| Username |
Post |
| Here's the doozie |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 11:53 PM
Whatever happened to the insightful thread on the beer bellied nepali elitist and their wine swirling wives? The men and women channeling INGO funds to the appropriate places (meant as a reference). At least that seemed to acknowledge an attitude of cynicism, intellectual arrogance and the conspicious consumption that afflicts the upper echelon and the best minds.
Speaking of conspicious consumption is it possible to over consume Nepalism? Naturally there is always that fear of the Coca Colization of the global palate, which has already happened for the most part. However what I am talking about it is the dispositive weight and the indulgence we allow to retain this amorphous indentity called Nepalism. In one breath the identity evokes of a unique history, cultural depth, poverty, the taste of warm dal bhat, fatalistic attitude re: destiny, introvertism in the public arena, domineering and screwing over others in limited associations, too hot headed and easily swayed, compassionate and smiling, therefore great lovers, feudalistic and manipulative so bad husbands and wives.
Yet we love the identity, it is a perverted love (which has a legit basis before it gets perverted).
Of course we are from a country that is run democratically, with communists as main opposition, with splinter communist engaged in civil war wanting to rid the people of that jaded but still strong chockhold of a grandeur image that some how we live in an awesome country that has a god for a king, who was incidentally killed by his son, who also killed his mother, but miraculously left the god intact in another king, that we should be grateful that there is someone to carry on a long line of glorious ancestory.
And then being at the forefront of the most informed generation molded and tweaked and speckled by the panchayat propaganda of how the weight of the sky was on our shoulder makes us continually think that somehow we are responsible for all this mess and although you may be pumping gas in some rural hot county in US, sucking in your anus at the sight of the blacks the whites the mexicans the irish the italians the indians and what nots that you think that you have to put in your two cents on the state of Nepal. As if the IRS the INS and the holy god of life sucks itself has strapped on a ton of dead weight on your head you still have to pick up that two pounds worth of Nepal consciousness. Not because you think it is an entitlement that your voice should be heard and as a constituent you should count but because you think that is what you are supposed to do.
Well but then hauling people to that state of limbo has been the hallmark of nepali culture and politics. And Ranas did it so good, when they screwed the people so bad yet they never forgot to kow tow and bend over with their asses high up in the air, because they were being "the responsible you are supposed to" people. And how could they not because the illustrious Ranas were connected with the great Shah's that were somehow the manifestation of God itself, you know the one who cut a chasm with his discuss on the hills of Kathmandu that made it habitable to live.
So we owe it all to the all knowing then that God from whom we all came as it says in the Upanishads, but rarely repeated should never be very firm about the nature of reality because the world is a maya and there is nothing there so you just should be concentrating on the next life and in here you should do what you are supposed to do. And that is your dharma and your karma.
And then you are sitting there some day in a haze of smoke because you smoked a pack of marlboro reds and you do not even care if you cough out your lungs, because Sartre is speaking to you in some corner of a noisy bar and you are just so at peace even if you just have been shot down by five girls in a row and all you wanted was just to talk. And the strands of long neat strands of blonde hair and the smell of Chanel paints the back ground and like that over filled drainslowly emptying out with the eddie of the water it comes all to you what a bunch of hooey. And that's infantile and that's perfectly fine. It was just for the moment.
And then there's you. Can you believe that its you none other. Despite all the imperfections and contradictions, ugliness, and fine lines, and fat folds, and deep eyes. It couldn't be anyone but you. And no matter where you are, you are fielding death rays, gentle waves, spinning it, blocking it, reflecting it cutting it, And object nothing other than what cuts the light and rays and shapes it.
Its all right then, although you feel like you have just been flushed outside into the bigger water instead of clinging to some rusty protrusion in ancient plumbing.
And a look back. The world is like an illusion. Must appreciate the collective mind that conjured up a story of Krishna cutting mountains or lifting others. But as long as I can indulge why not that he actually did it. Not even Hawkins knows what it really is. And Nepali people poor souls. Bunch of riff raffs, like a swarm of maladjusted monkeys, constantly being herded by the silver haired Rana or the Shahs. But then just talk about Prithvi what vision! you couldn't pull that off. Butterfly laces were hard enough for you. Well Ranas screwed you well what can you do, shit happens but then better that we are not Indians. And combine that with the rastafarians smoking dope fiends of freak street of the 60s, bell bottom fashioning mehboob of 70s or the mohawk bearing Tibetian of the 80s. Of MTV star TVS and Zee TVs. Of Judas Priest Nazareth and Mega death. Of louis Lamour Richard Gere and Sidney Sheldon. what a cocamamie and what a motley ride.
But then you have read Von Hayek, and Sen, and Sachs and Tocqueville and Machiavelli, and you have a head, and you cannot think about how awful things are. You could do the job better. Well strap on that extra two pounds.
|
| BDM |
Posted
on 13-Apr-02 01:29 PM
Instead of trying to sound grandiloquent, you should simply say the following:
1. Nepal has no history, and no culture
2. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world
3. Nepalis think of the king as an incarnation of god. What a joke.
4. Ranas and Bahuns fukked up Nepal.
5. Hinduism sux. What a joke, Hindus believe that the world is an illusion. Descartes also sux.
6. Nepalis are lazy mo fos.
7. There's nothing to be proud of in being a Nepali; yet we are proud.
My high school teacher once asked whether there are any Indians in the class, and guess what, I was the first to raise my hand. I didn't raise my hand voluntarily; it was an instinct. I'm still trying to figure out why I did that. I personally think that deep inside I'm not proud to be Nepali.
Another incident, a friend asks me whether Nepalis have anything to be proud of. I answered by saying that we got Gurkhas, who fight for the British. Then he goes, "Is that anything to be proud of?". Then it hit me. Gurkhas are nothing but servants.
We are proud of Buddha, but Buddha wasn't Nepali; he was a North Indian Prince. He preached in India, and also reached enlightenment in India. Buddhism spread in India, and then to other Asian countries.
Lastly, Maoism is a dominant force in Nepal, whose doctrines are opposed fervently by Western Nations. What a shame!
We got nothing to be proud of. I'm still doing some soul searching, but I know it's in vain.
|
| NK |
Posted
on 13-Apr-02 10:21 PM
BDM,
You did what??????? You raised your hands when your teacher asked if there is any Indians in your class??? Wow! you must have been one confused/self loathing kid. Everybody carries an identity, everybody likes to have an identity. Who are you otherwise? Some insignificant aimlessly floating algae who has no history and no sense of belonging? How could you say Nepal has no history no culture. What exactly do you mean? You say "Hinduism sux." Well try to be one of those alter boys in a catholic church where predatory Fathers like Desilets, Paquin, Shaley, Geoghan were roaming about and abusing kids for decades.
I am a Nepali who migrated to the USA and who is married to European and who has an American born daughter. That is a fact whether I like it or not. Am I proud to be a Nepali? I don't know. Am I filled with hatred and do I mock myself for being a Nepali, as the original poster seems to be doing, that I DON'T DO .
I am just at ease for who I am. A person with an international flavor! That is my identity. Go easy on yourself Bro! People dont' adhere to one size fits all a monolithic identity anymore. You are the product of internationalism and one should be proud of THAT!
|
| BDM |
Posted
on 14-Apr-02 10:13 AM
I don't know why I raised my hand, but it surely did happen. It was like a reflex action; the reaction didn't pass through my brain. When people see me, they think I'm Indian. When I started going to high school, and people took me for an Indian, I used to correct them, but after a few months, I learnt my lesson. Even after I told them I'm Nepalese, they still thought of me as an Indian. These days I don't even bother correcting them, coz it's all in vain. I just let them stereotype/judge me with my looks.
By the way, my friends call me Gandhi.
|
| Gandhi |
Posted
on 14-Apr-02 10:59 AM
Hey!
I have been writing as my real name Gandhi here for a long time... With the final line from BDM above it may get confusion.... The GANDHI claimed by BDM is different from me GANDHI writing in the GBNC.ORG or SAJHA.COM.....
Gandhi Raj Bhattarai
Auburn, Alabama
|
| arnico |
Posted
on 14-Apr-02 08:06 PM
I am sleep deprived today... so probabably won't be able to write much that makes sense... just wanted to say that I am glad we are talking about what it means to be a Nepali in these times of turmoil in Nepal... especially among Nepalis abroad whose memories of Nepal and whose education in Nepal is mostly from a time when things in Nepal were "simpler"...
I have some responses to earlier posts. First, I have never asked myself whether I am proud to be a Nepali... I just am a Nepali because I feel a close connection to Nepal... it is where I spent much of my childhood... a place that still feels like home every time I return. I don't feel Nepali because of the king, Everest or Buddha... those are all far from my life. I feel Nepali because when I am abroad I long for the sounds and smells of Assan tole, the long conversations over tea when I am really trying to get something done in a hurry, the sounds of cut rice plants under my shoes when skipping over terraced fields in November, the breeze on suspension bridges, the smell of woodsmoke and jira-marich... the feeling of letting my legs dangle when resting on a choutara after long uphill hike, even the conversations that happen during electricity black-outs when no one can watch TV... and many more things like this. If Everest were to shrink or the real Lumbini were to be found across the border... that would not change anything about how I feel about Nepal...
I have lived in four countries, only one of my parents is Nepali... I don't even look typically Nepali (if there is such a thing)... in fact every damn drug dealer and money-change peddler in Thamel thinks I am a foreigner, and I have been asked in stores in Kathmandu where I learned such a thet-Nepali, and the guards at Pashupati tried to stop me until I swore at them in Nepali... whereas in Boston, no one even thinks of me as a foreigner... in short it takes me effort, more effort than in some other places, to be a local in Nepal, and I don't even have to make that effort, I have a choice about whether I want to be a Nepali or not... so why do I? why do I think of myself as a Nepali? why do I make an effort to think about Nepal? Why do I agonize over the current problems in Nepal and bore others with my naive interpretations and half-baked ideas? It definitely is NOT because of the panchayat era patriotic teachings. It is because, despite the choices, despite the difficulties, despite the future uncertainties, I feel the closest connection to Nepal... to the people and places of the Nepal of my experiences...
... but as many other Nepalis abroad, I worry about what is happening in the country. I worry about being able to go back and do what I had hoped. I worry for people and places that I know closely, and for people I don't know but whose disrupted lives and sorrows I try to imagine... and of course I am getting tired of answering questions about the palace massacre and about who these Maoists are (life in Boston was simpler before bad news from Nepal started making front pages of newspapers here!). I worry about how Nepal is heading down a path of increasing violence, of widow(er)s, orphans, handicapped people, shredded families, scarred children, nightmares, anger, revenge, easily available guns, landmines on rural paths, destruction of infrastructure that took decades of sweat to build, and a numbing of our senses to fresh reports of violence... where is this leading, and who is capable of turning things around, of stopping this downward spiral?
|
| Biswo |
Posted
on 14-Apr-02 11:39 PM
Arnico:
I had same problem. Sleep deprivation, and this thought about massacre. But I
have one personal involvement this time.
You remember the news of fight in Dang somedays ago? Well, I read somewhere
that Maoists fired on a bus, and killed a driver, and some passengers. I don't
know for sure who fired on the bus, but the report says Maoists fired. The report
said 3 passengers were dead, and that 3 was just a number for me.
Until I heard from Chitwan that Kushendra Kharel was one of those 3. He was
from my village, wasn't very amicable guy, and was weak in class. He married
in his teenage, and begot 3 kids, I guess. Changed his residency to less
expensive Bardiya after selling some lands in Chitwan, and was on his way to buy
some poultries when he ran into the crossfire.Pretty sad, three orphans, one
widow were left behind.
It was the first time the war came to my own territory. Here is the first family that
I intimately knew is bereaved due to this unnecessary war. I met his brother a
month ago in USA, and he had just come from Nepal. He told me he went to
Bhandara after a few terrorists burned the night bus and killed a 8-years-old
Moslem girl, Kajal Khatum. "It was a ghastly scene", he said with grave sadness,
"I don't know who killed the girl. She was just a black stiff mass, lifeless!" I
visualised the scene from his discussion.
Hope things will be better. We are left with little choice but hopes and dreams.
|
| Bhasu |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 02:09 PM
Nepal is in its current situation because of people like BDM. He says he is doing sole searching but it seems he doesn’t have one.
Why is it that I am proud to be a Nepali? What does pride have to with it? I am Nepali because I am. That’s it nothing more nothing less.
All these things about Sagarmatha, Gorkhas, Lumbini, Buddha, non-colonized country, etc… are merely a set of historical/geological events. It’s done with. It’s finished. The time now is to move on.
However, you don’t do that by throwing racial slurs and epithets against Ranas, Newars, and Bahuns of the modern age. They are not responsible for what went on before they were even born. However they can be part of what will go on in the future. I know it’s probably an over used cliché but this is the time to work together and protects the simple Nepal for our children and us.
It is a beautiful country. I have been to a variety of different places around the world and there is no place like Nepal to live. Yes, we do not have all the western amenities and comfort available for most citizens in Nepal, but do we need all these western amenities. Do we need nightclubs at every corner in Kathmandu? Do we need the automobile pollution in Kathmandu? How much “Baywatch” do we need to watch to become like westerners? Why do all the Eastern countries strive to be like westerners?
Democracy … a wonderful word … a beautiful concept … on the surface! But does it work under every circumstance? Is the outdated philosophy of Maoism really what Nepal needs? Nepalis look at the western world and think,” why can’t we have it that way.” Well you can’t. It’s like when you have an old house it’s much harder to put in place a modern kitchen. It will probably cost more. Where as if you purchase a new house … it’s a lot easier to put in a wonderfully modern kitchen. That’s how America was build … and Nepal can never be like that.
Are we not smart enough to come up with the system that works for us? Now is the time to put our heads together and to think for Nepal.
|
| Shanti |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 02:55 PM
Bhasu is absolutely right. I really feel ashamed about having some nepali like BDM.
Like Bhasu said whatever happened in past maybe because of Rana, before that may be because of Prithvi Narayan Shah, or may be newar Malla kings Nepal is in this situation. I don't buy that.
Let's face today. What can we do today? Look to the Nepal's future. We need to work together. We need patriotism, proudness of being Nepali, love each other among different groups, cast etc. Let's unitedly do save our country Nepal, culture.
Bsides blaming killing, Maoist, communist etc. let's think about why do you think since 1995 the Maoist are increasing in geometric progression? What's the root cause? Just by killing few hundrends Maoists we can't eliminate them rather it'll increase.
I think first of all the current Govt. so called Nepal's most democratic party's Govt. have to maintain LAW AND ORDER in the country. If the minister, Secretary or whoever is corrupted, punish them instead of defending. Why our democratic Govt., Justice couldn't punish Paras because he's Prince? What's the responsibility of our democratically elected Prime Minister in June 1, 2001. Is it just to keep quite and hiding in a hole because he doesn't want to mess up with Royal Family?
Just by saying I'm democratic doesn't makes you democratic person or party.
Leaders of our most democratic party aren't worry about the country or Maoist but they're worried about their power. In the state of emergency situation NC party and Deuba Govt.(NC Govt.) are fighting each other.
Why NC party expelled Minister Jay Prakash Gupta? Now why Deuba defending him? Does state of emergency, our country mean anything to anybody? Is this right time to fight?
Look to America in 9/11, no matter how much political disagreement they have all American stand together against terrorism.
Should we Nepali do like that?
Mr. BDM, I'm proud to say that I'm Nepali and always be proud. Gurkhas are brave not servant.
I don't know what BDM's profession is or where he works, but if you're working in some Company, don't you feel you're servant too. I bet you're not billionaire to be Malik.
Jay Nepal.
|
| doozie |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 03:22 PM
BDM, that is not what I am saying. Well partly yes, but also that the matter is not neatly divisible to black and white. That it looks like we are devoid of any original identity or culture but on the other hand, what you put in it is what matters. That is the fermentation and a new outgrowth from what is borrowed.
Still further on.... that assumption of an identity that is so easily manipulatred politically, and makes you feel like shit comes with a lot of liability and not worth it. But then if you sort of retract, detach and evaluate you will find that its all pretty amazing. Not politically charged more existentialist.
But then the drawl tends to drag on and on...so not your fault
|
| GeorgeMicheal |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 03:37 PM
GORKHAs were brave only because they were illiterate, uneducated, and off-the-shelf product. They were so MORON but BRITSH gave them a MASK, that is BRAVE. It is something like TOILET is masked as RESTROOM. By CHANGING word, they were exploited, and have still been exploited.
|
| makuro |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 04:41 PM
GM, you reminded me of one of Bhupi Sherchan 's poems....."bir chau tesaile ta budhu chau, budhu chau tesaile ta bir chau"
|
| BDM |
Posted
on 15-Apr-02 05:34 PM
Well, Nepal is known for the following:
1. Gurkhas. Are they really brave, or are they just servants. Well, it's like this. When a war is being fought, the Brits will send the Gurkhas, because Gurkhas are so stupid that they don't know the consequences of bullets up their asses. Is being a receptacle for bullets what u call bravery? Nah, I don't think so.
2. Sherpas. Basically, what are they? Porters, right? Another type of servant. Nothing to be proud of.
3. Buddha. We say Buddha was born in Nepal. But see, it hasn't been proven yet. Also, he preached in India, not Nepal, and Ashoka was the dude responsible for spreading Buddhism
4. Prostitution. About 25%(may be more) of whores in Bombay are Nepalis. Something to be proud of?
5. Mt. Everest. Mount Everest is something given to us by nature; we didn't build it. It simply is there. Nothing to be proud of. What now, u're proud of Dharahara or Ghantaghar???? They pale in comparison to the Taj Mahal or the Hanging garden of Babylon.
If we don't have gargantuan monument,s or rich culture, what is there to be proud of? Gurkhas or Sherpas(servants)? Buddha(North Indian)? Mountains? Simply saying I am what I am, and I should be proud of what I am isn't enough.
Nepal is basically a place that gives servants, gate pales, porters and prostitutes to this world. I think we should start charging more for our services, hehe....
Let me ask you all one thing. When a khaire asks u, "Tell me what gives you pride in being Nepali", what are u gonna say?
GTG now, I'll be back later. Ciao.
|
| Makardhwaj |
Posted
on 16-Apr-02 12:55 AM
I do not agree on we do not have pride in our Culture & History. In my opinion BDM Jee knows very little about the rich culture of Nepal.
What the Khaires has so nice culture you see?
Our history is also far better than that of those Khaires.
We could be proud of Mts. and the beauty of nature. If you do not think natural thinks can’t be taken as prid, what the Arabians has then? Did they make TEL KUWA themselves? They take money from oil and we take money from climbers.
Taj Mahal or any places are also beautiful but it does not mean that Nepal does not have beautiful places.
We Nepalese used to be peace. Didn’t you realize that we were really peace? How safe our Kingdom was?
Buddha was from Nepal. No doubt on it.There are many proofs. Pls study history a little.
In my opinion BDM Jee is looking a Economical point of view of proud so that Nepal could present in front of Khaires. For it Water resources & Electricity could be presented for future. Presently there is almost nothing, I agree on it.
|
