Saraswati Timalsina, 59, is one of the many women tasked with cleaning the Aryaghat at Pashupati. She lives inside the Pashupati area, and is employed by the Pashupati Area Development Fund. Now, she says, her work is comparatively easier. After years on the job, she can work her way around the challenges. The past, however, is a different story Born in Gaur, Rautahat, Timalsina came to Kathmandu at the age of 17. She eloped with her husband, hoping to make a living in a city. She was 30-years-old when she took the job of a cleaner at Pashupati. She was pregnant at the time, but to make a living, she had no other options besides taking the job. Her husband, on the other hand, was a security guard at the Pashupati Area Development Fund. “Since we both worked there, we were given a residence inside the Pashupati area,” she says. On her first day working in Aryaghat, Timalsina recalls being terrified of the dead bodies. “My job took me near every dead body that arrived, and going back to doing the same work every day was not easy,” she says, although now she’s used to it. Besides, seeing people crying over their loved ones wasn’t easy for her either. Now, she says, she’s able to handle herself better. But back then, she would tear up along with the others. “It was the fear of dead bodies as well as the sound of sobbing that overwhelmed me,” she adds.

Besides cleaning, she also sold garlands on the steps near the healing center of Pashupati (Ghate Baidhya). “My pregnancy was difficult. Even sitting and standing were huge challenges. Sometimes people would buy my garlands just out of pity,” she says. With her husband busy for most of the day, it was just her at the stall, with no one to help her. “I had to take care of myself as well as the baby,” she says.

Also, the work, for her, was not as comfortable as it is now. Back then, the Pashupati area wasn’t as clean as it is now, she says. There were bushes everywhere, littering was common, and on top of that, none of the cleaners were provided with either gloves or masks. “I have had to clean human feces with my bare hands,” she says. Her situation got tougher once she gave birth. “I had to go back to work, but I had no one to look after my child, and my husband had to work too,” says Timalsina. She recalls tying up her son in one corner of the room and locking him from outside when she left for work early in the morning. She checked in on him from time-to-time but there wasn’t anything else she could do. “No mother wants to leave her child like that. It would break my heart to see him tied up like that,” she says. Work aside, she didn’t have time to spend with her child even on weekends, as she was responsible for all the household works. “I used to leave my son, a toddler, on the floor, while I washed clothes in the Bagmati river,” she says. “It was risky. He could fall. But I thought having him around would be better than leaving him alone,” she adds. Things got a little better for both of them once her son started school. Everything was going well, until she lost her husband in 2005, when her son was 12-years-old. At the same time, she was fired from her job, and she lost her in-laws too. “I was jobless for six months. I had to stop selling garlands too,” she says. After several protests, she finally got her job back and became a permanent employee at the Pashupati Area Development Fund. But emotionally, it was tough for her to go back to Aryaghat, as it reminded her of the time she lost her husband. “I used to tear up in the middle of my work but then I told myself to be strong for the sake of my son,” she says. Now, Timalsina says, working at Aryaghat doesn’t bother her as much as it did before. “I have spent a lot of time here and I have taught myself to handle my emotions well,” she says. “But when I see parents weeping over their children’s dead bodies, I can’t help but cry. Having had three miscarriages, I can empathize,” she says. Timalsina has a year left before she retires. Her son has moved out, lives in Kathmandu, and has a family of his own. She plans to leave Pashupati and go live with her son. “I want to spend time with my grandchildren, go on walks, and do things I never got to do. I think I have worked long enough. I deserve some rest,” she says.