Anyway, all of this is worsened by the fact this homeland of ours is (budget) tourist paradise and seeing them wide-eyed at everything makes you want to be wide-eyed elsewhere too. But based on the look of some of these tourists I don’t have time to wish I was traveling because as lame this as it sounds, I am just stuck at what they’re wearing.

Is it is just me or do you also get around to Thamel and fail to understand why tourists feel the need to walk around in potatoe sacks?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about you have clearly been blissfuly spared the hideous sight. And hideous is putting it kindly, because criminal is what it would be otherwise.

The harem pants on their own would not put Atatürk’s harem to shame, but the faded, torn and all around tattered pieces of leftover fabric used to make them is an utter disgeace to the entire Ottoman Empire. To top it off, the “100%” yak wool some choose to wrap around themselves in place of a fully functional and very practical sweater  may count as creative, but really? Would you wear that in your home country? That thing is better left as a shawl to ugly to wear in public but too comfy to throw off when on the couch watching HBO. That, or on the floor. Hinestly, do tourists feel so at ease in our country that they think walking around our city looking like hippies at best and just plain weird at worst is appropriate? I mean when we go to Jerusalem or Barcelona we don’t wear biblical era robes or sombreros. Hello, no on does – no one sane anyway.

Somebody tell me if they land at Tribhuvan dressed like that. Or do they get to Thamel and then immediately strip because the tie-dye shirts just can’t be left unworn? Maybe they are misguided by what they see hanging in the shop walls or by what fellow tourists are wearing in place of real clothes, but come on! They can’t possibly be that stupid. They did succesfully haul themselveslves and their dusty backpack across mountains and oceans, navigating international airports and what not.

So I guess this is them easing into holiday wear and feeling the vacation spirit overcome all sense of normalcy. But even then I’m skeptical, sarongs in Goa are one thing but trousers hanging at your knees and 15kg of dreads another.

I’m so confused everytime I have the  misfortune of having to witness such a ghastly sights. (Turning the other way offers little solace – it’s tourist country and they invade the nation after all!) Though, really, I should be thankful they keep themselves to Thamel. I’ve yet to see the like meandering about Jawalakhel or Naya Baneshwar.

I am puzzled, no doubt. But, I am also close to being offended. Because, where do they think they’ve landed? It is not 1960s Kathmandu and the country has more to offer than hashish and cheap girls. If you’ve come looking for that, I’m hoping it’s scarcer than your dated Lonely Planet hinted and suggest you take your senseless garb elsewhere. Like Mars.

Okay, fine, maybe they want to get rid of their blue jeans, flats and cotton t-shirts because they feel that is much too much in comparison to the poverty they suddenly find themselves surrounded by. So I can see them wanting to tone it down. I certainly leave my cute boots and leather jacket when I travel to remote Nepal, but I also don’t wrap myself in a frayed old bedsheet and hold it together using old rope. Neither do I wear duct-taped chappals and refrain from maintaining basic hygiene (read: shower), you know?

I don’t get these hippe tourists lugging around bottles of mineral water but bargaining the price of wai wai from the street vendors. The only thing I am even more confused by is Nepalis replicating this hey-ma-I-left-planet-earth look.

I was horrified.

Back in the day, Nepal Television would monotonously declare “balak harayeko suchana” and display amazingly pixelated black and white passport photograph of some child and it wasn’t as horrific. It was a child more often than not, but also a old woman or really old man sometimes. These days they’re kidnapping in broad daylight and kidnapping anyone and everyone – sometimes for ransom, sometimes for revenge. It’s disgusting.

Of course, crimes such as these – looting, burgalry and kidnappings – are very common (immediately) after conflict. As soon as you enter the “post-conflict” phase, it seems law and order is a mess. It’s hard to tell who’s in charge and it feels as though no one’s in charge. Unemployment is rife and opportunities aplenty so it’s a a bit crude, but kidnappings like this isn’t entirely uncommon or unheard of in the case of the aftermath of an insurgency.

Even then it’s largely unsettling. There’s no children in my immediate family but I worry quite a bit about my middle school cousin. Though, of course it’s not just children being kidnapped in Nepal, is it?  There’s no two way about it, Kathmandu is a scary city these days and based on news reports it isn’t feeling any safer.

I suppose there’s little you can do when you are nabbed in the dark and thrown into the back of a van and then stuffed into a dark dungeon, but insofar as many kidnappings aren’t that “exciting” (for lack of a better word, that is), there actually seems to be a few good pointers to keep ourselves (and our younger cousins) safe.

So, I googled and after reading a few sites I realized there was a general consensus on a few bits. One, they always talk about children being kidnapped. Two, they were mostly talking about cases in the US (actually, all of them that I read were). Three, they talk a lot of kidnappers actually being non-strangers. So, it’s not entirely related to how kidnappings happen in Kathmandu, but I liked a few of the suggestions, so if you care, continue reading.

My favorite and very obvious to day was the one that said to know where your children are (but, in our case, let’s just say our friends or family). That’s so easy – we just keep tab on them. When my sibling comes home from work she’ll touch base with us when she leaves her office, approaches our neighborhood and is walking down the gulley to the gate. I guess I could be more courteous and do the same. That way, if I got kidnapped anywhere between my house and New Road at least my family would have a closer vicinity to mark off, to start off with anyway.

They also suggest you don’t go out alone. Of course they are talking about children so it’s weird to tell adults to always take a buddy along, but it’s not a bad idea if you can help it. In boarding school we were told to go out to the buzzar in threes. That way if someone got hurt, one person could stay with them and another could go get help. I suppose a similar purpose remains except if a masked man grabbed you, you’d have two other friends to do the screaming (and hopefully the remembering bit – regarding what the guy looked like, the license plate number and so on).

Then they also talked about how we always teach children to be polite and that made me think, we adults are no different. Like the few times I have met with sick men I always think when they approach me as perfect strangers they want to know the time. So, I stop and smile and respond – only to be horrified. I guess the lesson isn’t to walk around with a scowl on your face, but definitely to not fear being rude if you don’t feel safe. If anyone don’t know starts to act too friendly or gets too close, just very loudly ask who they are because you think they’ve mistaken you for someone else. Hopefully others on the bus or the sidewalk or wherever may be will turn around and stop long enough for the creeper to move away.

Since we’ve crossed year five of having since entered the peace process, things will begin to fall into place. Till then, be safe!

I realized early on in life, about two years to be precise, that sometimes you go through the lows – no, not to appreciate the highs – but to delight in the normal/mediocre/daily. Take work. You know how bored you get with the doldrums of daily tasks and then suddenly disaster strikes and it’s only when the crisis is over that you find yourself smiling at the prospect of boring old work.

Anyway, a week or so ago I woke up one day and felt like it was end of the world.

Fine, it wasn’t that bad. But, it was pretty close. I was absolutely knocked out. You know how you get the wind knocked out of you, I was just knocked out (no, not that way you with your one track mind). I just felt absolutely gutted. Since I don’t have a job or school or obligation or any real like grown up responsibility to attend to it took a day or so for my family to notice.

My family, if you didn’t know, are a bunch of a busybodies. Everyone has like at least one job (most have 2) and then a million side projects. We believe in hard work and not wasting a minute of the day (yes, we do work email while on the pot). Of course, that “we” is being used very generously here as I’m not really included in it anymore. So, rather they all get up at like 7AM (which is unheard of if you live in my world), rush to the bathroom, gobble breakfast (and a fistful of meds) and are out the door by 7:30AM.

Since I usually sleep in till … erm, noneedtonametheexacthour they usually come in one by one pat my head as I drool on my pillow and lock the door behind the them. Sometimes I also happen to be taking my siesta when they get back from work. Usually I am up at about 4AM, very alert, very jagar chaleko and on my computer and hence they have come to expect me snoring when they are working. All to say it isn’t their fault they didn’t notice right away. And I don’t mind.

When you are that gutted, it turns out, nothing really matters. My memory is hazy but I probably slept like two days straight. I was coughing up buckets of phlegm. I have never coughed so much in my life – after a day my stomach muscles were getting a work out and then by the end of it my lower back was in pain each time I coughed out some of that delicious stuff. It was disgusting (but the phlegm was white, not yellow-green so not as flavorful as it could have been). When my family picked up on the fact that no one had eaten last night’s leftovers – that’s usually my job, to finish up for my lunch-at-home whatever we didn’t the night before – they realized I must be sick.

Now I’m hardly sick. I get the cold every now and then but I’ve got so much energy it hardly stops me. I never get headaches and don’t know what period cramps are like. I am virtually sick-free. But, you know, every once in a while it’s healthy to get sick.

Finally, after three days of sleeping all day my parents grew concerned and decided we must get to the doctor’s right away. I did, yes, go in my pajamas and having not showered in well over socially acceptable number of days, tried to care, but just couldn’t.

He gave me cough syrup, a certain type of cetamol (not all is good he wisely claimed) and antibiotics. Now, if you are like me, you have a serious aversion to the world antibiotics. That aversion is of course slightly baseless as all you know is one must not consume too much antibiotics but not much more so I was a bit reluctant. Then again, remember how I said you don’t care about anything very much when you’re that sick? Yeah. I also reasoned the last time I took them I was a junior in college, so had to be about 2007 and I had to take them because I grazed my knees so very bad (right through the jeans) when I tried to walk in heels one fine day and tripped on nothing but myself. How does one graze one’s knees that bad by oneself, you ask? Well, clearly you haven’t met me.

Anyway, four days later and voila – I am feeling pretty much just all around awesome. So awesome, I had to get back from seeing the doctor this morning and blog about it. Yes, I’m a blogoholic. I don’t know why I care to publicly detail every non-significant overwhelmingly mundane facts of my life, but I do. It’s not the toomuchtimeinmyhands or that my other option is to twiddle my thumb, no sir-ee!

So, here you are ladies and gentleman a happy and smiling Nepaliketi. 745 words I hope you got my point – sometimes it takes getting really really sick (okay, so I wasn’t deathly sick) to appreciate your good old health.

Granted I don’t have my good old health at this very moment. Indeed, the doc prescribed me a second round of antibiotics and I had to take a picture becaue I very well laughed at out loud when the pharmacists pulled these babies out:

how frigheningly large do the pills have to be? there's two of 'em in one capsule but still, how does one swallow that??

Also, the initial x-ray suggested bronchitis so I googled bronchitis and ready everything Mayo Clinic had to say on it – both acute and chronic but turns out it’s not bronchitis. Just our friendly family doctor, namely non-medical school certified sister’s boyfriend who skimmed the report and had somehow suggested to my mom it was bronchitis. Of course, she came home and said “You have asthma” initially which was alarming because I’m a runner and asthma and running don’t exactly go well together. Turns out it was the Bronchitis it wasn’t. Yes, you read that right. The doc declared it was Pneumonia that I had. Who even gets that anymore? (My sister wisely pointed out I must be thinking of the Bubonic Plague.)

This is a sad day for my family of public health specialists – everyone from my parents to my cousins to my aunts and uncles are doctors, pharamacologits, rural health administrators, nurses and the like. You’d think growing up surrounded by the likes you’d know Pneumonia still existed. Ah, I never fail to impress, that I do.

Ever notice how in Nepal we are all about categorizing people? It’s not just about putting people in boxes but putting boxes on top of each other so we can rank them. Men – women. Educated – illiterate. Employed – Berojgar. Thulo manche – sano manche. Rich – poor. You get it. Of course this happens everywhere else but in Nepal where we put people is a dead give away because for some odd reason we don’t like to use the good names our good parents gave us.

We like things like “dai” and “didi” and “aunty” and “uncle”. All fine and sweet – even I like that the busboy is a “bhai” that the shopkeeper is an “uncle” and my mom’s friend an “aunt”. But what makes me laugh out loud is when people say “Sir” and “Madam”. Sir is for obvious sad reasons said way more often than Madam, but even Sir makes me think we’re all just having a good laugh.

Something about saying “Sir” conjures images of a perfectly postured old man with a bow tie and tweed jacket. And when I hear Madam I either imagine a French piano teacher or (depending on how it’s pronounced) the big lady in charge of a brothel. So, neither of these words come out of my mouth all too often. I get it’s a mark of respect but I don’t think you can just add “Sir” or “Madam” and have paid your dues. I was in a class in Nepal once where students addressed their Sirs and Madams as such but never came prepared for lessons, they didn’t read their text and they just sat there. I think you could say Sir/Madam for the rest of your life and that it would still be disrespectful to not take the class seriously. Same with work, I mean why say Sir/Madam when you don’t respect your boss? If they aren’t men and women of integrity it’s not your problem, it’s their’s. So why pretend and add the undeserving title?

The thing about not using our good names is that it all gets so confusing. I look abnormally young for my age (for instance a year after earning my BA this guy asked me if I was going to prom) so usually all these dais and didis are actually my bhais and bahinis. The other day I met my mother’s friend’s son. I figured he was younger than me and called him bhai, but he seemed to take offense to that. And he asked me how old I was, surprised to hear 26 he said he was too, then he asked my birthday and quickly claimed that I was his bahini by a few weeks. Not that I get a great sense of being amazing based on if strangers are bhais or dais, I agreed.

The thing is all these titles are kind of there to put people into place.

Take for instance a recent email conversation I had. I will call the person Kunike because I can’t think of a good name. So I wrote to Kunike dai (as I do to most men older than me with whom I have a professional relationship, only if they are Nepali). They wrote back asking what the “dai” was about. I didn’t have an answer so the next email onwards I just wrote “Dear Kunike”. But, about ten emails in I wasn’t sure if by questioning the “dai” he meant to suggest we talk to each other as equals or if he was hinting he deserved the “ji” (which I only use for people older than my parents age with whom I have a professional relationship, and not familial, because than they’d be aunty/uncle).

The thing about “ji” is that I use is sparingly because I was a member of the Nepal Democracy Forum and I was so eager to join the group which seemed to be comprised of all Nepali intellectuals who cared about and carried forth the torch of democracy. Then I realized everyone starts their email with Kunike JI and Kuniko JI but then proceeds to lambast whoever they addressed. Sure, constructive criticism and all that is great, but destruction of another human being’s soul can never be a good goal. The entire email would be so rude and emotional and petty that all the JIs couldn’t makeup for how disrespectful the entire email was.

Anyway, titles in Nepal get in the way, methinks. They’d serve a purpose if the objective wasn’t to rank people and if the action following made sense, but since more often than not they do neither I vote for just using the good names we’ve been given.

i’ve been mulling the prospect for a few weeks now and as much i love it i think i can hear the fat lady sing. back when i started it was 2003 and there was little of that “community” we bloggers cherish today. nepaliketi only came about in 2007 but it’s been a big part of who the real me has been – especially since thanks to dear dear S, Ms. B and Mr. D at republica because publishing it in their paper led to opportunities that have shaped me in recent years.

writing, blogging, and all that lets me sort out my thoughts and communicate them to perfect strangers. but these past months the world has all but stopped making sense to me. i used to be so sure of who i was  - even in middle schools the clubs i joined were on a path to something i had on my list in high school. and even in high school i never fretted about what classes to choose because i knew exactly which program and college i would enroll in (the college counselor told me not to come across “too certain” in my application essays!). and even in college my paper topics were purposeful because they were designed to get me that internship. and internship that job and that job that career …  but when you realize (at 26!) that you don’t know who you are it’s strange to continue publicly panning out your thoughts.

an unassuming quiet handwritten journal, however, has newfound appeal as a few from childhood/schooldays popped out when cleaning this weekend. from sloppy scribbles to careful cursive, each word written down by hand, using a pen and without “backspace” as an option i wasn’t thinking a mile a minute. the whole process struck me as something romantic.

i know “dear diary” is no longer how it’s done, but maybe  a child in the future will marvel at this thing called “paper” and leaf through my world – of growing up in the 80s/90s, of “finding myself” in the 21st millennium – and ponder the journey of the weird girl who went back to empty pages of lined paper when the world had relocated to the web.

seeing as i’m already in nepal/india and “finding myself” is likely unlikely it’s perhaps still appropriate to try and be introspective. december will be my last month of blogging and since i won’t pay the 10 euros to maintain this site in 2012, it’ll be gone.

thanking readers seems weird but i can’t figure out how to sign off, so here it is: thanks for stopping by.

p.s. i stole the title – a tad bit more dramatic in song but perdy nonetheless!

But birthdays were less about the presents back then and more about crowding the kitchen with aunts and uncles and the hallways with cousins playing tag and there being way too much food. The cake, though, was the highlight – and this was when the best ones in my neighborhood came from the Bakery Café or Makoo Bakery. There was no Higher Ground’s Double Chocolate Cake or Hessed’s Cupcake Tower.

Anyway, the point of the birthday was for friends and family (and a lot of strangers) to gather and enjoy each other’s presence. These days it’s turned to outrageously huge parties with fancy gifts, professional DJs and designer dresses – entirely materialistic, huh? Last year my family gave me a (not as outlandish) surprise party and I was laden with presents. Actually, I started getting them at the stroke of midnight and I was still receiving more after the next stroke of midnight. I got so much stuff I didn’t even have time to take it all in, but I thanked everyone before tucking in for the night.

I woke up the next morning to a large pile of “stuff” in my room. I’m type A so I obviously believe everything has a place –  bobby pins, post-its and handbags included, so you can’t imagine how stressed I was to see all this other stuff when my room was stuffed as it was. My book shelf couldn’t shelve much more, my closet was quite tight, my desk was well covered and the drawers under my bed didn’t feel right – it seemed like I was already storing away presents I’d just received. Oh the dilemma. I spent a better half of the afternoon carefully strategizing which new item went where.

As I picked up each item and examined them upon daylight I realized the jeans were one size too big, the laptop case was the wrong color, the lampshade lokta paper wasn’t my favorite, the jewellery was set differently than my exact liking and before I knew it I was inspecting each item as though I was purchasing it at a store and not like it was a gift – a present from someone else who thought of me and spent their hard earned money on me!

You know how they say the present is called the present because it’s a gift. Well, last year I realized that the gift of the present is a thing of the past because these days we are flooded with presents – on birthdays, Christmases, graduations, promotions and even as my cousin did, on Children’s Day. We are surrounded by material goods that have been ingrained into our minds to consider a substitute (more than a symbol) of the love, care, commitment and dedication we want to express.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we were that needy – in terms of material comforts anyway. But, when we have so much stuff in our rooms and in our houses and in our lives, all the stuff just become stuff. We have everything we need and almost everything we want already but our insatiable desires mean we have an infinite abyss of wants to fill.

You’d think presents would make sense.

But we are picker than ever in all of human history! There are one million winter boots on the display windows of shops all over Kathmandu and we’ve already scouted the only one we actually want. So when we get a new pair we’re disappointed – it’s not the brand, color, style, etc that we specifically wanted. Instead of being grateful that someone zeroed in on your tattered boots from years past and thought to give you the gift of a new pair, you start complaining.

It won’t be long before we turn into Americans the way the brides and grooms “register” at different stores, identify the items they want and then email us their registration code so we simply go and pick out the exact vase and exact vacuum cleaner on their list.

There was a time not too long ago when I was absolutely shocked to learn this is how wedding couples received gifts. I pitied the no-element-of-surprise. It wasn’t just that they knew how much your gift to them cost (they picked it out for crying out loud) but also that they did all the work for you. Instead of me running about town trying to consider their personalities and what they wanted in their lives together, all the work had already been done. It was like cheating the whole idea.

Gift cards – I suppose that would make sense if your friends from overseas mailed in with birthday cards (another thing I strongly dislike) but if your best friend gave you one it’d be kind of sad. Also, this thing of putting in the receipt with the present seems odd to – I get us possibly wanting to exchange item but unless the person is super close to you (in which case just tell them) why put it in there??

Anyway, these days the way we are flooded with boxes of bows and ribbons, and tear through pretty wrapping paper, I wonder if we should all just put up a wish list on our facebook and never have people give us the “wrong” thing or if we should go back to the days when something small and simple was enough to make the recipient truly thankful.

two weeks ago we were eating kukhrako khutta ko achar. some of you might consider that gruesome but i’m a mixed nepali breed and one of my parents side eats every single part of every animal that is eaten. so the feet got nothing on us. anyway, i was supposed to mush-ing the khursani into the khutta and i was telling my mom if i were in a horror film the khuttas would start mush-ing my hand instead because how creepy would it be to have a bowlful of chicken feet mushing? yeah, i know. and then while we were eating i was telling my sister it would be so considerate of the feet if they would stretch out this way and that so that i could better bite into the juicy bits and pieces. can you imagine your meat flexing in and out as you eat it? i was laughing then but then that night i had this horrible dream where i was meant to eat someone. yes, someONE. as in a human being. the meat was set aside on a plate and i absolutely had to eat it (i can’t remember why. maybe i’d have gotten killed or something) so i nibbled away as little as i could so that i could get away. how freaky a dream is that? have you tried turning into a cannibal in your dreams?

that's not ours looked like, but you get the idea

the whole of the next day i didn’t even want to see meat and i was creeped out of myself – i mean i ate a human being in my dream.

then i all but forgot about all of that until two nights ago i had another dream. actually, i should backtrack a bit – a few months ago i’m not sure who i was having this conversation with but whoever it was, was saying that you should be able to kill what you are able to to eat. he (i’m fairly certain it was an older man) was telling me he thinks it’s weak to grimace at the sight of killing an animal but then be able to munch away on your hamburger later on. i’d been thinking of that every once in a while and then i dreamt that i was supposed to kill this creature that we were meant to eat. this is in my dream okay? not in real life! i’m not a murderer like that (i’m only a murderer insofar as that i happily chomp on killed meat ; )

the creature in my dream was something like a baby elephant (those of you that know me may have an idea as to why it was a baby elephant, but that’s not important right now). what’s important is that it was this baby being with the innocence of a child. it was cute and sweet (and had leathery grey elephant skin but no tusk… i know, it could have been a female) but it wasn’t exactly like an elephant. anyway, i had to kill it but i was given this tiny hashiya that i brought myself to swing at the elephant with twice but it was too tiny – it just cut him on the leg and head, but i couldn’t kill it. i was near (or maybe i was all in) tears and i was trying to be brave like my real life middle school girlfriend named G——a who actually killed chickens back then but i just couldn’t. i needed a larger and sharper knife. anyway, i had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach because here i was having gone at the baby animal twice and now it was just bleeding and in pain. and I WAS THE CAUSE OF THAT.

the one in my dream didn't have the dumbo ears either, hai?

i woke up and then re-remembered my kukhrako khutta khako raat ko dream and realized i may be being called to vegetarianism. has this happened to any of you by any chance? becuase you know, i’m a hard core meatatarian. i love BBQ and i eat chicken almost twice a day, everyday. i love my steak and ribs and pork chops and mmmmm i love meat. how can i be called into vegetarianism?! i love it in theory, i believe in eating less meat not only because meat is killed in the most inhumane and cruel ways, but also because it is socially responsible as there is enough land to feed the world on a vegetarian diet but not when the privileged ones of us demand meat on my plate each time we sit on the dining table but….. me? vegetarian??

yup, they may seem ugly in 2011, but they were the shiiiiit back then!

Anyway, growing up in a university where our parents were studying we were lucky to be surrounded by a bunch of kids – we often congregated by the random shrub or the edge of the parking lot or the secluded basketball court or the middle of someone’s yard to play after we’d finished our homework and before dinner time. We played four square (also called down ball in some countries) and tag and hide-and-seek and make believe and so on. It was a sweet childhood, if not as sweet as my parents’. They tell stories of flattening bottle caps and turning them into wheels of make-shift cars and what not.

i was hardly ever queen =/

We ran around all day outside but at home, my sister and I lived on  board games. We had a mounting collection and since we weren’t allowed to be outside after dinner and the TV was only around for us to watch the news, we would often read books or play board games.

I’m not even “old” but I feel old when I look at the poor little rich kids of today – growing up with PSPs, laptops, televisions and on play-dates. I pitied the obnoxious rich kids I baby-sat in college because they could not make believe to play make believe. While my childhood neighbors and I had imagined cloaks and crowns when transforming into kings and queens, the children I baby-sat would rummage through their toy box and pull out a plastic crown and cheap velvet cloak. Sure, the props were cute but it took away the imagination and charm of playing make believe. If I suggested playing a game that they didn’t have costumes for they would be at a loss. I shudder to think what their generation will grow up to be – absolutely unimaginative is what!

Kathmandu these days is even worse. The concrete jungle that this excuse of a city is means the kids don’t even have the same safe place we did to play. But, I don’t think even the “privileged” kids play anymore. The family next door has two kids, but I never see them running around their massive compound. Even just fifteen years ago in this same street, back when I was growing up it was common for the neighborhood children to run around. I blame the ridiculous over-emphasis on textbooks and schools – seriously, taking tuition after school because school itself was insufficient is a stupid concept, but I also blame television. While I’m all for “edutainment” and Baby Einstein I am still in fearful awe of the children of today and where the children of tomorrow may be.

Sure I have an unhealthy obsession of my iphone and spent a good (or, make that bad) portion of my waking hours with my laptop, but I’m 25 and I’m “working” (hyuck hyuck). At least fifteen years ago I ran around, chased the “bad” guys when playing cops and robbers and kicked a ball around. I learned to negotiate – using force and charm as and when neccessary to choose my winning teammates and I learned to cover for each other when someone scraped their knees.

The other day I read an article saying that our generation (Gennext, I guess that would be) is the last of us to have grown up reading on paper; which means that generations to follow will never understand the satisfaction of flipping pages through a book. I like my kindle and I prefer my cracked iphone (oh wait, the lovely guys in Bishal Bazaar fixed it up!) to an ipad, but I’m glad I grew up in an era where books, board games, imaginations and neighborhood games were the norm. It’s the kind of childhood the next generation will miss out on.

awww she is a cutie, look at her!

I suppose they may still watch Jumanji and stare at the 10-year-old Kristen Dunst onscreen who in 2030 will be closer to 50 and giggle at how cute she was as a child. And, I suppose they could be enthralled to watch how Jumanji comes alive, but I also think they will be unable to comprehend that all of it is the imagination of the children, probably because the art of imagination will be taught as a class in college or something equally depressing.

but, i’m talking more about my little green passport. my father (a well traveled man who’s been to 60+ countries in his lifetime. SO jealous) is nostalgic for years past where he said the world perceived nepalis as honest and hardworking and so were granted the benefit of the doubt. once back in the day, in the late 80s the airport officer in kathmandu forgot to stamp the departure sticker on his passport and when he landed in manila the airport officer there said my father had no option but to go back to nepal, get the stamp and then re-enter. annoyed, my dad was about to turn around when the officer’s manager happened to walk by and asked what the matter was. my father says the manager took one look at the green passport and told the officer to stamp the arrival sticker regardless. “look, he’s nepali. nepalis are honest, it was a mistake. let him be”.

in 2002 i was on my way back from melbourne via bangkok (before the new airport was built) and stuck in a mile-long line with passengers of all flights and all nationalities. we weren’t inching along at all and then some 30 minutes into my joining the line some airport security guy walked by and announced that each of us with a nepali passport were to step to the left. confused i moved on over and found myself in a line with about 50+ south asian men, all in blue baseball hats, and obviously all nepalis. i didn’t get it at the time (i was a tenth grader and one in eight men were not known to be working overseas back then) but clearly they were migrant workers on their way from/to somewhere and as they didn’t speak english they had been holding up the line. i continued to stand and wait until an airport official asked to see my passport (which was very green and very nepali) and said i could go back to being serviced from the main line. i asked him why since green passports were asked to move over and my passport hadn’t changed color. “oh, we meant these people. not you”. i rudely declined his absurd offer and fumed in that slow un-serviced line for ages.

for crying out loud i'm not mugabe's plus-one and i didn't ruin an entire country!!

i was 16 and it was then that i decided i was never going to give up my passport. sure i loved my school and all the “global citizen” valued it pushed upon us but as humans we are more than a passport – and borders, visas, applications and lines were stupid – they were a way to discriminate and i wasn’t going to give in. it would be compromising the principle of being against such discrimination were i to take dual citizenship or something like that.

fast forward to 2011 and i still haven’t adopted a second citizenship (or green card or blue card or yellow card) out of the same principle. just today an indian friend from school and i were gchatting. we both agreed borders and visas were ridiculous but she said she’d opt to obtain a second citzenship if it meant she could be excused from the crap she’s subjected to bc of her indian passport. i laughed – i had a green passport and after having traveled to five continents with ease before, this year was the first time i was in nepal applying and had had two visa applications rejected already. both were for stupid reasons but ones i didn’t have the “right” protest – why? because i am a nepali and a nepali alone, nothing more. (of course being nepali also has its perks – as an “exotic” country we are given bonus points when we apply for jobs/school/fellowships/etc and tokenism takes place in our favor, but those aren’t really all that fabulous if you think about bc your credibility can always be argued and that just plain sucks.)

back in the fall i was all prepared to head off to grad school when my visa application was rejected – apparently my undergraduate diploma and transcript weren’t evidence enough of me having finished that course. i was told i didn’t provide enough proof of whatever source it was that my grad school had used to deem me valid enough to join them in october. i accepted it in shame because i had heard countless stories of nepalis faking IELTS, procuring “original” certificated from new road and flocking to the western country to work rather than study. how was i to convince them i really wanted to just put in all the money to my name (and huge loans from family members) to sit, read, write and learn. then i decided i could always go and do something new and exciting and i thought of heading overseas to work. i got a job and a good job at that. they had my visa ready but since the country i’m headed to does not have an embassy or consulate here in nepal, i was supposed to travel to a third country – certain middle eastern oil rich country to pick up the visa that had already been issued for my work country.

only yesterday i got an email from the travel officer from the office i am to join telling me he tried all he could but he was constantly told that they don’t issue visas to nepali nationals and that i was a “lady less age”. i’d heard that could happen since i am only 25. i’d heard that since so many nepalis head to the middle east, remain there after their visas expire and that because so many young women get lost as escorts, entertainers and you know as sex workers and such that they didn’t like to give young nepali girls visas to their country … but i didn’t think they’d not believe me when i said i just needed to pick up my visa to go on to the other country.

i used to tell my dad that while nepalis were trusted before it didn’t say a lot about our country – it only meant the most privileged of us could even contemplate the air fare, so that when thousands travel today, and do so in a way that we have created a bad name for ourselves it’s not too bad. it just means more and more of us – the lesser privileged ones of us are also traveling, moving and migrating in search of adventure and opportunities. but, today i’m not so sure. being a young girl with a nepali passport sure sucks. if you are a nepali guy or if you are older nepali woman it’ll still play out differently for you. but if you are nepali you’ll understand – bc had i been a non-nepali my age or gender would have hardly mattered.