Pooja b. 2005, Aniket b. 2007 and Rohan b. 2009 are the children of a close friend of Alain, Prakash and his lovely wife Antima. Their marriage was another arranged marriage success story and they loved each other very much. Living mostly in Kathmandu and working as a barber, Prakash originates from the border between India and Nepal.
Renting a single room in the big city, his income was modest but sufficient to have the three children educated to the small private school nearby until, in March 2013, Prakash suddenly died of a heart attack in the family bed. Alain, being in Kathmandu at the time, had to take charge of the desperate situation. He arranged for the family and the body, together with all the family belongings to be transported to the parental home, a difficult 12 hours journey by jeep on many un-made roads. He also paid for the funeral rites to be performed in time.
Alain followed a few days later to find that the young widow and her children had been bullied out of her husband's parental home. Relatives said she was cursed, wholly responsible for her husband's death and told that no one in the village would let her kill someone else's man. Antima and the children were now living at her mother's, which is against tradition.
With no one to protect the young widow and her children, Alain had to work around local taboos and give her status by financially providing for their keep and by enrolling the children in a private school in the nearest market town.
Now tempers has subsided, life is back to what it should be and the three children are getting an education no one else in the village can afford.
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