Amrit is one of my many disappearing college bosoms. He went to Europe three years ago after his graduation for higher study (what many say they will but few do). He doesn’t have a good job. Nor is he happy to be there. But he has lost all hope about his home. In one of the emails, he had written. “A year ago, I had hope. My home would prosper, something would happen. Now I have lost all hope. Give me one good reason why I should come back.”
“What will I do in Nepal? Recession though, here law and order works. System works."
To me, Amrit appears to be a representative dissenting voice of the Nepali Diaspora in Europe and US. I know many others who feel Amrit’s way. Political pestilence here has frustrated compatriots/expatriates across the pacific. There is no fooling. As Amrit says, they know everything. They know how the constituent assembly has been treated as a playground on which to play so-called “democratic games” to the extent of anarchism. They know how democracy is being taken as a national cake from which to eat to the point of queasy satiety and how it is on the verge of fragmentation. Wait for your turn to grab the chair, that’s all success is about! They know how the home is being stomped, beaten, kicked, shaken, squeezed and whipped. How can they forget Pushpa Kamal Dahal patronizing a murder suspect like Kali Bahadur Kham, a central committee member of his party? Neither they are ignorant of men like Baban Singh, once the most wanted criminal, enjoying one of the most respected designations among the other constituent assembly members.
Many of Europe and America based Nepalis look into the direction of their former home as a forsaken country. Anarchy coupled with political prostitution – when ethics, morality, responsibility, accountability and consistency and system of law and order do not count in politics, isn’t it prostitution? – have repelled them.
The last time Amrit wrote to me, I was stunned by this rather unexpected content of his frustration. I was not prepared to get into terms with it: Mahabir, I have had an ominous vision. I see a house. The house that consumed the sweat and blood of my grandfathers, the house that bears the memories of history, the house that should have been preserved with care decorating and furnishing it time and again but was not, the house that should have been renovated before it began to fall apart and the family went on the verge of a breakdown. Then the house suddenly catches fire and starts burning. The fire that has supposedly started from the kitchen hearth throws flames way up to the attic, the plumes of smoke gush out through the tiles on the roof. Things start falling apart sputtering. Then I see the elder members of the family squabbling over who started it, who should initiate to douse the flames and with what approaches while the young and helpless are writhing and crying in pain for rescue. The fire continues, I am shrouded in the clouds of smoke and I choke.
Then I had an impulse to write him back and say you are exaggerating and overplaying the chaos. But now I realize I would have regretted that decision.
mbpoudyal@yahoo.com
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