Ramchandra Nepal
Tuk Bahadur Thapa’s house was formerly Waughagumha gavis ward no. 4 and the current Tansen municipality ward no. 13 belongs to Waugagumha. His age has reached 89 years. Most of the people who have reached this age are resting at home, but Tuk Bahadur is persistent in how the society can be moved forward.
Tuk Bahadur is the younger of two brothers. During his childhood, he could not study because there was no school in the village. When he was eighteen years old, he followed one of his brothers from the village and reached Gorakhpur to join the Indian army. At that time, it was not painful to be Lahure as it is today. He became a laureate easily. At the time of his birth, it was 18 Indian rupees per month. He served in the Indian Army for 24 years and by the time his pension came, it had reached Rs.55. When he was in Lahore, he was in the recrut and when the pension came, he was promoted to the rank of Deputy Subedar.
Tuk Bahadur liked to do new things from his childhood. After Lahure, he got the facility to study in the campus. He took great interest in reading and continued his studies. After getting better in studies, the post also increased.
In the course of his Lahure life, Tuk Bahadur went to Gorakhpur, Dehradun, Kashmir, Nagahill, Madras and other African countries of India and participated in many battles. Seeing his friends falling in front of him, he still vividly remembers the history of driving away a lot of enemies.
Tuk Bahadur retired in 2043. After getting pension, he worked as an officer in a security company in India for a long time. He also reached Surkhet in Nepal and worked as a security officer for three years
Tuk Bahadur, who has spent more than half of his life in Lahure and as a security officer, was unable to work due to the persistent situation that he had to do something in the village.
When he came home, everyone advised him to stand up as the president of the village. He ran for president and won the election. He worked very hard to bring electricity, roads and drinking water to the village. The school was opened in the village. Efforts were made to upgrade the school and it was successful. Locals say that the things he did when he was the village president are still memorable.
Being the village president, he got the opportunity to travel to different places in Nepal. Once he reached the village of Ghale in Lamjung for a visit. Seeing the homestays run by the villagers there, Tuk Bahadur thought that he would be able to do the same in his own village. After coming back, he discussed that he can run a homestay in the village
While the discussion was going on, Tuk Bahadur also found out that Tara Village Development Committee of Kathmandu is running programs to run a homestay in Palpa. At that time, four places in Palpa were looking for the possibility of a homestay. After seeing the possibility of a homestay in Waughagumha, the Tara Village Development Committee started to help.
Tuk Bahadur became very busy when the plan started to take place as he thought. Tuk Bahadur was successful in bringing people from natives to foreigners into the village by running a Magar homestay in Waughagumha, where there are a lot of Magars, which is still running continuously.
The name of Waughagumha Magar Homestay is still famous among Palpa’s homestays because of the warm welcome to the guests who come to the village. The homestay has its own building and the local, state, and federal governments are supporting this homestay.
He says that although he has done many jobs in his life, he likes homestay management very much. It can change our life, it is necessary to create homestays in every place in Nepal, Tuk Bahadur said in the conversation.
Even though he is 89 years old, if there is any conference, seminar, training or discussion related to tourism in Palpa district, he will arrive. He shares his skills and knowledge with others. At the end of the conversation, he said that Lahure’s pension is enough to bring food. The rest of my life is to find out how the homestay can be developed. We can also learn a lot from the life of Tuk Bahadur who engaged in social service regardless of age and apply it in our own behavior.