| ashu |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 03:19 PM
OK, guys, since Arnico mentioned "sleep deprivation" in that "Harvard and ego" thread, here's a confession: Staying up late to read and write (and occasionally to check emails) has been one habit that has stuck with me since those Cambridge, Mass. days :-)
Oh well.
So, in that awake-and-alert-at-2am spirit, here goes this piece I wrote years
ago -- when I was younger, and certainly more foolish than I am now. :-)
Enjoy this SATIRE for what this is worth.
Please keep in mind that my own views on the subject may have changed siginificantly in the intervening years of growth :-)
A simple copy and paste job from an old issue of The Nepal Digest (TND)
oohi
ashu
sleepless in ktm
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Are You A Part-Time Nepali?
A satire by ashu
Traveling across the United States, one gets to meet many unusual Nepalis who, under usual circumstances, are difficult to find in Nepal.
Brilliant geneticists mapping out chromosomes at Princeton and Berkeley. Self-made millionaires (yes, there are some!) in Ipswich, Massachusetts and Beverly Hills (90210), California, discussing the pros and the cons of retiring early to marbled villas in Hattiban in Pharping, near Cat.Man.Do.
Silver-haired international civil servants, reminiscing their early struggles to get those cushy, tax-exempt and virtually-secure-for-life development-posts at the UN and the World Bank. Extra-friendly medico Daddies and "Americanized" Mommies, tempting eligible Nepali males in the area to court their as-Nepali-as-pepperoni-pizza nubile daughters.
Slick curio-merchants, hawking Bhaktapur-made metal wares as "Made-in-Tibet" exotica at ethnic trade fairs. And, a bunch of fresh-faced recent arrivals, sweating hard for 80 hours a week in some French bakery cafe, wondering why nobody had ever warned in Nepal that lives in the US would not be as effortless and glamorous as those led by the cast of The Bold And The Beautiful.
But, by far, the most endearing and the most enduring of our species in America is Homo Partus-Chrono Nepalicus. Or, in plain English, Mr or Miss Part-Time Nepali (PTN).
What makes someone a Part-Time Nepali? Sadly, there exist no criteria. In theory, a valid Nepali passport is all that one needs to be one. But since, in practice, rubber-stamps on the passport rarely separate the PTN gems from the coarse masses, a more subtle prerequisite stands: Actions and more actions of the mouth and the attitude.
If that is not clear, THREE idiosyncratic profiles below provide insights into things that charge Nepal's most remarkable representatives in in this great Melting Pot known as Amrika:
1) REMOTE-CONTROLLED DEVELOPMENT:
Our PTNs are visibly embarrassed that Nepal is still in the Stone Age. So their lives' mission is to "Develop" Nepal by running workshops and seminars and printing political newsletters in LA, New York, Boston and especially in DC on issues oh-so- Developmental.
To that end, they hurl themselves into organizing, writing about and even speaking on just about every topic from the generic ("safeguarding Nepali Democracy") to the prescriptive ("Top Ten Ways to Boost the GNP").
What is boring, however, is NOT the same-old topic (translation: politics, politics and nothing but politics!) that dominate their every discussion, but the same-old solution that gets proposed: The government should THIS, the government should do THAT. Only when the government does THIS and THAT would Nepal be lit up by the high-voltage smile of Desh-Bikas.
Now, you might point out that even other Nepalis throw in that sort of cure-all wisecrack all the time. But remember: while others do it out of sheer frustration, these PTNs do it to show that they are "active Nepalese in Amrika". Their intention is that when the favored political party (translation: Nepali Congress) wins the elections in Nepal, they could then be handsomely tapped for high posts in Cat.Man.Do for their "sharpened-in-Amrika expertise and sleepless concerns for Nepali raj-niti while abroad."
Else, how to explain that even with more education, better professional skills, bigger political clouts and mega-bucks at the Savings Banks, these PTNs prefer the talking-route to desh ko bikas? It's because, for them, Development (with capital D) is all guff and bull-sessions, bon vivant awash in Chardonnay and social high-fives. And development (with small d) is just manual labor, best left in the hands of "the average Ram Bahadur back in Nepal".
With such inspiring attitudes, is it any wonder that the PTNs, so "concerned" about Nepal and so zealous about their political credentials, rarely discuss RETURNING (to at least make an effort) to fight off the challenges assaulting their oh-so-missed "Nepal Aama"? Not at all. To modify JFK's idea, so busy are the PTNs in Amrika saying what Nepal should do for Development that they never seem to
ask what THEY can do IN Nepal FOR development.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 03:20 PM
2) WHAT? A NEPALI HUSBAND?:
The PTN female in America is as elusive and evasive as the Abominable Snow-Woman. Though from a privileged echelon of the Kathmandu society with usually, but not necessarily, a St. Mary's accent ("Timi ta kasto MEAN, chi!" types!), she loves advancing her status as "an oppressed victim from that primitive, sexist, male-dominated, feudal Third World rut called Nepal". Few know that behind her fluttering eye-lids and sweet, innocent Binaca smiles, sizzles her razor-sharp guile.
She's, for example, adept at extracting sympathy from liberal, middle-class White Americans by whining contrived tales of:
a) all sorts of gender discrimination she had faced and endured while growing up in "poor, unempowered, male-dominated Dumre Gaun in Charikot";
b) she feels so "lost in this great, big country States" that she still gets very home-sick, even after 10 years in America; and,
c) she needs constant help: Help in finding an apartment, help in paying her credit card bills, and help in dining out at fine establishments, and help in letting her cry on your shoulders when she's having rough times with guys you hardly know. And on and on . . . marches her help-wanted list.
Only one area in which she needs no help seems to be her dismissal of Nepali guys as "boring, childish louts", while dressing up in black velvet for her "handsome and cute" European suitors. Why she lives a double life as "a fiesty feminist" in front of 'sojho' Nepali keta-haru, yet appears as "a coy and shy Himalayan maiden" to her western friends is an issue best left for psychiatrists.
3) MY ETHNICITY: YOUR DISCOMFORT:
Being Nepali is not enough for some PTNs. They demand more precision in defining who they are. As such, they look for creatively cute, if eye-brow-raising, ways to assert their ethnic pride.
One PTN I know, for example, insists on speaking Newari with his miserable Significant Other, POINTEDLY in front of bahuns, byasis and chettris at dinner. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this PTN's using his mother tongue in front of those unable to distinguish between 'janay dhunla' from 'sunka chon'.
But while ALL thoughtful Newars and other 'ethnic' Nepalis usually provide helpful translations for lively dinner-conversations, these few ethnic PTNs deliberately alienate their other Nepali friends, among other things, by condemning them to a silent dinner.
Still, what makes such PTNs "victims" of identity crisis is this. Whenever occasions arise to put on Nepali dances in front of the western audience, they rush in to swing to the beats of Tamang Selo, Jyauray rhythms and Rodi music, claiming "Hey, that's OUR Nepali culture, you know!"
Great! But why this sudden broad-mindedness? Why this abrupt love for "Nepali culture"? Just to show it to the westerners? After all, if things "Nepali", however one views it, have been, for better or worse, parts of THEIR heritage too, then what are they trying to achieve by inhabiting some separatist linguistic-islands IN FRONT OF other Nepalis who do not know a word of these particular PTNs' mother language?
The truth, of course, is that such PTNs and others are only shifting their identities to suit each occasion. With the Americans, they are the exotic "Nepalese from the land of the Everest" (Never mind that the only time they've seen the Everest is on an RNAC poster!).
With another group, they are "the poor, persecuted minorities (or majorities) from Nepal". Yet, with fellow-Nepalis of all stripes, they are "the exclusive and marginalized victims of [thanks to Dor Bahadur Bista] 'fatalism'".
MORAL:
Such consummate, diverse charmers make up the contradictory, confusing world of Part-Time Nepalis. Whether or not, these PTNs are, as described by a friend, "Nepalis with First-world lifestyles, second-rate achievements and third-class mentality" is beyond my understanding, judgment, experience and even taste. But having lived both in Nepal and the US, the one MAJOR lesson that I have learnt is this:
For all the fun one makes of the PTNs, the sad, unvarnished truth is that their hypocrisies and their inconsistent attitudes/values exist well and alive, in varying proportions, in each and every one of us, the rest of the Nepalis, who I guess would now be Full-Time Nepalis (FTNs) -- no matter where we reside, and no matter what we do . . . and so on.
Long live that Part-Time Nepalihood in each and every one of us!
THE END
(Now before some of you get mad and start hurling adjectives at me, please remember that what you just read was a piece of FICTIONAL SATIRE, written strictly for amusement when I was younger and all that :-)
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