| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 07:29 AM
But in all my 15 odd years of knowing him, I had never thought of Anup Raj as a political animal. As far as I knew, he liked politics with all the passion of a fish taking to a bicycle. So why this sudden change of heart?
"I am in the julus business," Anup Raj offered quietly, as though reading my mind.
"Political tension in Nepal is great for my business," he explained. "Thanks to democracy. Nepal now has a plethora of political parties. You know them. All shout for God-knows-what causes. But, hey, what's a political party without a supportive julus behind, right? My job is to supply julus to the political parties. On demand. They pay me well. I serve them well. Once in a while, I do lose a few lives. But those are small losses compared to all wonders I am doing to strengthen Nepal's democracy."
I didn't know whether to congratulate him or disagree with him. So I kept quiet, letting him to philosophize.
"You know, after B-school in Boston, I did go to Wall Street for a couple of years. But the work itself was boring. Spending all my time punching LOTUS 1-2-3 was not my idea of using education for the greater good of humanity. Besides, what I did merely consisted of making rich Americans richer. So, naturally, I just couldn't reconcile my Clintonite liberalism with market-based Reaganite conservatism...
"Soon, I kissed my half-French-half-Chinese live-in girlfriend Amy good-bye, gave up the over-the-Hudson apartment, cleared up my American Express bills, and hurried back to Nepal last year. You know, to restore my sanity. Today I'm in this julus business, and I'm very happy. I make lots of money, but also have lots of free time."
As I listened to Anup Raj's autobiography, I wondered how he had launched himself into the julus business. But suddenly he was silent, as if lost in the lullaby of his own tale.
"This julus business is very good," he said after a while. "I employ mostly unemployable youths who have come to Kathmandu from 14 zones and 75 districts. They are the zealots to whom an ideology does not mean anything. As long as there's a julus, and Pepsi and samosa after-ward, they go to do whatever is required of them. Why, just the other day, Madhav Nepal phoned me for about thousand baliya-baanga. He wanted them to shout slogans against Girija.
"The following day, Krishna Prasad wanted another thousand guys at the Academy. Whew! I did manage to meet the needs of both clients. Some of my workers do double and even triple shifts. And they get paid more with elections coming, my only fear is that I would not be able to keep up with the demands for julus. My agents are already out in the drought-ridden eastern Tarai, looking for hungry-looking recruits...
"Getting new recruits is no easy task, you see," went on Anup Raj. "I have to train them to chant slogans, clap hard, pull apart railings, throw stones at public buses, burn telephone exchanges, laathi-charge the police and even face the bullets. All this is hard work, you know."
Then the phone rang. From what I could make out, Ganesh Man was on the line. He wanted 500 youths at the Khula Manch in Tundikhel to be in the audience while he awarded Mangala Bhauju with a "mother of democracy" prize.
At last, I left Anup Raj's office, with a sneaking admiration for the way the guy had combined his business acumen with political conscience.
As Rod Stewart once sang, some guys have all the luck. THE END.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 07:29 AM
Hi everyone,
While thinking of ways to help Ujjwal Bhattarai with this new avatar of The Nepal Digest, I took a trip down the memory lane . . . and spent some time going through the
archives of The Nepal Digest (TND) . . . and I stumbled upon this piece I had
published there in 1995.
I guess the humor here is somewhat dated; still, I thought that on this Valentine Eve,
this piece may produce a few good chuckles, if not laughter.
[Incidentally, on a serious note, Anup Raj, a real character on which this piece is FICTIONALLY based, and who remains not only one of my good Nepali friends but
also someone I greatly admire, is doing very well as as the Asia-Pacific head of a
multinational company.]
Enjoy this old fictional piece for what it's worth,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
******************
Julus For Hire
by ashu.
My friend Anup Raj is a smooth operator, the kind who can sell saris even to Marwaris. In college, all he ever talked about was how to make tons of money, go out with Sunny and be funny in front of those dainty damsels attending the nearest all-women's school.
But we lost touch after his case-study-laden MBA days on the banks of the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts-the same place also famous as the bastion of American capitalism where the collective first-year salary of the graduates is higher than Somalia's GDP.
Anyway, imagine my surprise when I spotted Anup Raj the other day in Indrachowk- all suited-booted like a Zee TV host, nonchalantly puffing out Surya churot in small concentric circles.
"Hi Anup Raj! Fancy meeting you here. I thought by now you were some big-time investment banker on Wall Street, pulling all-nighters at Goldman Sachs."
In response, Anup Raj merely flashed his you-stupid-devil smile, and waved his cigarette, signaling me to follow him.
Puzzled by his uncharacteristic silence, I looked around, and seeing nothing unusual, decided to take his lead. I figured he was up to something.
A couple minutes' quiet walk through the haphazard row of parked Marutis and Hero Hondas, and we landed in front of a cement house, strategically hidden behind the huge parking lot of that made-in-Hong Kong, sold-in-Kathmandu bought-by-Indians Super Market.
Following Anup Raj, I climbed up a flight of paan-stained stairs, only to come upon an open corridor. With the Surya-stub firmly between his lips, Anup Raj reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a Jawalakhel Distillery locket that jingled with yellow keys. He clicked open the black Chinese lock that hung on the wood of the last room. Pushing the door open, he looked at me, and with a flourish of an A-class Sri Tin Maharaj, he swept me in.
The room was sparsely furnished. A bare floor, a desk with some papers and a phone, a couple of chairs, a computer in one corner, lots of space and that was all. From one window, I could see two pigeons cavorting romantically on the head of the Juddha Sumsher statue, as though they were Karishma KC and Rajesh Hamal of the pigeon-world.
Setting on a chair, I surveyed the pictures on the walls: Gaudy, brightly painted life-size portraits each of Madhav Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala, Man Mohan Adhikari, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Surya Bahadur Thapa, Hridyesh Tripathy and Ram Raja Prasad Singh were all doing 'namaste' to me. All grinning like Cheshire cats. Looking at them, I thought that all the Who's Who of Nepal's most famous geriatric club - also known as politics - were right up on the walls of Anup Raj's strange hide-out.
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| Dr. No |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 07:50 AM
"Pie"...my hats off to you. I think he is wrecking-in some big dough and having a ball in KL. When is Harvard Business Review going to publish a case study on one of its illustrious alumunus like him?
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| Poonte |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 09:03 AM
"Pie"...hmmmm...Dr. N...also a long-lost friend? The Extra Terrestrials call on you from Mars...ring a bell? :)
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| Poonte |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 09:05 AM
Ashu...thoroughly enjoyed your satire!
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| Dilasha |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 11:24 AM
That was quite funny Ashutosh. You should give this piece to Santosh Pant who could make a “Hijo-Ajaka kura” out of that. Thanks! I enjoyed reading it and good to see you back in Sajhapur….heard that you had gone to Australia for your honeymoon…ahmm. Hope it was a good one! :-)
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| SITARA |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 11:40 AM
Ashu
A good piece of satirical humour or humorus satire! Nice, nice!
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 11:44 AM
hahahah, interesting. Haas anyone come to aadhar with this JUlus Business proposal yet?
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 05:17 PM
Very Funny, Ashu.
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| M.P. |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 05:54 PM
I was wondering what our wonderful Oohi was wondering while he was wondering around the wonderful wonders of Australia. So this was it? :)
Poor Anupraj must have been facing difficult times in his "Julush Business" after the "Rally Business" came into being :) Or did he too switch his business?
------------------------
By the way, was there such a thing as "Mother of Democracy" award? Or was it something that Ganesh Man was giving to his wife on the eve of Valentine?
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| Padme |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 06:02 PM
Asju ji,
Very nice and funny. Reminded me of Freud's Theory.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 09:01 PM
Thank you everyone for your kind words. I remember, I had had a lot of fun working
on this piece, and other similar attempts at writing humor.
On a personal note, one of the supreme ironies of my life is that no matter how many funny pieces I write (and, you know, I have published about 20 or so satirical pieces, most of them in The Kathmandu Post), few people think of me as a funny person :-) And, I am not complaining. :-)
That said, so Poonte, so you are actually AJS, the legendary extra terrestrial from Mars . . . glad to see you here on sajha, and Dr. No, though I don't know who you
are, do give Pie about 10-15 more years before someone from HBS writes a
case-study on him and/or his management of a Fortune 100 company. It's
interesting, isn't it, how Pie turned from being Zen ko bhakta at one time to Yen ko
bhakta now. :-)
More later,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| ashu |
Posted
on 13-Feb-03 09:02 PM
Thank you everyone for your kind words. I remember, I had had a lot of fun working
on this piece, and other similar attempts at writing humor.
On a personal note, one of the supreme ironies of my life is that no matter how many funny pieces I write (and, you know, I have published about 20 or so satirical pieces, most of them in The Kathmandu Post), few people think of me as a funny person :-) And, I am not complaining. :-)
That said, so Poonte, so you are actually AJS, the legendary extra terrestrial from Mars . . . glad to see you here on sajha, and Dr. No, though I don't know who you
are, do give Pie about 10-15 more years before someone from HBS writes a
case-study on him and/or his management of a Fortune 100 company. It's
interesting, isn't it, how Pie turned from being Zen ko bhakta at one time to Yen ko
bhakta now. :-)
More later,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| PREMPUJARI |
Posted
on 14-Feb-03 07:54 AM
Good one Ashu!!
Good satire.
Sounds like a great business to me!!
:D
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| Poonte |
Posted
on 14-Feb-03 08:11 AM
Ashu... ;)
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| chipledhunga |
Posted
on 14-Feb-03 08:13 AM
Ashu, dherai pachi pheri timro yo katha padhna paiyo, khusi lagyo :)
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 15-Feb-03 10:57 AM
Nice one, Ashu. Very funny.
_ On a personal note, one of the supreme ironies of my life is that no matter how many funny pieces I write (and, you know, I have published about 20 or so satirical pieces, most of them in The Kathmandu Post), few people think of me as a funny person :-) _
kadai chot parya justo chhani, saathi. You are probably more funny as a writer than in person then :)
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| watever |
Posted
on 15-Feb-03 11:48 AM
:) Nice!
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| ashu |
Posted
on 15-Feb-03 09:18 PM
V V,
Yes, that must be the case, then, of course, you go on a hike or a trek with me. :-)
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Gokul |
Posted
on 16-Feb-03 08:18 AM
Bhairav in English
People found BA very serious and melancholy in his real life but his writings are masterpieces of satire and humour that portray the contemporary Nepal so well. When a real writer writes, his or her writings depict the kaleidescopic world that reside in the innermost layer of conviction and the writer's outer personality may not do justice in giving others hint what a rich ore of feelings and subtle observations the writer is simmering with. We judge people with our observations using heuristics and biases that are inherently flawed. Only the work and the work itself is the true personality of a writer. In this sense, I am little surprised in noting the dichotomy in your personality (the real and the super real) and I surmise if Bhairav wrote in English, he would perhaps write like you.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 16-Feb-03 10:24 AM
"if Bhairav wrote in English, he would perhaps write like you."
Oh, come on, Gokul-ji.
With that kind of praise, and my typically bahun nose might balloon up to the point
of bursting . . . and when that happens, my face would look funny indeed :-)
Bhairav Aryal is Bhairav Aryal -- the uber-satirist.
Together with late Keshav Raj Pindali, he has set, through his collection of satires,
extremely high standards for writing satire and humor in Nepali language. These
days, his heir in Nepali literature seem to be Bimal Nibha, and maybe even
Ram Kumar Panday, who has published some really funny stuff.
Then again, I have read somewhere that in real life, MOST, not all, satirists/humorists are actually people who are good at masking, with a sunny disposition, the crushing depression they suffer in solitude.
Bhairav Aryal, as you know, committed suicide by drowning in that pond in Sundarijal.
Another satirist I closely follow is Art Buchwald, the wonderful American writer, who came out with a poignant autobiography a few years ago, in which he honestly
detailed his long-standing battle with depression. Woody Allen, the master
craftsman of the genre, remains as neurotic as ever -- both off-screen and
onscreen.
Makes you wonder at times: whether there's an inverse relationship between
depression and humor :-)
As for me, I have always considered writing, or for that matter postings, an extension of who I am in real life . . . warts and all, and, so that's that. :-)
I think I'll start writing more humor/satirical pieces from now on. Let's see.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| forget-me-not |
Posted
on 16-Feb-03 07:05 PM
good one ashu ji...
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| Nepali Kanchi |
Posted
on 16-Feb-03 08:42 PM
Hahaha very funny!!! Absolutely didnt think you were a funny guy (based on your other stuff here, no offense). ... good one !
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 16-Feb-03 09:00 PM
_Makes you wonder at times: whether there's an inverse relationship between
depression and humor :-)-
??????!!!! Start with asking Kunda Dixit, Ashu. He's one person who's been writing funny stuffs for a looong, loooong time :)
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| Gokul |
Posted
on 17-Feb-03 07:06 AM
I think Bhairav committed suicide in Gokarna, not in Sundarijal. He had a feminine voice and that bothered him a lot. After he did neck surgery in Germany, his voice changed. But after that he started feeling terrified with his own voice. His married life was also not very happy (intercaste with a rich Rana). Keshav Raj Pindali was his rival and he tried to discourage Aryal in many occasions. Pindali perhaps saw threat in Aryal. Aryal was extremely introvert and he always felt he had no close souls who could understand him. To make the matter worse, his financial position was also not very sound. It is really amazing that despite living in such a hopeless environment, he produced such gems. Perhaps it is not "despite" but "because of".
He is like Jason Alexander of Seinfield. Always depressed and pesky. But when he speaks, he speaks with such a force that clearly convinces us of our utter stupidity, contradiction and shallowness and that also not with a solemn preaching of a priest but with words and situations that are so ordinary and common place.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 17-Feb-03 07:51 AM
Wow.
I did not know about this rivalry between K R Pindali (whose real surname was: Sharma) and Bhairav Aryal.
[Then again, the story of a friend trying to downplay the success of another friend
is all too familiar a story in and out of Nepali communities, right? And so is a friend's
kicking that another friend hard when the going gets rough for the latter. . .]
Thank you for correcting me re: the death spot of Aryal.
That said, Jason Alexander aka George Costanza and the Seinfeld reruns are worth watching in Kathmandu these days on Zee English channel, 9:30 pm-10 pm, Mon-Thurs.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Gokul |
Posted
on 17-Feb-03 09:48 AM
Pindali's real real surname is Lamicchhane. Once he was the editor of Gorkhapatra and Aryal was working under him. Rather than treating him as his colleague and fellow writer, he used to treat him like a haakim treating his Karinda.One day Pindali scolded him very badly and openly expressed his animosity. After noticing Pindali's jealousy, he felt very sad. He came home very late (almost midnight) that day and drank water from Amkhora and said, "Yini haru le malai bachna nadine bhaye". From that day onwards, he developed negative feeling towards his existence.
Besides being highly talented, Aryal was also very innocent and childlike. One day he was traveling in India in a train. An Indian lady treated him like a servant. Poor Aryal, he could not protest there. Instead, he wrote a wonderful essay about that incident after coming to Kathmandu.
From late thirties, he made elaborate plans to commit suicide. Once he chose to ride a very dysfunctional truck to return to Kathmandu when he was visiting Mahakali hoping he would die in accident along the way. Ironically, he found that travel his safest and most comfortable journey. After failing to commit suicide in at least five such attempts, he said God was really mocking at him for he neither gave him a life, nor a death.
His friend Rochak Ghimire (editor of Rachana) noticed his deep frustration. So he planned to take Aryal (with other friends) to some excursion with the hope that that might cheer him up and Bhairav agreed immediately. It was 2033 Dashain. As planned, Ghimere came early morning knocking Bhairav's house door. Bhairav's maid opened the door and said, "Baje ta gai saknu bho". Rochak assumed Bhairav already left for the planned excursion to Pokhara and without giving second thought he also hurried to Dharahara to catch the bus. Little did he realize Bhairav had already left not only his home but also this earth where he struggled to survive amidst unhuman hardships and where he tried to smile amidst evil animosities. He may not have been able to laugh himself but he definitely succeeded in making the Nepali people laugh wholeheartedly. Although he lived a short life (40 years), he accomplished much.
To those who think he wrote only humor, it is exhilarating to know that he wrote many beautiful poems also. His poem "junkiri sita" depicts his own struggle to survive. "Karinda ko din charya" expresses the life of a Nepali clerk in the most economical way possible.
Uth, Puchha, Kha, Chutta
Dugur, Dudur, Swan, Swan
Has, Bhas, Dhas, Hajuoor
Lukkur, Lukhur,Fyan, Fyan
...Papa, chichi ko sansar
Aijan, Aijan, Lampasar.
After reading Bhairav, I am convinced the God is not only a dancer (Nataraj) but also a great humorist (hasaraj).
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 17-Feb-03 10:35 AM
gokul, that was very insightful ! Tks.
Yes, many literary figures in Nepal have lived in abject poverty. But one may ask who hasn't. Comapred to BA, Pandali was probably able to "market" himself better during the Panchayat and thereafter. Not to take anything away from his artistic merits....
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| ashu |
Posted
on 17-Feb-03 08:13 PM
Gokul,
Thanks for the additional info on Bhairav Aryal.
I have read and re-read his satire pieces many, many pieces.
Just out of curiosity: How do you know so much about him?
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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