Sixty-year-old Shanta Majhi, who lives in Samakhusi, Kathmandu, has been working as a taxi driver for the past 27 years. It’s a tiresome and thankless job, he says, but he has persevered because he wants to provide his children the things he never had: parental guidance and a good education. “I have had to struggle for survival since I was nine-years-old,” says Majhi, who was born and raised in Ramechhap, in the Bagmati Province of Nepal. Despite being an only child, he says he had to take care of himself, and going to school was never an option. He had to manage his own expenses, and he worked as a househelp for one of the families in his hometown. “I didn’t have anyone to guide me or show any forms of love or affection,” he says, “I always felt my parents’ absence.” Majhi mentions that although he was fed and had a roof over his head, he was never treated well. “They called me demeaning names, and always behaved badly,” he adds. It wasn’t the kind of life he had hoped for. So Majhi left for Kathmandu, the city of dreams of many people in his hometown, at the age of 21.

But life in Kathmandu wasn’t very different from life back home. Finding a decent job turned out to be almost impossible. Fortunately, Majhi landed a job as a mechanic. Next on his wish list was to save enough to be able to start a family. “I dreamt of getting married someday, and having my children run around the house,” he says. It was his way of creating the family he never had as a child.

He worked relentlessly for eight years before getting married at the age of 29. His wife worked as a maid. She still does. Majhi laments he hasn’t been able to give her a comfortable life. After 12 years of working as a mechanic, he was finally able to save enough to buy his own taxi. He hoped starting his own business, however small, would enable him to give his family all the things they wanted. By then, Majhi and his wife had had two daughters and a son. “I wanted them to get a good education, which I never got,” he says. Driven by that need, he sent his children abroad for higher education. One of his daughters is now a nurse in Australia, while the other is studying in Malda in West Bengal, India. His son is majoring in graphic designing in Australia. But all this came at a cost. Majhi took out huge loans and is now buried in debt. Although he firmly believes he made the right decision, the amount of money he needs to pay back keeps him up at night. Paying off their loans would be much easier if there weren’t extra expenses they had to take care of, says Majhi. With 15 hours on the road every day, the taxi needs regular repair. The rough, bumpy roads of Kathmandu coupled with the occasional damage by reckless bikers means he has to shell out quite a bit of money to keep his vehicle in a good condition. “Fuel is so costly that it’s hard to make a profit,” he says. The couple’s financial condition worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both of them had to depend on whatever little savings they had, with no job whatsoever during the lockdown. “We relied on the ration distributions and help from some organizations for our daily meal,” he says. Then there are also his health issues that require frequent hospital visits. Majhi is on medication for high blood pressure and liver problems. Since he works for more than half a day, he is also unable to follow a good diet. On top of that, he suffers from anxiety and depression as a result of his traumatic childhood but he confesses he doesn’t want to take medication for it. He says he has lived most of his life in denial about his mental health issues. “At first, I didn’t know what any of those terms meant. I didn’t want to believe those problems even existed,” he says. But now, even when he knows he needs help, he says he doesn’t have the money to go visit a doctor or see a therapist. “People say health should be everyone’s priority but when you are poor, you don’t have that luxury,” he adds. His wife too struggles with anxiety and myalgia. But they need to decide which of their issues is worth spending money on.  Often, one is overlooked in favor of another. “Our eldest daughter helps us out financially in times of need. But in this economy, I want her to think of herself first and not spend all her money on us,” he says. Despite having had a difficult life, he has only one regret. Majhi was so consumed with building a life for his children that he never got to give time for himself. “I had dreams too, which never got fulfilled,” he says. He wanted to build a house for himself in his hometown, Ramechhap, but with the debt he already has, he is now skeptical if he will ever get to live in his own house. Right now, he and his wife live in a rented room for which they have to shell out Rs 6,000 every month. He sometimes wonders how his life would have turned out had his parents not passed away when he was young. He thinks that maybe he could have gotten a degree, and his life would have been completely different. “But there is no point dwelling on it,” he adds. Nevertheless, he feels extremely proud when he thinks about his children. He is filled with a sense of accomplishment. “When I see them happy and doing well in life, I feel like all our struggles have paid off,” he says.