Sarthak Byanjankar

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Published On: August 20, 2017 10:54 AM NPT By: Sarthak Byanjankar

I am asleep, just like my government

I am asleep, just like my government

Chaotic and hectic, that’s what my life looks like right now. With project deadlines and a never-ending queue of assessments and viva, I was engulfed with my own problems. And in addition to all this, our project wasn’t being accepted and we had to redo it even when final exams are a week from now. And swamped in it, I donned my blazer, dusted my jeans, polished my shoe and took a look in the mirror for the second time in my engineering life. 
No sooner had I stepped onto the road my polished shoe was soon mud covered. But I persisted. Playing mine-field in the road I traversed my way to the college, but soon a speeding vehicle splashed mud on me ruining my dusted jeans. Add to that, a heavy downpour that always seems to start just as I leave my abode. I cursed under my breath and thought to myself, has it not been a month? The current mayor did promise to rid the city of the dust. Come to think of it, he did get rid of dust, leaving behind puddles of mud and ditches of unknown depths along the roads.
I reached my college only to be disappointed with our report being rejected. Frustrated, I again traced the same path home with the same events unfolding. I thought I must be the unluckiest person in the world. Upon reaching home, I browsed through Facebook in hopes of finding others who too had their proposals rejected. To my disappointment, my college mates had posted group photos and random, exaggerated quotes of joyful four years. 
That’s when I saw the news. Senior Orthopedic Surgeon Dr Govind KC was on a hunger strike for the 11th time. It made me think, why can’t Dr KC be like everyone else? Setup a private clinic, siphon patients from government to his own clinic, charge exuberant fees, prescribe high priced medicines and relish in profit like every other doctor. Why should he care for the poor and voiceless? And then there were other mad ones like him, showing solidarity with Dr KC. 
Ignoring those posts I moved onto Tarai-related news; flooded as each year, with few dozen fatalities and causalities. How stupid can they be? Do they not know the flood strikes every year and every year the government bellows and woos southern neighbor for permission to open its flood gates only to be ignored and disappointed. Do they not know their messiah – the Madhesh based parties -- erupt in flames only in times of infighting and their fire is put out in these floods. 
Surely the Tarai residents could take a vacation in a foreign nation with their family during monsoon every year. Truly, their stupidity in the face of seemingly predictable outcomes amuses me.
At last I concluded that Dr KC’s suffering is his choice and the Tarai resident’s woes are because of their own foolishness. This gave me hope and made me appreciate the life I lead, the intelligence I have of being born in a middle class family based in the capital and of the fact that I can adhere to self-serving interests. Truly I’m blessed, for I am asleep just as the state is.

Sarthak is a student at Pulchowk Engineering College, Pulchowk.

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