WHEN a massive earthquake hit Nepal in April killing 8800 people, Nepal’s longest-serving “living goddess’ was forced to do the unthinkable — walk the streets for the first time in her life.
As the 7.8 magnitude tremor hit the historic city of Patan, south of Kathmandu, the home in Dhana Kumari Bajracharya had lived in isolation for 30 years came under threat of collapse.
In fear of her life and believing the gods were angry at a decline in traditional values, Bajracharya, 63, left her quarters for the first time in three decades.
What was even more remarkable was that before the earthquake Bajracharya had never actually walked in public — having entered her cloistered life at the age of two only ever being carried in an ornate wooden palanquin during her subsequent, rare public appearances.
“I had never thought about leaving the house like that,” she said, clearly still traumatised by the disaster that claimed more than 8800 lives.
“Perhaps the gods are angry because people don’t respect traditions as much anymore,” Bajracharya, 63, added.
In 1954 when she was only two years old, Dhana Kumari Bajracharya began her unusually long three-decade rein as the Kumari of Patan — a role bestowed upon prepubescent girls of the Nepal’s Newar community.
The Newar consider themselves custodians of culture in the Kathmandu valley and their Kumari the embodiment of the Hindu goddess Taleju.
But as the tremor hit, shaking the ground, reducing buildings to rubble and killing thousands, Bajracharya left her quarters in the historic city of Patan, south of Kathmandu, for the first time in three decades. And for the first time on foot.
“We couldn’t just leave the house like everyone else, we had to think of her. We didn’t know what to do,” said her niece, Chanira Bajracharya.
“But when nature forces you, you do the unthinkable,” she added.
When she was forced into retirement, Bajracharya decided to continue living the life she had always known, unable to abandon her duties or end her withdrawal from the outside world.
Every morning she wakes up, drapes an embroidered red skirt like the one she wore during her years as a Kumari, scrapes her hair into a topknot and lines her eyes with kohl curving upwards to her temples.
On special occasions, she uses red and yellow powder to draw a third eye in the middle of her forehead and takes to a wooden throne decorated with brass snake carvings.
Devotees are received, as when she was an official Kumari, on Saturdays and during festivals in a separate room in her red brick home reached by narrow stairs above two floors rented out to a shop and financial cooperative.
“The priests did what they had to do, but I cannot abandon my responsibilities,” she said.
When Bajracharya’s niece Chanira was chosen as a Kumari in 2001, she guided her through the process.
Nepal has seen sweeping changes during Bajracharya’s lifetime, transforming from a Hindu kingdom to a secular republic, the former Kumari’s daily routine remains the same.
Her one concession to modernity is a fondness for television, especially current affairs shows and Indian mythological dramas.
Since the quake, however, she spends most of her time engrossed in prayer, according to Chanira.
“It saddened her immensely… our astrologer had predicted last year that my aunt would leave the house, and we were wondering how that would ever happen,” she said.
“But we never expected this.”
