Imagine what unemployment, days of bandhs and political stalemate is doing to a nation which already has one of the most damaged economies in Asia. [break]
With the economy in shambles, we also get poignant reminders of laypersons striving to survive alongside fear instilled by valueless violent groups with veils of politics.
Sometime during the year 2000, in Kalaiya, Bara, near the Indian border, we had lives without the internet, computers, mobile phones and iPads. I was a 10-year-old on vacation from school and I recollect VHS and cassette tapes.
Looking back, I think I carried emotional baggage of events which weren´t deliberately suppressed but repressed none the less. I also wasn´t a wizard-kid with insightful thoughts on the society.
Sitting on the couch in Kalaiya while on school vacation, I couldn´t figure out why adults were so engrossed by the news and why dad would pay attention to the 8 o´clock Nepal Television news or the headlines on the radio when there was so much going with premium cable networks like HBO.
I remember my great grandmother who had lived for a solid 100 years, some syringes on an old cupboard, the dusty streets, the cloth shops where my mother spent hours selecting the best sarees, Kalaiya Bazaar with cheap raw vegetables and meat, small shops selling colorful toys, that one shop where you´d get what you wanted- cartridges of video games and shiny hard cricket balls.
There were rickshaws, spicy vegetable curries and puries, ribald A-rated posters of films that wasn´t restricted to any age-grouped audience. I can still recall the Star Lodge - one of the tallest buildings at the time, shops that sold comics or magazines like Nagraj, Champa; , the colored shutters, that marriage ceremony of a rich guy whose name, relation or face I don´t recall but I do remember walking through the night to a party with delicacies and live trumpets.
Cinema halls like “Gupta” and “Janaki” showed new commercial Hindi films back then and papads sold inside the theatres could make anyone salivate.
Besides my vacation homework and some of my relatives, AIDS I guess was the primary cause of fear for a young kid like me. I was really frightened if someone would give me a needle in the dark during the movies! A five rupee Chana Chatpate was abundant and cleaner than what you´d get in Kathmandu now.
There were strange paced family events, pretty fields fit for cultivations, Madhesi people, Maithili phrases, old school tractors and delightful home-made ghee.
The past cannot change but the present can still be altered for much better insightful memories of tomorrow; only this time with some hopeful maturity, clearer mindfulness and simpler perspectives to better the nation´s karma.
The writer is a student currently studying at London School of Economics in the UK.
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