It’s the same in the morning. His cell phone starts buzzing soon after he wakes. Or someone turns up on the doorstep of his three-storied house in Kusunti Height, Lalitpur. This affair, which begins early in the morning and continues until he goes to bed, goes on seven days a week.Yogesh Bhattarai, chief of the Kathmandu Valley unit for the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), is facing similar problems. During a 30-minute interview with myrepublica.com, his cell phone rang at least 10 times and two people came to meet him.
“They call me or come to me for everything,” the 41 year-old says. They approach him when they want a promotion or a transfer. They approach him when someone is arrested or if they want funding for some event. And they approach him when they want to enroll someone in a school or university.
“This is frustrating,” says Bhattarai whose cell phone record one day showed 10 hours spent on receiving calls. “People want to use influence and we end up using our precious time on matters that are solely unproductive. It makes us tense and we cannot put our entire focus on work.”
Juggling phone calls and uninvited or invited guests are problems faced by almost all prominent political leaders in the country. People think these politicians can provide solutions to everything, and call or pop up on their doorsteps at any hour of the day. In return, this gives very little time to leaders, already swamped with important meetings and other party obligations, to indulge in any activities they like and want to do.
“Sometimes the day gets so hectic, I can’t even read daily newspapers in peace,” says Pun, CA member and senior leader of United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
The ever-smiling, soft-spoken leader’s favorite leisure activity is reading. And he tries to find some time every day to read at least all Nepali and English dailies, if not books, as has been his habit for a long time.
Even during the decade-long People’s War waged by his party when getting newspapers every day was not possible, he used to ask his friends to get back issues for the previous one or two months in bulk. “That’s how I used to understand the political trend,” says Pun, who also likes to read biographies of prominent international political figures and books on military science. “But now it’s not that easy to find time to read all those.”
One other thing Pun likes to do during his free time is watch football and cricket matches. He doesn’t know when he started watching cricket, but he says he became an avid fan of soccer after the FIFA World Cup of 1990. “(Argentinean star) Maradona was my favorite player at that time,” he says widening the smile on his ever-smiling face. Since then he has watched all World Cup football matches.
“Even during the war, when watching live World Cup matches was not possible, I used to ask my friends to get recorded versions and watch them during my free time,” he says. “But now all I do is keep track of scores through next day’s newspapers.”
Call it whatever you want, but our politicians live a very boring, or rather dumb, life. They don’t have time to go out for dinners or lunches. They don’t have time to go for movies. They don’t have time go on vacation. They don’t have time to watch their favorite television shows. And they do they have time for leisure reading. The list is endless, but in short, they don’t have any surplus time for anything pleasant.
The CPN-UML leader, Bhattarai, for instance, has not even gone on vacation with his wife since their marriage some 14 years ago. Both of them work, which is a problem, and he tries to use it as an excuse. But his better half does not. He confesses he, “has not been able to meet the expectations of my spouse.”
Minendra Rijal, leader of the opposition Nepali Congress, also faces the same problem. But the gravity of his predicament is not as severe as Bhattarai’s. Like Bhattarai’s case, Rijal’s wife also works, so both of them get their own lunch and dinner most of the time. “But she understands my problem,” Rijal says.
Rijal’s days now revolve around meetings and seminars. In the mornings, he attends Constituent Assembly committee meetings. “In order to make my point during these meetings, I have to study a lot and do research on the internet, which is time-consuming,” Rijal says.
After those meetings, he usually meets various national and international delegations or party officials. Sometimes seminars replace these meetings. And in the evenings, he has other commitments like attending official dinner parties, wedding receptions or get-togethers.
“By the end of the day, I find myself moving from one job or commitment to the other, most of which are expected of me as a member of the Nepali Congress,” Rijal says.
Rijal has, however, started sparing two hours for himself every day after viewing a certain piece of television footage.
The video clip, taken on the day Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal responded to queries on the government’s policies and programs in Parliament, showed his cheeks chubbier than that of the PM.
“I’m not joking,” he says. “I seriously looked chubbier than the Prime Minister and that was not very complimenting. I asked myself whether I was gaining weight.”
He immediately enrolled himself in the Radisson Hotel’s health club though at just 71 kg he was not obese. His toil on the treadmill from 6.45 am to 8.45 am every day, has brought his weight down to around 66 kg.
“I’m happy with what I’ve achieved,” he says, quickly adding, “But it also has its own disadvantages.
“It has cut off my relations with morning radio shows. That’s why you don’t hear my early morning interviews on the FM stations frequently.” He’s now thinking of changing the timing.
This paints a picture that Nepali politicians do not have any leisure time. They are forever caught in a ceaseless current of work and commitment, operating like machines without taking any breaks.
But, according to Sarita Giri, chairman of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi), the life you choose depends on the person. “You should know when and where to create a boundary,” says Giri, who does not entertain calls or guests in the morning.“I’ve made that clear to my party members and other people and they respect my privacy,” she says.
During those few early hours she reads newspapers or books. Giri, a self-proclaimed voracious reader is currently reading Obama: A Promise Of Change by David Mendell. She also gives time to herself in the evenings to watch movies. “I recently watched The Reader, The Doubt and Revolutionary Road,” she says.
“I could relate so much with the story of Revolutionary Road. There is so much compromise that one has to make and life is not as it seems. You may seem happy outside but have a miserable life.”
Like Giri, Prakash Chandra Lohani, co-Chairman of the Rastriya Janashakti Party, is also managing to create balance between work and personal life.
“In the morning, I do pranayam, a form of breathing exercise in Yoga, and work on a stationary cycle for at least two hours,” Lohani says.
Prior to that, he starts his day with reading and writing for at least two-and-half hours. “Those are the two things that I like to do the most,” the former finance minister says.
Sometimes during weekends, he also spends quality time with his wife. “We go to Mike’s Breakfast in Naxal or Park Village Resort in Budhanilkantha for breakfast. Both of us like the ambience of those places and they offer privacy,” he says. Sometimes his breakfast drives are replaced with drives to Dhulikhel for lunch. Other times, he goes hiking near Tokha with his friends. “But that’s very rare,” Lohani says.
Once every two years, he makes it a point to take a long vacation. “During those times, I usually go to visit my daughters in the US,” Lohani, a father of three daughters aged 34, 28 and 23, says. “I’m happy that I’ve been a good husband and father.”
He’s also happy that he leads a much regulated life. “Maybe this is the reason I’ve never fallen sick or been admitted to the hospital,” the 64 year-old lawmaker says.
rupak@myrepublica.com
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