Rinpoche – Behind the Scenes 活佛背后的故事

November 17, 2008

During the first few weeks of Rinpoche’s stay in Kathmandu, one evening Rinpoche went to Vijeshwari Vajrayogini Temple, and on the way back to Thamel, Rinpoche took a rickshaw and the rickshaw driver was a nice man called Batri, Rinpoche bought Batri a large bag of rice and some vegetables. During the following few weeks we also met Batri on the street a few times and used his rickshaw service, Batri is always pleasant and helpful, and never greedy, in fact he is always looking out for Rinpoche on street because he is grateful and likes Rinpoche a lot, and he refers to Rinpoche as “the tall one”.
 
Today Monlam and I met Batri again on Thamel street, and Rinpoche asked us to go to Batri’s house to check out his living condition. Batri’s house is 5 mins away from Thamel, he rented the top floor of a house, more like the attic. The room is extremely small (see pics), and has a very low ceiling of 4 feet. An adult cannot stand upright inside room. On top of that, Batri, his wife Sunitha, their two sons and two daughters, aged 16, 12, 10 and 5 respectively, in total 6 persons, all have to live in the small room, 3 on the bed and 3 on the floor. Cooking is also done in the room. The whole family has stayed in this rented room for 7 years.

 
Batri is 42 years old, and has been driving rickshaw for 5 years, before this he was selling bangles etc at Durbar square, where he learned some basic English from the tourists. He never went to school.
 
On average Batri earns 1500RP (RM68) per month, sometimes more sometimes less, depending on seasons. His monthly expenses are as follow:
 
room rental + electricity = 550 RP (RM25 per month)
rickshaw rental = 3000RP (RM136 per month)
4 children’s school fees = 4×250 = 1000RP (RM45 per month)
food = 1000RP (RM45 per month)
 TOTAL = 5550RP (250 per month)
 
So it is really difficult for the family to make ends meet. Batri has not been paying school fees for 2 of his 4 children for a year because he cant afford the school fees of RM12/month per child. And since the room is so small, Batri’s 16 year-old son always feels bored and prefer to go out loitering around, this is worrisome because he may be influenced by some bad street gangs.

 
After finding out Batri’s situation and discussing with a few of us: Paul, Wan, BK, Monlam, SP here in Kathmandu, Rinpoche decided to sponsor Batri to move to a bigger place to stay, preferably 2 rooms, 1 for sleeping and 1 for cooking, then we will monitor the progress and give him more material assistance as time goes by. It was also suggested that Rajkumar gets involve to help. After the discussion, Rinpoche did some prayers and announced that today is the beginning of Kechara Soup Kitchen – Nepal Chapter, and Batri’s case will be the first case, and although it is only one person, we will generate the cause and merits to help more and more people in the future.
 
In the evening, Rinpoche asked Monlam and myself to go grocery shopping with Batri, we bought him 10kg rice, some dhal, beans, tea, soaps, cooking oil, sugar, salt, toothbrush, toothpaste, blankets, total around RM 250, and Monlam and Batri delivered these things to Batri’s house, Batri and his wife were extremely moved, his wife couldn’t hold back her tears, she said they have given up any hope of receiving any help from anyone, and today’s offerings are like gifts from god.

Rinpoche’s kindness and compassion is without boundaries, be it in Inida, Nepal or Malaysia.