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Each member of the graduating class of 1966 from Thakur Ram Campus, Birgunj, received a copy of this photo. Of the nine new graduates, one refused to have it framed and hung on the wall of her house. Vidya Pradhan, the only female graduate, simply walked back with the photo tucked away in her bag. “We were one of the first to graduate and we were very proud of that fact,” she says. “Everybody was very excited, they were talking about the photo during the graduation ceremony. Most of my friends said they would frame it and preserve it.” But Vidya only wanted to keep the photo somewhere she would not be reminded of her struggle to become a graduate. “My father was not totally against education but preferred us to stay close to home,” she says. “He wanted us closer to the walls of our house. We had to struggle a lot to break through that wall.” “The last thing I wanted to do was to hang my graduation photo on it.”

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