He was a strongly built athletic type of young man from the Tarai, near Janakpur. He was heading for Qatar and became my co-passenger up to Dhaka only. I did not notice him except for a while preparing to sit inside the airplane. After a few minutes into the air, the crew served the food packets. As I ate my share and was drinking water, the fellow passenger offered me his share of cookies and I noticed that the crew had forgotten to give me that very item. He had noticed the missing thing and wanted to share his food with me. I looked at him with admiration for his gesture. A wonderful simplicity!
As I asked him simple questions and listened to him, I wondered how the personal is national and how much sadistically heedless we are. What a decadence of democratic cultures and what loss of promises! I wonder how a young Nepali cannot even live his daily life in a country of simple wonders, the nature in beauteous abundance, and the people who are ready to work!
I also wonder how we complicate things from governance to constitutional writings, from water to electricity, from education to sports. “Why are you going?” I asked. “When I was young in school, I was the fastest runner and still I was not selected for a district level competition. My folk mind thought that the nephew of the minister deserves the seat because he belonged to a famous political family. And then years after when I applied for a seat to study in India, I failed because a more powerful Tarai politician was my competitor’s uncle. Nephews and uncles, my father says, denied the opportunities in the monarchical times. The personal stories of politics are the same.”
“I can write a good English essay. I hesitate while speaking English but that I can overcome soon. My written Nepali is good but I speak with a heavy Tarai accent. I did not get jobs in Nepal. Just before deciding to go for gardening in Qatar, I applied and failed in a police competition.” These were his recent reasons for going abroad.
There is one more reason he said. By now his frustration took over him when he found a guru type co-passenger. I do not know but I can build confidence even in the strangers to share their personal tales with me. After all I am a teacher by sensibility! This is what he said: When I married the girl, it seemed she did not like me, for a few weeks. I was a stranger after all! One day she asked me about what I read. I told her some stories from Jhumpa Lahiri.
Relations gradually changed then on. She joined a plus-two college. We have agreed on one thing, she will complete her education during my absence and I will be a skilled gardener with some money.
I wondered how the personal is national and how much sadistically heedless we are. What a decadence of democratic cultures and what loss of promises! I wonder how a young Nepali cannot even live his daily life in a country of simple wonders, the nature in beauteous abundance, and the people who are ready to work!
“Who is he? Your villager?” “No, he is from Khotang. We met at the airport. I do not know much about him but he is a wonderful person. He cracks jokes all the time. He says if his masters in Qatar do not laugh on hearing his jokes, he will return. He gets upset if people do not laugh on jokes. People do not laugh on hearing jokes in Khotang these days.”
He knew many things about the world, from bin Laden to IPL cricket, from Facebook to Mithila art. The more he unfolded his personal tales, the nation as a failures of political narratives came upon me. He personal issues became national. I understood that anyone who leaves behind him anything personal like memories, aspirations, and beloveds, those are all national valuables. You can go to tilt the garden in a Japanese city, but what is heartrending is on what cost you aestheticize a foreign garden.
I did not dare to ask the Khotang youth, not even looked at him much. I saw him closing his eyes and going to deep sleep. The personal is not his tales but the tales we all share as the people of this nation. Something goes wrong with such individuals, it exposes the crisis of the nation.
“You know what I did to her. I did not want her to conceive.” I looked at him for his very personal narrative. “If she does not conceive, she will be free to leave me if she starts forgetting me after three or four years. She should not be a mother. It will be difficult to leave me then!” I avoided the teary shine in his eyes and looked outside the Dhaka night.
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