| forget-me-not |
Posted
on 10-Apr-03 08:41 AM
from the Rising Nepal..i thought you would also like it....
By Nirja Karki
LIKE every other aspiring young girl I too had always wanted to go abroad some day and like many others my first choice for some reason was the US, but then things always don't go the way you want them to, do they? And I had to opt for London instead. Well it so happens that I am in London right now with a student visa that is; in many different ways it is a dream come true.
The process of applying, the anxieties, the fear of whether I would get the visa or not, those sleepless nights and listening to all the many stories of how the counsellor gives the visa, stories that made me wonder whether I would get the visa or not made me all the stronger to believe that I would make it somehow. All those troubles had come to an end. It was finally what I had wanted but then came the most essential part that was leaving, and leaving didn't mean leaving my family, friends or relatives. I was leaving behind everything I grew up with, my country, city and tole as we call it. All the anticipation and buzz of the procedure had made me unaware of this inevitable part of leaving.
Well after I came here initially I liked everything and anything I saw, after all is a huge sea of different faces I had never seen before and at times it can be quite amusing. But ehen it was only a matter of days, a few days when I couldn't eat my regular food, sleep in my regular bed and talk about all the regular things with my family about what I felt, then nothing compared to my own dear home. A lot of you might thing I am being too patriotic for nothing that is. We I am very patriotic when it comes to my country but in this case it is not so.
It's plain and simple, I miss my country every day. Many of us have been through arguments on if everybody leaves the country then what will happen of the country, how will the country function etc. Them we say we are not going forever, of course, I'm coming back, it's just a few years. I was aware of the fact that if there was no youth population in a country then the country wouldn't have a bright future but I chose to leave it because I thought there are so many like me who will want to be here and willingly so. Deep inside, all of us know that it is a crisis after all every third or fourth person we meet desires to go abroad. A lot of excuses used to hurl within me then, sometimes I would blame our government which we so often do for anything and everything, it's almost a disease, sometimes the politicians and sometimes I would think that it is for my country's own good and sometimes I thought it's only me, one like me wouldn't matter. I tried to answer these questions to myself but I knew it was a serious issue, a problem that would show its consequences some day.
'The more frustrated ones say that there is no future in our country then why stay here?? Uff !!!!!! So many things to worry about just as if your personal problems weren't enough for us alone. Still I wanted to go, no matter what. Now that I am here (UK) and experiences teach you a lot, you know!!!
I know that I am not in a position to tell you all not to go abroad and stay in your, or else, our country, I'd make a big fool of myself it I did so. And trust me I know how it feels, I've been through all that, if someone had told me then I know what I'd say but all I want to say is that while you are still there just feel thankful that you're still there.
Folks that is your own country and this isn't. There have been times when I've wished, oh, how I've wished, how it would be to go back just once and be back again. Emails and phone calls were all I had to be in touch. At times I wonder how it will be like to see all my family again and see their faces for real and I can't. It's not so easy to come back, before finishing my degree, you know, then adjusting and going on is just what's left, moving on &putting it right.
|
