Musahar family living in abject poverty

By Bijay Kumar Sah, Dhalkewar, Aug. 20: Musahar family living in Musahar Tole in Pachharwa, Shaheed Municipality-5, in Dhanusha, is facing a hard time due to abject poverty. 

Satrudhan Sada, 35, who is the head of the family, has failed to provide for his family because he is disabled by birth.

Unable to build a house due to dire economic conditions, the family has been living in a hut surrounded by plastics for the past seven years, locals said. 

“Living in a tent will be hard during the rainy season and cold waves. Rainwater leaks everywhere, and during winter, it’s unbearably cold,” Sada said.

Sada has a family of six including his wife and four children. His wife Renu Devi is also mentally impaired. Sada has a one-month-old son and they are unable to provide the needed care for the baby and other children. 

Until seven years ago, the house was covered with bamboo sticks and had a grass thatched roof, but was destroyed by the storm. After that Sada was not able to build a new house and has been living in a hut since then, said Ramdayal Majhi, a neighbor.

The plastic of the hut is also about to be torn apart. Nothing to eat, no clothes to wear and no bed to sleep on, they are forced to sleep on straw. "The condition of the family is really grim,” Majhi said.

Sada's wife carries the newborn and goes to the village to beg. Another neighbor, Shree Prasad Sada, said that those who are kind give food and grain to her.

A month ago, Sada's wife gave birth to the baby in the hut. At that time, women in her neighbourhood took care of the new mother and her newborn for a week. 

Sada’s neighbours said that both the new mother and the baby got no health check-ups and that the three school-age children were unable to read.