Fourteen year olds Dil Shova Sthapit (left) and Shanti Baidya (right) are holding hands in this picture taken when they went to get ID pictures made for the grade eight District Level Examinations. With her Sadhana-cut hairdo, purple dress, fashionable 90 rupees pointy-shoes bought after a fight with her father, and the Indian watch gifted by her Uncle, Sthapit poses for the photograph with her best friend Baidya. This pair was highly influenced by movies like Do Kaliyaan, Gauri and Milan. Before they took the picture, Shanti said to Dil Shova – whom her friends also called Mala Sinha – that they should hold hands as a symbol of their friendship, mimicking the films they loved. “We will never be apart”, Baidya said as they took the photo. Today, Sthapit says, their friendship is as strong as it was years ago.

Renu Tuladhar (left), with childhood friends Sarojani Malla (center), and Madhuri Singh (right), in a photo taken at Muni’s Art Studio in Chikamugal. When asked about their short dresses, Tuladhar recalls that there was no objection from the parents. She had very fashionable cousins who designed dresses after watching Hindi movies. Malla is wearing pointed shoes, which were very popular then and cost around 90 rupees. “We didn’t wear kurta suruwal much those days, but dresses like this and after enrolling in the college only, I started wearing sari, which was a matter of pride then,” Tuladhar chuckled.

Sandhya Shah’s grandmother (seated), aunt Parvati (right), Parvati’s daughter-in-law (left), and Parvati’s grandson. This photo was taken at the Gadimai fair in Rautahat, which takes place every five years. Shah says that she must have been about seven or eight at the time. Shah’s aunt Parvati and her daughter-in-law had a very close relationship. As the wife of Parvati’s eldest son, who had finally given birth to a child, Parvati cherished her daughter-in-law. Parvati and her mother, on the other hand, did not see each other that often. Once a daughter had married and gone to the husband’s house, it was not customary for her to go back to her parents’ house often. If she did return, she was expected to stay for a longish period. When she left for her husband’s home again, she was showered with gifts.

The relationship between Parvati (left), and her husband’s first wife (right), was a very loving one, almost like that between a mother and a daughter. At the age of 12 Parvati had been married off to an already married man much older than her. For long, the man and his first wife had been unable to have children. So the couple thought of Parvati as a blessing. This woman acted as Parvati’s guide, says Shah, Parvati’s niece. Parvati would say, ‘The love that I did not get from my mother, I got from my husband’s first wife’. Parvati would wake up in the morning, and her husband’s first wife would bring her a glass of sweetened milk. She would say, “This is so that you can grow big and strong and bear healthy children.” Parvati did not go back to her parents’ house in Rautahat for 12 years after her marriage: her husband’s first wife would not allow it. She said that Parvati was better off with her, that she would grow stronger, healthier. In those 12 years, she gave birth to two children. Her return to Rautahat afterwards was a complete celebration.

“I used to love watching movies, noting the latest trends, dressing up and then going to a photo studio to take pictures!” Sandhya Shah says. This is a photo taken at the Timla Photo Studio in Birgunj before she was married. She is wearing a ready-made sweater that she had bought, and the kind of long skirt that was very fashionable at the time. As the eldest daughter of a rich business man in Rautahat, she was allowed to go anywhere she wanted, do anything she wanted, and buy all the clothes she wanted. But Shah’s family background isolated her. Boys did not have the courage to talk to her, and the girls had neither the freedom nor the means to join her in her travels to Birgunj, Raxaul or Kathmandu, to dress in the latest fashion, or watch the latest movies with her. People around her probably thought that her father gave her too much freedom, but he did not care – he trusted her, and Shah remains very grateful for this. “He gave me freedom, and I made sure that I did nothing to dishonour him. I respected him greatly”.

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.”