KATHMANDU: Hard work, honesty, enthusiasm, independence and dedication are the mantras of his life. Following these mantras Huta Ram Baidya has established himself as a conservationist, agriculture engineer as well as a social worker. And even at the age of 88, he is still young at heart and always ready to do everything he can on his own.

Strict childhood days

The youngest child of Ratna Das Baidya and Mathura Maskey, he was born in 1921 and brought up in a traditional Newar family at Tripureshowre, Kathmandu.

“I grew up getting acquainted with my traditional Newari culture,” shared Baidya who acquired his formal school education at the Durbar High School. “We had a rickshaw at home on which we would go to school and come back. Children from the Rana family used to come riding on horses,” he recalled. “It was our mother who took care of all the children as our father died when I was only 11,” he shared.

They had to attend tuition classes at home before and after school. “Rules at home and school were very strict and I never dared to break those,” he said. “Watching plays, listening to dohori songs, hymns during different festivals were the only means of entertainment,” Baidya remembered.

Dreaming high

Aspiring to be an electrical engineer, Baidya joined the Science stream at Tri Chandra College after SLC. “I studied very hard so that

I could get a scholarship

to study electrical engineering,” said Baidya, who

had not opted for his family profession of making Ayurvedic medicines.

But other students scored higher than him and he didn’t get the scholarship.

But he got an opportunity

to study agricultural engineering in Allahabad University in India due to lack

of candidate.

“I took it up regarding it as my second chance,” said Baidya who went on to become the first agricultural engineer of the country.

Bitter-sweet moments

Baidya joined the Department of Agriculture after returning from India. “But what I studied in India could not be applied here and I had to remodel my education to fit the Nepali environment,” revealed Baidya who conducted research to test suitability for developing settlements in Hetauda and many other places.

Baidya was working as Assistant Director when late king Mahendra declared the Panchayat system in 1960, which also beckoned the bad days of his life.

He was first demoted to Section Officer, then forced to leave his job. “All those who didn’t follow the Panchayat philosophy had to quit,” he shared.

As he saw no chance of getting a government job, he started working for private consultancies and did that for over two decades.

Living for Bagmati

It was only after his retirement that Baidya found his real calling — Bagmati river. He has always maintained that “Bagmati is not merely a river, it is a civilisation”. In fact today any conversation about Bagmati conservation cannot be complete without Huta Ram Baidya, who

has dedicated almost two decades to advocate

about the conservation of the holy river.

“The river was so clean that people used to swim here,” said Baidya whose house is located on the bank of the river. “As pollution and other human activities started attacking this river, I felt something had to be done to stop all this.”

From photo exhibitions, speeches, write-ups to invention of scientific techniques, he did not leave any stone unturned to come up with techniques to improve the river’s condition.

Baidya is tired of foreign donors as well as Nepali people who ‘pretend’ to do a lot of work for the Bagmati but do not achieve anything in reality. “Bagmati is dying because no one is really doing anything to save it,” he said.

Besides Bagmati, eradication of poverty in remote areas is another social cause he is involved in. For this he has gone to different places like Doti, Ramechhap, Kavre to train locals about income generation.

Young at heart

Although he needs a hearing aid device and spectacles to identify people, his energy is as inspirational as ever. Every morning he goes through the newspapers and his day of activities begins — he is either busy creating new farming technologies or taking care of his small kitchen garden.

Married at the age of 26 to Sharada Rajbhandari, Baidya has two sons and a daughter who are in the US. These days he lives with a helper Ganga Sagar, who has been with him since Baidya’s wife’s death. “It is Ganga who cooks, washes and does every other thing for me,” informed Baidya. “I am not physically able now but I am always ready to share what I know with anyone interested,” Baidya expressed.

He is happy to have lived a successful and safe life but is worried about the future generations. “It is your civilisation that saves your identity, so save your Bagmati civilisation to save yourself as it is dying,” he urged.