AUTHOR NEPALWhen I read [her book], I felt like I was talking to Nepali Helen Keller of [the] literary world . . . It is . . . evidence of her powerful writing.
—HOM NATH SUBEDI, PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL NEPALI LITERARY SOCIETY
Jhamak sat in the dusty courtyard outside her house. Her body curled over on itself, her useless hands tucked up under her chin, her head resting on one knee. She stretched her legs out in front of her. Her feet trembled, and sweat beaded on her brow.
I’ve almost got it, she thought, reaching her left foot a bit further. Almost . . . almost . . .
There! Her toes wrapped around a small bamboo twig. She gripped it like she’d seen her sister hold a pencil in her fingers.
Jhamak used all her willpower to command her foot. Slowly and painfully, she moved the twig across the dirt. First, she scratched a horizontal line, then a vertical line to make a T shape. Then, on either side of the vertical line, she drew two circles. The whole time, she struggled to balance her body and fought to keep the stick in her toe-grip. It took forever and she was exhausted when she finished, but she’d done it! Jhamak had written her first letter. It was the letter Ka and it looked like this:
Jhamak was so happy she squealed with delight. With her tired toes, she grabbed some dust and flung it in the air—her usual way of celebrating. The dust rained down, covering her from head to toe. Suddenly, her sister was there in the yard, a frown on her face.
“What are you making a fuss about?” she asked, not expecting an answer. She believed Jhamak’s brain was as broken as her body. Jhamak wished she could answer her sister. She knew just what she would say: I can write! Just like you! But Jhamak’s mouth couldn’t form the words.
Her sister shook her head and walked away—right over the letter! Her footprints erased it! Jhamak was furious.
“Aaaargh!” she screamed. Her writing had been kicked aside, just as her own life was going by unnoticed and erased by everyone around her.
“What is the matter with you today, Saanpey?” said her sister.
Jhamak hated this nickname. They called her Saanpey, which meant “slithering snake,” because she crawled across the ground. It was so unfair! It wasn’t her fault her legs didn’t work!
I will keep practicing, Jhamak vowed, And someday I will be able to write whole words. Then I will tell her to stop calling me a snake!
This unbelievably strong and determined girl did teach herself to write. She went on to write not just words but poems and stories and whole books. This “Helen Keller” from Nepal, a girl who couldn’t talk or walk or use her hands, conquered her disabilities and has become one of the most celebrated writers in her country.
Jhamak was born in 1980 in the small village of Kachide in Nepal. Her parents and the other villagers were poor and uneducated. When Jhamak was born, her parents’ first hope was that she would die. She was born severely disabled with cerebral palsy—she would never be able to speak, walk, or use her hands. Her family assumed her brain was equally damaged. At that time in Nepal, disabled people had no rights, protections, or services. Jhamak’s family kept her alive but just barely.
Her grandmother was the only person who showed Jhamak any true love. For years, she carried her firstborn grandchild around on her back. She fed Jhamak by hand and brought her to sleep in her bed. The rest of the family ignored Jhamak at best or treated her like one of the animals at worst. She was beaten more times than she could count. Jhamak often overheard her grandmother worrying about her future: “I’m afraid this kid would also die when I’m no more.”1
The fact that she needed help to do things that others could do for themselves bothered Jhamak. When she was hungry or thirsty, she had no way of telling anyone. When she had to go to the bathroom, she couldn’t do it herself—she was entirely dependent on others. It made her feel like one of the animals penned up in her yard.
From a young age, she did everything in her power to become independent. She taught herself to crawl, pulling her body across the ground with her feet. When she was hungry and her grandmother wasn’t around, she pulled bowls of rice onto the floor and used her toes to pick up the spilled grains and put them in her mouth. When her parents discovered Jhamak surrounded by spilled food, they beat her—they had no idea what she was trying to do. They thought she was just making a mess. “How I wished I could talk to people around me,” Jhamak remembers, “but [I] was deprived of voice!”2
Her inability to communicate was so frustrating for Jhamak that she often rebelled. Sometimes she took the family bowls outside and filled them with dirt and sticks. Other times, when she dragged herself to the shed where her family kept a cow and goats, Jhamak felt such sympathy for the tethered animals that she burst into tears: “I had a feeling that my life was not much different from theirs.”3 Often, she would use a sickle to cut them free. And she was beaten for these small acts of defiance.
When Jhamak was just four years old, her worst fear came true: her grandmother died. With her only guardian and caretaker gone, she realized she had to learn to fend for herself. Immediately. When a person dies in Nepal, the Hindu custom says that close family members shouldn’t see or touch each other for twelve days. Jhamak knew she would starve during that time, so she used the break from her family to teach herself to eat. She knocked food to the floor and learned to use her foot to scoop it into her mouth. No one beat her because they weren’t allowed to touch her! Finally, after days of watching Jhamak make mess after mess, her family figured out what she was doing and left her in peace. By the end of twelve days, Jhamak could feed herself.
Next on her list was communicating. She couldn’t talk, but maybe she could express herself another way. Each night, as her father held his younger daughter’s hand, showing her how to write each letter, Jhamak scooted as close as she could to listen and learn too. When she was discovered, her father would shoo her away. “What’s the use of your learning and reading?” he would ask.4 But Jhamak didn’t give up.
Today, Jhamak writes with her left foot. Just as you hold a pen using three fingers, she holds a pen clasped between three toes.
She began to practice writing letters, just like her sister. She practiced in the dirt with a stick of bamboo gripped between her toes. This method was difficult—the skin between her toes blistered and bled—but at least when she drew a letter, it stayed there. Until someone walked over it.
While her sister was at school and her parents at work, Jhamak took her sister’s old notebooks filled with letters and copied them, using burnt-out cinders for a pencil. Day after day, she practiced until she heard someone approaching, then she hid the notebooks. If she was outside, she erased her writing with her foot. Writing with cinders or in the dirt was taboo in Nepal; people believed it would cause the family money problems. For the longest time, Jhamak’s family had no inkling what she was up to.
Once Jhamak figured out the alphabet, she taught herself to read. She snuck her family’s books while they were away and spent whole days reading. Eventually, the family discovered she could read and write, and while they didn’t help or encourage her, they didn’t stop her either. Friends and neighbors began bringing books for her to read. Jhamak loved them—especially the poetry—and read her books over and over again.
The first word Jhamak wrote was pen, something she desperately wanted.
As she dove into reading, Jhamak thought, How nice it would be if I also could learn to write similar stories and poems.5 First, she copied what was in the books into her notebooks. But eventually, she created poems of her own. Her parents were amazed. And so were the people of her village. When neighbors stopped by on an errand, they were astonished to see Jhamak writing with her toes. Word of this amazing girl spread, and soon their house was full of curious visitors.
Jhamak especially loved biographies: “When I would go through the biographies of some struggling or rebellious individuals, I would feel like following [in] their footsteps.”7
These fans brought Jhamak gifts of paper, pens, and even money. Suddenly, she was earning an income. For the first time, she bought new clothes for herself and gifts for her siblings. When she was fourteen, the media discovered her. There were articles in the local newspapers. Everyone wanted to know about the girl who wrote with her toes. “I started seeing my life as a beautiful thing,” Jhamak remembers.6
In 1998, when Jhamak was eighteen, her first collection of poems was published, called Sankalpa. It was a big success, and the next year, she exploded onto the literary scene of her country. Collections of her poems, songs, journal entries, stories, and essays were published and her amazing life story was in the national newspapers. Even more people flocked to her tiny village just to meet her. Jhamak was the pride of Nepal.
Jhamak progressed from scrawling letters in the dirt to writing award-winning literature. She has published roughly a dozen books—everything from poetry to memoir—and writes a regular column for Kantipur, one of the most popular newspapers in Nepal. In 2011, she won the Madan Puraskar, the most respected literary award in Nepal. She was only the second woman to ever win it.
After years of abuse, Jhamak became the pride of her family as well. Products of a culture that didn’t value or protect disabled citizens, Jhamak’s parents realized the great gifts that were trapped inside their daughter. Jhamak taught them that everyone deserves a chance to live a full life and to be heard. And she is teaching these lessons to the rest of Nepal. Her writing is a political call to action expressing the struggles of many oppressed groups in her country (and everywhere)—the disabled, the poor, and women. Their challenges are Jhamak’s challenges, and she encourages them to fight for their independence, as she did. “All our troubles are resolved if we remain self-dependent and self-sufficient,” she writes.8 Jhamak’s extraordinary struggle is an inspiration to people not just in Nepal but around the world. And you can bet nobody calls her a slithering snake anymore.
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world by becoming an artist, because I love to draw people and lots of animals. I love to draw lots of wonderful things.
GUADALUPE MUÑOZ 
AGE 10