Thoughts on the present political situation of Nepal

“घर जले खरानी हुने थियो” is a proverb in Nepali that can be translated in English as “if only the house went on fire, there would be ashes”. In these simple words, my mom, a high school Nepali teacher, very concisely and precisely summarized the current political scenario of Nepal- Traditionally ashes are considered very useful cleaning agent; hence, they are of great significance in the traditional Nepalese society. The above lines show how in aspiring to achieve something that is quite significant, the subject is willing to give up something else-like a house-that’s of extreme importance. Such absurd is the mentality of the people asking for autonomy based on ethnicity.

I belong to the generation of Nepali people, who grew up seeing the advent of political instability in Nepal, and the panicking among some responsible citizens to do something to thwart the regression of the country’s politics, economy, and social structure. In that sense, even though our country’s politics like the politics in several other places was plagued heavily with irresponsible, opportunistic, self-centered, immoral, and uneducated politicians, I also grew up seeing among a lot of concerned Nepali citizens a restless contemplation about the future of the country, and its people. Unable to do anything that gave apparent outcome, the country downward spiralled to the present vulnerable state. Having gone through so much of political, social, and economic turmoil, people at this time are more susceptible to manipulations and misleading than ever before.

It’s very critical for the people of a country like Nepal that’s an amalgamation of so many religions, ethnicity, culture, social background to not only be tolerant to each other, but also be secure about their position in the society. Any manipulative organization, group or individual has the capacity to shake things simply by igniting ethnic, religious, regional etc. idealisms and agendas, which is what is happening at present. Nevertheless, the least all of us can do is to understand their selfish objective, and the unthoughtful outcome of such scenario. Sure, the languages, culture, and traditions that are reflective of every ethnic group of Nepal need to not only be preserved, but also provided with opportunities to flourish. There is no denying that there also needs to be decentralization for the proper running of the government. However, it can be argued that ethnic decentralization does not help promote the language, tradition, and culture of any ethnic group since all the ethnic groups are heavily reliant on other ethnic groups for the promotion of their tradition and culture. In a country that is so diverse in various aspects, if splitting a country into as many pieces as the groups was a solution, we may not even be left with individual states half the size of Kathmandu.

It’s just as absurd as the establishment of all-women-school to empower women to tackle the problems of the real world. How can one prepare any woman to tackle real World problems by not letting them have firsthand experience of the male dominated World? The same way, the real World consists of all casts, ethnic groups, nationality, and every sort of groups. The plight of one group of people is not a result of just another group of people, rather progression of time and the historical events have led to the present status of the different people belonging to the different ethnic groups. It’s not wrong to fight against discriminations, inequality and bias; however, in doing so one has to careful to not inflict the same on others. Real preservation, empowerment, enhancing of any culture, tradition, or any aspect belonging to any group cannot be done without, but is only possible through the integration with other groups. It is imperative for all of us to not be swayed by others manipulation in the name of preservation of language, culture, and tradition etc. Let’s say ‘NO’ to discriminations, and ‘YES’ to peace, unity, understanding, and security of one’s position. घरै नरहे खरानीको के काम? – What’s the use of ashes if we don’t have home?

Aren’t we done with generalizations yet?

Visiting Nepal as a young woman, after spending six years of my life out of the country, one question that I frequently hear from my well-wishers is if I have a boyfriend or not. While I would like to keep my personal life undisclosed from a lot of people, I am equally open within some of my friends and family circle. The question is very often followed or accompanied by a question related to the ethnicity of the possible boyfriend. I usually give a vague answer without much detail, and don’t even bother confirming or denying their belief no matter what they have suspected. Hence, the conversation often ends with a suggestion for me to not have a foreigner boyfriend.

In a country where the politicians recently are shamelessly trying to play an age old game of “divide and rule” by encouraging the relatively tolerant population to segregate according to their caste, it is embarrassing that the educated people still hold so many prejudices.  Though I adamantly believe that it’s wrong to divide an already fragile and tiny country based on a baseless and groundless categorization that needs to be abolished rather than encouraged, I equally believe that we ourselves do provide fueling for such metaphorical flames. During my slightly more than two weeks stay here so far, million times I have heard offensive sentences such as, “Madhises do this”,” Newars do that”, “Bahuns are like this”, and much more from so many separate sources including from those, who are against this aforementioned movement.

Is it simply that we do not comprehend the gravity of the situation, or do we just believe that no matter what our words are our intentions are what matter? If the former is the case, it is rather pathetic given the quite apparent and obvious necessity of the time to acknowledge the problem. However, if the latter is the case, then we do need to understand that no matter how positive our intentions are, words do matter, especially in the current age of political correctness. From my conversations with random people in the bus, or in the streets, or my friends and relatives here, I have come to understand that most of the working people of Nepal are against the demands for autonomy put forward by different ethnic groups. Those who are in support are mostly the few percent of the population, who either have vested interest or are easily influenced ignorant population.

The people with the vested political or social interests don’t need to be acknowledged because people like those thrive on their selfish superficial actions. Whereas the people, who are easily influenced by those selfish parasites of the country, are to a certain degree, being victim of the racial and ethnic prejudices. As mentioned before, all of us possess- up to some degree- these prejudices, stereotypes and generalizations. Hence, it is partly our responsibility to not only correct our behaviors, but also to provide assurance to the underprivileged group that we judge people based on their individual nature, but not according to their caste, their sect, their religion or any such group they belong to. We won’t be able to give this assurance exclusively through good intentions; rather it has to be accompanied by equally positive actions and positive words.

Let me divert a little bit from the current political issue of Nepal a little bit, since it will take multiple articles like this to rightly communicate all the ideas and to do justice to the gravity of the issue. Anyway, my educated well-wishers’ suggestion for me to not have a foreigner boyfriend is nothing but an epitome of one such baseless generalization, which has its parallels with any much graver issues that have emerged over time all over the World as a result of some kind of racial, cultural, sexual generalizations . Just as how not everyone from a particular religion, caste, sect behaves, acts and thinks the same, not everyone from a country thinks and acts the same. I know that this is not a foreign idea, and that with little bit of contemplation everyone should be able to realize this; however, why do I frequently hear people say, “Americans are impulsive”, “Westerners don’t value relationships because they have higher divorce rates”, etc?  If that were to be true everyone within a political boundary would act, think and behave the same way; hence, there would be no difference in ideas, no chaos, and no crime within a boundary of any country. Since we know that it’s not true, we should know that things like higher divorce rates, people taking care of their parents in old age, how parents care for their kids, are not just related to one’s country of origin, or caste, or sect but to various parameters.

Of course, these various parameters are often related to one’s cultural, social, and religious beliefs, but just as everyone of a particular caste assimilates the culture, religion and values they grew up with in a different way, people living in a same country no doubt can grow up to be entirely unique individuals. Speaking of a lower divorce rates in my country brings me back the conversation I had with my family and my cousin yesterday. The consensus we reached yesterday regarding this is that the lower number of divorce rate in our country doesn’t necessarily imply greater number of successful marriages. Women in our culture are still so much dependent on men on so many aspects of their lives that they often become the innocent victims in their marriages.  Whether the women are responsible for this, or the men or the society as a whole is a matter that will take yet another separate article to discuss. However, it cannot be denied that lower divorce rates in Nepal are often the result of sometimes one handed compromise from the women, and in rare occasions from men or both the parties.

Personally, I do believe that certain level of compromise is essential between two people when they decide to live together; however, there are some cases when self-pride, self-esteem, and self-love should take precedence over compromise. I believe that love and compatibility in the beliefs should be the incentive rather than sheer sense of responsibility for the lasting of any kind of romantic relationship. Therefore, I would not step out of a relationship with a person simply because they belong to a country where there is a higher divorce rate, or simply because they belong to a certain caste, or certain sect as long as my religious (or lack of religious) ideas, political ideas, my social ideas, and my philosophical ideas match with his.

Qatar Airways flight from JFK to Doha

I just had my second international trip from the US to Nepal few days ago; the first being my trip to the US from Nepal. The longest flight for this trip was approximately 13 hrs flight by Qatar airways from JFK to Doha. I was quite impressed by Qatar airways’s service. I wish the stewards/stewardesses were little better in communicating in English, but overall the experience was good. They provided a small pouch with all necessary stuffs for the flight. One thing I liked about Qatar airways over other airlines I had traveled through previously is that they provided me with socks, which I’m flaunting in a pic. below.

My red Qatar Airways socks

The stuffs inside the pouch the airlines provided

My tiny folding toothbrush-toothpaste set.

Dinner: Chickpea salad, yogurt dumpling, bread, veggie biryani with daal (lentil), and some fruits.

Breakfast: Eggs with cheese and sausage, strawberry yogurt, orange juice, fruits, bagel with cream cheese.

Semen on a public bus floor…

The last couple of days when I met people, one most common suggestion that they gave me was that I need to come back to my country. Some even go to the extent that they get offended if I say anything bad about the deteriorating status of our country, especially because to them it is unfair since in their opinion I am not contributing anything to the country and simply expecting things in return. In my opinion, this World, this Universe is where I was born and the political boundary has no relevance. Perhaps, my frustration triggered by the incidents happening while I’m in my country, have some role in making me feel this way. Nevertheless, the idea of being a global citizen makes a complete sense to me. If selflessness and altruism are to be considered virtues, it only makes sense that chauvinism be considered a form of selfishness. When I was little and my parents reprimanded me for my bad behaviors, it influenced me to be better. Had they always praised me irrespective of my bad deeds, I would probably never learn to be a better person. In my opinion, one’s love for a country has to be similar to my parents’ love for me. Patriotism shouldn’t be about not accepting that our country has flaws rather it should be about seeing the flaws, pointing them out and if possible trying to get rid of them.

I wish I had more good things to say about my trip to Nepal so far. I can’t wait to go outside of Ktm. to the eastern part of Nepal or to the US. Today mom and I went to the Nabil bank to apply for renewing my visa. On our way there, like usual we walked for about 15 mins in the dirty road to get to the bus stop. Like always, I forgot to bring my hankey, which is a must in Ktm. in order to cover your nose from the dirt and pollution. I already feel sick. On waiting at the bus stop for couple of minutes, we had to let go off three/four buses simply because they were too crowded. Finally, we decided to get into a bus that didn’t go directly to our destination, and change a bus from Koteshwor. We took a moderately crowded bus to the Koteshwor. I was standing towards the front part of the bus, and mom got a seat next to where I was standing. Some minutes before we got off the bus, I saw a white gooey patch of stuff on the bus floor. It had been smeared by my feet and someone else had also stepped on it and walked out of the bus. I kept on looking at it with disgust yet not knowing what it could be. For some seconds, I thought someone had cleared his/her throat in the bus and spitted, but it had to be five people spitting at the same time in order to accumulate so much of snout. On getting off the bus, my mom told me that it was someone’s semen. I was so perplexed, not because what I saw didn’t look like it, but because it didn’t make sense to me why/how would anyone would do that. Mom told me that previously she has even seen guys getting semen on random women’s clothes while standing on bus. I don’t know how or why anyone managed to do that, but that incident kept on bothering me throughout the day, making me think about my life in Nepal one more time.

I know that there are rapist, perverts, and disgusting people everywhere in this World. But I’m simply tired of being politically correct so that I don’t offend certain kind of people. If people get bothered by me saying we Nepalese in every sense are going reverse route in terms of being civilized, then let them be offended. I did use to encounter very perverted people, who used to try to touch my hand, or get unnecessary close etc. even six years ago when I was still in Nepal; however, I had never seen anything of this extent. Maybe it is because I was much younger, hence less mature than what I am now and also lacking the experiences that I now have, that I had a different way of perceiving situations like this. No matter what, I am sure I wouldn’t have taken a situation like that lightly even then.

Few days ago, while coming to Tribhuvan International Airport on the plane arriving to Ktm. from Doha, I received a form that I had to fill out asking if I had any materials that would have to go through custom. On looking at the list of items, I kind of panicked for a bit, because I didn’t want to pay custom for the cheap items that I had bought on sale in the US, and also I didn’t want to be late getting stuck at the custom checkpoint. However, after the baggage claim, I realized that they barely even checked our bags to ensure if we had any items that we claimed we didn’t. It made me think of several other rules in Nepal that seem to be so intricate and grand at first glance, but are barely even implemented. It is so easy for anyone to go through the system without being fair and truthful. If a person is truthful they will be charged custom for a watch that they might be taking as a gift for their relatives in Nepal; while some might even get away without paying for the items that they are taking for business motive. What is the purpose of having grand laws that cannot be implemented? To me it seems like we Nepalese have a delusion of grandeur. We like to believe that our country is in much better position than it is. We like to cloak the facts about our country with uber patriotism.

The lack of implementation of even the basic laws is what ties these seemingly two unrelated events I described above. When someone complains about crimes in Nepal, they are not always necessarily implying that crimes don’t happen anywhere else in the World, but the lack of proper implementation of laws do play a crucial role in increasing of crimes here. Unlike in other developed countries, we cannot always count on the cops to ensure our safety, or preserve our liberty. Yes there are things that each individual of any country or community can and has to do for the betterment of the country and the community as a whole. However, it’s simply impractical that one can do all. My interest is in science and physics in particular. I cannot compromise on my dreams and enter into politics, just because my country is in need of a better politician. One should at least have an option to choose their path in life and help the society through the persuasion of their own interest. For instance, my sister, being somewhat concerned and interested in the public health care system in Nepal, was inquiring about sending refurbished hospital instruments from US to Nepal free of cost. However, the plan failed simply because Nepal doesn’t have provision to exempt hospitals from custom charges on items that benefit the society and the whole country. Isn’t it a responsibility of someone else, who is interested in the lawmaking/ implementing side to insure that someone like my sister can help the society the way he/she wants to?

There are numerous things people living away from a country can do for the betterment of the society, the country, and the World. Being an educated and independent person, and not being a burden to the country is already an accomplishment. Furthermore, pointing out the flaws is a much greater assistance than how much credit people give it. So, anyone better not tell me that I don’t have a right to pursue my dreams outside my country and yet contribute something for the betterment of the place where I was born. I have right to be disgusted by the lack of implementation of even basic of the laws; I can aspire to move to a country where there is better treatment of women; I can dream to work on the field that I love, without each of us, who choose to leave the country, being blamed for its plight.

Sexist cashier?

I wish this blog wasn’t just a place for me to vent out my anger, and talk about sexism. Alas, this could be a place for me to show other dimensions of me as well. Unfortunately, I can’t take it away from my personality that these kinds of things do get me mad, and more often than I’d like to imagine, people don’t understand and agree with me.

Today too, not for a first time, when I went to Panera to get food, the cashier handed my credit card that I had handed to her back to my male friend, which got me pretty annoyed. I was even extending my hand to grab the card. My friend, to give her the benefit of doubt, was consistently arguing on her behalf saying that it was only because he had placed the orders. Even so, to me, it seems like credit card is one such thing that is personal, and you don’t hand it back to the person that it doesn’t belong to no matter what the situation is.  If it was this single incident, I probably would just neglect it and not worry about it, but it has happened to me on multiple occasions when I go out to eat with men. The waitress/waiters look up straight at the guys while giving the bill, and don’t even acknowledge my presence. It’s as if they are certain that the guy is going to pay the bill, and they need to only impress them with their charm. When I go out to eat with men, I pay just as often as they pay the bills, yet what warrants such sexist attitude from the waiters/waitresses? On several occasions not only have they handed the bill to the men, they have even forgotten to greet me, or acknowledge my presence. Please, share with me if you have ever encountered such thing, and if you also think it’s unfair to be treated like that.

Are your beliefs consistent?

There are certain topics in my life that I am so adamant about. Any books I read, any movies I watch or any person I converse to, their worth is determined by how I perceive some of these topics in my life. I try finding consistency in my views about diverse subjects, even if they don’t seem to be apparently related to each other. There is nothing that repels me more than inconsistency in people’s ideas.

For an instance, Ann Coulter, who is described in Wikipedia as, “an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist”. When I first saw her ridiculous interview in FOX news, I couldn’t help but google her name. On googling her name, I found out an overtly stupid statement that she had said in her interview with the New York Observer in Ocotober 2007. It goes like this – “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.”

I am thoroughly astonished that a woman with a law degree and seemingly sane at least by a clinical standard is capable of saying something as stupid as such. I know a lot of the people esp. conservatives may argue in support of that and simply put it as her frustration towards women or simply as her right to express her views. However, here is how the inconsistency in views comes into play. If her desire of taking away women’s right to vote be granted, doesn’t that imply that women’s opinions don’t matter? By that logic, why should we be giving any credence to her opinions? Her ideas are so incoherent that the very statement that she is giving makes it clear that we shouldn’t be listening to her.

Taken from web

The example I gave was rather extreme, hence easy to see the flaw in her logic. However, in general, the questions about morality, politics, society are very difficult to deal with. I am sure that there are times in all of our lives when things are not crystal clear, and we often don’t understand our position in certain subjects. At those time, what helps me the most is trying to see the underlying consistency in the different ideas that I hold. I cannot be a humanitarian, believing that all humans are equal whether women or men while still being a racist. If I were to be like that it would show a lack of coherency in my belief implying  that I’m either not a humanitarian, or I am not racist.

The problem I see in today’s society is that, the civilized society often puts too much emphasis on being politically correct. It looks at people who judge others with contempt and often confuses right to expression as a right to not being criticized for one’s incoherent beliefs.  Why should the world give any merit to any opinion expressed by people who show inconsistency in their own belief? Certainly, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Does that mean everyone is right? Hell, no. There are billions of us in this planet, and hence at least thousands and thousands of ideas that contradict with each other. If everyone were to be right, then it would have to imply that there is nothing called absolute truth. To me the only way people’s opinion can get any credence is by showing that your opinions on every subjects are not only cohesive, but also that you can walk the talk. This ties back to one of the major debate in US politics these days. Before any political leader or a party or a person tries to put down science as merely a theory, they should be able to discard all the technologies and medical treatments that were made possible by science to exist, as well as basically every ideas incoherent to their beliefs.

Why I am proud of my parents

Going through some wordpress blogs on different phases of life reminded me of my childhood. During our school days, especially during teenage, there used to be a phase when no one used to talk about their parents. It was as though all of us had grown up all of a sudden, we didn’t need family anymore and if anyone mentioned their parents too much or showed appreciation towards them, then it implied that they were still a kid (which of course was so shameful). However, quite recently, I’m not sure why, it seems like there is a new trend, especially among facebook users, to copy and paste some cheesy lines on how great certain relationships are. The too-much-nonsense rants often put me off, leading me to let some things and relationships in my life go unappreciated. To me it seems like people often go to two extreme ends – either put their relationships (parents) in pedestal by associating all the great virtues that could ever exist to them, or constantly maligning and treating their parents with much disrespect.

Sometimes, I still give my parents hard time for some of the things that they said, or they did while bringing us (me and my sister) up. However, I equally appreciate so many decisions they made that were superior to the decisions made by other parents given the circumstances then. One particular decision that I now appreciate, is my parents (esp. dad) limiting us from watching TV too much. During those days, it was pretty painful that I didn’t know as many bollywood stars as my friends did, or I didn’t know so and so star was married to so and so person, or what certain WWE wrestler did. Not watching the same things as my friends did even made me an outcaste sometimes. Although my reasons are not completely in sync with his reasoning – “TV distracts you from studies”, I now whole heartedly appreciate his decision. Not to be disrespectful to anyone or any culture, but the bollywood movies and the programs that kids our age watched then were full of rampant rapes, and violence. What if sex was a taboo in our culture? Rape scenes and violent murders were such a commonplace in the movies. It’s as though people were deriving pleasure through sensationalizing rapes and violence. When I see young women from my country still opting to live a degrading life, I sometimes question if exposure to such image so early in their life played a role in them accepting whatever came their way and suppressing their self-esteem. I know that one such thing alone is not enough in shaping a person. However, like they say, children are so docile; they can be easily molded just like clay.

Though limiting us from watching TV was mostly our dad’s sector, our mom played a huge role in making me and my sister strong, independent women. Partly learning from our parents, and partly because of our innate nature, we became rebel so soon in our lives that our views started becoming too radical even for our parents. But thanks to our parents, we are not going to listen to them even, unless we feel like they are right. When I was about four years old, I still remember my mom implanting in our head, the importance of education in ones lives, how our society doesn’t focus on education for women, how nail polish, makeup, bangles were merely a distraction for women to go further in lives. While our friends were dancing with colored toes, red lips, and fancy hairdo, me and my sisters played warriors and rock stars. I am not saying dancing is inferior to other kinds of strength based professions. But my point here is only to emphasize on how little girls are often not given options to go out of the stereotypical zone of “what women like”. Not every woman like makeup and dolls. Surely, I and my sister did not, and I thank our parents for telling us that there was an option for us to march outside of the traditional role of women.

Not a lot of other parents were as understanding as our parents. I still recall other people- including some of my school teachers-telling me to ask my parents to give me a baby brother. Sons are considered a gateway to heaven in traditional Hindu society. Our parents chose to not have a third baby after me and my sister were born, which in itself was not too common during that time. On top of that, while we were teens, our mom often told us not to walk away with head down if a guy or a group of guys were teasing us. We were already so willful and courageous by then that we wouldn’t have done it anyway irrespective of our mom’s suggestion. However, it just goes to saying that our mom always wanted us to be not only educated, but willful, strong, courageous and someone with self-worth. It’s the same reason that even now, I discuss with my mom how some traditional rituals practiced in Nepal especially during weddings etc. are so disrespectful to women, and our dad chimes in.

While growing up, me and my sister had really short hair, and not surprisingly, we (especially I) got bullied for that. The more I got bullied, the stronger it made me. Even those days when I really didn’t want short hair, I still decided to chop it off, because I had to defy their force. To the bullies I always had an answer, “it’s not your strength, your weakness, your hairstyle that defines womanhood, rather it’s your reproductive organs that do”. Now that I’ve grown up, and actually learnt more about human sexuality, this definition needs even more touch-up in order to include transvestites as well. However, the idea behind my statement still remains intact. Being a woman is just like being a man or being an Asian, or being an American, we come in just as many varieties as any of these other categories do.

Now that I’ve grown up, I can have better appreciation for the things that our parents chose for us while growing up. I don’t want to paint an all-white picture here. There were several mistakes that my parents made as well while bringing us up just like any other parents do. Even though I haven’t had a firsthand experience myself, I’m sure that being parent is just like any other experience in life; the title itself doesn’t and shouldn’t warrant unnecessary respect. While praising our parents for their sacrifices and good teachings, why do we have to be unrealistically idealistic, and try to portray them as infallible creatures? Yes, moms are selfish too sometimes. I have seen it. Yes, dads become irritatingly overprotective and interfering too. However, what matters in essence are the lessons they have imparted on you while growing up. Our parents aren’t perfect, yet our parents have played pivotal role in shaping me and my sister to be the people we are today, and the people we always wanted to be. I am sure, I and my sisters aren’t idealistically perfect daughters either, but we have imbibed their principles of lives, and for that I’m sure they are equally as proud of us as we are of them.