The train carriage door slammed shut and Radhika Phuyal instantly felt the

intense heat closing in on her.

Her new emerald green kurta salwar, the long tunic over loose trousers that

girls of her age traditionally wear, stuck uncomfortably to her skin and her long,

glossy black hair weighed heavy on her back. Her breathing came in unusually

short and shallow bursts as a terrible and sudden fear of the unknown, of what

lay ahead of her on this exciting journey, began to overwhelm her.

The creeping unease she was feeling at the prospect of an unfamiliar train

journey was tempered only by the fact that she was going on holiday for the first

time in her life.

‘H-O-L-I-D-A-Y’, she whispered to herself over and over again. Radhika

liked the feel of the letters rolling over her tongue like exotic, sumptuous fruits.

Long gone were the days of eking out an impoverished existence selling spinach

on the dusty roadsides of Kathmandu.

The Hindu gods finally appeared to be giving Radhika some respite from the

relentlessness of her life. Her offerings had paid off: she had always made a

point of giving sweet milk and rice to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and

prosperity, whenever she visited the temple.

Lakshmi was her favourite, not just because she was the most beautiful of the

gods, but because she stood for purity and fertility. Radhika was certain that

Lakshmi had had a hand in helping to transport her from her place among the

teeming mass of humanity who sold vegetables alongside Kathmandu’s

Bishnumati River to the life of luxury that the people travelling with her on this

journey – her ‘new family’ – had promised awaited her in a far off land.

Her life had changed so radically in just a matter of weeks, making the

seemingly unattainable believable. Before that Radhika’s dreams had appeared

to be well beyond her reach – a family debt had forced her prematurely out of

the school she loved so much and into work, first harvesting, then later selling

her family’s vegetable produce.

After that, she quickly recognized that it would take a miracle to save her

from the poverty that had already swallowed up the hopes and dreams of

thousands of other uneducated Nepalese girls like her.

‘Perhaps this is it.… My miracle!,’ Radhika thought to herself, sinking back

into her seat as the train left the station, gathering speed to only the gods knew

where. ‘Perhaps this is finally my sign from goddess Lakshmi that things are

going to change.’

She listened to the soft, rhythmic whirring of the train against the track,

feeling like the heroine of one of the epic Bollywood films that she had seen

advertised so often on posters around Kathmandu.

Finally, Radhika Phuyal was going somewhere. Exactly where she didn’t yet

know – her new family hadn’t told her the destination yet. But that didn’t matter.

When you’re born into poverty in the fourth poorest country in the world, it is

sometimes just enough to go.

Anyway, the element of mystery about the whole journey only added to her

excitement and made the sense of adventure all the more poignant. For the first

time, Radhika truly felt that something momentous was going to happen,

something that might change her life forever.

Now all she had to do was to cast her worries aside and enjoy the ride. As the

sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita teaches: ‘There is neither this world nor the

world beyond nor happiness for the one who doubts.’

And at that point, Radhika knew that she should not have any doubts – she

really shouldn’t have a care in the world. She was, after all, on the first of

hopefully many journeys to the rest of her life.

What on earth did she have to worry about?

The sterile smell of hospital disinfectant jolted Radhika out of a deep sleep. She

vomited.

A man’s face began to swim into view. She concentrated, trying to bring him into focus. Who was he? Murari Pariyar! That was it. The friend of the family

she worked for. He’d appeared at the station and had been introduced to Radhika

before she got on the train. But where was everyone else?And where was she?

Gradually, Radhika became aware of another presence in the room, another

man who was dressed in white.

She tried to focus, but it was so hard. So confusing. She struggled to

concentrate and then realization struck. The man was a doctor. But what was a

doctor doing here?

Had she been in some kind of accident?

As Radhika became more awake, she began to feel a terrible sense of doom, a

growing sense of fear. Then the questions came hard and fast.

Where was she?

What was she doing here?

What was wrong with her?

Why was she lying in a hospital bed?

What had happened to her in the time since she’d got on the train to her great

new life?

Where was the goddess Lakshmi now?

How had she come to this?