Rupa Poudel navigated an abusive grandmother, the threat of forced marriage, and Nepal’s soul-destroying education system before finding a future studying in Germany.
You can safely say a culture is in trouble when it comes down to wisdom. Imagine growing up in a country slowly collapsing under the weight of its own straight-jacketing traditions. Savvy educated young people are expected to defer to the wisdom of their uneducated elders. Imagine mothers describing the horrors of arranged marriage – and then forcing the same on their daughters.
This bleak picture is maintained by inadequate rote learning in Nepali schools. Seeking something better, many take A-levels at colleges in Kathmandu. Not that these offer anything better – U-grades are widespread as the students lack the necessary study skills. Many teachers admit privately to not understanding the questions.
On average, forty-thousand young Nepalis take the language test required for university entry in an English-speaking country every year. Who can blame them for dreaming of a better life away from this dysfunctional mess of conflicting ideologies?
Rupa
My first memory of Rupa was her looking me in the eye and confidently asking where she could study Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). Her peers were all playing PUBG. One of those forty thousand was trying to stand a little taller.
She later described her insular emotional life – she was wracked with insecurities and cripplingly under-stimulated. She didn’t know her introversion was perfectly normal – and widespread – until I described exactly what she was experiencing. Her world didn’t offer even a popular psychology understanding of self or others.
She spent a lot of time in dark rooms paralysed by procrastination. She said she liked breaking things – no surprise with the catalogue of frustration she dealt with every day. Today, a student in Germany, she continues to exhibit shades of Wednesday Addams. Her Instagram handle is tellingly apocalyptic.
Before I called her, I imagined skulls, Green Day posters, and dripping candles. Instead, she sat comfortably in a messy room devoid of any such pretention.
“Some of my professors say, ‘mathematicians and computer students should love the dark,’” she says ironically. “They’re encouraging us to be darker than we already are.” Clearly, she’s found her people.
Family
She grew up in a fibreboard shanty house in Ramkot, Kathmandu. Her father mostly abandoned them, and his mother – Rupa’s grandmother – made her life hell. You hear the glee in her voice as she says relationships have improved now she’s abroad – she blocked their social media accounts.
Her father’s family started searching for a husband for her while she was still a student. “My grandmother was constantly saying it would be very nice and healing for them if they can send me to some guy, so I would be his responsibility.”
Her older brother, then a student in Germany, intervened. He volunteered to look after her there. “My brother took a stand. After that, they couldn’t say anything,” she says.
She laughs bemusedly. “I don’t even have the skills to be a housewife. I’m so proud of my mother for not letting me do anything. She taught me things, but she never let me do anything. She said, ‘It’s not your job to do it. You go and learn.’ If my mother raised me to not do this thing, then why should I be doing this?”
“I’m really proud of half of my family, whereas I hate the other half. They were tolerating me. They would have thrown me away.”
A Terrible Time at College
The sixth form she attended only made it worse. The college – I briefly ran its A-level programme – offered reduced fees. She accepted a place, not wanting to be a financial burden to her family.
She says, “It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You were there teaching us something, and after you left, no one taught us. The principal tried. He organised classes on Saturday. He provided us notebooks and pencils – coffee, food to eat. I think it went for one or two weeks.”
Teachers would keep students waiting and then dismiss the class as students said they were too tired. If she arrived home early – or late – her grandmother would accuse her of skipping classes.
She later quit the school out of sheer frustration with its methods and completed her studies from home. She faced a difficult choice: she could study the subject she wanted in Kathmandu or go to Germany and study something she hated. She chose Germany and mathematics.
“And then there was no emotion, not happiness, not sadness. On my flight, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to meet my brother.’ I thought nothing else.”
Escaping to Germany
I ask what her first impression of Germany was. “That was the first time I saw a train,” she replies. She manages to express mild enthusiasm for life there.
“The teachers are punctual. They teach us,” she says. She’s shocked she’s the only student in one class. It would never happen in Nepal. “At least students won’t come just for dating,” she adds.
For the first few months, she felt numb. “And then I thought, ‘No. It’s a lot better here. No one is judging me, no one is stopping me from doing anything. I can do whatever I want without my family interrupting me.’ So, it’s actual freedom. It’s nice.”
“I used to think where I grew up was a very nice place because of the environment. But as I grew up, my family got worse. I can see that place objectively now, and I realise how awful it is. It’s not just my family. It’s the villagers and the neighbourhood. The way they think, the way they behave to other people.”
Today, she’s trying to decide what to study next. She’s looking at finance, getting her German language qualification and her Deutsche Pass.
I ask if the dreamcatcher on her wall works. With pure understatement, she adds: “I’m very glad that I left Nepal.”
Lee Russell Wilkes 