The Sweeping Gesture

The sweeping gesture

 

A photograph published on the front page of the English newspaper struck him, as soon he saw it in the morning, while he was waiting for the water to boil on the electric heater made of coil and clay, to make the tea. His children and wife were still sleeping soundly, as the morning was cool due to the mild drizzle that was falling after a night that was restless due to heat. He remembered that when he recently arrived in Kathmandu one almost always had to use a quilt to sleep and the electric fans were rare to be found in homes, but nowadays even air conditioners too are quite common. Apart from the average temperature the buying capacity of the people seems too has increased remarkably. But mostly people waited for the onset of mansoon as there is nothing more permanant to cool them. Today he did not go out to buy milk immediately after he got up, as he did so only twice a week after they bought a brand new –locally assembled- freezer, made by a Korean company.

 

Also his outing in the morning became very brief during summer, to buy the essentials, after he had two full cups of black tea followed by a milk one. He still liked the taste of the milk tea. The heat made bare survival an onerous task, undertaking a physical exercise was out of question for the want of enough motivation and energy, on mostly sultry mornings, following a night full of anxiety about the drinking water, power-cuts, and more recently, the mosquitoes that have become increasingly resistant to repellants and buying and handling something as clumsy (but pragmatic) as net needs an attitude of a different kind.

 

And a work day could be ruined by a suddenly called on strike, when the cadres belonging to different political parties could not agree on something inside a room and come out on the roads to protest by smashing or burning the vehicles of the people on the way to their work. In a recent case the newspapers reported that a couple had a quarrell among them and then came out of their house to stop the traffic in front of it.

One can imagine what happens when a political murder takes place or a crime is presented as politics, which happens frequently here. The last time a women journalist in Janakpur was brutally murdered, who lost her father and brother during the insurgency in the past. She was declared a martyr by the Maoist-led government and paid the compensation of one million rupees, under duress of the street protests and strikes over the country for many days. It later turned out, after police investigations, that her uncle eliminated her through contract killing as she was the sole inheriter of half of the family property, which now the only surviving member of her family-her mother- could claim. But there are chances that she -being childless, old widow - could be declared a witch and burnt alive by the people.

And there are jokes that people are claiming martyrdom for their kins nowadays, who died in a traffic accident or while getting medical treatment in a hospital that also was a research center to avoid taxes. Afterall, we had an anaesthetist, who led many organisations of physicians before he was found to be practicing on fake medical degrees from India and apprehended. By that time he already had practiced for more than a decade and helped the medical council devising policies that rendered the medical graduates from the earstwhile USSR ineligible to practice here unless they took an addition internship of a year. It was one way to push away the competition, however temporarily, for some people.

 

After he came to know of a charming British lady, who had successfully survived a cancer and experimented with different foods and shared information with him about them; who had cheerful manners for a separated lady into the other side of her middle age; for such manners are difficult to imagine in someone in similar situation here, he tried to avoid milk products, though he already was a vegetarian. A culture that causes one to maintain pleasant manners in spite of the rigors and tragedies of the day to day life must have a deeper understanding of human nature. But to match such attitude by behaving similarly is not an easy thing.

 

He also tried to develop a taste for Tofu, purchasing it from a Chinese business man who had already made a fortune out of it, while his local customers and that of foreign expatriate community in Katmandu steadily increased, as was the number of the people he employed at his factory near his apartment, to produce or distribute Tofu – in a tin box attached to their bicycle carriers, covered by a piece of cotton cloth, which resembled the color of it.

 

But his children resented eating of the mostly boiled Tofu, while he too was unsure of the comment of the British lady: that his sense of humor was English, since he had never met a British person before. It was only that he read the English newspapers and books. An English newspaper’s publisher had started to sell the unsold copied as a carry bag, claiming in the ad in the same newspaper that it was friendlier to the environment than the plastic ones. But there were more English newspapers entering in the market.

 

To him the things at the Tofu factory appeared not so clean, while the people handled it with naked and at times unwashed hands. And there were the crows waiting on the nearby trees, to scavenge on the uncovered, unattended caked of it, leaving them looking battered and ugly after they were chased away, with their claws and beaks. He nowadays rarely bought Tofu and instead focused on consuming more vegetables and fruits, though the newspapers continued to report that Tofu provided a protein that also kills the appetite longer than any other. Avoiding newspaper-wisdom could make one think that one had outgrown it too, without having to regret it, as it may seem. But the writers speculate about the perils of an over literate society, if there was one; as it begins speculating about mobile-elbow.  

 

He was seldom exposed to the kind of commercially processed and cooked food in his younger days, which have become so popular now. More and more people boasted about eating them out, tacitly hinting at their improving financial conditions at the same time. But he remained queasy about the idea and seldom took his family to eat out, and the ready to eat food he bought home, if at all, was very basic. He was only confident of the food prepared at home by his wife that he himself washed at times, or helped in preparing it.

 

To eat out was an excitement that left him unenthusiastic; more so to discuss the food one had the previous day or at a restaurant. There must be something more to the modern enlightened times than the food eaten either in a place playing deafening music, where the people have to shout to make a conversation, or in a crowd where strangers might be staring at you, while you take your chance to stare back. It must be the alcohol or drugs that make people unable to guess where they are, and for what they are. Or possibly they also look for a mate or try to socialise while they are also eating. To him eating was mostly a private and silent affair.

 

He met the British lady less often, for he became doubtful if he was being patronized by her, though their conversation seldom resulted in a difference. She actually dealt with him carefully and openly. It was her sympathy to his talks that startled him; which he thought deserved attention instead. 

 

Electric heater he started using when the supply of cooking gas became extremely unpredictable due to strikes of different hues and wild fluctuation in its International prices. Though, domestically, they mostly jumped up, before they came down slightly to make a bigger jump once again. Then there were the reports of underweighted gas cylinders sold in the market by the private companies.

 

Using electric power freed him of a great anxiety – mainly for its predictability of availability- and the tyranny of the traders, with an additional consolation that the money went to a government authority instead of a distant company in an Arabian country. But this authority charged the highest per unit in the world and was said to be benefiting many highly placed officials personally, while negotiating the production and distribution of power. And during winter, when the water dries up in the rivers fed by Himalayan glaciers, which produced the power, there is load shedding up to eighteen hours a day; he and his wife had to wake up by 3 am to make the meal ready for their children on certain days, as the school started at 9 am. The communist government that promised to build a diesel power plant as a back up could not last in power a year.

 

Presently, he read the caption below the photograph on the front of the newspaper: That the brand new Prime Minister was addressing a gathering of the people in a rural part of the country, which is not yet connected by roads, after he landed into it through a military helicopter. It was intriguing that the PM, otherwise known for his modesty and said to be a tenacious reader of books, had his both arms spread wide in the air, as if he was about to embrace some one, or take off finally into the air; and his mouth was open. Surely he was making a sweeping remark or claim in front of his mostly peasant audience; who look increasing indifferent to the things politicians tell them though they come to such gathering in ever larger numbers. Then he saw more to discover that the PM’s wife too was sitting among the people on the stage, who were either security officials or district level bureaucrats.

 

And he had a clue. That the incumbent PM, who was a bank clerk before he joined politics, was trying to impress his wife with his gesture more than anyone else. She on her own was a senior bureaucrat. And the incumbent PM, on several instances, if one recalled his TV interviews, had given her credit for earning their family a livelihood and building a not so insignificant building in the capital city, when one enquired him about what makes him be there. Afterall, it was only now that he found a use for the national dress he prepared several years ago, for the oath taking ceremony of the PM, and was repeatedly defied in becoming one, due to the continuously shifting political alliances among the parties. In the meanwhile a person with scant regard for the national dress and the political correctness it imposed became the PM in his suit and black Nepali cap, and the former King went abroad in a suit and tie and no cap.

 

As per the news reports he read, though the incumbent PM too belongs to a communist party, there are few more moderate politicians than him around. It was also reported that he has recently, after he became a Pm, started undertaking the Hindu rituals that he had renounced earlier; on the death of his mother. He was a consensus candidate when it all had really become very vexatious and precarious in politics.

 

Since it is Nepal, he thought, a PM here does not have wild parties with a girl a quarter his age or try to publicly flatter his fourth wife who also was a model. A modest person, who probably was mostly got lectured by his wife for making not much of an uncertain profession, finally got a chance to make a point to her in public. And he did it with that sweeping gesture. The eloquent speaker of present times, who writes as well, the current US President’s rhetoric too achieve soaring heights, when his wife is in the audience, though the critics argue that he has yet to say a memorable line. Also, that, their marriage was, reportedly, in peril, when the career of Obama was not going anywhere in the meanwhile.

 

Like him, other newspaper readers might not have missed the point, he also thought.      

 

 

 

June 14, 2009.

Oh My Car!

 

 

I thought I was the only one

who owned and drove my car:

The symbol of finally having arrived,

of a middle class.

I found the whole economy and the system

riding on my shoulders,

while I rode my car.

They appeared collapsing like a house of cards,

When I decided to give up my car.

Oh my car!

Now everybody is coming out to help me

keep on driving my car.

Oh my car!

The jobs, elections and sexy models;

and the endless news hours will be lost,

If I lose my car.

Oh my car!

Nik Korpon Review

www.nikkorpon.com

The Work of Nik is available at www.outsiderwriters.org , a remarkable literary web site organised by a few vosionary  editors and contributors; among others.

City Women and the Ghost Writer

I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve never been to Nepal or India. I’ve never trekked through the mountains or eaten curry for a few rupees or bathed in the small river behind my house. Damn you, Krishna Bhatt, for confusing my already easily distracted and malleable mind!

City Women and the Ghost Writer collects observations and idiosyncrasies of Nepalese and Indian culture like an entomologist collects exoskeletons. Like a bug doctor, it examines these cultures with a neutral, sometimes detached, affect, but its fondness for the subject is evident. It floats through six-hut villages, over rivers crisscrossed with cattle, through the alleys of cities packed with village ex-pats scraping for a better life, and occasionally peeks its head up in a foreign country, a smug smile etched across its face.

Krishna Bhatt oscillates between nostalgic spectator, societal psychologist, and purveyor of scathing rants. For most of the book, an assortment of vignettes, (fictional?) short stories and musings, he relays everything with such an evenhanded, unexpressive tone that’s so voyeuristic, you almost feel guilty for intruding.

 

In Desires, a father toils for years in order to start a hotel, hoping to pass the business along to his sons. He begins: ‘I never thought my son would dump me into this hotel at my age, when I have broken my leg[…] I thought he was expanding the business, when he started building this hotel, but like other works he does, this too he left incomplete.’ Which pretty much sets the tone.

In Terminated Abortion, a pregnant woman is given an ultimatum by her family to kill the child or be excommunicated. She’s already has too many daughters, and the ultrasound is, well, less than promising. Her husband teeters between his unborn child and the security of her wealthy family. Then the story takes an unexpected turn…

Bhatt mixes rants and musings with the vignettes, to a surprising effect. While the stories remain neutral, there’s still a subtle hopefulness there, just barely. Or maybe it depends on your mood while reading. But these other pieces lend such a frustrated tint to the overall book that it causes you to reevaluate your entire perception of the book.

At times, they’re humorous, as if he has enough time and/or money to get so worked up over people underlining passages in the Hornsby-esque Underlining Borrorwed Books Overruled! (when only a few pages previous, the couple contemplates abortion.) Other times, he’s contemplative, ruminating on the relationship between reader and author. Sometimes he’s sarcastic, wondering why English has become the lingua franca, then relaying an incident with a friend who ‘does not purchase the [English language] newspaper to read, but to put it on the seat of his bike’ when it rains. The friend suggests that Bhatt do the same. He becomes outright furious as well, railing against the biased media and fellow countrymen whose concept of success is being able to move to another country.

Bhatt never resorts to yellow journalism. Even when angry and offended, he writes in measured sentences that are more or less objective. It draws the reader into his world and allows them to mix alongside the farmers, the scammers, the prostitutes, Brahmans, entrepreneurs, beggars and vendors. It’s the secure voice an accomplished author uses to pull you along, and you never realize he’s done it until you’re already in the heart of Kathmandu.

Bail-out

 

Bail-out me too, friend!

deeper into it I gone.

It was never so bad, you too know

we can’t play it alone.

A Newsless life

Do not tell me what the news is

I do not want to spoil my day.

Miserable and unsurprising;

and I keep them at bay.

So close yet so far

It was just half past eight in the morning and he was about to approach the closed down cement factory of Chovar. Everyday, earlier, he started from his home around eight am to walk to reach his office on time, when it was at Kalimati. But these days the trading wing, in which he was appointed, of his company has shifted to the New Baneshwor, making him to start earlier by at least one hour. Before he also used a bicycle, but nowadays he had stopped doing so, as he found riding bicycle in the ever busier growing traffic in the narrow roads of the city denied him the opportunity to observe things around.

He stared into the faces for sometime while approaching them on the way. But on coming nearer, he pretended looking elsewhere, particularly if it was a pretty woman. The coming across of so many young beautiful faces everyday, either way, some of them of young college-girls in their distinctive uniforms, at times with a very small skirt revealing the thighs, made him think that his journey was worthwhile. He marveled at how the fashion keeps on changing for those girls and their schools.

He could have stayed back home and worked in the fields to grow vegetables to earn a better money than the salary he was getting. But coming to the city to work at an office had its charm that he could show off to his fellow villagers. To him the city and his village were two different worlds, so close yet so far.

As his daughters grew up he found them also growing shier to discuss a matter with him. They preferred to be mostly in the company of their mother when they were at home. And his wife too was often busy with household work like picking green vegetables -an exercise that took hours- to cook, when they were alone. He grew enraged at times and thought she was deliberately ignoring him. Then he recalled that she had stopped having her monthly periods a few years ago. He often asked her to instead cook other vegetables that could be directly washed and cooked. But she continued to give most of her mornings to picking green vegetables, like the shoots of pumpkin, in the kitchen, while he cursed in his heart the radio ads that promoted such foods that they claimed were rich in vitamin A, by their female announcer; in their melodious, flattering voices; before he left for his office.

It was a different matter that during winter he left or returned home while it was almost dark. He could have also used a bus, saving him two hours time one way. But he found that it was always very crowded during office hours and went around with its roof full of passengers. There also happened a few accidents claiming many lives of the people who used those buses. So unless there was a pressing need or hurry, like some engagement at home, he preferred to walk to his job. Earlier he also had more time to spend with his family or friends, as the office remained closed for two days a week. But the new Indian manger of it reduced the weekly holidays to only one, on Saturdays, arguing that a trading company must remain open to do the business. He felt no qualms about it.

His job earlier was of a peon, and he either prepared tea for the staff at the office after cleaning the cups or took the letters from his office to different offices of the other trading companies. During the next few years he learnt to use a few words in English, practicing them over phone while the lady receptionist, who was short in height and wore dresses that could barely contain her big breasts, was away for some reason, as she often was,  from her desk. Seeing his initiative the manager did not hire another receptionist – as he had found that the trained ones were mostly women, who demanded a higher salary and left job on even a slight pretext- when the previous one left and instead asked him to take up the job, with a little increase in his salary.

He took it with pleasure, as he no more was expected to prepare tea or do the washings at the office, for which there was another employee now. He, instead, wearing a tie and coat, sat behind the desk and spoke over phone in whatever English he could manage, before he switched to the local language. There were other jobs of file keeping or looking after the delivery of letters through the peon. For him, it was a bonus to flaunt his coat and tie to his villagers, who were mostly peasants.

Walking past the factory at Chovar he recalled that it had a cloud of dust near it when it operated till a few years ago. The dust that settled on the houses, trees and crops in the fields in the locality and on the nearby hills, turning everything into a same gray-white color, if one looked at it from a distance. Only during monsoon the dust was washed to reveal the different colors of crops, hills and the forest in it. It was actually the activism of the people living in the villages near it, in collaboration with some people from an NGO in Kathmandu, working about the environmental issues – that the government had to close down this factory it owned, to let the Indian made cement fulfill the soaring demand.

But the pollution did not improve much, and one could see the multitude of the brick kilns, belching a thick black smoke in the air, just on the nearby hillock facing the closed down cement factory. The Kathmandu valley was said to be surrounded by these brick kilns on all the sides that at times used worn out automobile tires as a fuel, in stead of the expensive coal or diesel, to make the already bad air even worse. But they were privately owned by people with connection in higher places, so no amount of activism could close them.

It was the frenzy of construction of buildings in Kathmandu that created the demand for these industries. One could see the scar in the hillock above Tokha in the north, a little higher than rest of the Kathamndu valley. It was caused by bulldozers to create a housing colony, one came to know. Due the escalating insurgency in the hinterland in the past, which almost appeared like consuming the whole country at that time, before it was arrested by a ceasefire between the rebels and the government, which finally firmly placed the rebels into the government with a popular mandate; and the daily deteriorating security situation along the border in the south nowadays; as the conflict has not really ended and has been increasingly turning ethnical instead of ideological, though the King only has been ousted from the scene as a major player – the people are pouring into Kathamndu in ever greater numbers, putting every available resource under a great stress. Also, Kathamndu offered everybody an opportunity, or so the people thought, who migrated here.

But his village was still quite far from all this madness, he thought. Coming to the city after walking for almost three hours and return similarly in the evenings made him think as if he was just a visitor to it, though there were signs that the city was encroaching into the villages nearby at an alarming pace. There were brand new posh bungalows with solar heaters and a shining automobile in the porticos, next to the cow shed of a dilapidated ancient house in a village in the periphery of Kathmandu.

After reaching the bend of the road at Chovar his climb was over and he turned to look at the Kathmandu Valley into which now he had to descend. He passed the short distance for which the wide, well pitched road is covered by tall pine trees on both the sides and there were no houses - his brisk steps and well exercised slim body defying his middle age betrayed by the gray hairs above his ears. The cool shade in this area and the sense of being alone attarcted people to it, and the young couples could be seen sitting close to each other on the side of the road while their automobile was parked next to them. But some automoblies had no couples near them and it appeared as if they have gone deeper into the woods, to explore the things. More recently, to his dismay, he saw a few women, with revealing dresses and an over done make-up, loitering around in that area and staring or smiling at the alone man like him passing. He thought they were possibly the prostitutes, and took particular care to not return their smiles. After all the ring road was just a short distance away, from where the city, with all its absurdities begun. 

Before reaching the Kirtipur University area, he noticed the newly constructed Buddhist monastery that had a tall standing statue of Buddha with a raised right hand and the index finger, which was contrary to the image he had of Buddha in his mind: The one sitting calmly and meditating with closed eyes. He recalled that the Kirtipur university was close for the past fortnight as the people were demanding the compensation for the land that the government took over almost four decades back, to establish the university. They have now realized that the cost of land had grown significantly over the years and were demanding to be compensated at the current rate of the land. He crossed the bridge at Balkhu on reaching the ring road. The stinking thick black liquid barely moving below made him hold his breath for a moment. He recalled that in his childhood days during summer he came to this river to swim or to fish, which was difficult to imagine now.

He shortly approached Kalimati, the area from where the tall buildings on either side announced that the main city has begun. He stopped in front of an old-looking, not so tall building and called out for someone he knew. Actually this person was a keeper of grocery shop, from where he occasionally purchased some goods while returning home. But the shop keeper has closed to operate since this autumn after the festivals, when a fortune-teller told him that he is running through a bad time and should stop running his shop. Or so he told his wife, who insisted on keep on running the shop - he thought- to keep away from a shop that was very cold during the winter, as the tall buildings on the other side prevented any sun to reach it. The shop-keeper had hinted it to him a few times that with years passed,  shop running has become an increasingly competitive and tedious job mainly due to the competitors who had migrated into the city. He was simply unable to work as harder and longer as the migrant shop-keepers next to him.

The shop-keeper just wanted to pass the winter playing Ludo or chess with his friends on the pavement in the adjoining street that was warm due to the sun it received all the day, while staring at the passing women, he guessed. His wife peeped out of the window, on hearing him calling, and informed him that the shopkeeper was away to purchase vegetables at the nearby Kalimati wholesale market. She recognized him and invited him to come upstairs and have a cup of tea, while her two young children too started looking at him from another window.

She threw the key of the lock of the door adjoining the closed shutters, of the shop; that led to stairs leading to upper, low, three floors with two rooms, a small kitchen and bath in each. The key was tied to a long cord whose one end always remained with the thrower. He was expected to open the door with the key and close the door behind him, while she pulled back the cord tied to key, from the third-storey window, out of which she was almost shouting to be heard over the roar of the vehicles plying the road next to the pavement.

He shouted back declining the invitation, after thinking for a while, and instead asked when the shop would open. She told that the fortune teller has asked her husband to return after six months with his birth chart, to let him see when the auspicious time would commence for him. He, on hearing it, gave an ironical laugh that colleted his pointed upper lip on the front, making his pointed face look more so, revealing the gap in his front teeth, and the unevenly arranged lower ones, which were black towards the bottom, due to the tobacco he chewed; under his small forehead and thick graying curly hairs. There also was some defect with his eyes as they never appeared to look at the same thing at any time, though ever shifting they were. The wife of the shop keeper looked confused finding him laughing and asked him to visit later if he wanted to meet her husband, while she left the window.

He knew that the couple could easily afford closing down the shop altogether by giving it on hire and increasing the rent of the tenants, who were migrants families mostly; who occupied most of the rooms of the house of his shop keeper friend. He wondered if his friend would arrange the fortune-teller to advise him to keep the shop closed during the summer too, as it was not cool either at the shop in the summer, when the sun directly came over head and the tall buildings on the other side provided no protection. But then there was his wife, who wanted to keep him engaged, however unproductively- he thought.

He walked on and avoided with difficulty on the way a shop-keeper, who had come out of his shop and standing on the pavement was trying to attract customers, shouting about his goods, pointing towards his shop, which was very narrow and dark due to load shedding; beyond the goods that were spread outside, occupying almost half of the space of the pavement in front of it. His efforts to speak in Nepali betrayed that he was from India - while his neighboring local shopkeepers quiety looked on from inside their shops, which was dark and cold. 

On reaching office, after walking all the way through Teku and Thapthali, he found that the new peon was already serving the morning tea. He too received his cup and said to the peon: ‘I may have other vices but I never drink alcohol or had a relationship with any other woman except my wife.’ It was loud enough for everybody in the office to listen. But nobody even smiled. They knew it was his way to start a conversation. Which nobody wanted so early in the office, where almost every opening of talks deteriorated into discussing politics - into which everybody freely expresssed his/ her opinion irrespective of the hierarchy in the office - and culminated in loud arguments and consequent resentment and sulking.

The young new peon was already a college graduate and wanted to join a government job to make a career. It was only for the time being that he was a peon at this office – he has told everybody – also that he had no intentions of staying here longer, even if he got a promotion on account of him being a graduate- that nobody in the office was, except the manager. This saved him a lot of pushing and shoving by the senior staff, including the manager, which he would have been inevitably subjected to otherwise, for being on the lowest in the hierarchy of the office. He also often said that his final aim always was to write using the red-ink in a government office, which the clerks or higher staff used to do while putting a comment on an application or filling up the ledgers and files in a government’s office. Red ink was the symbol of the power of a bureaucrat, which has attracted the young graduate man from a village to strive for the job, while working as a peon in a trading company. He was working hard to pass the civil service examinations – everybody knew.

The peon just ignored his litany about his vice and virtues. The telephone rang and he lifted it asking the peon to also bring him a glass of water, before he used his English to receive the call. There were other things in the office needing his attention, like filing the papers or writing address on envelops to be sent away. He finished his tea and took out a pouch of tobacco from his pocket to fill the lower lip, before he started to deal with the work in front. It was already lunch time by the time he finished his pending work, receiving calls continuously in between, making the other staff smile at the English he used. He also kept the young peon busy in the meanwhile, by asking for a glass of water often, as he washed his mouth everytime he refreshed the supply of tobacco under his lower lip - who sat in front of him when he became free after handing over the files or papers to the other staff, separated by his counter-cum-desk and a little space for the traffic of the people using toilet next to the reception, on one of the two sofas meant for the visitors, rubbing the nails of his fingers of both the hands, except the thumbs, after making a half-fist of both of them. It was actually a spiritual Yoga master, who is quite popular nowadays for promoting the Yoga and remains in headlines for also making a statement about politics too; who also blinked one of his eyes whenever he spoke, had told that this exercise of rubbing nails of hands will arrest the receding hairline to his followers;  not only that some people believed, stretching the teaching further, that it could treat the baldness. And you found the idle people rubbing their nails everywhere you went.

He remembered that he had a special job to do today that was actually assigned him by his mother, who survived the death of his father by almost a decade now. Earlier, she worked at the government school in their village in a cleaner’s position, but recently she had retired with a pension. The widowhood she took up very easily and apart from an occasional reference to his father, there was not much in her manners to suggest that she missed any thing too much. She never forgot to color her white hairs and maintain a presentable appearance for an occasion. This habit of his mother he found very charming. She almost totally controlled their joint family and was considered, by the people at his village, to be a witty and clever woman.

He and his brother’s family had two daughters each, until very recently, all living as a joint family along with his mother in the inherited ancesteral house. He was happy to have two teen-aged daughters and was looking for suitable grooms to marry them off in the near future. The wife of his brother has given birth to a son recently, to the great delight of his mother. She was happy that they now had a boy who will take ahead the name of the family after the girls were married off, she told.

She grew more ambitious about her newly born grandson with each passing day. On the eleventh day of his birth he was given a name by their family priest. It was a few days later the ceremony that the dried part of his navel dropped. The dropped navel was supposed to be buried under the ground near their house. But today morning his mother has given it to him, packed in a paper, before she asked him to take it to his cousin, who worked as a gardener at the Prime Minister’s residence at Baluwatar. His mother wanted that the dropped part of the navel of her grandson to be buried in the premises of the PM’s residence, in stead of any place in their village.

He thought lightly of it in the beginning, and laughed when his mother explained him the matter in whispers. This expression of ambition on her part, to pitch her newly-born grandson as a possible candidate to occupy the PM’s residence in the future; if this act of the burial of his recently dropped navel there made him somehow likely to become one; something widely believed to work in the society, appeared a funny idea to him. But his mother whispered in a more subdued manner and tried to look more conspiratorial, to convince him that she was serious. He did not have the courage to disobey her. So he stopped laughing a laugh that left him looking so mischievious, and whispered back to her that he would do as she told.

He called his cousin over his mobile, who replied –‘ Govinda… Govinda…’ before he made the familiar sound of chewing his toungue. He recalled that his cousin has taken up to a new religious cult nowadays and uttered ‘ Govinda…. Govinda…’, before he hummed a music, between the conversation he had with the people; before he resumed making sounds as if he was chewing his tongue. His habit of making those chewing sounds was there since his childhood, as he could not got rid of it. He said to his cousin that he wanted to meet him and there was an urgent matter to discuss. His cousin asked him to reach the canteen near Baluwatar bus stand by four pm, before he uttered ‘Govinda… Govinda…’ and hummed the music.

He took the permission of his manager and left the office soon after the lunch time. He went walking towards Baluwatar thinking that he must not linger long there, though his cousin will certainly force him to have a cup of tea and a little snack. He did not want to get late to return home, as it was dark by six pm in winter. He reached the canteen near Baluwatar bus stop, next to the PM’s residence, where he found his cousin waiting for him.

He was greeted with ‘Goninda….Govinda…’ by his cousin, and the following humming and the sound of tongue chewing. Soon they hurriedly exchanged the news about their families between the sips of tea they had in the canteen, along with a Selroti and a Samosa. He then told in whispers the real purpose of his visit, to his cousin. On hearing it his cousin looked startled and forgot for a moment chewing his tongue. Before he could say something, he handed over to him the paper wrapping the dropped navel of his nephew. His cousin, though still looked bewildered, took it without saying anything; and from his expression later displayed that the job will be done. After all it was a family matter.

Then his cousin talked about the new PM, who, he said, came to the garden on holidays and inquired about the flowers. He also mentioned that the new PM had taken an interest to the religious cult he was following. He also asserted that his intention was to finally convert the PM, who, otherwise, was reticent in public about his religious orientation in the newly secular declared nation, and belonged to a communist party.

On parting his cousin uttered ‘Govinda… Govinda’, and he proceeded to Lazimpat and Newroad area, as today his route to return home was a little different. He was worried if he could catch the bus today, as it was already getting dark.

Worst Fears coming true

 

Having wished the success of WTO talks, This blogger was actually worried that they may fail precisely because of the lack of understanding among the people involved in the negotiations, about the true importance of the success of WTO talks. But what could have been avoided happened and the talks failed.
Subsequently, I also speculated about the impact of this failure not only for the poor world but also the rich one, and said if the later falls into recession.
Once again My frears came true and the industries I pointed out precisely suffered the most.

 

But, any way, every crisis is also an opportunity. But only if the politicians allow it to be. For one who believes in the power of market forces to balance the things on a more even keel, the predilection of the politicians to favor one or another industry is always a big fear. As the Bush administration has failed to offer bailing out the Auto industery with 34 billion Dollars (though it has bailed out the financial sector with 700 billion dollars) the executive of whom came in private executive jets asking for the public money to improve the economy, and not only the industry they belonged , as per them. These people are asking one to stay tuned; as the Predident elect Obama has given hints to arrange the money after he comes to occupy the White House.

It is a relief that Germany is producing half of its power needs from the renewable sources, though it is also producing one of the most oil consuming personal automobiles, whose inventories are piling up on the American coasts. There are chances that a new economy will be established that does not depend on manufacturing even bigger personal autos and digs even deeper for the oil. That age is possibly over and the development will have a changed meaning now.

During these turbulent days we have Bush going out asking What the G20 is. And a person who does not know where the Spain is has failed to replace him. But What about Obama? One has to see if the Change has come merely for the reason that American people has voted him into, or it has some greater meaning.

We will not have to wait long to find out.

The coming of age

 The coming of age                                          

                                                

It was the first Dashain festival of the country after the political developments made it a republic last spring. But the celebrations that took place before, which culminated into the festival Dashain itself on the tenth day, did not reflect that anything else has changed. If one forgot that the king was no more in his palace and a President was there, elected after a lot of messy behind the scene political maneuvering among the parties, the new Nepal of political slogans seemed as old as ever.

 

People went to the temples in crowds during the Sorha Shrads (the sixteen days of day-fasting) and offered prayers on the moonless day at the end of it, in memory of their parents or ancestors. Then the ten days to the Dashain begun and the festivities only gathered an ever-increasing momentum. The kite fights in the clear sky of autumn over Kathmandu and the loud shouts of ‘Changa-chet’ of children on the roof tops, when a kite was drowned by another, was as enthusiastic as ever. There were equally crowded bazaars of city, by the people doing the shopping before it too was closed for the festivals.

 

But for some it was not so cheerful, particularly those living to the east of Koshi River, as they could not go home. The river caused a tremendous loss of life and property in both India and Nepal only a few weeks back, when a dike directing it on the course leading to the dam and bridge a few miles down-stream collapsed due to poor maintenance and the river returned to its old, original course of nearly sixty years back. It washed away many villages and lives during the few days, along with many miles of road. Many thriving bigger towns – though on higher grounds – came under water for many days, as the rain gods did not relent, and it continued pouring, on a tragedy even so big. No one has been clearly held accountable for this man-made tragedy, which might not have occurred if there was no dike to change the course of the river and a need to maintain it. 

 

May be once again the dike will get constructed, as the water level has receded and the monsoon rain stopped; and the river will return to its artificial course to the bridge. And the people, growing ever so rapidly in numbers, with their short memory, will get tempted to settle down to build a life on the lower land of fertile sedimentary soil of the river bed, over which it is presently flowing. But the poor maintenance or a great amount of rain sometime in the future could cause a tragedy of similar magnitude.

 

Indeed there are flights to reach the important towns of Biratnagar or Bhadrapur directly from Kathmandu that are in the east of Koshi River. Bur for most they are either too expensive or over-booked. One heard that a ferry has started to operate, to carry the people across the river, who once again find a bus on the another side, to continue their journey ahead. But its movement is obstructed routinely by the goons claiming to belong to different political outfits that were often tribal in nature, who consider themselves qualified to tax any commercial activity in the area, no matter how ironical and temporary, which they thought belonged to them. For some people restriction of the movement of goods or people has continued to mean politics, even in the larger world. People, weary of the availability of that ferry after a bus journey of twelve hours, had a little choice but to stay back in the Capital city during Dashain.

 

The chill in the air suggested the winter ahead, though the paddy crop in the small, rare plots of land saved from the frantic construction of buildings in the Kathmandu city, were still not fully yellow to harvest. May be after the Dipawali, the festivals of lights, falling soon after the Dashain, will call for paddy harvesting and the winter will start in earnest.

 

The thought of winter left Sameer a little sad, as it was very cold and humid in Kathmandu, where the morning fog made the vehicular pollution terrible, making his perennial skin allergies and asthma worse. The days became shorter by almost three hours in winter and the activities had to be squeezed together to be accomplished, making the stress of daily life unbearable. And then there was the scarcity of daily necessities, due to an unprecedented migration of people into the Kathmandu city from places all over, one has to be always on the run to arrange the life and work. The mere making a living consumed the energy and time so totally that one felt always at a loss, thinking about the future.  

 

Sameer was born in Janakpur, which lies much lower in the south from Kathmandu, on the warmer lands, where paddy ripens a month before than in Kathmandu, in the great expansion of flat fields between which is the town situated, and went to a college there. He even married to a girl of his caste from another migrant family like his in Janakpur, when he was in his final year at the college, at the insistence of his mother, who wanted to have a grandson as soon as possible. She has understood the life to be an ongoing crisis and something very fragile, where continuing through a newer generation was the most important thing. Both the families though had their roots in Kathmandu.

 

Sameer found a job the same year as his college education was over and he has had a son Mohan. That year he regarded as the luckiest of his life, for he passed the college exams, was blessed with a son and got a job as well, in a branch of a trading company at Birganj. He came home to Janakpur to his family after taking a three hour bus ride from Birganj every Friday evening, and returned similarly on Sundays: the first working day of the week.

 

Birganj was called the gateway to the country, as it accounted for more than half of the total foreign trade of the country, and to get appointed at the custom office in this town, even for a year or two, the government officials paid bribes in millions, it was said. Here this office worked overtime till the mid-night to clear the goods, which also meant that the officials got their share of bribe on it steadily. Otherwise, the government offices of all kinds were known for their inefficiency and absence of the staff. This town was compared only with the Tatopani town: the only point open to China for trade, in the north of Kathmandu, with an equally busy custom office at the border.

 

After a few years Sameer got transferred to Kathmandu from Birganj, where the head office of the company was, at his own request. The thought of living in Kathmandu always charmed him since his childhood days, as a friend of him who lived there returned home to Janakpur during holidays, to tell him, and a few other children in the neighborhood, among whom he was treated like a celebrity; for merely living in Kathmandu; so many fabulous stories of the life in the capital city. He returned to his fascinating life in Kathmandu with his parents and a sister, where his father worked at a government office, after his holidays were over; leaving behind his grandparents at Janakpur.

 

A year later Sameer shifted his family to Kathamndu. And even his mother too left Janakpur to live with them some time later. She felt much comfortable in Kathmandu as she came to know of so many members of her family they had left behind. Some of them have died like her husband and there was a crop of so many youngsters she came to know as her cousins’ grand children. But the welcoming people of her generation in her relation made her feel very much at home in Kathmandu.

 

They belonged to a family of a warrior clan which then ruled the country. But, somehow, for the grand father of Sameer, the power politics transpired in a way that he had to run away to India along with his family and a lot of valuables he could find, to save their lives. Later on, after many years of the death of Sameer’s grandfather, his father decided to leave the Patna town of India, to settle down at Janakpur with his newly wed wife. He came to Kathamndu shortly after arriving at Janakpur, and made up with the rulers of his family, who caused the flight of his father.

 

The old rivalries were forgotten over the years, during which he repeatedly came to Kathmandu to pay his regards to the rulers and his relations; who later offered him some land at Janakpur, pleased with his submissiveness. But soon after this he became sick with malaria and did not survive. It was Sameer’s mother, widowed barely into her middle age, who arranged the education of Sameer and his two sisters; and their marriages later, after they came of age. There was enough land to hire the tenants for cultivation to meet most of their needs. Sameer’s sisters were married into different families in the nearby town of Sarlahi and he found his bride in Janakpur itself.

 

Nowadays no one of their family lived in Janakpur, though Sameer always liked coming back to it. Not only because his in-laws were still there; and he had to collect the harvest or rent from his tenants at the end of every season, but also because it was a town of his childhood days. There were so many fond memories he had of those times in a place he always considered his home. Into his middle age now and a father of a teenaged son Mohan, his enthusiasm to return to Janakpur, at every possible opportunity; and on the very next day of Dashain, looked out of place to his wife and mother.

 

But he had a matching enthusiasm in his son Mohan, to return to Janakpur, for Dashain or other festivals, as he too had passed his childhood there, with the family of his in-laws not so far away. Or Mamaghar, as it is called for a child like Mohan: the house of a maternal uncle. The children’s fascination of their Mamaghar is ever legendry and alive. As soon the school was closed for Dashain, Mohan packed and left for Janakpur alone. But Sameer and his wife had to wait till the next day of Dashain, as they could not leave before they received the ceremonial Tika from his mother and other elderly relations in Kathmandu.

 

This year too it was the same about Dashain: The bonhomie of the festivals all around; and the balmy, pleasant days full of sun shine. People crowded the bazaars, unlike in recent memory,  in incredible numbers and it took a long time for one to get across a street. It may be because of the peace presently prevailing, after the last ceasefire put on hold a very bloody and escalating civil strife – Sameer thought - given the chance the life has a surprising capacity to resume normality. Sameer recently was a little worried for his son Mohan though. As Mohan has failed in the School Leaving Certificate exams of class ten the last spring and was not working hard enough for the same exam he had to take during the next. It was already autumn now, and soon there will be a long winter vacation at his school.

 

Worried, Sameer had arranged for private tuitions of Mohan at home. But the arrival of festivals had again thrown the studies of Mohan into disarray. One day he also saw his son going away on his motorbike with a young girl of his age, while Sameer was waiting to cross the busy New road of Kathmandu. It was one more sign for him to think that his son was drifting away from his studies at a time when he should have concentrated the most. Since Mohan was his only child, he had high hopes from him. But he thought that is how the boys are at that age, thinking of his own younger age.

 

He and his wife received the Tika from his mother at eleven o’clock on the Dashain day: The time that was declared the most auspicious for it by the pandits finally, after initially showing a lot of differences among them for almost a week; which was routinely reported as the main news story of the hourly bulleteins, which offered a nearly defeaning music between the stories - interviewing the pundits live over telephone, on one of those, so many of the FM channels; which seem to fill the time and space of the life here, if with nothing more but loud soundbytes, about the similar issues, after they ran out of discussing politics. The noise that only increased the confusion, keeping the anxious people always guessing about everything. In spite of the display of style and efficiency by the news readers, it was surprising that the news hinted at merely a change of date and seldom anything more.

 

The whole spectacle built up the tempo for this year too, before everything culminated into the arrival of the Dashain day: Which often surprisingly apears to be just another day; and the people appear to respond to the arrival of it so tardily; particularly those who have been raising many expectations around them about the day so vigourously through out.  It appears similar about other festivals too.

 

The duty  of declaring the auspicious time to receive or give Tika till last year was accomplished by the royal priest, though it was no less fiercely contested by the non-royal pundits. Sameer and his wife, after receiving it from Sameer’s mother, went away to meet other relatives to receive tika from elders and give to the younger.

 

By evening they returned home. Sameer watched the news on TV to see how the things went on. He found that the brand new President of the Republic Nepal too offered Tika to the people including a few foreigners –mostly tourists- like the King did till last year. But there were very few people to receive the Tika from him and among the present mostly were from to the political party he belonged to till recently, apart from the high ranking government officials. Instead, the former king, who too gave away Dashain Tika from his personal residence at Maharajganj, had a much larger crowd to receive it. Some people even chanted pro monarchy slogans, though the king is only an ordinary citizen now. In a way Dashain remained also an occasion for the people to measure their power and influence, in spite of the hype of New Nepal, Sameer thought.

 

And there were the scenes of the male buffaloes or goats sacrificed, on the altar of Goddess of destruction:  Kali, by the grounds of the Head Office of Armed Police force at Hulchowk, while the weapons were ritually displayed and offered with Puja. The troops in their shorts and vests were seen slaughtering animals and then running with the bleeding heads away from their jerking bodies, to make the circles of blood around the idol of the goddess. Later, after the ritual was over, the heads of sacrificed animals were arranged like trophies on a stage, in front of the people who slaughtered them, unrecognizable due to the blood on their faces and body; and a few other higher officials, in their crisp neat uniforms, to pose for a photograph. The heads were too many and mostly black in color. This footage of TV news left Sameer excited. He felt the blood rushing all over his body.

 

He recalled it with disgust that a family of other community in their neighborhood slaughtered a cock on the Astami day, without tying its legs and fixing the wings of it into each other, as is needed. And the headless body of it flew and tried to run in front yard of the house: a scene that left the whole family laughing hilariously, while the elders of it were muttering the prayers amidst laughter, to their god of the clan. Everytime the bird hit a wall or a tree in the compound to drop on the ground, spilling the blood, to try to flee again a few seconds later. Thankfully before long it was dead, saving the embarrassment to Sameer, witnessing the scene from the balcony of his apartment. The denying of dignity to an animal slaughtered left him with a bad taste in his mouth. After all they are from a different community, he thought.

 

Next morning Sameer caught the earliest possible bus with his wife and reached Janakpur by lunch time. His in-laws were happy to see them and so was Mohan. The slow pace of Janakpur town life suited Sameer very much. He felt his nerves calming down and a peace descending on him on finding himself among the milieu he found familiar. The leisurely way the people talked to each other and their unhurried manners reassured Sameer and he reminisced for his childhood days.

 

He was tempted to think if he was wasting his time in a job in Kathmandu that was not paying fully even for their livelihood. If he did not have the property at Janakpur to let, his life would have been very difficult – he thought. Now since Mohan too was drifting away from his studies, it occurred to him for a moment, if he should never return to Kathmandu to his penurious job, at which he was subjected to an unbearable tyranny by his supervisor. At times he found himself lost in making those invoices or receipts and settling the disputed claims of his company’s customers. There was little time for him in Kathmandu to follow up with his son Mohan.

 

That evening, feeling very light and happy after these thoughts, he went to meet some of his friends of childhood days in Janakpur. They surprised him with the news that his son Mohan has created a kind of reputation in the town by turning out to be very good at slaughtering a male goat (female goats are mostly spared slaughtering). In fact, after he slaughtered one for the first time, on the seventh day of Dashain called ‘Fulpati’, people discovered that he was so naturally good at it.

 

It never took him more that one strike of Khukari to separate the head away from the body. Nearly every time he struck at the base of the skull to not spoil the meat of the neck. During the week Mohan had slaughtered more than a dozen goats in the neighborhood, as almost every family offered the sacrifice during Dashain. Everybody praised this newly discovered skill of his son Mohan, who got at least a kilogram of meat as a fee for every slaughter he made.

 

Sameer could not help but taking pride in his son Mohan. For it is one of the essential signs of belonging to a warrior caste, to slaughter an animal without any hesitation, and do it neatly. How else one proves that one belonged to the caste of warriors who fought the legendry wars in the past that they won to rule the people. ‘So what if Mohan was not so good at studies,’ his father thought, ‘at least he has shown the signs of coming of age and belonging to the caste and clan that he does.’

 

Sameer also thought: may be not this year, but if Mohan remains poor in studies, he will permanently return to Janakpur with everybody including his mother, in the future. Mohan could go to a college here as well. He had his friends, property and life in Janakpur. They will easily find a bride for Mohan here after a few years and he too can live in peace in Janakpur. If he focused on cultivating the land, the returns would be much better, compensating for the low salary he got out of his hard working job. The life in Kathmandu began to appear unreal and distant to him now.

 

Even if Mohan completes his college education like he himself did, giving away one’s life for a small salary, to raising invoices and collecting payments in a depressing office of a trading company, amid power shedding on a troublesome ancient computer,  supervised by a petulant person, was not what it was all about, Sameer thought.

 

That evening Sameer returned home in a pleasant mood. He thought he knew the other side of it as well, which was not so bad after all. He gave to a bewildered Mohan a thousand rupee note and asked him to buy himself anything he wanted.

 

Oct 11, 2008.

 

 

English: Attitude and language

The skill in English language could give you an attitude that may lead you in conflict situations, particularly when you need to deal with a German or a Japanese person, or someone from Holland. You may try to explain a matter to such a person earnestly in English and s/he may be wondering how could you behave like an Englishman with him: Expecting the treatment an Englishman may command or demand, merely for your ability to speak the language. Also, you may find the situation illuminating on your deficiencies, in spite of your language.
And you use more emphatic and precise English to elaborate your point that may cause more confusion for your interlocutors. As the words you thus speak could make the conversation more complicated for them. Defeating them in English language use is actually not your victory. As they could consider it just a language, though you may feel like boasting using it: about yourself.
Considering your country and the context, the person talking to you may end up feeling pity for you, if not laughing off you. Though he may compliment you for your English, before politely asking if the language is the first at your home. If your answer is yes, and you also told him that; in fact; your children are expected to speak only in English at their school and are reprimanded if they mistakenly use their mother tongue, then there is more ridicule for you in store from that person.
You may get sincere questions, like if books and newspapers are being published in your own language. You may have to answer that they are, but their readers are looked down at, you may add, for their inability to comprehend English. To the following question: how your culture or country may progress when its own language is not held in high esteem at by its people, you may be at a loss.
And you too may end up feeling sorry for the person, unable to understand your problem, and also for his inability to understand your English skills and the consequent attitude of yours.

Collapsed WTO talks : Congratulations!

Congratulations to the caring people that the WTO talks have collapsed finally in Geneva yesterday, though the people were trying to save the face for almost 10 days recently, and for seven years since Doha round. For me they were always doomed. As they are based on the premise that the people do not understand their interests or are represented by venal negotiators.
There is no need to revive these talks as it is not worth it. Instead another forum could be found that genuinely promotes free and ‘Fair’ trade among the nations. The WTO was found to be a forum to promote protectionism and fortify it, instead of it’s declared aim to liberalise the trade.
It is a folly to think that certain countries need to trade more than the others, to reduce their poverty; and that certain countries are doing the charity by promoting ( what they think is ) free trade. Indian negotiators have done well to drop curtains on this unconvincing drama that at times looked like a marshy land of technicalities and jargon, to trap the venal or lesser; enacted by the scholars educated in universities in the EU or the USA, at times as the negotiators or the behind the door consultants. When they are educated and even paid by these countries, through different tacit means, they only end up promoting the interests of their mentors. But for the time being the charade is over in this matter.
If the WTO negotiations had been successful as they were going on, they might have brought in a system resembling with the legal system of Nepal: A system which was designed to punish the political dissidents and prey upon the weak: A system based on that in India: which, in the first place, remains unaltered mostly, since the British colonials left six decades back. Which also is called lawyers’ paradise, as a brigade of law graduates – who are a little more than literate – is employed in it, given its complexity and technicality. And you have the destitute victims dying at a very old age, all their lives and resources consumed by the legal battles that out-live them. And the eminent lawyers and judges making fortunes out of the enterprise.
India found an unlikely ally in China in WTO negotiations: otherwise a strategic rival. These two in combination with the support they will get from developing nations could ensure that the world economy becomes less predatory than hitherto.
The globalization begun a long time before the WTO came into talks and with every day getting an increasing pace. Its failure, if at all, will only have a positive effect on world trade, as WTO appeared wanting to control its pace, which seems no longer possible.
The increasing prices of Petroleum products and food will ensure that the money will continue to go where it is needed. There could be more such trends in future, involving other essentials, entirely on account of the necessity and not the negotiations, to promote the global trade.
The recession hitting the EU and the USA at present will also make sure that the governments will not have disposable cash to give farm subsidies: A few politicians trying to keep their constituency in good humour to keep their hold on power. In the meanwhile countries will be declared Most Favored Nations for their loyalty, and/or will be traded with bilaterally.
Now let us see which countries act to appear as victims out of the collapsed WTO talks.