The story of an Acid Attack Activist
[Music]
namaskar
my name is so difficult to tell people
why i do what i do it’s a
amazing journey that i have had in my
life trying to be help to the helpless
hope to the hopeless and
a warrior for those who are fighting
for changes in laws
and seeking justice in this country
i call myself a human ambulance
someone who’s always ready to reach out
when you get a distress call it’s been a
phenomenal journey
for a very very long time now
i never wanted to come out in the media
never wanted people to know what i do
my life
in this field of survey started when i
was just about 14 15 years old
my father had given me money to pay the
electricity bill
and i happened to cross beer hospital or
government hospital
where i saw a mother crying with a child
in her hand
i gave the money to her rather than
paying the electricity bill
when i went home and told my father what
exactly happened
he was angry for a while but when he
heard the whole story
he didn’t say anything to me so i
realized if you actually go out and help
people
your parents don’t complain my life
turned around again
in the same hospital february 22nd 2015
when i met this girl called sangeeta
magar
and another girl called seema basnet at
peer hospital
they were attacked with acid and
when i saw that face i just could not
get
over it it was so painful and so
horrific
i didn’t know what to do
when i found out that a man had actually
done this heinous crime
i was ashamed of being a man for a while
having three daughters at home
a beautiful wife a mother
surrounded by women all the time i
i just i just could not believe a man
could be
as inhuman as whoever this criminal was
and then i reached out to them i reached
out to the helpless parents
and my fight to get justice
and my fight to make a law in nepal
regarding
the most heinous crime acid attack
continued from then on
single-handedly for a very very long
time
till more and more people joined in and
the voice
was loud enough for the government to
hear it
very recently the government of nepal
passed three laws
one which was the most important part is
the restriction of sale
of acid and other corrosive material in
nepal
two is the imprisonment part where the
criminal
would get between three to eight years
initially now it has been increased from
five years
to 20 years for acid attack and up to 25
years which is life imprisonment
if any acid victim or survivor
dies within a year of the acid attack
due to
the crime on the social
side all these kids belong to very very
nominal
families so for them education and
employment and healthcare was a
nightmare
the government of nepal now provides
complete medical
help to any of the survivors
lifelong for the damages done by acid
most of them are now employed with
either the private sector
or government entities they have a
reason to come out
of their homes and for the first time in
last six seven months
there has been no asset attack in nepal
i’m sure that the laws
and of course there are issues where we
need to still fight on
to get uh more people aware of the crime
and aware of the laws that are in place
the fight continues
apart from acid i always have this
feeling
that one of the most painful thing a
human being can ever go through
is to be burnt alive unluckily for a
place like nepal
there are very few burnt hospitals
actually there’s just three of them that
are functional and all three are in
kathmandu
so when people get burnt in villages
it is a tremendous tremendously painful
journey to kathmandu and if they
come here alive the treatment starts for
the first time
basic first aid treatment at villages is
also very very unheard of
it is there are crimes that happens
people throw kerosene at their wives and
set them on fire for dowry
there are other issues now there are
issues related to
social media uh jealousy factor and so
many things that
people get burnt alive it is a fight
that continues
poor people get burnt because most of
them have open
stove cooking at home you know why no
one notices burns
is because no one cares a dam about the
poor
affluent families and well our families
usually do not have burn cases
because we’ve got sophisticated cooking
equipments
and we’ve got other facilities
when someone gets burned you cannot you
cannot imagine that feeling
i have gone through that for decades
i’ve seen people
with wounds that you cannot explain in
words i can feel their pain
i can feel their agony on top of that i
can feel their helplessness
person like me keeps fighting and
raising voice against
the health care system in our nation the
reason being is
we do not have a health care system
when when you go on trying to be around
these people when you have
when you visit hospitals when you visit
their homes when you visit
first aid centers you know you feel so
privileged
i carry the best phone in the world
because i’m around people who are
unfortunate than me
i wear the best clothes because i am
actually around
very very unfortunate people who are
semi-dressed
most of the times when i come back home
i realize how
lucky i am to be who i am so it is a
journey that my friends my families
everyone has supported me all along
it is a journey that provides
hope a journey that provides little bit
of compassion a little bit of empathy
and a lot of self-satisfaction
when people talk to me about kovid i
actually have a very different version
to this
thing in nepal every disease is a
pandemic for a young
for a poor person whether it be heart
ailment
lung ailment a broken bone appendicitis
a complication in pregnancy for them
every
every physical ailment or medical
ailment
is a calamity
when kovid struck us when all of us
the affluent the educated started
running around hospitals
very very insecure that if someone of
mine
got ill would i find a bed would i find
oxygen cylinders would i find a bed at a
hospital
i felt for the first time that the whole
nation or should i say the whole world
felt like
what a poor man in nepal always feels
like helpless
there is no one he can turn to it is so
difficult for one person to handle
everything
but then as i went on the number of
people who helped me grow
and we’ve managed to save a lot of lives
i wish
we could do more but then whatever we do
we do it with our heart and we’ve saved
a number of lives i call myself a
counselor
i call myself sometimes very very
abusive when i see people give up hope
in kovid everyone i heard everyone
telling each other
hope is the best medicine well it’s not
just in govind
for a poor man hope is a medicine for
all his pains if we still do not realize
that our system needs to change that our
health care needs to change
all the money you have in the world all
the medical insurance in the world did
not work for covid
you know why because the numbers were
tremendous
reach out to these people we talk about
social responsibility clause
health care should be the number one
priority of every social
responsibility of every every corporate
giant that is in this nation it is a
journey that needs to be
needs to be completed it is a journey of
empathy
it is a journey of service
just remember those few seconds every
time you heard of the word kovid every
time you went for a test
every time someone close to you got
tested positive
don’t forget that feeling of anxiety
don’t forget that feeling of
helplessness
because that is what a poor man in nepal
feels all the time
and that is where we come into the
picture to give them hope
to tell them to hold their hand and say
you’re not alone
there is someone and it is saved a lot
of life because helplessness
is the biggest killer in this nation and
i think
all of us if we call ourselves educated
if we call ourselves affluent if we call
ourselves
aware please reach out
there is lot many of us can do
a small amount from many of us can save
numerous
amounts of lives in this country whether
it is acid attack
whether it is burns whether it is
pregnancy complication whether it is
heart ailment
it is the same for every human being
because in my life
i believe in one thing the pain and
agony
of ailment the pain and agony of a
disease
is exactly the same for every human
being and
if things get worse and if we feel
helpless it gets worse
i think for the first time humanity
across the globe
has realized that when the sheer
numbers go up for any disease
it becomes a nightmare
we’re going through one nightmare but
within these nightmares
we are working day and night to save
lives of many burnt victims
who are in different hospitals in
kathmandu
i am a human being i am scared of my
life i am scared of getting
infected but then i always assure my
family one thing
i might or might not die if i
can’t if i get covered but if i do not
reach the hospital in time
these poor kids and these poor women who
come in with tremendous burn cases
will be dead for sure it is a big
challenge for all of us
but if we all unite together such
challenges can overcome
acid attack burning someone for dowry
burning someone for jealousy burning
someone for any goddamn reason
is one of the most heinous crimes that
can ever happen in the world
and we must and we nepalese have managed
to raise our voice loud enough that the
government noticed it
but i still continue the fight saying it
is not just acid
every burn survivor in nepal must get
minimum treatment so we can save their
lives
just because they are poor just because
they do not have a voice
just because they’re from far fetched
areas of nepal
do not overlook them because
remember one thing the burn might not
represent
all of us kovi did whether you’re rich
whether you’re poor whether you’re
educated whether you’re affluent
the anxiety was the same for everyone
and i can assure you one thing
with my experience the most painful
thing
a human being can ever go through
is the feeling of being dead it is the
most painful feeling
and when you are helpless when you feel
there is nothing you can do to save
yourself
it is the worst thing a human being can
go through
let me tell you one thing life and death
i’ve seen it very very closely you
cannot prepone your death
by thinking neither can you postpone
your death by
thinking but if you think right
you can postpone and you can
prevent death of many many innocent
human beings just because they don’t
have the money
they don’t have the resources i hope my
message to the world is loud and clear
it is about
empathy it is about one human being
equal to another human
as far as health care is concerned there
is
no certainty to life there is no
certainty to death
but the certainty of pain
for being helpless is for sure
we all must come together and fight this
helplessness that every individual goes
through in this nation
i hope my message would
create more awareness it is not just
you it is not just me it is all of us
who has the right to live and live a
healthy
and a safe life in this nation and
across the globe
please reach out and help people
at their times of needs your money
you can earn it back but a lost life
cannot come back
if your money can save a life please go
ahead and help someone
thank you so much