Education! Education is for those who don’t have
skills for survival and need to work to meet their daily demands; we protest
articulating our demands to be met in the streets not through skills learned in
the school. Schools after all are shut every now by the teachers themselves
demanding their lavish (not basic needs) be satiated and all the learning you
draw from schools is just “Demand You Rights, rights you inherit as Nepali and
not that you earn through bearing civil responsibility. So schools have since
long have been redundantly incepting ideas of political Bandhs (nothing
creative). It has finally emerged clean from the dearth of Nepalese poverty- A
Cult called Bandh! (Now that’s hip.)
Bandh is a culture deep rooted in the psyche of the youth.
Youths are imparting their rebellious ways/visions upon the silent majority,
creating an aura of fuming pressure cooker in the Nation through bandhs, and
bewildering the national economy and educating the young minds about demanding
like spoilt brats of rich parents (Countries), totally discarding the thing
called national civil responsibility. The political faction is there to look
after these necessities. (Yeah Definitely!!!!) What they voice raucously for is
their demands which they want though they may be unaware what exactly they’ll
do after the demands are met.
(Empathetically- Speaking like them)
Who cares? Let tomorrow think about it before it
comes to us (Nepal). For now, we don’t care about thirst, hunger, pain or
empathy. Who says the economy is suffering? Nothing new! So let it bear some
more excruciation, since we voice for the greater good and we don’t look at the
aggravation culminating our nation, jolting down under woes of faltering
economy, the imminent food shortages and the ominous inflation in daily
consumer goods, we won’t hear more complaints about hungry children or sick
infants or crippled people/economy. The people are resilient to such food
crisis as well, since half of the population has learned to live off single
meal and devoid from the luxuries of lavish cuisines like in many of the
moderately developed or all of the well developed countries. This is how
empathy has grown in the young and fervent minds taking shape of apathy to the
observers outside the pressure cooker.
So what is it that is happening in the nation, what
is the cause of it, where is it leading us and how are they leading us? We have
to know all this about ourselves since even a blind person would want to know
where s/he is going since we are not handicapped and have perfect senses- if
feeling accounted for sense, this perfect sense phrase would be an irony here.
Yet, more importantly, where are the proponents, the strident crowd, propelling
the notion of state restructuring with division done on the basis of caste and
ethnicity? Or are they just similar to the bulls’ herd rampaging through in San
Fermin (Bull Running festival shown famously in the Hindi Movie Zindagi Na
Milegi Dobara’s last scene) on the back of the vision imparted by the visionary
leaders who might have had an undiagnosed case of myopia, metaphorically.
I guess, the nation which is steaming up to the
deadline of Constitution in Nepal, Jestha 14 and the scenes are reminders that
we are indeed being treated royally for wanting some change for better. Well,
we might have been getting something better, a better show to say the least,
something to pass time, watching the news channel as there is a people versus
people war show on TV. Yes, a war indeed, an internal conflict to term it
perfectly, but for what- an uprising for something called caste, ethnicity and
culture? Well we might not be aware that newer unheard castes and ethnicities
have emerged in an outcry seeking a state for them as well, more like a piece
from the Nepal’s (B’day) Constitution Cake. Moreover we have already created
another culture- the bandh culture.
If they don’t get something, then the only option at
their disposal, their arsenal of wit, is Strike!! Nepal Bandh!! Now even kids
have learned that Phrase- Nepal Bandh! One day, our kids in our homes will
protest if their parents don’t buy them a Play Station. They will go on hunger
strikes against parent for reprimanding them for not focusing on creative
studies. Well, no one will be able to complain about such demands and protest.
It is now a culture for Christ Sake!!!! (As you sow, so shall you reap?) And
every culture is for good, isn’t that what we grew up learning in schools and
that Nepal is a country of diversity in demographics, language and culture.
Here’s another culture to add to that list of omnipresent cultures. Now that’s
creativity on part of Nepalese. (I am hearing Loud Applause or is it my
hallucination?)
But where did this culture stem from? Now this is a
part of the deductive reason skills we lack in school or are forgotten to be
taught in school. But wait…. It isn’t even part of our age old curriculum.
(No!!!)
(Empathy lesson again)
We, the bandhkartas, the proponents of this Bandhs,
didn’t learn it; we are but merely cult followers. So who are the trend
setters? I guess this is lamely rhetoric question to ask. The political
parties, of course!!! And the major political parties should take the biggest
credit for being such pioneers. We are, but following the trails of the
footprints left behind by our leaders- our visionaries. They have been talking
about Radical Change for the last 20+ years since the reinstatement of
democracy in 1990.
Now, the vision- of changing Nepal into Switzerland
or USA in 20 years- was portrayed by the then revolutionary cult setters. And
now seeing that they failed in their mission of creating a Utopia in Nepal, at
par with those two exemplary countries, bewildered by their ravenous appetite
for money and power, and overindulgence in riveting acts of corruption, the
herd called people has taken over charge to getting along the mission
themselves and creating a world beyond their imagination. I guess, here
ignorance and years of suppression under fascism and staying aloof from the
world around may have kept them away from knowing the history that Modern
American History dates back a few centuries. Well, no one can blame them or the
country itself neither the usurped Tyrants- Kingdumbs- for not including Modern
American History in the course syllabus. It would be silly unless if the
teachers never bothered to relate those events and teach critical analysis.
Having elaborated about all unnecessary analyses of
my own, I escaped the major issue of concern here, the ones circling the facts-
The News! But I guess, it is elementary and even our neighbors’ kids give Nepal
Bandhs as reasons for not going to school. I guess, no one needs news now,
everyone knows. Since there isn’t much making the headlines except the bandh,
and every event transpiring from Bandh- protests, road blocks, vandalism of
vehicles, shops, businesses, man-handling and much more. They are all news for
now, how entertaining!
-
Written By: Romeo Maskey (रोमियो
मास्के)
Date- May 21, 2012
