| ashu |
Posted
on 29-May-01 12:54 PM
I admire American writers such as Garrison Keillor
and Art Buchwald who use humor and satire very
effectively to express outrage.
Searching for a way to express outrage at the
whole Lauda thing on one fine morning of Nepal
Bandh, I came up wth this.
Enjoy, if this good.
Skip, if it's bad.
Comments appreciated.
oohi
ashu
*************
Blissful ignorance
by Bhupendra Rawat
As a citizen of Nepal, I was really happy to learn that our venerable Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) recently made the Prime Minister aware that the cabinet he heads had supported acts of corruption involving millions of dollars from the national treasury. The news that the PM was finally made aware about the shocking Lauda scandal came like a breeze of Sprite-washed air to all in Nepal: cool and refreshing.
That's because, for a long time, we all thought that our chain-smoking, hardly-working PM was so bent on making things go worse from bad that he was not really aware of what was going on behind his back, under his PA's table, over the toilet commode and into the web of 'Grand Design'.
But, happily, all that turned out to be not his fault. After all, hey, when you insist on burying your head in Baluwa Taar, all you are likely to see are footprints which, as we all know, are rarely etched permanently in the sand.
Anyway, just when the PM had finally been made aware of what was
what about the Lauda scam, I caught up with his enlightened self at his daughter's humble (that is, humble by Beverly Hills 90210 standards!) abode to ask why he kept his veil of ignorance on while the rest of Nepal, burnt.
"High expectations," he sighed, picking at the 'salat' flown in from Berlin especially for the First Daughter. "You know, I recruited these Ministers and bureaucrats straight from the bhajan-mandali at Ban Kali. They were all men of character. Who'd have guessed that they would end up as characters themselves? They all sang Ram, Ram in front of me. The science and technology minister even shouted RAM, RAM all the time. But ultimately, their pockets held knives, and, with those, they sliced and diced the national treasury, carving out their shares."
"But, sir," I asked, "Isn't it hard to believe that you wouldn't know what your own ministers were up to? I mean, after all, aren't you the one who calls the shots at cabinet meetings?"
"No, my dear friend, no." The PM shot back in his best only-on-CNN voice. "All I do is call for the shot glasses at the time of celebrations. I remember the day we approved of that Lauda deal. Sipping wine at the balcony of Singha Durbar, my ministers and I thought: Wouldn't it be awesome to have this magnificent bird of iron from Europe fly free and soar high up above in our Himalayan skies - defying not only the laws of gravity, but also those of the Kingdom? You know, it was then we all sort of looked at one another, and the idea that we could break the laws and fly away for free made us all giddy with anticipation."
I nodded in silence.
"Sure," the PM went on. "That meant, we had to dig into the treasury a bit. And digging into the treasury was important. Why? Because none of us came from wealthy families, and, at some point, we had to earn our living. Still, I must say that a million here, a million there and another million over there, it really amounted to nothing more than pocket change for us all. I mean, who knew that the money involved was so large? I certainly did not know. "
"And I sit here, my dear friend, " the PM thundered. "As angry as every Nepali man worth his suruwal and every Nepali woman worth her fariya to finally learn from the CIAA how that guy Chataut, the two Shresthas and others of their ilk milked this cash-cow country of ours dry, while keeping me, the Prime Suspect, blissfully unaware."
THE END.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 29-May-01 11:10 PM
>Trenchant look at the senile leader's
>character! This is a fine
>humor, and good indictment of the PM's
>intention in and ignorance
>of the role which subsequently became the
>cause of the national
>uproar.
Thank you for your comments, Biswo.
>Btw, I have detected some kind of pattern in
>your humors, which
>often conclude with the give-away monologue.
>This time , it is
>three paragraph long monologue, which tries
>to supress the element
>of humors, and gets platitudinous and
>predictable in the third
>paragraph.
I agree with you.
I sort of feel that way about some of my humor
pieces.
Still, that's all the more reason to keep up the practice
of seeing the absurd and writing humor.
Again, I appreciate your comments. I'll keep them in mind
next time.
oohi
ashu
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