By Narayan Prasad Mishra  Continued from last week I determined to help her with all my abilities and worked and supported her with my whole spirit and strength to develop this Library. I silently surveyed the Library, noted the main problems, made the plan and programs for its revolutionary step to take it for its reform regarding mainly the circulation, acquisition, account, and administration running like a private property with the group's interest without any strict rules and regulation. We brought a radical change in it and made the institution the nation's pride. Shanti wrote about it in detail in her book" Voice of truth: the Challenges and Struggles of a Nepalese Woman," in English. We also noted in our book ”Tri. Bi. Kendriya Pustakalayako Gauravshali Kahani Ra Hamro Sewa” in Nepali In creating Tribhuvan University Library as the internationally known academic center of our land, we were attracted to each other, and the one became of the other. We had similar natures and interests. We loved each other very much. She loved me more than her life. I loved her the same way despite our differences in caste, creed, age, position, status. We appreciated and admired each other. We became inseparable friends within few months of our meeting and enjoyed our company. We became one of two souls amalgamated into one. The boundary of status and position disappeared from us soon, and we worked together, left the office together, walked together, and had tea and snacks together. We shared our snacks which we sometimes carried from home. We wanted to pass the night soon and be together in the office without delay. She wanted me to join her mission library profession permanently and work for its cause. I happily accepted it and became ready to study library science, for this reason, forgetting my interest to be a lawyer. To meet this requirement, we searched for a scholarship. We realized through the Indian Cooperation Mission (I.C.M.) that they had only one seat assigned to the Department of Archeology but unused. They could arrange that scholarship for us if we could get no objection letter from that Department. I myself went to request the then Director, Ramesh Jung Thapa, for it. I asked him to write a no objection letter to I.C.M. if the University used it. He did as I asked for. He was thoughtful, helpful, and kind to me. I went to study Library Science at the University of Delhi in 1966 after getting approval from the University. I did M.A. in Library Science and became the first that degree holder from that country. We were two love birds separated physically from each other for my study during that period, though not even moments in thoughts and memory. Though we were one in mind, we belong to two different caste - I Brahmin and she Newar. We knew our love affair would not be tolerable and acceptable for family, community, society, and office as we discussed the caste system and the arranged marriage system above. So we knew we should keep it as secrete as possible until the final time. Even when we were together in the Library, we were more cautious about being more informal, using more informal words in speaking and writing to address each other so that others could not think of our love relationship. We knew it could bring more misfortunes for us if we became lovable friends visibly. Now the problem came to our mind about our letter writing when I was in Delhi. I needed to write to her either at the Library's address or her home address. In both cases, someone could steal and open the letter. So I must not write anything to show my love to her, giving doubt about it to others. On the other hand, she could write me anything as she wished as I stayed alone in a foreign land with almost no possibility of going that letter to any Nepali's hand. Even though there was the slightest possibility of risk of going it to some unwanted person, we decided to set a new name Maya for Shanti. That means she would be Maya instead of Shanti in her letter writing to me. We corresponded to that arrangement, and it worked well. We gave serial numbers in our letters so that we would know which one was lost. I became much more formal in my writing than speaking, which would not make any difference, even the letter stolen. We knew my many letters were lost and stolen. We both wrote hundreds of letters which I still have. We mostly wrote them in Nepali and seldom wrote them in English. The following is one among hundreds she wrote on August 15, 1967, 4 years before our marriage as Maya, my beloved girlfriend. The letter was in English. That would tell how much love and trust she had in her heart towards her beloved boyfriend. Similarly, it would also describe how much love, confidence, support, and joy she had from her beloved boyfriend.

A love letter written by Shanti Shrestha to her lover Narayan Prasad Mishra as Maya

As I mentioned above, I wrote all formal letters to her as if I had no close personal relationship with her except the official. That was not easy for me to act like an actor. There were few words and sentences by which she could taste my love but not by others. I wrote many long letters with 2/3 pages. The following is the shortest one, and in Nepali, I wrote her on December 15, 1966, from Delhi when she was in Calcutta with her friend Miss Subrata Ghose on her way to Delhi, expressing my happiness to her coming. Though we could keep our love secrete this way for many years, I remember a scary incident in this connection. The incident was that I had a Nepali friend Nidhendra Raj Sharma (later on, he became the secretary or joint-secretary to our Ministry) in Delhi who was doing his PhD in economics in the Delhi School of Economics. We were close, loved each other, and met very often. He was to come to Kathmandu in October 1966 and asked me whether he could do anything while there. He lived at Kupundol, near Sanepa, where my beloved girlfriend Shanti lived. I wanted a book from the Library for my study; the book was not available in the market for purchase if our Library possessed it. I was not supposed to tell him about our love affairs, and she was my girlfriend. So I asked him to go and meet Shanti Shrestha, the Chief Librarian who lived near his house. As I requested, my friend went to see her. When he was there, Shanti inquired about me and my life, he said that everything was okay with him, but Mishraji had some cold. When she heard about my cold and little sickness, it seemed she showed so much concern and worried that only the lover could worry so much with a very dark and cloudy face and asked him with much anxiety and fear," what happened to him"! He could read her face and asked me whether I had a love affair with her telling about his reading when he returned to Delhi. One could imagine how much she could have been worried. I had to cover the matter with many lies to my dear friend, for which I even now have guilty feelings. I silently apologize to him for that always. To be continued