandu from his village and a lot of resources like rice, clothing, utensils and men. In the village, the thatched roof need a lot of Khaar( material especially for roof). People had to go to dangerous cliffs to get it. But he had planted them in his land so that no accidents occur while getting it which was a rare sight. No people planted such thing in their agricultural land. 

Keshar Maya Jimi was the second daughter of Yamun Sing Lingkha.