11/08/2024
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times; it was the time of wisdom and changes; it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light; it was the season of darkness; it was the time the kings and ministers wanted to unite the country; it was the time when my ancestor’s lives darkened with unfair edicts that lead the elites to be lightened up more than ever afore.
There were kings and ministers with long noses like Pinocchio with innocent, kind, compassionate, and understanding but mischievous smiles. There were priests with the scriptures and mantras but no understanding of the words out of them. They recited one or two verses from the book; the uneducated foolish villagers believed them as Chaturvedic brahmins who were fully enlightened after reading the four Vedas.
It was the month of Karthik; the weather was turning from burning hot to body-shivering cold; the exhausted farmers were sitting around the barely burning kerosene. The shop was made of clay; the roof was covered with palm leaves; and there were five and six gutka, madhu, and pan. The shopkeeper lady was hiding the pot of homemade alcohol inside the room by the door. “Didi! Khai ta ek gilas aja thapdinu na. (Sister! Can I have one more glass?)” Cried a farmer in Tharu-accented Nepali. “Khata ma lekhdinuna. (Write the payment on the book and I will pay at the end of the month.”
“Hunxa.” Said the shopkeeper lady whose blouse is widely opened; flashing her cleavage to the farmers; she brought the glass of Daru (local alcohol).
“How much?” The drunk and illiterate farmer asked.
“Hundred rupees.” She replied and wrote ‘100 +’ one more ‘0’ on her notebook which became ‘1000’ at the end of the month when the farmer went to pay. He didn’t have money; she suggested he give land to her until he paid off the payment. The farmer couldn’t pay off the 1000 rupees, but he kept drinking; ten years later he died; his son didn’t know his father’s debts and he lost the land for 1000 rupees.
Some farmers learned the only way out of these problems, lies, corruption, and unfairness is education; they sent their children to the schools. The schools wanted these children to study Sanskrit; since it was the language of the gods, elite, and mischievous Brahmins but when these young children grew up and went out to do jobs and work; the jobs, works and constitutions were written in Nepali but not Sanskrit. Some elite farmers voiced out but still had to act like puppets in front of the powers.
“Teacher! Do you like politics?” My online grown-up student asked me once. “How is the politics in Nepal?”
I smiled but said nothing.
“I think you don’t like?” She said again and smiled.
“Do you like it?” I questioned her.
“Yes, I do.” She said, excited. “I like it. I like it so much. It makes me aware of things happening in the country.”
I listened to her since it was an English class, and I wanted her to speak in English more and more.
“Don’t you like to know about your country?”
“I do. I like politics.” I said thoughtfully. “I read about politics. I have read Mao Shedong, Karl Max, Dr. Ambedkar, and Mahatma Gandhi.” I paused and said again. “I do read, watch the News daily, and get updated about the ongoing situations in the country. I do listen to the political conversations.”
She listened to me.
“I just prefer to talk about the politics with the people who know it.”
“Yeah.”
“I just don’t want to be someone who sits around the fireplace in the cold and discusses politics while drinking a glass of black tea like the cads.”
“Right!”
“There are thousands of Nepalese on the streets on political conversation who have no idea what they are talking and protesting for.”
“Yeah!” She said and listened to me attentively.
“During the times of civil war; my grandmother had to go on the street and protest,” I said laughing. “The elites came and told her if you do this you will have this but believe me, she had zero understanding of what they were talking about; what exactly Maoism was.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you understand what I am trying to say?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Very few Nepalese know politics,” I said smiling. “Most of them go with the flow. They just do what others do.”
She shook her head.
“I think people should read. People should read about the politics. We must read the history.”
“I don’t like reading either.” She said and smiled.
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“If people don’t read the histories, how will they know what our ancestors lived like? What did they have to go through? How many people loved them truly? How many of them lied? How many people used them for their benefit?”
“That’s why you read?”
“That’s why I read and write them in my diary.”
“So, you read history, and you know the stories?”
We both laughed.
Contact me for writing.
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