Why (not) Complain?

Politics and pessimism go together in transitional times. Most people you come across and interact with every day might claim that things are not as they should be because the political situation is not as expected. At this point leaders are the main targets for venting popular frustration and anger. Let alone for inviting the uncertainty in constitution making and for not ensuring peace and political stability, they are remembered for numerous such cases as potholes in the monsoon-eaten streets, garbage in the corners of the metropolitan city, stupid drivers and traffic jams, strikes and tire-burnings, long queues in petrol-pumps and what not. When will we get tired of taking the names of these mass-despised beings? Why can’t we carry on our everyday discourses without ever referring to them? Are they crucially a part of our experiences?

Or, rather when will they get tired of not redirecting themselves to less blameworthy ‘jobs’?

I personally do not seem to complain much since I doubt if wrong is not the result of my own inability to do right. Blaming politics resembles pointing the forefinger at somebody unaware of three other fingers pointing back inward.  As a popular maxim cautions, while pointing finger at someone for their wrongdoing, you should know that you can  be three times as wrong  with the three fingers notoriously turned towards yourself.  So, should I (not) take the fingers as the embodiments of my own conscience split between blaming and not blaming? And the thumb, which appears to stand neutral, may signify another dimension but neutrality,  confused aloofness. The thumb is the most role-less, helpless entity in the blame-game. Politics does not entertain such existence; living like a thumb is being a political outcast. Most people are thumbs, useful/used all the time but out of the politics of blame and counter-blame.

I want to be a thumb.

Politics goes nasty in three  ways — invisibly, normally and unbearably. Invisibly, it was, is and will be nasty forever. Most people who think Panchayat was more like a Ram Rajya than its successors did not see its nastiness. Nastiness was invisible then since the windows towards it were shaded. I often hear youngsters blatantly asserting that panchayat was better. But they have only picked a few references from some nostalgic oldies on the absence of  corruptions, conflicts,  and killings at that time. But invisibility is not absence, nor is it the mark of ‘peace and prosperity’. What about the general suffocation the majority felt at deprivation from opportunities under the surveillance of a handful? The invisible is feared to rule now also. But one always  takes for granted that nastiness is rooted in all political channels and most of what comes visible is only a trickle of the invisible.

When politics is normally nasty, people turn indifferent towards what happens. They dump the politicians somewhere in the unconscious, and take to the normal course of life. As if  by getting a libidinal outlet, in Freudian terms, tiny issues trigger one’s sense of awareness. The result is an instant damnation of leaders, as I have exemplified in the case of “potholes in the monsoon-eaten streets, garbage in the corners of the metropolitan city, stupid drivers and traffic jams, strikes and tire-burnings, long queues in petrol-pumps.” Normally, general life goes on as if the so-called torch-/flag-bearers did not even exist. You might ask me about the thousands swarming around and garlanding the same objects of damnation sometimes. Well, the ‘libido’ is tricky; it works both ways. It is triggered as much in blame as in blessing.

When politics becomes unbearably nasty, people are expected to become alarmed. Those who feel involved voice for a change. The voice may have different levels of audibility, though. The recent case of leaders being slapped by/in the public exemplifies one way of making oneself audible in response to worsened politics.  But a few such cases do not suffice for a general theory. And those who have been indifferent on other times begin to be frustrated if nastiness assumes the degree of causing  physical, or rather financial, damage. These people, instead of voicing for changes, see the remedy in escaping.  They try to escape in either of the two ways: feign a more intense, ostrich-like indifference and non-involvement, or flee. There is yet another level of response: make maximum use of resultant transition by serving yourself and your kins through all possible means, for this is the only time you can apply smart tricks to evade the law and mock at ethical barriers.

Why should I complain? Why should I not? Can it make a difference in any case? I see the questions tell, but I don’t think they do it early enough. And, most of the times they do not bear any relevance at all.

I see the country’s fate best embodied in the local level itself: misinterpretation of freedom to dismantle work ethics, craze towards swift individual benefits, and gradual evaporation of communitarian ethos. But education, or rather the dignity of being informed, should not allow nonchalance or negligence to prevail. Perhaps the only beauty of believing in truth and goodness is to keep on advocating and sustaining them. It might not pay much in working single-handed, or in a scanty minority, but there is truly no loss in fighting a just battle. Who denies the spiritual gain, the satisfaction of making oneself useful when things are falling apart?

“God Made It, Sir.”

This is a story from the time I was in grade six twenty seven years ago.

We had Moral Science (Naitik Shiksha) in the fifth period, and in the sixth Social Studies (Samajik Shiksha). Both subjects started with stories on the creation of the earth. The first said everything on earth was made by God from the flesh and bones of Madhu and Kaitav, two powerful demons. The second had a detailed story of the natural formation of the solar system and planet earth from a huge rotating cloud of gas and dust in the post-Big Bang eon.

Teachers made us learn these stories almost line by line no matter whether they made any sense to us or not. And we did. Whether anyone knew why the same earth was created in two different ways did not matter. Things went on as they were set to, perhaps for ages.

One fine afternoon, sometime during the start of the academic session, Mr. Rai, the Social Studies teacher, entered the room as soon as Mr. Paudel, the Moral Science teacher, had left.  Mr. Rai announced, “Today I’ll ask you questions from yesterday’s lesson.” He picked up Harke, who had happened to become a front-bencher that day, and asked, “Tell, how was the earth formed?” Harke might have thought it was the easiest of all the questions he had ever heard from teachers till the sixth grade in his long course of having the ‘promoted’ status in the final exams. So, he readily, happily, proudly blurted out, “God made it, sir.”

“SSLLAAPP!!!!!” This was all we could hear from dear Rai Sir. Harke was already in tears, and was somehow managing to explain, “Paudel sir taught it in Moral Science only 15 minutes ago.” A boy sitting beside him timidly supported him. Mr. Rai was a bit puzzled, but would not give up, “That was moral science and this is social studies, you idiots. I want the answer from what I taught. I taught this lesson yesterday, didn’t I?”

“But I was absent yesterday, Sir.” Harke tried to protect himself. He got another slap for being absent the day before.

None of the children really knew who was wrong. Was it Harke, Mr. Rai, or Mr. Paudel? Was it the subjects that contained these conflicting stories? Was the school administration to blame for scheduling these subjects in consecutive periods? Was it not the people who made such curricula that might as well have led many other students like us to get unexpected thrashings from unthinking teachers?

Would it have made a difference if Mr. Paudel had told us that the Madhu-Kaitav story was meant only for the fifth period? Harke was just a case; any child could have got that slap. But I think every child learnt at least one lesson that afternoon: Moral Science is Moral Science, Social Studies is Social Studies.  

[Published in Molung Educational Frontier 1.2 (October 2011)]

 

फिलिम हेरेर फर्केपछि

नारीवादी हुन नसकेकी देवयानी

दशवर्षपछि मैले श्रीमतीसँग हलमा फिलिम हेर्ने मौका पाएँ । हेर्ने कुनै पूर्वयोजना थिएन । केयुको तालाबन्दीको फुर्सदमा जोइपोइ बनेपा बजार घुम्ने शिलशिलामा मयुर हल नजिकै पुगियो । सञ्‍जोगले फिलिम शुरू हुन लागेको समय पर्‍यो । हेर्ने सल्लाह मिल्यो । काउन्टरमा भिडभाड पनि थिएन । भित्र पसियो । पस्दा बाल्कोनी लगभग खाली नै थियो । धुलाम्मे कुर्सीमा बसिसक्दा नामसाम दिएर फिलिम शुरू भइसकेको थियो ।  फिलिम थियो देवयानी ।

केटाकेटीहरूलाई मार्शल आर्ट सिकाएको दृश्यसँगै फिलिम शुरू हुन्छ । एकैछिनमा एउटी बच्ची तरुनी भएर बलिष्‍ठ खेलाडीका रूपमा प्रस्तुत गरिन्छे । उसले एउटा भुसतिघ्रे युवकलाई ढालिसकेपछि गुरुचाहिँले उदघोष गर्छ, “अब तिमी कुनै पुरुषभन्दा कमजोर छैनौ । आइ एम प्राउड अफ यु, देवयानी”।

मलाई एउटा प्रश्‍नले कुत्कुत्याइहाल्यो, र श्रीमतीलाई खुसुक्‍क सोधेँ, “महिलाले पुरुषसरह बन्नलाई कराँटे नै सिक्नुपर्छ भन्न खोज्या हो?”  मलाई लाग्यो अब यो हिरोनीका हातबाट कति भुसतिघ्रेले कुटाइ खाने भए । एकछिनपछि एक प्रसंगमा हिरोनीले भन्छे, “म नेपालका सबै नारीहरू मजस्तै बलिया हुन् भन्‍ने चाहन्छु”। फेरि ठानेँ यो त कराँटे गुरू पो हुने रैछे । नारी उत्थानको नारामा आधारित नयाँ सोचको चलचित्र हेर्न पाइएछ ।

फिलिम त्यसै उसै सकियो । दशवर्षछि जोइपोइले सँगै सिनेमा हेर्ने मौका मिलेको । सिनेमाभन्दा पनि मौका नै ठूलो थियो । टेलिभिजनमा कलाकारहरूले “नेपाली सिनेमा हेरिदिनुस्, हाम्लाई माया गरिदिनुस्, हलमा गइदिनुस्” भनेको पनि याद आयो । ठिकै छ आज राम्रै काम भएछ जस्तो लाग्यो । कलाकारका लागि नभए मयुर हलका लागि पनि राम्रो भयो । आक्‍कल-झुक्‍कल मान्छे नछिरे सिनेमा हलहरू भएको के काम नि ।

रिलिज हुनेबित्तिकै सिनेमा हेरेपछि जस्तै भए पनि छाप छोड्दो रहेछ । समालोचाना आफ्नो पेशाधर्म भएकाले कुनै कृतिका बारेमा प्याट्ट बोलिहाल्न साइत हेरिन्न । मौका पर्दा लेखिहालिन्छ पनि । हलबाट फर्केपछि मनमा उठेका प्रश्‍नहरू प्रस्तुत गर्ने काममात्र अहिले गरिरहेको छु । पूरा सिनेमाको समीक्षा गर्ने उद्देश्य मेरो होइन ।

एउटी नारीले आत्मरक्षा गर्न सक्षम हुनुपर्छ, पुरुषप्रधान समाजसँग लड्नुपर्छ अनि अरू नारीहरूलाई पनि आफूजस्तै बन्‍न सिकाउनुपर्छ  भन्‍ने सन्देश दिन खोजेको देवयानीको नारीवादी दर्शन चलचित्र शुरू भएको आधाघण्टा नबित्दै कमजोर हुन्छ भने हुन्छ । कराँटेको तालीम हिरोइनलाई दिने, गुण्डाहरू कुट्न हिरोलाई लगाउने, नारी उत्थानको सन्देश दिन खोजेजस्तो गर्ने तर नारीपात्रलाई व्यक्तिगत र पारिवारिक घेरोभन्दा बाहिर ल्याएर निमुखा नारीहरूको सशक्तिकरणमा नलगाउने जस्ता सानातिना भूलहरू त सामान्य दर्शकले पचाउँछन् । तर प्रमुख पात्र देवयानीलाई निमुखो पुरुषमाथि मनपरी गर्ने घमण्डी आईमाई र सन्तानको लालनपालनमा वास्ता नगर्ने असफल आमाको रूपमा प्रस्तुत गरेर यो फिलिमले आफैँमाथि अन्याय गरेको मेरो ठहर छ । गाउँबाट सहर पसेको गरीब दिवाकर (दिलिप रायमाझी) लाई पहिले ड्राइभर र पछि लोग्ने बनाएर कज्याउनुलाई नै पुरुषप्रधान समाजप्रतिको जित मान्‍ने ? अनि दुर्घटनाबाट कुँजिएको बाबुलाई देवयानीको शरणमा देखाएको आमाप्रति भएको अन्यायको प्रतिशोध हो भनेर स्वीकार गर्ने ?

फिलिममा देव (निखिल उप्रेती) लाई ल्याइएको किन हो ? उनले कुन दर्शन र सन्देशको प्रतिनिधित्व गर्छन् भन्‍न गाह्रो छ । उनको गुस्सा र घुस्सा हेरेर रमाउने उमेर समूहको आत्मसन्तुष्‍टिको लागि उनलाई कराउन र उफ्रन लगाइएको हो भने फिलिम केही हदसम्म सफल छ । देवयानी प्रतिको एकोहोरो प्रेममा हदभन्दा धेरै पागल बनाई उसका शत्रु मराएर, जेल पठाएर, एउटा राजबन्दीको संगतमा देशभक्तिको सपना देख्‍ने बनाएर, र जेल तोडेर भगाएर कायम गरिएको निखिल उप्रेतीको वहुआयामिक उपश्थितिले फिलिमको समयचाहिँ धेरै खाएको छ तर अन्तर्निहित नारीवादी कथाभित्र देव कतै छिरेको लाग्दैन । देशरक्षाको अभियानमा हिँड्यो है भनेको महापुरुष घमण्डी देवयानीको पारिवारिक किचलोमा अल्झिन्छ, वेफ्वाँकमा अर्को नायकसँग मारपिट गर्छ र हिन्दी फिलिमको स्टाइलमा देवयानीको भाँडिन लागेको परिवारलाई मिलाएर बाटो लाग्छ । यसरी नायक भनेर उभ्याइएको पुरुषले आफ्नो नायकी ठिक ठाउँमा देखाएको पाइँदैन । नारीवादको नारा बच्चाको लागि लोग्ने र स्वास्नी बिच हुनुपर्ने कम्प्रोमाइजको अधुरो सन्देश दिएर टुङ्गिएको पाइन्छ ।

चलचित्रको नयाँ लाग्न सक्ने पक्षचाहिँ “रोल रिभर्सल” को कथा हो । पुरुषले आफ्नो यौनासक्ति पूरा गर्न नारीलाई प्रयोग गर्नसक्छ भने नारीले पनि पुरुषलाई त्यसरी नै खेलाउन सक्छे भन्‍ने सन्देश धेरैलाई मन पर्नसक्छ । केटीको घरमा केटा बेहुलो भएर भित्रिन सक्छ र श्रीमतीको भुमिकामा रहनसक्छ भन्‍ने तर्क पनि लगभग नयाँ नै हो । तर नारी सशक्तिकरणको एउटामात्र कसी यस्तो रिभर्सल नै हो भन्‍न खोजिएको हो भने धेरैलाई पाच्य नहोला । पुरुषका खराबीहरूलाई नारीले अंगालेर पुरुषलाई दबाउने शक्तिका रुपमा प्रयोग गरेमा पुरुषप्रधान सोच बदलिन्छ भन्‍नु ठिक होइन । नारीमा नारीका सबै असल गुणहरू बिकसित गरी तिनलाई पुरुषका राम्रा गुणहरूले बल दिएर समाज परिवर्तनको दिशामा लगाउनु पर्छ भन्‍ने सन्देश दिन सकेको भए चलचित्र धेरै राम्रो बन्‍थ्यो । चलचित्र नजानिँदो चालले पुरुषवादी नै हुन पुगेको छ । समस्याको कारण नारी, तर समाधानको चाहिँ पुरुष बनाइएको छ । नारीका असल पक्षहरू पुरुषलाई (जस्तै मातृत्वको जिम्मा दिवाकरलाई) दिएर पुरुषलाई आदर्श पिताको रूपमा, पुरुषका खराब बानीहरू नारीलाई (जस्तै देवयानीमा भएको रक्सी र चुरोटको अम्मल र कामासक्ति) दिएर असफल आमाको रुपमा प्रस्तुत गरेर रोल रिभर्सलको तर्कलाई कमजोर पारिएको देखिन्छ ।

जे होस् एकदुईटा छिद्रहरू टाल्न र एकदुईटा भद्दा दृष्यहरू फाल्न सकेको भए फिलिम केही हप्‍ता चल्थ्यो । जस्तै भए पनि नेपालीका छोराछोरीले बनाएको एउटा सिनेमा हलमै गएर हेरियो । खुसी लागिरहेको छ । के थाहा अर्को चोटि हलमा छिर्दा  हजुरबाउ भइसकिएला ।  त्यतिबेलासम्म हलहरूचाहिँ रहलान् नरहलान् फिलिम बनाउनेहरूले नै जानून ।

होसियार है

उमेर दुईकोरी पुग्न लाग्दा अनेक कुरा देखिसकियो। जीवनमा धेर-थोर उतार-चढावहरू आए। साथी बनाइयो, गुमाइयो। देखियो कतिको उत्थान भयो, कतिको पतन। धेरैजसो उतार-चढाव उत्थान-पतनका परिवेश र कारण थाहा पाइयो। धेरै खालका मान्छेहरूसँग हेलमेल भयो। तर सबैप्रति पूर्ण सहानुभुति र सदभाव रह्‍यो। मलाई लागिरहन्छ प्रत्येक मानिस, प्रत्येक सहयात्री वा सहकर्मी कुनै न कुनै रूपले तल परेको हुन्छ, पिडीत हुन्छ। कोही ब्यक्‍तिप्रति कुनै प्रकारको द्वेष वा पूर्वाग्रह राख्‍नु आफ्नै दु:ख र पिडाहरूको समुचित अनुभव र मूल्याङ्‍कन गर्न नसक्नुसरह हो भन्‍ने मेरो धारणा रहेको छ।

तर म सबै मानिसलाई एउटै नजरले हेर्न सक्दिन। यो सुन्दा व्यक्‍तिवादी लागे पनि नितान्त वस्तुवादी मूल्याङ्‍कन हो। निस्पक्ष आँखाले हेर्दा मानिसहरूका बारेमा मनन गर्नै पर्ने धेरै पक्षहरू देखिन्छन्। परिचित मानिसहरूका विगत र वर्तमानका बारेमा आफ्नो दृष्‍टिकोण प्रस्तुत गर्दा यी पक्षहरूको चर्चा अनिवार्य हुने गर्छ।

मान्छेले आफ्नो विवेकले देखेको गर्छ, विवेक भए। नभए संजोगवश राम्रो काम गरिदिए पनि पुग्छ। केही नगर्ने र गर्न नसक्नेका बारेमा केही भन्‍नु छैन। यसो गर्नु कसैको अस्तित्वमा सिधै धावा बोलेको भनी परिभाषा हुनसक्छ। कुनै चुनौतिबिना अरूको आडमा आफ्नो बर्चस्व कायम राख्‍न खोज्नेहरूका बारेमा पनि केही भन्‍नु छैन। त्यस्ता मानिसहरूको मूल्य छैन वा कुनै संघर्षरत परिवेशमा स्थान छैन भन्‍ने पर्याप्‍त आधार र अधिकार पनि छैन। गर्न चाहने र सक्नेले गरेर नचाहने र नसक्नेलाई पनि हतेर्दै लिएर हिँड्नु पर्ने वाध्यता प्रगतिको प्रमुख वाधक भएता पनि हामी सबैले यसलाई आत्मसात गरेका छौँ।

मलाई लागिरहेको डर वा भइरहेको अनुभुति चाहिँ के हो भने हामी यो देशमा कहिँ न कहिँ अल्मलिएका छौँ। व्यक्‍तिगत स्वतन्त्रता र अधिकारका कुरा आफ्ना ठाउँमा छन् तर घर संक्रमणवाट गुज्रिरहेको बेला आफ्नो कामभन्दा पनि सस्तो नाम अनि बाहिर फल्न सक्ने दामतिर ध्यान भएका मानिसहरूको सङ्‍ख्या बढ्दै जाला भन्‍ने चिन्ता विवेक हुनेहरूलाई लाग्नु स्वाभाविक हो। दायीत्वको सूची कागजमा मात्र चेपेर त्यसको काममा अभिव्यक्‍ति दिन नचाहनेहरू, काम गर्नेहरूका खुट्टा तानी सधैँ आफू जिम्मेवार ठाउँ ओगट्ने तर कामलाई अगाडि बढ्न नदिनेहरू अर्थात प्रगतिमा हरदम रुकावट खडा गर्ने तत्वहरूबाट होसियार रहन मेरो आग्रह र त्यसमा सफलता मिलोस् भन्‍ने सबै पाठकहरूलाई शुभकामना।

Literacy, school and stories…

My literacy began with my being able to speak, and when what people said began to make sense to me. And it began with listening verses from Mahabharata and Ramayana. Father’s melodious recitations of them were the nightly rituals in our house. There used to be Pujas, and the priests impressively read verses from the scriptures. Through these all rituals, I understood that knowing what was in the papers was respectable; knowledge mattered.

Formally, my literacy began with the teaching by my father, himself a one-time school teacher, and a well-read gentleman. He taught me alphabets and numbers in dust, and sometimes in dust-smeared rough planks, with a piece of hard straw or the forefinger. I imitated him as he drew the symbols. I learned Nepali and English alphabets thus.

When I was six (in 1978) I was put to Kalika Primary School of Tandi 8, Morang. Sister and brother had already completed the first standard in Fulbari, Jhapa. Father took three of us (Sister, elder brother and me) to the school office, which was one of the five small rooms of the mud-stone-tin building. A man (perhaps a teacher) wrote brother’s and my name easily, but had a hard time spelling sister’s. Father pronounced it five times before grabbing the pen and writing it himself for that man. I still remember this first day to school.

The school was not a pleasant place to begin with. Just imagine sitting on the dusty floor for the whole day, and sleepily, incessantly chanting “Kapuri ka, kharayo kha, gaigode ga …. ek ra ek eghara, ek ra dui bara.” Forget about the audio-visual aids and the teacherly tricks and pleasantries that we often talk about as the means of motivation and learning. I think, in the first year, I learned only a little more than the alphabets and numbers father had taught. The chanting was the most remarkable, though.

Then there was this day, the result day. I don’t remember what the exam was like. I remember the result. Someone called hundreds of names from grade four and below. He called so many familiar people, but I was nowhere. Why did he have to mention scores of them, even my siblings and cousins, and not me? On the way home, I told my sister he had not called me. She said I had FAILED. Back at home, both sister and brother harmoniously reported, “HE FAILED!” I was still bewildered, and could only offer an innocent grin to my parents. I didn’t know how and why one would fail.

Father was visibly disappointed, perhaps angry. But mother was there to rescue me: “See, you haven’t spared a single minute to guide him ever since he was put in school. What does he know about the school and exams?” But by this time I had run upstairs, covered myself with grandpa’s quilt and started weeping. I think father found me out and used his means of cajoling me. In the evening, he taught me a lot of things. He taught how to write most of what I thought and spoke. He taught addition, subtraction, and multiplication. I proved, as a pleasant revelation to my father, the quickest learner ever. Father could see that in comparison to dozens of kids he had taught as a school teacher earlier. We both must have been the happiest people together, father and I, for the first time.

I didn’t know what the labour and pleasure of that evening was for, till the next morning, before the school assembly. Father took me to the headmaster’s office. The headmaster, always a fierce-looking man for my age, gave me a piece of paper and asked me to write (in Nepali, of course), “I don’t like this school. I want to go to another school.” I wrote while my hand trembled with nervousness.  With these two sentences done, he caught me by my arm, brought me to the assembly and told me to join the second row. That was the actual beginning of school, and literacy as well.

………

Father was taught by a teacher who was educated in a British school in Darjiling. So, he knew English and its value. He had taught me English alphabets and certain vocabulary and expressions long before I went to school. But he could not manage time to teach more than these. I saw my first English textbook only in grade four. But, I had already explored all of my father’s old books and notebooks. The books had stories in Nepali with accompanying English translations. I used to read the Nepali, and wonder what it was there in English.

What fascinated me most about the notebooks was father’s English handwriting. I was then tempted to scribble my own type of English, wherever possible – on green leaves, dry leaves, plates, planks and what not. I would mainly write on the bare parts of my body, wherever it was possible with my right hand. When I was short of space, I would clean some parts with spittle and continue. What would look more interesting than the wrist, palm, thighs, and calves of a little boy, covered with hundreds of senseless patches and lines! People at home laughed, but I continued it for quite some time, and gave up only when I realized it really made me ugly.

English came much later in my life, not necessarily as a part of my literacy. It came first just as one of the subjects at school. My education was limited to learning new words and pronunciation from the texts. I could read lines only in grade VI. I learned basic grammar in grade VIII. I could write simple letters in IX, and short essays in X. I never spoke in English until in the Intermediate first year when I met a friend equally curious and committed as myself. I took English as a substitute for science after father’s confession of his inability to afford it for me and my acceptance of it. It has certainly worked thus in course of time.

I have dozens of pleasant memories of school. They sometimes appear to be more pleasant than the recent success stories.

From/In grade three, I was asked to be more than a student. I, along with other kids, had to help the school – to carry beams and planks from a far-off jungle for the desks and benches, to collect cow-dung from a neighbouring village to scrub the dusty floor, to pluck weeds in the school ground after every summer break, to fetch mud and stone for a new wall/building. I also participated in the fund-raising deusis of the school. This was perhaps another way to make a better student at that time in addition to studying and passing exams. This continued until there were enough rooms, enough seats and enough blackboards. My younger brothers did not have to do all this. My class, and those above us, had helped make a bigger, better school for our village. I can say, we made the school along with making ourselves.

The students in general did not dare to complain.  There were other strange rituals to go by. Apart from any first day after holidays, which mostly demanded plucking, sweeping and scrubbing, there were several important days to remember for the school. There were democracy day, constitution day and birthdays of the king and queen. Those days were for us to arrive school early, line in processions through the neighbouring villages chanting after a senior, “long live our king, long live our queen, long live democracy, long live panchayat” and a couple of other catchphrases, which meant nothing more to us than disappointment to our dry throats and hungry bellies. After the processions, our teachers used to be kind enough to distribute red sweet-balls. You were lucky if you got one piece after minutes of struggle. Seeing the kids swarm in hunger and haste, the teachers would get irritated and simply hurl the sweets to the air while the hungry kids fought to claim their shares. We were just naughty chickens after the hour-long wishing of long life to the monarchs and their democracy.

And there was this Saraswati Puja, a festival. The school asked us to ‘pay’ some milk, some rice and some rupees as offerings to the goddess of learning. For a long time every year my father was invited to conduct the worship. In the assembly, he used to ask all of us to sing “jaya jaya saraswati, jaya jaya jaya.” But, we waited more than this singing, the haluwa and khir, the real boons of the worship. The teachers, assisted by bigger boys and girls, used to cook these delicacies in large pots. We devoutly waited for a ‘filling’ share. After all, each of us had paid some milk, some rice and some rupees. But we could get only a little more than two spoonfuls on a piece of paper or leaf-plate, and were asked to leave fast. We always knew that the “big” ones took control of the delicacies which accompanied their songs, dances, pranks and card games till the evening.

In fact, many more I would be happy to write on…………….

A short video here:

Outrunning the Unknown Runner

During the early days of teaching in a boarding school one gets to come across diversity of odd moments. The time is full of tests and cross-examinations. People around you — founders, administrators, colleagues, staffs, students, and students’ parents — try to know your knack in their own ways. Or, at least, you appear after a time to consider the need of ensuring such multifaceted satisfaction as the only secret of becoming a teacher. This is my understanding, which,  I admit, need not resemble anyone’s. Experiences vary.

My actual, substantial teaching career began in Pashupati English Boarding School, Urlabari. I recall this beginning for two reasons. First, it was a turning point in my life for my first entry in an established institution. It was a beginning of vigorous learning — to teach standard English, work long hours, take studies and work along together, support parents, grow and sustain aspirations, manage interpersonal vicissitudes, fall in love and realize the practical side of falling and failing, and many. Second, it started in Bhadra; Bhadra counts in my life. I started university teaching in Bhadra 2057, had the first son in Bhadra 2058.  Bhadra of 2065 was marked by at least three things: my younger son, Hridaya, was born, I finished M. Phil.,  I received National Education Award.

Well, the entry to Pashupati was exciting. I went to ask if there was a vacancy (In fact, I had had a hint that there was or would be one). The principal, Jit Bahadur Rai as I recall now, told me to drop an application. When I did, they asked me to prepare for a short demonstration class. I did it, and taught in class three for about ten minutes. This was the first time I had spoken English to students to my satisfaction.  Then they took a sort of interview –  if I could join instantly. I said yes. They said I had to come the following day to meet the founder who was going to fix my facilities. Everything was so fast and less than expected. As it was so, people naturally began to eye on me, which I knew only later when Mr. Prem Subedi, my mentor and former guru, counseled me about the school ‘environment’.

When people eye on you in a workplace, you must check everything, especially how they try to crisscross the lines of responsibilities.  You must first be clear about your line(s), and see where they go closer to and farther from others’. One morning I was teaching English in the same class three, which was next to the staff room in the old tin-roofed block. I was only half-way with the new teacher’s vigour when a man (a colleague, of course) who had happened (or pretended/wanted) to hear the fun we were making, came to the door, excused himself and began to scold the students for making noise. Then he again excused himself, called me out and began to counsel me. Some other colleagues were watching this from the adjacent staff room. I was a bit puzzled because I had never seen him. Had I known that he was junior to me in qualification and equal in post, I would have spoken more fluent and better English to the hearing of everyone around. I just listened and thanked him ‘for his valuable words’. But this little thing spread like a wild-fire, reached to Prem Sir, the Vice Principal. The colleagues who had heard the lecture later said to me, in his absence, of course,  “I would thrash that snob. But you are new and humble. Check from next time.” So were Prem sir’s words when I explained what had happened. He said, “He knows you were my student. Some other teachers know it, too. You can expect a few more such tests. And next time, with him or anyone else, argue strongly and with the best English you have. Make sure you know more and speak better than your juniors and equals here.”

My confidence level had never been low wherever I worked then, neither has it been now. Working in Pashupati gave me the best opportunity to test confidence practically. It was a big place for my age and qualification but had swift chance of promotion. And promotion was ensured in working hard and emulating others. It was a time when a locally educated lad like me was brought face to face with Darjiling-born ‘experts’ highly sought-after in English boarding schools. I was an alternative to the experts to start with, and proved unbeatable in the course of one year. People tested me time and again. The Hostel warden, whose assistant I was, tested me half a dozen times, the hostellers tested me, the cooks and peons did that. But the then Kafle sir was not an inch dwindled. I remember one English teacher coming to the hostel tutorial time in the evening just to test how well I wrote and spoke English. He gave a question to answer as if I were a student. I wrote and explained. He confessed he wanted to see how Prem sir’s disciple would actually fare in his proficiency parameters. later, he became a very good partner in speech; he was a crazy learner of English himself.

I had started as an assistant hostel warden, which demanded a lot of going around and quarreling with kids. I hated this after a time because it overtook my study.  At the end of the session, which was the end of Mangsir at that time, I requested the founder, “Sir, the hostel work is taking my study time. Though I entered as a warden, I want to continue as only a full timer. Now I must also keep my brothers with me and  go out of the hostel. But I promise to work harder and even help in tutoring the hostel kids in the evening. Will you release me?” He agreed to let me stay out, but said I had to continue as a primary level teacher with the earlier salary. This meant I was not going to get a promotion to the lower secondary though there was a vacancy and I was eligible. For me leaving the quarrelsome kids was a better reward than a promotion for that time.

A year passed. I ‘topped’ my batch in the Bachelor first year exams. My young colleagues advised me to reveal this fact in the upcoming start-of-the-session staff meeting. We bought some kilos of orange and distributed at the end of the meeting. The friends disclosed the reason for this humble treat.  I did not really bother how it worked. But friends said my success was a lesson to my competitors. Prem sir later reminded me the optimism of the myth of  “a needle-like entry for a ploughshare’s exit.” This success added to my image. But I had to prove that I could top the second year also, which I did. There was no celebration for this since I left the school along with the results.

The founder rarely called anyone to his office if he had to talk with them. One day, right before the new academic year started (in my second year in the school), he beckoned me to the basketball court construction site, where he was admonishing his workers for meticulousness. I was a bit nervous. I thought something might have gone wrong. But he said, in his usual scanty words, “Now I know why you wanted to leave the hostel. You’ve been working very well. So, I’ve decided to promote you to the lower secondary post. Prem sir will give you a couple of new classes in grade 7 and 8 also. Get ready for them, OK?”. Not only the promotion, I had got the chance to teach higher classes, which other English teachers had aspired for. What’s more, in the year’s school day the founder announced the reward of two grades for me. There was now no point in looking back and down. I had grown.

During a short farewell gathering on my last day in the school, the Principal and Mr. L.P. Regmi, both respectable old teachers, enumerated the phases of my growth in those two years and four months. For the first time I realized the accuracy and weight of the judgment of experienced people. They said they were happy for my beginning ahead though the school would welcome my longer stay. They only expected me to acknowledge how Pashupati had prepared me to explore new opportunities in Kathmandu. It is during this farewell moment that I first heard the principle of “forgiving and forgetting” unpleasant encounters of the past at the start of a new journey ahead.

Thus, with B.A. and confidence, I left Pashupati in the winter of 2053.  I have always made it a rule to visit the school whenever I go home. When I  reach there, I get a feeling of being around all these fourteen years though a lot of things have changed. I will cherish those 28 months for the rest of my life.

And, I continue to value the early tests and cross-examinations. If similar cases occur today also, I just take them as the new editions/reprints of those valuable old books.  Working in Pashupati,  I learned this simple maxim for life: Professional life is a race. Whether you like or not, there always is a pressure to run faster. You may not know others’ speed, but must constantly try to outrun them without tresspassing their trails. When you win, the person who deserves both thanks and congratulations is you yourself.

[Originally included in http://neltachoutari.wordpress.com , April 2011]

Leadership Vicissitudes

Communication scholar Herbert W. Simons postulates that movement-time politics is influenced by the requirements leaders set, the problems they face and the strategies they apply to meet the requirements and overcome the problems. A cursory look at Simons’ postulations would help explain why Nepali leaders are more entangled in partisan vicissitudes than focused in the country’s progress.

Requirements

The leaders’ practical requirements are diverse. First, they are in constant need of collecting cadres and voters into an effectively organized unit. But being physically organized does not suffice unless the leadership maintains reasonable hierarchy and distribution of responsibilities among the cadres. Stratification augmented by member activism ensures sustenance of party interests.

Second, leaders are conditioned to take ambiguous stances. In case of an issue of common interest, they take one position within the party to the satisfaction of the members and benefit of the party-line, but another in the public to the hearing of their opponents and understanding of the common voters. They take yet another stance in an inter-party meeting to the benefit of their party through exerting victory over a cause or dignity on a defeat in the same cause. The most challenging of all is the need to ensure acceptance of their visions and programmes by the state. Long-established norms of the state often overrule new programmes, so leaders frequently clash with the agents of the larger structure, and feel compelled to garner strength through increase of cadres and vigorous trainings. Consequently, parties and their leaders diverge from contributing to welfare programmes.

Problems

On the surface, inter-party conflicts form the only setback for effective leadership, but leadership faces more intra-party hassles. The first has to do with maintaining a proper balance between extremist and moderate factions of cadres during decisive movements. Extremism like exerting physical force may lead to the withdrawal by the moderate supporters who could be the source of more peaceful, intellectual, and judicial inputs and who would act as mediators in negotiations. Moderation may also lead to the rebellion by militant supporters who would be decisive for retaliation and exertion of physical forces.

Another practical challenge of leadership includes the need to veil real intentions by means of the oratorical art of falsification, camouflage or hyperboles while addressing the supporters. This again clashes with the need of reliability and credibility in arguments. Besides, leaders have the pressure to adapt to multiple audiences at the same time, and the utterances meant for one group are disseminated by the mass media to other unintended audience. Leaders might still escape the mass’s criticism, but cannot bamboozle their own cadres. This situation suggests the state of discrepancy between leaders’ defined roles and actual deeds.

Political parties literally do not function with the small-is-beautiful principle. Irrespective of the degree of organizational strength and leadership merits, they are in constant urge to expand. During a time of movement against a highly resistant authority, supporters are needed in the form of a strong mass regardless of their earlier orientations and potential deviation. In elections only a numerical majority ensures authority and power to materialize the manifesto. But the number-based politics is tricky. The number may not work when manageable. After it works, it may begin to become unmanageable. It may shoot up when a party is ideologically premature, and dwindle when fully mature. Nepal’s major political leaders may have known this problem better.

There are some more aspects of leadership crises. First, the contest among leaders within the same party due to the emergence of three types of leaders during a movement: the theoreticians, agitators and propagandists. The second concerns the ideological conflict among those with high profiles, most of whom belong to such binary factions as inclusionists or exclusionists and fundamentalists or revisionists. The third includes the dominance of the “charismatic” (domineering personalities, orators) and “specifically competent” (specialists, professionals, highly educated) persons. Presence of such leaders may underestimate the mediocre but long-term supporters. The fourth aspect is the rift between the financially rich and resourceful and poor and less resourceful members.

Strategies

During public appearances leaders appear complacent and confident as though they have outmaneuvered all kinds of antagonism and regression surrounding them. This is where they seem to retain the symbolic stature of being the agents of welfare and advancement. But, such appearance and stature cannot betray the reality of their obligation to thread a way through a labyrinth of demands and complaints from within and outside the party. As stated earlier, the pressure comes from both the mild and the uncompromising groups of cadres. As a result, leaders are required to maneuver at least three types of strategies of tackling challenges, which also sometimes underlie the existence of three types of leaders. Herbert Simons categorizes these as moderate, militant and intermediate strategies.

The moderate are characterized by reasoning, politeness and restraint. Leaders of such quality get angry but do not yell. Even for rebellion they would rather choose to issue pamphlets than use destructive means. Moderate leadership seeks to change attitudes as a precondition for the resolution of crises. The moderate gain entry in decision centres for their capacity to provide constructive, intellectual inputs. The militant strategy, in contrast, takes changing people’s actions as the precondition for bringing changes. Conflict resolution for the militant is the defeat of opponent voices. They become visible during violent movements, and most probably sulk away from peaceful negotiations. The intermediate approach follows the “alternation between carrot and stick.” The intermediates speak modestly in private spaces, but stridently to the masses, thereby attaining sometimes ironical and most of the times paradoxical postures. They may end up antagonizing supporters by abrupt shifts from moderation to militancy or vice versa. They may boost the morale of followers and win over the disinterested with the power of oratory in a value-laden language.

These leadership types mainly operate among two types of people: the “power-vulnerable” and the “power-invulnerable.” The first comprise the so-called highbrows like the university professors, government officials, leaders of corporate houses and retired personalities. During transitions, they are susceptible to the shifts in power centres and change their stances as guided by the will to secure their positions and possessions. The second include the people who may lack both positions and possessions, or have nothing to lose or gain even in the intensity of crises. They are able to escape dangers if they choose to, and do not refrain from retaliating if need arises.

The discussion on the rhetorical requirements, problems and strategies of leadership should suggest why Nepalese leadership has not been able to retain its representative national stature. How can leaders fully belong to the nation and devote time to the welfare of citizens so long as they are in a labyrinth of movement-time vicissitudes? We are yet to wait to be out of the era of party-building; nation-building may start when leaders have fewer reasons to be self-centred.

[Originally published in Republica, 18/2/2011)

Learn-English Saga

I started formal English in grade 4 as did the kids of public schools at that time. But, since my father knew English, perhaps more of it than my school teachers, the fundamentals like alphabets, ‘What is your name?’, ‘How are you?’ and ‘Where do you live?’ and a lot more were already in my tongue when they put a thick pictured English text book on my hand in grade 4.

I don’t remember reading English with as much zeal as the stories and verses from Nepali, Sanskrit and Moral Science books. It was one scanty thing of the many other subjects I did in Nepali, and came to my notice only before and during examinations. In grade 6, a new English teacher made us do a lot of reading and writing from the English text book. I got some sense of learning then. But this enthusiastic  man did not come to us in grade 7, and English again went to the margin. Then in grade 8, we had a ‘real’ English teacher, who put the text book aside for a few weeks to teach us the basics of grammar which, for me, formed a strong groundwork for future pursuits in English. So, towards the end of schooling, I could write essays and converse in English — all due to knowledge of grammar rules and intuition but limited opportunity for real time practices.

In the gap between the School Leaving Certificate results and joining the college, most of my English went into disuse. I took to working in the farm with father, cattle grazing, and loitering around with village louts. Even most of my formal Nepali turned slightly rustic. When I turned over the first lessons of the college text books later, which were in English except for the compulsory Nepali, I realized it was like diving into deep, rough waters without the slightest knowledge of swimming. Fortunately, the college English teachers, especially those who taught major English, succeeded in instilling some zeal for reading and writing English.

In the Intermediate level I shared a room with two different types of friends. The first had this habit of listing down all new words from the lessons and asking me to write meanings of whatever I knew. In this course, I would be tempted to look up the dictionary for other unfamiliar words also. While helping my roommate I helped myself. When this friend left me for a more spacious location later, another one proposed to stay with me for some time. And he happened to be a great learner. We started reading novels and stories together. We made it a point to communicate in English most of the times, to write about the texts and to show the writings to each other compulsorily. This was the real beginning.We taught ourselves a lot, or, in fact, time had brought us together to become life-long admirers of each other.

My first public speech in English involved a summary of Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea in the first year of my Intermediate studies. The English teacher had invited anyone of the class to volunteer to speak on the novel. I had happened to read it with much  liking just the night before, and decided to try. Unexpectedly, it went smooth. I could use many words that I never knew I had learned, and sentences I had never consciously constructed. Though it was not new for the class because I was one of the ‘noticeable’ in the batch, it was new for me for its being the first formal speech to nearly a hundred curious people.

That I was studying English was something worthy of mention back in the village. The class-topper in the school throughout the classes, and one of the three first division holders by then (by 1990), I already had a prestige of a sort. With ‘major English’ added, I was regarded a young intellectual, which meant maintaining, or sometimes feigning, some mature postures in the presence of neighbours and relatives, and showing some degree of responsibility at home. Though I had opted to study science in the offing and had to choose the arts due to domestic limitations, English never allowed me to feel any sense of deprivation.

But would anyone’s knack in the communication in English cause a violent dispute between families of two different castes? Hardly anyone imagines it would. But I have an interesting story to share. It is about how my momentary appearance at a place led to fights and subsequent arrest of two of my neighbours.

Prices and costs…

What is the price of favouring truth?

What is the cost of disfavouring chicanery?

I am trying to answer these two questions these days.  Even when people look like creating chasms of lies, and building mazes of scandals, I  see a silver lining around. This might appear too idealistic yet insignificant, though. Then I decide to bother less about the chasms and mazes than the ways of clearing them.  This makes life a bit muddled but I am resolute to be focused to tackling future challenges.

I adore the old maxim that truth always prevails, but that one has to pay with perseverance, and wait till it prevails. Amid the maze of lies, truth may momentarily linger helpless. But it is sure to emerge dominant. First, because it overcomes lies as a natural rule, and second because lies are doomed to clash with one another to mutual abolition. In this saga of clash and abolition, which I have seen happen numerous times, I see the germination of the same truth — that it only takes to wait for some time patiently,  insistently, consistently till the silver lining spreads and prevails upon the remnants of the lies. What one really pays is time and wait.

Chicanery is surreptitious and nasty, but its attributes and perpetrators cannot hide once identified. The only cost of disfavouring it is you have to disfavour and discard the perpetrators. This might hurt you because you would possibly have to see your faiths shattered since someone you trusted so much turned out to be a bad egg and you had to kick the egg out of your life to save your surroundings from rotting further.  The cost still is the patience, which sometimes makes you impatient to the extent of urging you to enter and demolish the array of vices. But you do not want to pay with your dignity which is too valuable to mess with lies and chicaneries. To mess up equals to involvement: in both cases you invite disgrace to your life.

This whole discourse drives me two decades back to the time my family lived in a village in Morang. With a surge of the immigration of half- or pseudo – literate people, especially Brahmins and Chhetris from neighbouring hills and plains, our neighbourhood, which had started with a couple of peaceful households, turned into a crowd of nosy, noisy, scandalous slum-like settlement in a span of five years.  I wonder how my siblings and I did not become thieves and lechers before the family finally left for a more secluded place in the early 1990s. We did not deviate because our parents were the epitome of faith and perseverance. We were so tenaciously bound within the circle of family virtues that little deviation would be visible and punishable. Or deviation would never occur.

I feel the boundaries today also, and check that the then neighbourhood does not stink here. Now I cannot only be an onlooker but  have a part in the intermittent, perhaps everlasting, tug of war between truth and lies. I can only work with sensibility despite the manly (sometimes rustic) fury for smashing the roots of lies.

When people begin to regard your grey hair with some faith, you should pay with humility, virtue and sense of growth. And, this is the cost of living as a good human being.

Over a Decade at KU: Pondering over Meanings

Mine is only a little less than the half of Kathmandu University’s entire journey. Eleven years, which have slipped like seconds. The first day is afresh as if it were yesterday — the confusion, the compunction, the curiosity, and what not. When I see the changed parts of KU and the new establishments today, and when I count the number of school-going children from the quarters with my own sons along, I begin to ponder over the days, months and years ….

I am trying to trace my transitions and transformations  in reminiscences, in my diaries, and sometimes in the grey hairs of my friends and colleagues. My ruminations can’t be more organized now while the flashback comes like a hillside stream during a torrential rain.

How detached and confused I was about starting career at KU in August 2000! For a fresh MA with a not-so-bad Nepalese percentage, Kathmandu was so appealing for half a dozen vacancy announcements per day;  the work at TU and its colleges looked so leisurely and independent  that the job offer at KU with eight hours by six days compulsion did not tempt me much. But I joined KU because I had always respected the first option and a reasonable offer, regardless of what alternative further struggle and waiting would lead to. There were assurances from outside KU that I had not landed in a wrong place. Inside everyone looked satisfied despite the minimum sixty kilometers journey daily and the 8/6 reality.

I had learned from previous experiences that once one was at home in a workplace, one did not have to strive fruitlessly for a productive space. After all,  I was entering a place where there would be no boundaries for intellectual productivity. To be at a central station of a growing university would naturally mean to be a part of the growth itself. I sustained because I wanted to become such part. And it was long before being infested with the contagion of ennui and frustration that the comparison with a more ‘colorful’ life at the Kathmandu market would bring.

“Ten years are sufficient to grow confident and passionate for a job,” said one of my old acquaintances last year. His assertion rings true to me. But it was a decade at one place with extremely rare absence! In a so-called western standard which often takes mobility equivalent to dynamism, one would consider hanging in a place for so long close to atrophying. But the period for me is worth a book because it hasn’t been without upheavals, albeit small to others; it hasn’t been without friends and foes, joys and jerks. I now recall how I had found myself amid the air of resignation at my workstation when fully inside and how much I worked to help restore optimism which everyone around me feels these days — how it changed largely with me, and only partly without. I have a confident claim for the share in transformation of my Department. But I would require a larger (more serious) space to justify this claim.  My confession for now is I did not go to explore greener pastures elsewhere.  I think I have grown as confident and passionate as my old friend’s theory assumes.

The conditions are worth sharing.

First, my association and closeness with hardworking people, who knew very well that only a slight lag in the quality of service and that of the students would ultimately endanger the institution.  I happened to join at a time when the University’s youthfulness was written largely on the working spirit of the majority. There was enthusiasm like a contagion, at least in those who initiated and helped the institution grow. Perhaps the contagion easily took me. I now take it as a proof of what V. S. Ramachandran puts, “I realized a long time ago that the best formula for success is to be around people who are passionate and enthusiastic about what they do, for there is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm.”  The leaders here were a rare lot for hard work and perseverance, and still are.  The company of the  hardworking  is one of the most remarkable incentives.

Second, the need for creating a space; of securing what was given apart from the general challenge: “What you’ve  got  is just enough for entry; to go ahead you must be different from what you are now.” Anyone who landed KU for a career would share this partly annoying but largely awakening warning on disuse and redundancy, and suffer a productive unrest for the need of update. Besides, because the place was manageably small (or big), one could immediately find himself (in)capable of creating impact; he would be visible in a short time. This visibility, which is rather absent in highly populated institutions, would either force one to choose a path of uplift, or explore  a more leisurely and riskless space elsewhere. Those who sustained this dilemma for the path of growth, ushered the university further. This is why almost everyone who has spent half a decade here owns KU.

Eleven years – a child grows enough to adapt to some of life’s vicissitudes; an adult greys enough to understand the futility of excesses; an old person is gratified enough by life’s heydays and has adequately rehearsed for the pains of last days. Yes, I have seen all of these here, and therefore think that my life in this hillock has become all the more meaningful than it would had I chosen to strain myself for the  “greener pastures.”

I would end my ruminations by quoting one favorite anecdote I read online sometime during my early days at KU. I often use it to begin my classes in each new session.

An old lady and a young man happened to compete for a promotion to a university’s permanent post. The lady, who had spent years teaching at the university, was somehow sure that she was going to beat the young man, who had been there two years only.  But she lost; the young man was selected for the post.

Wounded because she was denied this last chance before retirement, she went to complain with the President: “It’s unfair, sir. I’ve taught for twenty years, but you’ve denied me promotion for the young lad who hasn’t been here more than a couple of years.  I can’t simply take it as natural. What’s that boy done, after all?”

The President was in the best of his wit. He simply said, “I understand what you feel, Madam. But it is not how many years that really counted, but how many achievements. From what the selection board knew, and as the reality also is, Madam, you’ve only taught one year for twenty times. That’s made all the difference.”