By Bhumiraj Pithatoli

Bajhang : Khaulabazar of Talkot Rural Municipality is about 22 km away from Bajhang Headquarters Chainpur. Bhaktapur is one and a half kilometers from Khaulabazar.

Banthpala Basic School is located in the same village. Banthpala School was established 35 years ago. During the founding period, only two out of 10 people who learned Kakkara passed SLC. The remaining three, four, and five-class girls went to marriage, while male students went to India to work.

They had to go abroad due to the family’s poor economic status. Bir Bahadur Sarki and his classmate Moti Sarki are the two people who studied at home and did whatever they could. Bir Bahadur is working as an agricultural technician in the rural municipality of Diyanot.

Moti is teaching in Taplejung as a permanent teacher at the primary level. In the beginning, teachers were given household grain as a salary. The founding teacher was Bhikule Sarki. The school was established because of Vikule, who studied up to five classes. In the first year, Vikule taught 10 people and taught continuously for three years.

Later, due to some disputes in the village, the school did not operate for two years. At that time, when the children who were taught to read Durga Bhavani Mavi Khaula started to become very unhappy, Banthapala was started again under the leadership of BK. The school, which had been running for 20 years with only three classes, after 2064, two classes were added to five classes.

Biku, who is about to turn sixty, studied at Durga Bhavani. When Bhikule went to that school where there was zero presence of the Dalit community, other students from the village went to study. As a child, he was good at reading and became a teacher’s favorite.