Interviewers: Shashank Pokhrel-Joshi and Janavi Wagle
Audio interview.
Transcript Writer: Nova Subedi
Shashank:
Namaste Dr. Kalayani Rai, It is our great honor to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for taking time to sit down and partake in this interview. On behalf of Our Sunday Project we are immensely grateful. I want to start off by asking you, How are you doing today?
Dr. Kalyani Rai I am doing very well thank you. Thank you for inviting me, for having me over here. And great to be the part of your project.
Janavi: My name is Janavi. It’s actually wonderful to have you here. I am really excited for this project.
Prisha: So we are here today for our Sunday Project. Program for all kids and ages to come together and interact with one another to achieve success together and over the course of this program, we did multiple different projects, multiple different performances as well. Today we are here to ask you questions and we really appreciate you coming here today.
Nova: My mom made this project many years ago. I think she is doing a right thing.
Dr. Kalyani Rai: I’m so glad that you are sort of initiating this project for youth and taking responsibility and leadership, I congratulate each and everyone of you for doing this. I am glad to be here with you, to be invited for this interview. I don’t know how much I can help you but I will definitely be sharing my journey in education.
Jeneeya: It is an opportunity for the kids to learn about a woman who came to the USA long time ago and what contributions she has made in the community, not just the Nepali-American community but the community in a whole.
Shashank:
And also we are interviewing not just to know what you have been though but also know your perspective, what was our country our original was like for you, may be it was different than what our parents know about it. Because we all are from different part of Nepal and it’s very important for all of us to know that. So let’s begin.
What was your life like living back in Nepal?
Dr. Kalyani Rai:
The first question! Well, I look at the first question and it really made me think because nobody had asked me this before. You see, the life was much slower, a lot more simpler then. But, you know I was born and raised both in India and Nepal, as well as lived in the United States, so my life is a bit different than probably a general Nepali person’s life.
It was much, much slower both in India and Nepal, India was at that time India was just out of independence when I was born.
And it was kind of like trying to be a new, growing country. Nepal was completely isolated, it was still a closed country, you know, it just opened, right? You know, it was only a couple of years until they opened Nepal up. So, you can imagine what those two countries were like. When we were born and growing up, India was really excited optimistic about the country, now that they are independent, they had freedom but they wanted to find out how to do it, what to do with it, how they can grow the country and the people.
And my father had been transferred to a plantation, which is sort of a village-kind of life. He was in a job, since he came their for the job, since Nepal never had a job for anybody who was educated. So anyway, it was a really interesting. I said slower, right? Slower because we didn’t internet, like you have, We didn’t have a computer, all we had was a village, and the family, and the nature. That’s all it is. That’s all the sources of learning was.
But you know, think of it and the schools in Nepal, was really really, There were none, very few in existence at that time. So most people from Nepal used to send their children away, for education in particularly in Kalimpong, Darjeeling and in the northern area, in Assam in places like that. so I went to Kalimpong okay.
So I must start by saying that, I was home educated till I was six years old. I didn’t go to school, and my mother was the teacher and father. Both of them were the very first teachers of mine. So they taught me the alphabet, and they taught me everything. The most important thing they taught me was the nature, because there was nothing but the nature. So I learnt more about cows and the horses, everything about nature, the insects and the birds and everything. So this was the way I used to learn.
And, you know my father and mother, both of them were professionals. My father at that time was the first one to go to college. He wanted to go to a catholic college that was meant only for the British at that time. Can you imagine that? Only white people could go there. So he, after doing really well in high school, he wanted to go, but they were very poor, they couldn’t afford the tuition. So now there is a thing about the scholarship, that’s why I’m telling you: it’s good to have a scholarship.
So he wanted a scholarship to go to college, he was definitely really curious about higher learning. He wanted to go to college, but there was no other way, but to go to the principal and tell him “really want to go to college, but we don’t have the money, can you let me come in?” And you know what they said? They said “you can come in, BUT, you cannot wear shoes”. Can you imagine what was that like? It was very interesting, his life. So, do you know why they did not want him to wear shoes?
Shashank:
No.
Janavi:
I’m not sure.
Prisha:
I don’t know either.
Shashank:
Maybe to show that he is not equal to the them?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Exactly. Because there was a class system, still is, particularly this is meant for the highly educated, rich, and the whites. So he was a person of color then, and he belongs to that class, where people don’t wear shoes. So that was the thing.
But he didn’t protest anything, he wasn’t interested in doing that, he just thought that he wanted to be educated, so this didn’t matter to him. So that was the story, and that really tells you the system that was there, the political system, the environment in India.
So I am the daughter of the person who protested, or maybe, went through that challenge without protesting. But he did his educations, he was the first one to be, actually get educated in college.
Then he got transferred to this plantation which used to be run by the British company. But he was the only person that was educated, so he got the job.
So we were raised there, raised in a beautiful place. Very isolated, very simple, not a whole lot of money or anything, but it was very rich, in every sense of the way.
So the first education I got was about the nature around you. We didn’t have so much cars or anything, just the horses and you know, things like that.
So that was the story at that time in India, you know, just the beginning, and then during my school, I went to the boarding school, at six years old. Can you imagine? Boarding school, it was completely away from home, my parents were not there, I was six years old, and my sister was there, so it was good.
But it was very interesting, it used to be run by Danish, a church group or something like that, a missionary school. Highly disciplinarians, highly highly disciplinarians. I learnt my discipline there.
If you asked me did I enjoyed it, I hated it but at the same time, it was so rewarding. It was an incredibly rewarding experience, because there I learned how to be self-confident, how to be with the people, you know, how to be in discipline. My whole life of discipline started there.
So (laughs) that’s why I was able to live alone, because I’ve lived in a dorm like that when I was six years old. And at home, my dad and mom of course had two different professions.
My dad was a botanist, he was with the nature, and in fact, a nature lover. But my mother was a nurse and at that time, she was a well trained nurse.
So I could see my father’s love for nature, right? So he used to teach us about how to be curious about things. “How do they do this?”, “How do they do that?”
So it was like, going out with him in the birdwatching, you know. Like, I used to have wonderful collections of butterflies.
So learning about butterflies, you know, the birds and the, you know, everything, we’d go hiking every week, with my dad, and mom also. I used to go hiking and we used to go fishing, and that was our life.
Shashank:
It sounds wonderful, by just thinking about it.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Like I said, it was simple but it was also beautiful. So he made me do things like I would have never learned, I don’t have to see butterflies just to enjoy the butterflies now Right?
Because I have a wonderful memory. So that was the way I grew up. And my mother on the other hand was in the helping profession. She was kind of like, taking care, she wanted to be Florence Nightingale at that time.
So she was a Florence Nightingale, one was a nature guy (chuckles). So these two things shaped me tremendously. I’m going through your question just without even going through the question. Should I?
Shashank:
Yeah.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
And so, in one hand I was like “Oh, this nature is fantastic” it changes because you could see butterflies, caterpillars becoming butterflies, all these changes and adapting to those changes, it was fantastic.
And my mother was in the helping business, she was helping women give birth to babies at that time. So, my curiosity right from the beginning when I was six-seven years old was like that these two things I’m learning from my parents, how can I pull them together?
How can I pull nature with human beings? So that was my curiosity, that’s how I started my life, and it was all shaped by parents.
And then when I grew up, I took science, of course, but I also wanted to take the other side, so science and social science was always my interests.
And after I graduated from Indian University, which was a North Bengal University in India, the northern part of India, I had a zoology as a major and chemistry as a minor. You can imagine, right? Chemistry, zoology and physics, three. And math, yes.
So I was very good in science but I also wanted to know more about, my whole interest was the nature and that thing, you know, the humanity and nature was my curiosity. So, I told my professor in my undergrad. My undergrad was in zoology, I got a scholarship, of course, I thought that I wouldn’t get it, but I did. I was a fairly good student, not terribly, terribly great but I was fine, because I knew what I wanted, I knew what exactly I wanted to learn, I was very curious as a person, so I said “Oh, okay”.
So I went to this college, of course I did quite well, I passed with distinction, they used to call distinction, 80% orabove, it was very surprising too. The distinction I got was not so much, you know, by writing what was going on. I got the distinction because my thesis was interesting to them.
They took us out, you wouldn’t believe it, what the thesis was about, my thesis was about the adaptation of the rhinoceros. Do you know what rhinoceros look like?
Shashank:
Yes.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
There’s one horned rhinoceros,
Shashank:
Or two.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Two horned rhinoceros. We were researching two horned rhinoceros, and that was my research. So there were two professors who took us in a train from Siliguri to Gohati. There is a huge park that they were preserving the rhinoceros and elephants there, actually it was set up by the British, now it’s taken over by the Indian government, so India was taking care of it. It was a beautiful place, they took us over there for one month. You know how old I was at that time? I was 18, and I was doing my research. Actually I finished my undergrad at the age of 19. So 18 was where I was doing research, so they said “Okay, what would you like to do your research?” I said “I want to do it on the rhinoceros, two horned, and how they adapt in that environment.”, because adaptation was very much my curiosity, how human adapt to change and how animals adapt to change.
So, I went there, and I was collecting data, you know how? Riding on an elephant! So we had to get up early in the morning, 5:00, ride on an elephant, and take pictures and data and that sort of things, because I had to write a thesis, right? So that’s what I did and I loved it. I think it was a wonderful thing that I have NEVER done anything like that in my entire life and that’s my BEST learning experience so far.
And so I found out, my findings were really, for me at that time was like “Oh, this is my finding, Oh my gosh, what a wonderful thing!” you know, at that time. When I think of it now, I said “Oh my gosh, I was so excited about the finding that I wanted to share with my professors” and of course, we had to do the viva, which is the defense, right? So I was 18 years old and I was defending my thesis like this, my professors were there, and my professors at that time were not my own professors, they were coming from all over India, at that time, their standard was very very high, really.
So all these new professors I’ve never seen before and they were judging my thesis, so I told them what exactly I was doing and what I did, what’s my data and all. So in what’s my finding, I said that, my finding was very strange because I was saying that the rhinoceros were actually helping the elephants from the danger, preventing them from danger. An elephant was listening to the (laughs) rhinoceros, and they were like “Wow, you know, what a finding!”. They thought it was a profound finding, but actually they were being very kind to me.
But actually when I think of it, that WAS a profound finding, you know, at the age of 18, I could have been done something else. So it was like “oh great”, so that was the undergrad. And after that, we were going back and forth from Nepal to India because, you know, my parents, my great grand parents and my great-great grandparents had moved to Vudrapur and from Vudrapur my parents went to Kalimpong and we were in Kalimpong and we were coming back to Vudrapur. And at that time, they didn’t have any teachers in one of the schools in Kathmandu.
So I said that Kathmandu is different, this was in the early 70s right? Kathmandu was so quiet, Kathmandu didn’t have much of anything, but they had everything. You know what I mean? Their vegetables were quite good and cars were not there, no traffic, right? The malls were not there, there were only family businesses there. (to Jeneeya) You probably know at that time, maybe you weren’t born at that time.
It was a different country, a different place and there were few schools, and one of the high schools didn’t have a biology teacher or math teacher or whatever, so this was the time when my aunt was teaching in the palace, actually.
So she said “Would you be interested in teaching this high school? This is an all-girls high school.” and I said “Of course” because I was always interested in girls and their empowerment, even before I started teaching. Because my parents were very progressive, extremely progressive in mind, because we were never given that constraint, you know, we didn’t have to stay in the house and take care of the kids and all the- yes!
Shashank:
Yeah, I would like to add two more questions with that. So as you mentioned, your parents were supportive, but did you ever experience that your parents were not supporting you or they were always supporting you? And also, what was your review on the gender divide in Nepal back into those days and how could we advocate education for women in Nepal now from learning from your experience?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Okay, the first question was my parents were supportive? Of course. They were very, very supportive. For them, education was crucial for both of them. You know, there’s no education, there’s no life, so you had to go to school and they were not rich of any kind, they sacrificed quite a bit to send us to boarding school, the best schools.
So this is what they wanted, so of course they were supportive. And they were very good in terms of allowing us to give our opinion freely. You know, that was one of the things I learned from the every beginning; give your opinion, but they were also very disciplinarian, in terms of “You better respect the older people”. That was a must in our house in the family, you GOT to respect the older people you have to have some empathy and compassion for the people who are older.
So I live in a duality, really, to tell you the truth. In one way, they were very strict, in the other hand, they were very traditional. But they were very progressive in every sense of the way in their mind. About the gender, you know, male and female are equal, regardless, they have to be given equal opportunities. So that was in my parent’s minds. So in a way they were extremely supportive.
As far as the gender at that time, I would say it was a stark difference between male and female, in every sense of the way. You know, if you look at the Since I’m an Educator, I have a little bit of the data, during that time, I think, there were probably only 10,000 primary students in Nepal. Can you imagine? In the whole of Nepal. So probably four or five thousand secondary students out of that majority are male, there were probably one person female.
So that was the thing, and you look at the family, most of the family preference were male. We start with the family, and they give preference to male because male were the caretakers of the older people, right? Then the parents get old, and still to this day, they are considered as breadwinner and to take care of the older people.
Shashank:
Or sometimes parents themselves-
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Parents themselves want them. The parents have the expectation, STARK expectation for them to clear male to female. Female, “We will educate you, but you milestone is to find a good husband and get married.” For male “Oh, you have to become a doctor or engineer.” So right from the beginning, your sort of distinct in terms of expectations, and the preferences as well, right?
Even though they considered they are equal, but when it comes down to the opportunities, males were given the opportunities than female. Because if you have 100 dollars, you’d rather spend 90 dollars in male and 10 dollars in female for your education. So there were no investments on female, except having a good husband and getting married, right?
So I see the clearer distinction in terms of how women- as a result of which, you know, most women were in poverty, right? Most women had a much more challenging life and not only that, what they did at home like cooking and taking care of homes, what they did were considered inferior to what men did in the public sector.
So the biggest problem is THAT, you know, valuing women as inferior, was there, very much, when I was growing up, and even today I see that, but when I was growing up, my goodness, I really used to feel pity, you know, like “Oh my gosh, how are these women going to,” I had very good friends who were in college, but they knew very much, right after the college that they had to be married, but not of your choice. Parents will find a match for your. That was the norm. So I am out of the norm I was growing up kind of challenging the norm.
Shashank:
One more question, one more question. And you mentioned about the high school that you went to, as a teacher, and at that time, with female students, did you see any of those kind of things happening to them any way? Like did you notice that, that they were getting enough education.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Oh yes, very much. You know the school I went to was all-girls school, I actually started a volleyball team for the girls because that was the only thing I wanted to do was like, these girls have to do something extra-curricular and I said “Okay, volleyball” and we used to play volleyball. I was like a student, you know, I was only 19, and these girls in 12th grade were like 20-21 years old, but I was teaching at that time. So it was very fascinating experience for me.
And of course, I could see their constraints at home, they had to be home by 6:00, and do all the chores, you know, and cooking and all the certain things. There were a lots of absences because of that, family responsibilities were there, and also I never liked the curriculum there, because all they were teaching was how to cook, the home science was main thing there.
So there was no priority of the science or anything for women, it was more like home science, home science, home science. So you see how the discrimination happened, structurally, and what would you expect women to do, right? So that’s why you have only, there are 20 leaders, women leaders, probably 1 out of 20 are women, I guess 1 or 2 maybe? It didn’t happen just like that, who do you blame? They would say, oh women are educated and ambitious, but they are not intelligent.
Shashank:
Well, we also have to think about, well, when they came to school and back to their homes, if they were getting time to do their homework or were their parents telling them could you do these.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Yes, very much so. The family responsibility was huge. So I think these things may have changed, there are more and more women going to school than before, of course, you still have long way to go, but just look at the statistics of how many of them really go into science, very few of them go to science, most of them are nurses, still. And most of them are teachers, so they are all in the helping, still, you know, profession. Yeah, we made a progress but they are still in the helping profession, And why is that, why did that happen? It didn’t happen because they didn’t have brain, right! Its structurally, we constructed that.
Janavi:
First of all, I wanted to say, it’s really interesting to hear about your life story, but one question we would most likely want to know is your journey from Nepal to America, like how was it?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
How was it? Well, I would say it’s a turning point for me. It was scary at one hand but it was also very rewarding on the other hand. I mean scary in terms of (hesitates) I came here to pursue higher education, right? But I didn’t realize the extent of struggle that you have to do it. It was unbelievably (hesitates), I mean it was (hesitates) to me at times it was like “Why did I even come here?”, you know, because you had to deal with the cultural differences which is so big, you had to struggle with that, like you’re in a college class but you don’t want to raise your hand because you don’t know what you are saying with all the “accent” and other sorts of things, and I didn’t know how you are going to be perceived, right?
So you have to think twice before you raise your hand, you know, difficult, it was very difficult, and there are other nuances that were there and it was a really incredibly difficult time. But you know, but it was wonderful because I met so many new friends, it was excellent, and I also felt so much freedom in many respects because I could, you know, analyze things by myself, understand things by myself, I don’t have to be asking everybody and anybody, what to do with myself, I can even take care of- I mean the first thing that dawned is that I fixed my car and I do my own taxes, my goodness, what a liberating feeling is that, right?
So that was the feeling that I had, in one hand it was really sad because I was leaving home and on top of that, I was a single woman, so it was like, single woman is not supposed to go away from home right? Because it is against the norm. But it didn’t happen to me. It was like okay, here it and I am and I am doing own my own all these things. It was extremely rewarding and at the same time the benefit is I finished my Masters, I finished my PhD. And I did it Quite well.
How old were you when you came to the USA?
In my late 20s.
Shashank:
And did your parents say anything about that or maybe your relatives like-
Dr Kalyani Rai:
You know my father and mother as I told you are very progressive in their thinking, they NEVER control my (hesitates) my decisions. They never, ever controlled my decisions.
So they were quite (hesitates) of course they miss things, you know, they miss me and all. It was really, you know, because of the fact that, one thing that I felt really strongly was they- how much they trusted me: 100% trust, that was the proudest moment, having this kind of parents, and I’m sure it’s proudest moment for them. So when I was here, and when I asked them, you know, sometimes you get into trouble, right? I mean, there’s SO many things you have to adjust in the United States, you know I mean, you may (hesitates) find out a little bit more if you ask your parents, (to Jeneeya) you probably know, she also went through the same thing, the difficulties, right?
Mom:
Yeah.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
So at that time, we didn’t have any phone system like the way we have now, you know, you can go by FaceTime and all the sort of things, we didn’t have anything like that. Even to call, it used to cost $2.90 or $3, that was quite expensive. So the only way we could communicate is write letters (hesitates) at that time, so which took about what, two weeks or so? And remember the inland letter, the inland, with the thing, airplane and all that, so this is what we use with my dad and I, and my mother.
So we used to write to him and he used to write back to me. But I can’t tell you how big of a role that my parents have played in shaping me for who I am. Because every time I say “I’m having this trouble here and there.” you know, I was sort of appealing venting out everything to my father in my letter, so I was hoping he would give me all kinds of solutions and you know, be like “Okay, daughter, this is what’s coming, everything will be taken care of.”
No, he never wrote anything like that. I still have letters, actually, when he wrote that “You know, I know you made excellent decisions in your life, I’m SURE that this decision is going to be really good, too.” That’s it, that’s what I hear from him. So they were extremely supportive but they also wanted me to be very very self confident, independent and make it on my own, whatever the situation might be.
Janavi:
I think that you pretty much answered both of the questions but that’s fine. One thing that I have heard about you is your role in Women’s Rights Activism, will you mind sharing that experience with us?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
It’s a long, long story, but I’ll make it short as possible, that’s going to be another interview by itself. So (laughs), right? Because, You know the women’s issue was to me was an inequality issue was a big issue for me right from the beginning when I started observing my friend’s family and my relative’s family, and all these other things. But the biggest (hesitates) that time I was really aware of was when I was working with the United Nation’s job in Nepal.
And you might find it really fascinating, but I could even write a book about that. This was the project that I was working on, and they hired me to evaluate (hesitates) I don’t know, have you heard about a smokeless stove? Stove that is smokeless. Yeah, they had just done that smokeless stove in Gorka area, actually it was already build and they had distributed them from house to house they had, each house have this.
And that smokeless stove was given to every villager, every family, but it wasn’t used as much. And you know how much money they had spent on doing that, they had expert from Switzerland coming and designing that stove, and experts from the United States there, experts from Nepal, you know, all these experts were developing this thing. And now it’s distributed but nobody’s using it. So there was a big mystery, right? So they hired me to see how WHY it was the way it is. So I said okay and set up an interview, this interview was like anthropological interview, you know, you go to the villages and talk to the people and get their inputs. So they hired me the very big money, actually, it was really great. So I went and it wasn’t easy to get out there in the village, it was 9 HOURS of walking up in the hill, it wasn’t easy at all.
And all I had was “Wai-Wai” on the way. So I was eating “Wai-Wai” and then where you stay, I stayed in a one-room village school, roofs were all leaking and there was holes in the roofs, so when you were sleeping at night, you could even see the stars. So that’s the kind of life I had there.
And then I got the input from women, and that’s- that to me was a really (hesitates) a turning point, also. When I asked the women “Why aren’t you using this stove? It’s given and it’s really nice and it helps you with reducing your health issues and well-being.” And so these women were laughing, and you know how that is, these women were just laughing, they thought I was a foreigner, because I was looking completely different there. Of course I was kind of lighter-skinned and all these sort of things.
And then they just laughed and laughed and I said “What, why is that?” and then they said “Well, you know, when they built this, it may be very good, but we can’t use it because we can’t dry our food.”
You know, they have to DRY their food for the winter, right? But there was no way they could dry the food at winter, wintertime. So I was like “Oh my god, that was amazing.” you know, nobody had thought of that, and no. “And your husband didn’t think about it?” “No, how can the husband think about it?” right? The husband didn’t think about it. So, I wrote about it, and I submitted it to the office whoever is responsible, actually that project (hesitates) the writing that I did actually facilitated my admission into the college in the US, I can talk about that completely different, but then I realized that all of the design of the stove was done by men, so without the input of the women.
So I became, as a result of that, I sort of advanced that women’s participation in development, that was the area I got more and more interested in. I’ve been to many conferences, I even taught a class at UWM about women development. They really made me very, very- I mean it gave me the impedance to do more for women. And that was the story.
Then I attended the UN Human Rights and Women’s Rights that was in New York, and I think it was Mrs Clinton who spoke on that platform for actions, so there were 8-10 platform for actions, for the global women’s development. So it was really a fascinating conference I attended, first time UN conference attending and women’s issues, fascinating, and give me more energy to do to this area.
So, that was it, so I was part of the UN, then I started developing curriculum for women and gender and all those issues and had the universitylevel. And besides that, I was very much involved locally in Milwaukee.
One of the things that I did and I am really very proud of it is, I co-founded Hmong American Women’s Association, because Hmong were the first, I shouldn’t say first, but the refugees they were coming in the late 70s or 80s, and they were really right from the villages, they had nothing, they were really in a situation where they really needed the support of every kind, and they were mostly illiterate, they had never held a pencil in their entire life, you know?
So this is what we were dealing with, so I came up with this idea of why don’t you have an organization of women, so you can sort of build your agenda, right? And give your voices to the policy makers in terms of what you need and what you don’t need. So we started this organization in 1996 and with 27 women. And that agency still exists, and it’s doing so well, it’s unbelievable, it has actually gone ALL the way up to the national level in recognition, so they’re doing really, really well, they actually received 3 million dollars funding last year, to do women’s program on sexual harassment and sexual abuse and sexual assault, and they have been the leader in this area so far.
So that’s one of the works that I am extremely, extremely proud of for women. That organization not only gave programs, they created and developed SO many women leaders. Actually one of the products who came out of that organization was serving in the, was it the Clintons Time, I don’t know, who was the president after him. During that time, she was the API which is Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, she represented that. So we built so many leadership- women leaderships from that organization.
So I really think that, you know, what you are doing is really good, it’s building the leadership, that’s what you need to do. I mean, if you are in the country where your voices matter so much, if you’re not active, politically, forget it. So this is what is given them a platform for them to give them a voice. If you go to that organization, you will see all the college students, and I feel that that’s exactly what we envisioned that will happen.
So that’s one of the activism or whatever you can call it. The other thing I did is actually I went to this million women’s march when Trump came up as a president, I went there, and I protested, with other million women and this is REALLY fascinating for me. I just wanted to vent out, oppose that thing you know, in principal, although it was not going to change anything structurally, but you need to voice your opinion, you need to voice- see what I was given or allowed by my father, I never give up. I use the same thing (chuckles) over and over and over again.
So this is what my activism is all about and I’m teaching a lot of the classes that has gender as a main part of the course in different ways, I use it, I mean it’s a power difference, now that you have to look at, and the US hasn’t done as much as the other countries, too because if you look at the congress in the US, there are only 24 women, right? It’s the same thing like in other countries. Even in our country, there are no leadership of women, now even if you have the leadership, they don’t have the equal power, so how do you intervene that?
How do you make it more equitable is an issue, everywhere, every part of the world, including the United States and of course, in Nepal as well … completely necessary, necessary for “You’re not in Nepal, but you could have done it, even in Nepal” But here, you are actually making the country better by being active.
Shashank:
And the world.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
And the world, yes. The world also.
Shashank:
No matter where you are.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
No matter where you are, do it. You don’t have to be really politically active, but what I’m saying, you know, you just say “Okay, let’s organize to clean up the neighborhood.” that is activism, that’s activism, that’s what you need to do.
Janavi:
My next question is, what is a discipline for your success in the field of education?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
What’s a discipline? What’s that?
Janavi:
What’s, like, a discipline or like- …
Shashank:
What she means is what is your, like, what is your-… What is your- Let me think. What is your motivation or inspiration-
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Oh, my inspiration for success?
Shashank:
Yes.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
My inspiration is you have to accept the failure, regardless of what happens. Accept it, because the more you want to say- you know, it makes you down, it makes you feel very down if you don’t. Also, you don’t learn anything if you don’t accept the failure, continue to accept the failure, continue learning, never give up, you know, that’s what inspired me to- I don’t know, I’m always motivated and I never given up the real curiosity I had when I was six years old, until now.
That’s what keeps me going, you know, keep your curiosity, continue to work on that. And that’s what keeps you alive, that’s what keeps you going, because you’re going to get challenged, oh my gosh, and once you get into a system like this, it’s always challenging, regardless of what system you get into, but it’s your curiosity that keeps you going.
Janavi:
Oh that’s interesting. One of my next questions was like, we really covered the topic of what you do and like, your work.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
I have a lot of hobbies. I love music, regardless of what music it is and from what culture and whatever, I love it. I mean you wouldn’t believe how much I listen to the music. I mean I grew up listening to Beatles, if you tell me that thing, you know. Beatles were in the 60s and my family, my mother, my father, everybody danced, everybody sings and so, it was part of our life, we love music and dance.
I still love music and dance, if you ask me, I mean, I listen to all the Nepali music and the hindi music, but I also listen to, you know, western music because it’s the core of my being, it’s the music, but I do hiking, that’s my big part because I had worked with my dad in climbing mountains because we always went, every month we went and climbed some kind of mountains, and that’s my favorite thing to do, if I go to Nepal, some spend about one week or two weeks just doing that. Sometimes I go to Langtang, sometimes I go to Pokhara and above, so this is what keeps me going, as I love, love, love climbing, you know.
So, and these are outdoor activities, camping, of course, that comes with it, these are the kinds of things I do. Of course traveling and meeting new people, these are all my hobbies. Of course cooking! I’m a good cook!
Jeneeya:
I told you!
Shashank:
Momos?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Fusion cooking, nowadays.
Janavi:
If you had a time machine that has the ability to meet your past self, what would you tell them?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
What would I tell them? Okay, one thing is I can’t predict the future, right? Or no, I want to go to the past, or even, it doesn’t matter if I go to the past or not. But there are a couple of things I would say that one thing is; I wish I was born now, because if I was born now, then I would have been really good with technology. You know, this is the revolution of technology that we never had.
And this really makes me think that I wish I was born in this age, you know, I would have had much more fun and using different types of technology, learning how to use it, I mean we jumped quite a bit, you know? We used to write with the corn, you know corn?
Shashank:
Yeah.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
This was the way of writing, and coming now with the Zoom, right? I mean if you tell these people around here, they will laugh at you, but that’s how you- how we are, that’s how we have to adjust, it’s a HUGE jump, huge gap.
Shashank:
Even with technology, I remember one thing, I was born around the early 2000’s and until like 2013 in Nepal, it was like, there wasn’t ANYTHING to do, like we used to go to the PCO or something to call and stuff like that, and SUDDENLY around that time period, 2013 to 2017/18, something just happened just like “Oh my god!”Mobile phone, screen touch, iPhone, you know, it was such a BIG revolution!
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Absolutely, and look at us, you know, how much we had to work. But, the human mind is so amazing, you know, so flexible. We can do it, regardless how old we are, what we are, what we came up from, we can still do it. I mean that’s the one thing that I learn, if you ask me, you know? You can do it, if you’re flexible, and open minded and, you know, don’t give up and you can easily do it. Person who wrote with the corn and now writing, not even writing, it’s just communicating, teaching via Zoom it’s an amazing thing to me, it amazes me.
Janavi:
What’s the most rewarding thing about your job?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Most rewarding thing, that’s a good question actually. I would say the change part of it, because change in terms of the students, you know, every semester I have new students, new thinking, new ways of looking at it, and they come up with the different kind of expectations, different curiosity, different backgrounds, you know. So that really keeps me going, this is the most fascinating thing, because I can’t be just one person, one way of looking at things because I have to go along with the changes, my students change, I have to change, you know? I have to change my curriculum, I have to change how I teach, so that keeps me going, the change part is wonderful.
Shashank:
There are three questions to conclude our interview.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Okay, that’s good!
Shashank:
So the first question is, what are three things, or you can say more or few as you wish, would you like to share with us, that might motivate other people, especially women, to overcome challenges, in our community, or, you know, in terms of their goals IS or dreams they have, how could they overcome and achieve those dreams?
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Achieve your dreams, huh? First thing that I, that’s a really good question actually, you know. If you are, the future, right? Because you are the future. We need to invest on the women leaders, you have to bring their talents out, you know, it’s HIDDEN there. We have lot of talented young women, but they are not recognized and they should be given, you know, that opportunity so that they can shine. So invest on women so invest in education in women, that’s one thing that is important to me, and it HAS to be done, whether it’s at the family level or at the society level, or even at the country level, that should be the priority.
There’s a saying “If you educate a man, you educate a man” one person “If you educate a female, then you educate the whole family, as well as the whole society.” That has to be adopted by EVERY family by every country and every society. That’s one thing, the second part, I see is, you know, we have to have education of the children or the young children about the gender inequality right from the beginning, so they know how to be aware of their position, where they are in the family, as well as in the society, and be able to challenge some of the traditional- some of the traditions or traditional stereotypes that are, you know, adopted by our society that maybe- not maybe not be so helpful for the growth of the family as well as for the society.
So how do we challenge that, huh? How do we bring another perspective to that is very, very important, because those traditions are great cultural traditions, but they are not necessarily helpful. They’re hurting actually, for the whole collective society, so we need to give up on that.
Shashank:
So, second last question is we, as the Nepali-American, youth make a positive impact in our community.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Positive impact; there you are, I said, you are the future. The positive impact from my own experiences, as I said, am always living with the duality and I think you all are living with the dualities, aren’t you? Because in one way, you are Nepali but on the other hand, you are, what? American, right? But my biggest challenge to you is how do you co-exist with these two things that you have?
Not one is not better than the other, but you have to co-exist in a way that makes sense, not only to you, but also to the whole society as a whole. And it’s a work, it’s about relationship, it’s about work, it’s not just one event, just has to be an ongoing learning from your part, and that HAS to happen. You know, you need to be out there, as I said, as an active political leaders. You need to be able to understand why you have to vote in this society!
What does it mean, you know? Why are you there? You know, how do you educate people at that vote? Because fundamentally, that’s what keeps the system going in a society like this. And also, you know, make the best out of what you have, instead of gathering more and more and more stuff. You don’t need that more stuff. More money, more stuff, it’s very painful to see that, that we all have to go through, we don’t need to do that. Even if you have a small job, make the best of it, even if you have a small opportunity, make the best of it. But having to go over and accumulating more is not going to help, individually as well as collectively.
And ultimately, I will say I had to learn a lot of certain nuances in a different cultures in there and here. We have certain ways of speaking in Nepal, right? Certain ways of communicating. But here, you have different ways of communicating, we have to learn that so much, it’s so important, it’s so critical that we learn it. Like for instance, I’ll give you a very simple example: There, you could just say “No, I don’t want to do it.”, that’s the way you say, right? If you don’t want to do that, we say no! But HERE, if you are working or if you are dealing with the people, you say “Thank you”. Start with the “thank you”, right?
This is such a simple thing, but these are different ways of- they EXPECT you to be polite, which is not really necessary true in Nepal. You just give your opinions, regardless by even yelling or shouting, or whatever way you want. And these are some things that we need to learn, our attitudes need to change as much as we change our place. That’s the thing that I give to the young people, that’s your job; to help the community, to move forward.
Shashank:
We’re done. Thank you so much.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Oh, that’s it?! Thank you so much. Thank you for the great questions, I don’t know if I did-
Shashank:
Your answers were very great.
Dr Kalyani Rai:
Oh really? Did they help you? Did I do the justice?
-Wrap up-