We made some significant strides in the last fortnight. The first one being the declaration of election date—something we never thought would happen, at least not so soon—and after quite a gap, finally there was an annual, proper budget announced.
We have been told that election will be held on a certain day in November. The amount of dilly dallying, the endless saga of meetings and more meetings before the final pronouncement of the D-day had sapped every drop of optimism that we Nepalis had. Talking about elections, I am not sure whether you have come across people who for some reason kept insisting that there is simply no end to this tunnel; forget about the light at the end. [break]
It wasn’t until the 11th hour that they decided to go and have their voter identity card made. I don’t blame them. Unlike me, probably the skepticism that they had about whether an election would take place in the first place was pretty strong.
The Yale Herald
I am sure recent visits of super high profile personalities from either side of the country and the messages they shared played an instrumental role. Let’s not go there but it simply reminded me of a visit of the American CEO of my last company who had come here for a day’s visit and spent his day meeting people in his office, telling them what he expected from Nepal office. I am sure things weren’t that different!
Back to elections—frankly, I don’t remember how long it was that I last queued up, voted for revolutionary forces and walked back home saying I had voted for the tree. The reason to lie was simple.
A very close relative was (and still is) an active member of the party, let’s say one of the leaves of this tree, and had even served as a minister. Hence within my family circle it was almost a cardinal sin, an act of dissent, to vote for any other parties.
I am not quite sure but I probably was ‘over-powered’ by the feeling that everyone should be given a chance. As for the retrospection about whether it was a right decision, I am clueless. I am not sure things would have been any different had my choice been different.
Anyway, that day now seems distant.
With the election dates announced, there is certain degree of optimism in the air, albeit still very subdued. However, the very fact that tiny droplets of optimism have begun to appear in an environment filled with billion different pollutant particles, leaves me perplexed. I cannot help think of what we have come to. Elections are nothing but an exercise where one endorses a certain personality due to his/her charisma or because that person is trying to propagate certain ideology. For most parts of the world this is a fairly regular exercise that happens every four or five years.
And what about us? We have been pushed into a situation where we are forced to rejoice and celebrate just the announcement of a poll date. What have we come to!
The other event is equally perplexing. Some finance expert—be it a secretary of state or a minister, depending on which naming convention the country practices—announces the annual budgetary expenses of the country. In the budget speech, the nation highlights its priority areas, areas it wants to improve on, set better targets and goals. This is a normal event in the life of a nation.
However, for us, this exercise is now a completely different proposition. There is nothing normal about it! The headlines in the newspapers the next day summed up the rock-bottom we have hit. There was little ‘analytical’ review of the contents. Rather we were told by eminent economists of this impoverished economy that we should be happy that we now at least have an annual budget. For one more time I cannot help but think: what have we come to!
Something tells me that election this time is going to be relatively violent. God forbid. But what I can confidently state is that should there be any loss of lives we would not be saying this was a horrific event, a complete failure, but instead we will be told not to see things in negative light. We might have lost some lives, but what matters more is we finally managed to pull off this huge event!
On a lighter note, one family I know up close had a big reason to celebrate last week. For almost half a year the family was forced to purchase water from tankers every week. The water supply line that was installed at their home, probably decades ago, had refused to let any water through since last winter. A couple of months ago a new line was installed. Lo and behold, the sight of water dripping through their tap had them in complete disbelief!
I know this story isn’t even worth a mention in a country where just being alive is a struggle. But this is the condition in the country’s capital. We feel as if a huge favor has been done to us when load-shedding is reduced even by an hour.
Hemant Paswan, a close family aide from my maternal side, recently arrived from Malaysia and the delight on his face when I went to pick him up at the airport was worth noticing. Obviously he was happy because he now could share his earnings with his family and story of earnings with his friends in his village in Nawalparasi, but he seemed happier still that all of his three luggage pieces were intact!
Finally, as recently as last week, I was approached by a friend who suggested that probably we should take some time out and contribute our signature to a noble cause, an ongoing campaign that would let Mr. Moon at his New York Office know that Buddha was born in Nepal.
Honestly, I felt like tearing my hair out! From my primary school days to high school, I had no doubt that Buddha was a Nepali. That he was a prince by the name of Siddhartha from the state of Kapilvastu and that he went on to attain nirvana and transform into Lord Buddha.
Did someone recently steal his passport or nationality card for that matter that we are running a campaign? Just for the heck of argument, what if some African newspaper runs a news story saying Dr. Yadav is a president of some remote country someone has never heard of? What would we do? Shouldn’t we just laugh it off! And if the intention is pure, should we not rather focus our energy in making Lumbini better in every possible way than seek cheap publicity? I truly cannot fathom what we have come to.
hiteshkarki@gmail.com
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