After 20 minutes of bus ride, we reached an apartment building in Tagensvej. Their home was on the first floor. It was a three-bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchen that the couple had recently leased. As Arpana cooked for the evening, she said that she missed Nepal a lot.
“My husband loves me. We had love marriage. We work hard as we have to cover for his (Dipendra) school fees and run a house,” Arpana, who hails from Narayanghat, said. She added, “But I miss my family and friends very much and occasionally feel guilty that I’m away from them.”
Arpana said that she loves her country, but added there is “less social pressure” outside Nepal. She opined that no one actually cared what they did in Copenhagen and that was a “big relief” for a girl brought up in a conservative Nepali society. A sense of freedom got her going in the busy and most tiring life she led there.
“In lot of ways, we have a relaxed life too as we don’t have to worry too much about safety and security here,” she said confidently and asked me, “Did you feel anyone here is unequal?” She was referring to the hierarchical society in Nepal where people are divided on caste, ethnic and status lines.
Arpana’s guest arrived as I was trying to inquire some more. I was introduced to another woman named Sujan Poudel. I immediately figured that she was the wife of Nabin Poudel, the president of Nepal-Denmark Students’ Forum that actively participated and helped us throughout the government-initiated Summiteers’ Summit program on December 11. It turned out that Sujan had an arranged marriage with Nabin a year and half ago. She said her maiti was Pokhara. Extremely quiet by nature, I judged that she was the perfect example of a loyal, simple and caring wife who waited for her husband to come home and then cooked dinner for him. I quickly started some conversation with this intriguing woman. She too said she worked to help Nabin and that he really took care of her needs and happiness. She said, “I’m happy with Nabin.”
Then I met Arpana’s third guest, Binita Manandhar, who has been living in Denmark for nine years. She married a Danish man whom she met in Kathmandu a decade back, fell in love, and now the couple is bringing up their two-year-old son. She was the most fascinating woman I met during my two-week stay in Copenhagen. Everybody seemed to love her, respect her and rely on her. They called her “didi”. Although she did not fulfill a definition of a true ‘didi’ though she was as energetic and as smart as any other women there, she had a very comforting and womanly personality for all to fall back on. I was told that she helped a lot of students who first came here and felt totally lost. She was the one who made them feel wanted when they were homesick and inspired them when they were sad and lonely.
“Even though I’m married to a Danish, I realize we’re from different cultures,” Binita said. “We try all the time to balance. If there’s spaghetti for lunch, there will be dal, bhat for dinner,” she said, laughing out loud. “The difference is, my husband would never come after me if I walked out of the house at 1 am, but our Nepali guys would.” She made a point. But then added, “But I hardly see Nepali men go out for partying or clubbing or even bring their wives to gatherings of Nepali students.”
Arpana was probably the only woman who attended the Summiteers’ March. All the other men came on their own and said that their wives were either at work or home. With almost 25 hours work per week, the women have a tough life. That was a clear message I got after the dinner that night. Most Nepali students (there are some 1,500 of them) marry young to have an earning member.
The very next night, I went to Gefalirch restaurant and bar in the heart of the city on a friend’s recommendation. I was still contemplating the lives of the three brave women I had met the other night when I came across a Nepali guy, Rahul Shrestha. A student of multi media at the Koge Business School in Denmark, Rahul is a famous cocktail bartender. Apparently, people traveled long distance from Amsterdam and Sweden to enjoy his cocktails. I immediately asked him for his personal details.
Rahul, who has been on the job for two years now, said, “I work minimum 15 hours a week but do more depending on the rush and need.” He goes to school in the morning (Monday through Thursday) and works during the weekend.
“It’s difficult, you know. What I earn is hardly sufficient to pay for my school fee,” he said. (Students pay around 30,000 Kroner for a semester in Denmark). Rahul earns around 7,000 Kroners a month, but as expected, he is married for two and half years, and his wife also works to support him.
He said that the advantage of working in a foreign land is that one gets to “learn new cultures,” gets “inspired” to do new things, and there is “no discrimination” at work. “I feel if you’re good at your work, then there are a lot of opportunities here. I like my job, it’s creative as I get to experiment,” Rahul said.
But the disadvantage he said was “language problem.” “I face difficulty communicating with customers who prefer to speak in their own language,” Rahul said.
Most educational consultancies that send students to Denmark don’t advise them to take basic language crash course. This was perceived as the biggest problem facing young men and women who reach here in the first place.
Rahul, who hopes to return to Nepal one day and start something of his own in Kathmandu, was also one of the finalists in the Brazilian Cocktail Competition organized in Copenhagen a year back. “It was a wonderful experience. All liked my drinks,” he said.
Asked why he chose to come to a foreign land and toil, he said, “I had a dream to secure my future and make my family happy. But still the best thing is satisfaction of mind and heart. So I’ll finish my studies in one year and go back home.”
Appreciating the emotional support he has received so far from the Nepali community, he concluded, “Everybody has problems and there are difficulties in developing a strong community. But emotional help is always there.”
Another young guy who I met that night was Surendra, who was a business student but was known for his event management talents. In comparison to a lot of other students who were toiling for days and nights, he smartly made some bucks through musical shows like the one he organized on the New Year’s Eve when the Axe Band performed live in Copenhagen along with Bharat Sitaula.
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