Sanjog Manandhar
The road to my rented room near Boudhanath Stupa was flooded after a downpour that evening. So I took a detour through the monastery. It was still drizzling, and a wheelchair-bound man was stuck in a deluge of muddy water.
He looked helpless, and asked for help. But no one stepped in. So I did. He said: “No, no. Not you.” But I helped him any way.
My shoes got wet. I did not have an extra pair of shoes to wear the next day. So I had to dry them. When I stepped forward to help him, I did not care about getting my pants and shoes wet. I just went about helping him.
After my mother committed suicide, I felt disturbed all the time in my earthquake-hit village in Dolakha district. So my father brought me to Kathmandu, and I enrolled in the ninth grade in another school.
If we do not help people in need, there is no point going to school or university and gaining knowledge. What I did that rainy evening was not something to brag about. I just did it, and will always do. Shouldn’t everybody be helping each other if we want to create a better society?
(Photo journalist Sanjog Manandhar’s picture of Sujata Gole helping a wheelchair-bound man despite his refusal became the talk of the town early this week).