Born into a hill Chhetri family on the outskirts of Lalitpur district, Subodh Khadka, 36, never imagined he would settle down in Madhes. As a carefree youth, Khadka decided to move there on a whim, partly due to his love of mangoes.
When Khadka was still living in Lalitpur, his father’s best friend, Ram Narayan Yadav, visited them one day from Nargho village in the Saptari district. In conversation Khadka professed his love for mangoes, and Yadav offered to feed him as many as he could eat on the condition that he visited Saptari. It was 2003, when relations between Madhesi and Pahadi people were not as tense as they are now in the Tarai.
Khadka instantly agreed to visit Saptari, where he then tutored local children for a few days. The students were so receptive to his teaching methods and their parents were not ready to let him leave. Khadka eventually grew so attached to the local people and culture that he decided to settle down there.
He worked as a teacher for two years before founding a primary-level English school that now has over 650 students. “I now love Madhes more than Pahad,” he says.
Two years ago, he brought his new wife, Ramila Basnet to Saptari. Raised in Kathmandu, she was not accustomed to the life in Madhes. “I didn’t like the food,” she says. “I didn’t understand the local Maithili language. I cried and longed to return to Kathmandu. But as time passed by, I fell in love with the wonderful people around.”
Khadka and his wife now speak Maithili fluently. They are the only Pahadi family in a Madhesi village exclusively inhabited by Yadavs, Mandals, Thakurs and Guptas. “I hear a lot about the strained Madhesi-Pahadi relations these days,” he says. “But I don’t feel anything like this here. Everyone treats me like one of them.”
Shambu Nanda Chaudhary, a human rights activist in Saptari, says the love that Khadka’s family has received in a Madhesi village is exemplary, particularly at a time of prolonged political face-off between the major parties and the Madhesi Front.
Khadka says he feels indebted to Madhesi people for the love and respect they have shown to his family. In gratitude for what he has received, he says, “I am trying to educate their children in return.”