Nepal: The land of eternal darkness

Morning papers have nothing except the political tirades, eccentricities of politicos, the game of quest for power, the obstructed house meeting, the abuse of government fund and authority. The same old politician-promises- that to build a bridge even where there is no river and the same hydro-power potential calculation, which how much ever correct it be, the stark truth lies in the 11 hours/day loadshedding. Amongst such, the story of largess of a foreigner who built a school in remote western Nepal is moving enough. Accolades to such great individuals who have proved themselves more than a country in some sense and in a more worthy sense. It has been this way: we never had our government do some substantial works of development, nothing of the sort. It always has to be India, China, Japan, Denmark or even a mighty hearted foreigner or people alike. The situation hasn’t changed a bit from what it used to be, but the hopes and dreams of people certainly have. The hope that was tethered lasts no more, the faith and hope both have dissolved. The tunnel has no light at the end, its a dead end tunnel. And this has become the land of no dawn-break.

The reason for this degradation of Nepal’s status is the political prominence enjoyed by all the unworthy leaders for whom only money and power matters the most. This is why the equation of Nepalese politics had never found an equilibrium and it is least likely that it ever will, what makes this old situation new to me is that I have just got big enough to understand the price that comes with the political instability in country. What it means to be in a country without the rule of law, with impunity and with some few people powerful than the whole authority, i am learning it each day, and every following day i learn more than the preceding day. I have learned what happens when you dont do politics, you’ll instead be done by it. And all i have by the end is the sheer frustration because of this prevalent disarray. I hate to be in it, and i cant help being in it either.

For the last 20 years all we have is the large numbers, numbers of prime ministers, elections, ministries and record breaking days of strikes and bandhas. 100 years of hydro-power and we are into darkness from darkness. 80 years of roads and we have 1000s of places inaccessible, where only means of transportation are the ancient means and methods. World is into genetics engineering and we are in a place where diarrhoea is an epidemic outbreak uncontrolled for more than a month claiming 1000s of lives. The epidemic came naturally to a halt without any control measures, the government didnt suppy medicine, it supplied propaganda. This is a place where each year same place gets swept by flood and this is the land where people living ashore rivers from where electricity is produced have no electricity. When other nations are discussing their sophisticated plans of missile launch, of nuclear energy expansion, of sixth sense technology, we moot daily over who should be the next prime minister, or which party should get share of which ministries, or the ambassador to UK should be from which political fundamentals or which language should Vice-President oath on. How primitive priorities we have. Stated clearly, we are on a road to atavism. Things in retrospect have started to look much better, and this will look even more so in future because we are in a downhill battle.

Nepal is a land of great potentials but no actions. And this is the land full of people like me for whom either way is difficult : to let it be or to not let it be. Yes, truth is stark and dark. Everything comes with a price but this is the price we are paying for no exchange, it is simply the price we got to pay for being Nepali. For long i believed i had a power vested in me, the power to vote, the right to franchise. Because you could give the country a right lead, you could choose. This was what i believed, but how wrong i was.Though i couldnt, I had wanted to vote in last election because till then i believed otherwise. But now i have vowed i wont vote because i dont want to feel guilty afterwards for having chosen a mere power-monger or money-monger to let him/her ruin the country. That way at least i’ll spare myself the regret.

To whom it may concern

All those who think speaking is being heard and listening is nonsense, think again. Is it really so important, always, to interrupt others and exercise your vocal cord ? In a sense it could be but i cant furnish the reasons why somebody is always so eager to speak up, speak alone and when they are bound to hear -just show some ‘i dont care’ and ‘i m superior’ attitude. And if you think you are really cool with it, here is what the rest of others might find you: utterly disgusting. So save oneself from this embarrassment. Sometimes it too could be a real pleasure in just listening. This is why we have got two ears and a mouth: “Hear much, speak little”. Human behavior has it that for most the priority is always oneself. So your speaking could be justified. But hey, reciprocate your thoughts about others too: if you arent interested in theirs, why would they be ever interested in your babbles. Ring the bell? I have a plea, to whom it may concern : just try not to cut in between when others are speaking, for once please try listening, if you cant just pretend being an avid listener. In time you will learn listening because behavior is nothing but just a habit.

PS : Is it heard ?

– By Pratistha Malla dedicated to her sister

Long awaited moment is a step away
A moment to enjoy
Moment to cherish
Neither I want to celebrate nor be a part
Because that day i’ll lose u
Then,
I wont have anyone to fight, be angry with,
Smile with, share secrets with,
Then i’ll be all alone
All by myself
There will be no one to teach me
NO one to wake up till late with me
No one to advice me
No one to be with me
No one to watch movies with
No one to hold to
I grew up infront of u
You nurtured me, supported me
You know me better than anyone else
Every day starts and ends with u
But then u’ll be gone,
Leaving an emptiness in my life
Making me all alone
Dont want you to leave
Dont want to be alone
But if leaving me, us all those sweet memories,
Gives u happiness, chances to make even sweeter memories
I wont stop u, cant stop u
I’ll learn to live all by myself
But will miss u all by my heart

Wintry Chill

From in between bed and blanket
from any crevice
any window shutters imperfected to millimeters
any door left ajar
or from beneath it,
cold smuggles in
entrenches the warmth around
claims everything that was cozily warm.
Then on, cold expedites its adventure
finds the hide out in my nose and ear,
my hands in my cheek
i shudder, it feels like a foreign invasion,
open my mouth and fog escapes like a fugitive under shelter there,
my body, the stronghold of cold.
In double socks and triple sweater
cant still beat the monopoly of cold weather
wintry chill, so sharp
i succumb to the “1 degree hotness” benchmark.
Excited as if by victory
cold expedition gets the continuity,
when the sun is far and frugal,
cold is stern and strong.
Alright, now is your turn
but i shall settle some scores while the summer sun burns.

2010

If u are the one who needs a reason to celebrate just count how many New Years only we Nepalese get to celebrate, lucky in that account, na ? Let me count along with u, Bikram Sambat’s, Nepal Sambat’s, two Lohsars, one AD’s…though my count stopped here your might be running still. The first day of the rest 364 days, the commander whom the 364 militias follow in a procession, deserves a special treat. And are we not really lucky enough to be having 5 or more commanders showing up before us every year whereas most in the world are content with only one. In my sense we are. To be living with such ethnically diverse and culturally adopting and adapting population is both a pleasure and pride. Having said this i assume u are in a mood to make arrangements for this New Year celebration as well or if u are reading it after Jan 1st i bet u did something to mark the beginning of 2010 AD. And tell u what, i will have a reason to be happy this New Year because i am right on time to wish u all a very happy New Year. May happiness prevail along with love and peace…Cheers !!!

Broken bench and attached desk

This in short can be aptly called the story of a bench and desk of unique construction of joint-hood – behind the bench is attached the desk which will be used with the bench of another jointed bench-desk pair..So you dont sit and write in the same bench-desk pair, both come from two separate pairs .
One of such desks used to be “my area” till a week ago. But then one thing happened, on that particular day, three boys took hold of our seat and we three girls unwillingly had to take hold of other’s seat. But we didn’t hatched the idea of capturing other’s seat at once, we put considerable amount of force and tact to regain ours lost one. We pulled them, poked them, u can say we tortured them to leave that seat. But they didnt concede. So one of us squeezed in that bench, totaling the bench residents to 4. It was not comfortable, but we then did less to think about our comfort than to think about their discomfort. For that reason, there were four in there.Despite efforts not to do this, it had to be done too, that bench capturing thing and we did it, with some feeling of unease.
You might say, why not any bench? why that particular bench and desk?…Well i have a reason, because that was special to us..i had painted a red rose in that desk which by accident became a very popular graffiti. Everybody knew of it, and that i had drawn it.So,despite no ownership, we felt we owned that seat..And it is true to some extent because once when all benches were out of room, we got exactly that same one because of that rose..” because this rose is urs”…U see thats why we were so possessive about that one. And the caption ” For u my dear! ” beneath the rose was famous, or infamous thereof, beyond my expectation. Every once and a while there used to be a fat or lean man besides the rose in desk saying in rough and untidy letters: “thanku” which we rubbed and rubbed till the paint of the desk peeled off… We guarded that rose, afterall owners are meant to do that favor to the benefactors, right ? And let me tell you of the attempts made to vilify the sacred rose…. “dear” was tampered to “bear” and “my” was made “the”..and “PNS “was appended behind to read “for u my dear PNS” ( PNS is a very very fat, lazy teacher who is no good at teaching and who sometimes had not a single student in his class since everybody loved bunking his classes)…how mean..So by now you might have guessed what that bench meant to us and what we meant to it too.
Lets go back to that particular day..That day the lecture of a single subject ran 3 hours with our voices interrupting in the middle “sir pugyo aaja lai..voli padne” (sir, enough for today, we shall continue tomorrow”) ..But it continued un-interrupted except for a loud roar of laughter for some minutes in the middle of lecture. The reason: the bench attached to our desk broke..There were three sitting in that bench and it broke with a loud and somewhat elongated “creaking” sound. Indu held herself up catching the desk..else she could have landed straight onto floor with a “bang” !! ccrrrreeeeee bbbaaannngg…hehe..but that was saved for unforeseen future..But remaining two continued sitting there..in a sloopy bench ready to slide u off to ground..That was one incident we talked and still talk about since that day..
We grieved that loss of our desk after its replacement..I even wrote a condolence and pasted in our notice board..I had called for signatures to show solidarity to the loss..and quite a lot had signed. But some one teared it …too bad..why dump somebody’s creation..they dont have right to…Still, i believe its in Nepali blood to under-estimate other to your best effort, somebody “Nepali” teared it…
I couldn’t take picture of that condolence message but here’s re-written one ( till best i could remember “

Condolence
We loved u so. Though we stepped over u, scratched u, pinned u, hit u, tear u off, believe me, we loved u. We really adored u. It was so u ,never complaining always taking the trouble with joy for our ease. For that 7 months of togetherness, love, support, joy we pay our deepest and humble gratitude and thanks to u. Thanks for making it easier for us without a concern for urself. We miss u !! Rest in peace.. Loves

Neo-modern civilization and sleep

Sleeping early and rising early, its old fashioned. Diurnality is the faux pas and nocturnality is in vogue. Pulling an all-nighter or otherwise sleeping only when the sun is in the horizon is the neo-modern civilization in this internet-era.
The influence of this recent civilization is hard to let go unnoticed because its catching up with a big score of people. You might have called a friend at 10 in the morning and the other side of the phone might have transmitted ‘hello’ in that gruffly sleepy voice. Or many a times someone in your class might have reached late because waking up early at 9 and reaching college at 10 is extremely hard. Looks of surprise are converged at you when you claim to have woken up at 6 and that ‘i dont believe’ becomes the unmissable quote when you say ‘i sleep at 10′. Many urban youths today have this lifestyle, a lifestyle which in a way defies the rule of nature, of waking up during day and sleeping during night.
But this least bothers me. What is annoying is to learn that some just need 4 hours of sleep a day while some need full 8 hours. Not that sleeping more is detestable, infact just a few more minutes’ sleep is a bliss but when you fail to fit your routine into 24 hours and when you long for a day with 24+ hours this requirement of 8 hours of sleep totally drives you frenzy. Genetic disparity in moments like these gets short of being commendable and the idea of re-structuring the genes to be insomniac hits the mind one more time just to be discarded the very next moment because that restructuring would be like King Midas’s wish which eventually you would regret having been granted.
Because there is that joy in sleeping, in dreaming, in pulling up the quilt and nestling inside, sleep is so dearer to all of us. No matter how many doses of caffeine you take to keep awake all night in some days there are other days too when you sleep like a child, divinely, till all the goodness of sleep are absorbed, penetrated deep-down. Sleeping is like fuelling the mind, body and soul. Its all about the indispensability of sleep, be it in the broad day light or the pitch black darkness, be it the neo-modern way or the orthodox way, sleep plenty to revitalize yourself.

H-o-s-p-i-t-a-l H-a-z-a-r-d-s

Hospitals in Nepal are less where we are meant to be cured and more where we are meant to contract new diseases, thanks to the unmaintained hygiene and the visiting fellow patients’ negligence towards health care. The corridor is strewn with things that are meant to be disposed in disposal-bins. The bed sheets with patches of ointment or dried blood spots clearly show when they were last changed. If i hate green anywhere it wouldn’t be anywhere other than in the hospitals, i just loathe the green of those sheets and partition-curtains enveloped with dust and god knows harvesting how many bugs.
There’s no talking about loo either. That pungent ammonia smell collected from days and months of leaving it without cleaning will leave you feeling so nauseating and with pinching eyes in tears. No water, no basin, no latch and lock in doors…there’s no point in calling it a rest-room at all. It better be closed down. And the spit-anywhere( like pee-anywhere ) attitude of Nepalese doesn’t show any slowing inside hospital area too. You cannot walk without stepping over phlegm and spits all over the cemented floor.
Then there is that hustle and bustle and jostling crowd who push and push. Where to? No idea where they intend to. Waiting for ones turn is never in our blood. And those who attempt to push and are pushed all come for treatment, not one of them broods over that physical attack,however small of a little jerk might be, could cause immense pain to the one who is seeking a treatment (no no.. nobody is there for further discomfort) . Another point of concern when we crowd so much is the possible transfer of contagious and infectious disease. A moment’s thought is enough to give one enough insight about this possible danger, but who cares to think anyway. A hospital visit and your sneezing and scratching afterwards is not so uncommon, given these prevalent conditions.
Not only inside, the pathetic condition of hospital prevails outside too. Sit in the lawn outside and you are in the midst of skins of banana and orange, as if it is the dumping site: plastics, peanut-cones, cotton, bandage all around. Old habits die hard, and ours of tweaking plants hasn’t died either. No plant grows in the lawns of hospitals or along roadsides. They are just bare thin sticks, if ever they survive the constant tweaking. These all i think are the hospital hazards which concern many but unfortunate it is the fate of hospital that the concern of a few “many” alone is never enough, we need everybody aware and alert about the possible dangers it might inflict upon the lives.

Reviving theater,reviving art

Today I went to watch the play “Oedipus Rex” being staged at Gurukul at Old-Baneshwor . I can say literally the theater house was over-capacity. People every where, tight in benches and all over the floor. It was the 21st repetition of the play in a row today but it seemed not so. Most of them were students (95%). The crowd was amazingly enthusiastic . This isn’t the face of the youth i ever imagined, getting into plays and enjoying the stages. But today it forced me to rethink something. Is it because the stage artists have excelled in their performance over years or we are becoming connoisseurs ? Both, in my sense. There’s no denial that our perception towards art and life is changing. I have never been to a movie hall for a normal show but i like visiting gurukul. Its not that i dont like movies, its just that i dont like the ambience of a movie hall. For me gurukul is more welcoming and the art of stage play is something i really really appreciate. Now that i visit Gurukul often, i even more appreciate it. Art has no prototype or stereotype. Its the beauty of this art that every genuine creation is beautiful . Gurukul is serving best to breathe life into stage plays. Its not only helping plays but also art to be a part of every commoners life. And i am eagerly looking forward to seeing another play being staged there. Long live theater ,long live gurukul !!

Except for mondays each week, Oedipus Rex will be staged till Shrawan 14th

Ebbing Strength

Amid tranquility , sharp noise pitching with
increasing suffocation,
blurred senses,
blissful solitude

The solitude thickening with
ever-present confusion,
conscious emptiness,
regretful presence.

The presence weakening with
paralyzed creativity ,
misguiding innocence,
collapsing aspirations.

The aspirations dying with
seasoned blunders,
heaping failures ,
and escaping success.