Chanira Bajracharya (Patan / Lalitpur)

No photo of this Kumari
© Michael Murr
more details: here

Data of person:

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Name

Chanira Bajracharya

Born

1995

Inthronisation

06.04.2001

Mandate

2001 - 2010

Status

About Chanira Bajracharya:

It is not easy to pass the legendary "iron gates" of the SLC, even not for a goddess.

Rather atypically for her age, Chanira Bajracharya welcomes patiently her visitors. For nine years she was the Kumari, the living goddess of Patan and soon she will appear for the SLC-Examinations (School Leaving Certificate), as many other pupils in Nepal. At that moment the goddess will become a mortal.

Sitting on a sofa the Kumari answers the questions in monosyllabically English mixed with Nepali. She is very quiet during the conversation and only sometimes she chuckles. Occasionally she looks through the latticed windows of the four-storey house in Hakhabahal to watch the passers-by.

But behind of the divine is a girl, who knows only very little of the outside world. Instead her knowledge originates from books, which visitors gave to her. She seems to be very curious and she said that she had read all of them.

The large room, in which the devotees pay her a visit, is also used as examination room from 25. March. A solitary desk and two guards is all she will have during the examination.

The Kumari of Patan is student at the Bhassara Secondary School in Purnachandi, about ten minutes to walk from her house. But she never was there. Instead, her teachers come home to teach her. Also her parents have instructed private tutors to teach her. But it is difficult to learn about the world only from books. When her social studies teacher spoke of trafficking Nepalese girls in India, Chanira could not understand what about she was talking. The same happened, when she should write about the footpath vendors. She was obviously dumbfounded, since she never had seen one and also never had eaten of the food, which they sell and which children of her age relish.

The only friends of Chanira are her two brothers in the age of 9 and 12. She likes drawing. This ability she inherited from her father. He also is a painter. But it is interesting to be a goddess, she says.

Chanira is the successor of Chandra Shila Bajracharya and was enthroned on 6. April 2001. Chanira was at that time 6 years old and the oldest daughter of Netra Raj Bajracharya and Champa Bajracharya. Two months later the enraged Crown Prince Dipendra killed his parents. And so the fall of the Shah dynasty began. Chaniras mother reports that the Kumari did not speak any word several days before the massacre - a portent for the misfortune, which would come over the nation.

The question about her plans for her life after the time as Kumari she answers: "I am not sure what exactly my life would be, but I want to study economics and I want to work in the banking sector."

Perhaps the young goddess will really become a banker. If she thereby does God's work is still written in the stars.

On 3. July 2010 the results of the SLC examinations were announced. "Chanira scored 80,12 percent", said Abha Awale, one of her teachers.

Source:
http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2010/03/kumari-of-patan-living-goddess.html
http://www.ftd.de/lifestyle/outofoffice/:out-of-office-ihr-wille-geschehe/50099801.html (Link no longer available)
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2010/07/04/2003477030