Sunil Kumar Singh
The name above is that of a new freshman student at Heidelberg. Sunil means good self-esteem, Kumar means unmarried, and his family name, Singh, means lion. He came to Heidelberg from the landlocked country of Nepal, located between China and India.
Today Sunil is wearing a thick warm sweater that his mother made for him. He is a slender man of nineteen, and he has sat calmly composed through my many questions as I try to understand his culture and his country. His dark eyes under strong eyebrows meet mine as he thoughtfully considers his answers.
The village of his ancestral family, Sahasram, is in the southeastern part of Nepal near the border with India. His mother and father and sister live in an industrial city, Birganj, about 200 kilometers away. This city is called the gateway to Nepal. Everything that enters Nepal from the outside comes through Birganj. Rice, their principle export, also leaves from that city. Sunil’s father works in a bank, and one of his uncles is an engineer and another teaches in a high school.
Sunil’s early life was spent in his family’s village, Sahasram. There he attended five years of elementary school. Then he went to school for three years and lived with his mother and uncle and brother in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Then he lived with his father and mother in Birganj and went to school there. He spent five years studying biology, chemistry and physics and completed his schooling in Nepal with two years at the School of Science at Kathmandu University. He is majoring in computer science at Heidelberg.
It is plain when Sunil talks about his family that it is very important to him. Altogether there are seventeen members in his family. His father has three brothers and he has an older brother and a younger sister. His mother works at home as do most Nepali wives. She still does without a washing machine and some other conveniences that we have come to regard as necessities. Customarily, the family eats their first meal of rice and vegetables around ten in the morning, Around four in the afternoon they eat a smaller meal, perhaps of rice pudding and beaten rice. In the evening sometimes there are chipatis, a thin bread, and rice and vegetables. Usually the family eats meat, which may be chicken, fish or goat, only on weekends.
In November the family returns to their native village to celebrate the Festival of Light, Divali, one of many Hindu festivals. They burn candles and burn oil in cups made of clay, and worship Cow. In another festival, Chhath, they worship the sun and water on the bank of a river or lake.
In the Hindu belief system, the Supreme Essence created Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the operator, and Shiva, the destroyer. As a boy growing up and studying the Hindu scriptures, Sunil tried to follow Vishnu as his role model.
Hindus believe that the soul lives on in some way beyond this world. This is bound up in the idea of karma which is that one’s deeds have consequences which may extend beyond this world into the next. This is somewhat like our Western saying, “You reap what you sow.”
The consequences in the next world may be that the soul returns to inhabit the body of a person of a higher or lower status. This depends on whether that person had devoted his life to unselfish acts or had committed crimes. The person who can escape from this vicious cycle of life and death will achieve Nirvana and his soul will finally unite with the Supreme Soul.
In Nepal, as in India, there is a caste system in society. The four castes are Chettri, the warrior caste; Brahman, the priest caste; Baishya caste, the business and producer caste; and Sudra, the laborers. In the past, members of these castes couldn’t intermarry, but that is changing. There are also untouchables.
When Sunil marries, his family will arrange his marriage with a woman whom they consider suitable. The father and uncles of the woman will go to his house to make arrangements for the wedding. Sunil’s family, as is the custom, will ask for money from the woman’s family. The government is trying to discourage the practice of asking for a bride’s price.
On the night of the wedding Sunil and his family will go to the bride’s home. The couple will stand before a rectangular pit surrounded by stones and a fire will be built in the center. A priest will perform the ceremony. The bride will wear an especially splendid sari and the groom will wear a dhoti, a white cotton garment.
Many people who go as tourists to Nepal come back praising the variable scenery and the friendliness of its people. In addition to famous Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, there are low lands which are just above sea level. In the south there are steamy jungles like those in Royal Chitwan National Park. Rhinos are found there and monkeys, leopards, and around 150 Bengal tigers which remain out of thousands that once roamed the jungles. A favorite mode of transportation into the jungle is on the back of an elephant. An hour and a half ride costs only 15 U. S. dollars. The temperatures in Kathmandu in the central part range from 73 degrees Fahrenheit to 39 in November.
Sunil has made many friends at Heidelberg and has impressed his professors with his studious attitude. I wish him well.
– Mary