Human Right–A Joke

There is a dictum which says, “Judges and politicians kill with impunity”. In fact, this is a Russian proverb. Though, I am not a Russian culture fan – in fact, not a fan of any particular culture or religion — I just found it while I was looking for some issues and reports on severe human right violence in the world’s context.

UN data on human right shows that there are more than 20 countries which are reeling under the internal conflict, some of which are categorized in a “low-risk-conflict” while some are categorized in “high-risk-conflict” depending on the seriousness of the issue and how long the country is dragged into the unresolved conflict cases, number of people killed during that period and the number of displaced  people (internally or have become refugees).

International Criminal Court data shows that there are more than between 6.5 million to 8.5 millions people who have lost their life in these conflicts. And, obviously, the majority of people are the innocent people who doesn’t have anything to do with the politics, political gains and whatever political issues that have enraged this dire conflicting environment around the world.

Although the Government of Nepal and the CPN Maoists made commitment in the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) signed on November 22, 2006 in making the whereabouts of the disappeared people public, that has not been implemented yet. The information on whereabouts of more than 900 people who were enforced-disappearances are still unknown. All the agreement made and duly signed in November 22, 2006 were never materialized and those words remained confined to the papers of agreement – that never crossed that date (November 22, 2006).

Majority of people of Nepal even don’t know when the peace agreement were formulated and when those were reached to mutual consensus to give it a successful conclusion. And, the reason is simple – NO BODY CARES — what goes around and comes around. The only thing they know is how to survive and how to blabber unequivocally in front of people in mass gathering: either it be a party, a small coterie of people in a cubicle in office,  in some market junction, in a cafeteria or in thatched a tea-shop in some countryside . We all can talk, and that’s for sure!

Because of their (Nepalese politicians) insular thought, it seems virtually impossible that there ever will be a new constitution of Nepal. The fact is, if something has to happen, it might shows some sign of progress. But, Nepal’s context, it showing a downward progress – it has always shown a route of upheaval.

Nepal  is in en route to joining other 101 countries where people and prisoners are ill-treated and the 91 countries where torture is at its zenith.  The fresh and extreme two examples are the appointment of Agni Sapkota in cabinet and amnesty of Maoists lawmaker Bal Krishna Dhungel in his involvement in the case of  murder charge  of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha of Okhaldhunga. He was acquitted from the murder charges siting that it was party’s decision because the later one as spying for the then Nepal government’s security officials.

Human right has just remained as a joke for those who are waiting for their turn to hear the justice in their favor, and there is nothing much International Human Right Watch dogs can do to persuade government of any country for brining the perpetrators to justice. More than 5-years has already passed since the governing authorities of Nepal reached to a consensus for promulgating the new constitution to Nepal. But, since then, they have been stuck in some kind of calculated bewilderment, and now, finally, it is frustrating the general public.

It appears as if the Human Right Organization is just a harbor for more money and revenue for something they do not have to do anything – just collecting data from around the world and reporting on what’s going on. Updating their data server is what remains as the only primary job of the Human Right Organization.

Very sad!

The Stifled Progress

I am not sure about the exact date and time, but it has certainly been more than 15-years and counting since we lost our old nice peace loving country and entered into a debacle of history of Nepal that we had never seen before. And, what was that for? For rebuilding Nepal, that was for making Nepal for everyone –- a dream country – or so called a “Kingdom of Heaven” – with a vision that we all will be treated equally, there would not be any kind of suppression and oppression against any minority group and community – in fact, to meet all the demands of the poor people of Nepal – a kind of ideal life with dignity.

More than 15-years have been passed and what we have got in return is: more suppression and oppression, more maim, more violence, more loss of life in the name of finding rights. The question is, “Is this what we had ever longed for?, Is this what we really deserve for being honest, humble and gracious, kind and peace loving?, Is this what we had ever dreamt of?”. The fact is we have lost of honesty, our composure, our humanity – whatever we ever had which we use to boast with – “The nation of peace – Nepal – has marred into a havoc where no one has control over what is going on. The only option left is to protect your life, your family’s life and your property you have.

Over 15000 people have lots their life, thousands got internally-displaced, and there is still no record of hundreds of those who are missing. Who is going to find those answers for our history? Really hard to believe that out of millions of son’s of Nepal, no one seems responsible to give it a final conclusion, no one is ready to stand for her and give it a pleasant ending. All those brave sons of Nepal which is known to be a honest sons of Nepal and is still being praised for being honest and unequivocal mettle (Gorkhali soldiers) are good for nothing, finally. What is the use of pontificating that we are the sons of great-gorkhas when we can’t even protect our own motherland?

The rising incidence of murder, extortion, kidnapping, rape doesn’t shows any sign of abating. No one seems responsible for what is going on. There is virtually no control over the system, the rules governing the system. We have been saying that, “We should not forget that we are all law-abiding-citizen”. Absolutely! But, what matters here and now is that it has just been confined to the papers and have ended up in some corner of the administrative office and control division that no body cares of even know that it still even exist.

More than 600 goons are sitting in our parliament and languishing in their cozy individual cubicles. That’s what they fought for! They showed us the dream of a heavenly state which turned out to be a hinterland. All those rebel forces of Maoists have same  rue to vent – “We trusted them (the Maoists political leaders) with our life, but we have been bilked – we never realized that the process of evolution takes time, nothing is going to change overnight, but we were so inane to even think about it.” Finally, what we got is this (Rs.200, 0000)!! All those PLA-fighters have the same question to ask, “Is this (Rs.200,000) is what we deserve from all this 15-years of insurgency? But, nobody seems to pay their heed to their plea.

The chances of recovery is very slim in case of Nepal as it has been infected with a deadly virus of ethnicity. Unfortunately, however we try to parry the inevitability and to get away from the reality, the truth is that we are going down under this quagmire of ethnicity. It has so deeply rooted itself within this one decade of time that it hardly seems to getting back to normalcy.  And, sadly enough, everyone of us seems stoic and stolid to this situation – with few exceptions that we have been continually been updating our Facebook and Twitter status showing how saddened we are and how desperately we need our normal life back in our home (Nepal) – which is insignificant and untouchable in any manner.

God bless Nepal and we Nepalese!

Believing in others

The words “believe” has already diminished if we want to take it literally, though “belief” is still intact. The reason is “belief” is something personal and we do not need a consent of others to assimilate in ourself. It is our own conception and our own astuteness that governs us to assimilate it in us.

There use to be a time when every single person in a society use to be genuinely kind to others, helping in their nature and honestly gregarious, and there was not any kind of malice floating in the society like hoodwinking others, pontificating about things that they do not own. And, honesty was the main string that had entangled everything in one thread.

Over time, we have lost our ingenuity, our honesty and we have been cursed with malice, hate, envy, nature of chastising others as it it has become our daily duty and we can’t live without it. Things have changed and we are now left with the hollowness in ourself: hollowness of kindness, hollowness of ingenuity, hollowness of gregariousness, hollowness of greatness.

The reason for all this comes down to the increasing population which has jaded every nooks and corner of the world with all those opportunities and possibilities. We have become competitive over time doesn’t matter how gregariousness of ourself we are showing to others.

Ironically, the world is developing and showing the progress towards humanity: like setting up UN for helping countries in need, building social networking sites to get along with friends because the system in which we are now had thought that, this is the need of time, and creating social networking site might bring our loved ones closer to us in case even if we do not have time for them.

But, everything has changed overt time and the development in one part is not affecting another part positively. All these positive changes seem just mere. We have friends now, but we can’t trust: everybody now have a common set of beliefs that it is better to trust a stranger than our own loved ones, because those strangers do not know our history or our impending future, they can’t find our Achilles Heel so that they can take advantage of. And, in case, even if they do, they will take time to materialize it. So, basically, it is better to trust a stranger which has ultimately made us more far from our loved ones.

In this phage of transition, there is a catch – a catch that non of us have been able to really hold it or grab it. The catch is, the “believe” that we have inherited is still there which is now in a vegetative state which has now become our worst Achilles Heel. We want to trust other and believe what they have to say to us, but we fail to recognize how much truth is held in it. We fail to recognize that fact that what might be the ulterior motif behind those words.

If something is true, why do we have to whisper it? Why do we have to hear it from somebody else? We fail to believe that whatever comes from the main source has already been twisted. The catch is we still believe it without caring for rest of the things. The catch is, we easily believe a person who is talking ill about somebody else in front of us. Can’t we think that s/he might who is our, for now, a messenger might be doing the same thing about us in front of someone else. For those kind of person, “the talk” is always fascinating – they are just finding someone to talk, while the gist of the talk is often nonsense which doesn’t hold even a stint of truth or a tangible productiveness which might brings some positive outcome which might help us in someone at the end of the talk or later after that.

The catch is, if we can’t believe our own sensory organs which is supposed to behave true and emanate the true information for us, sometimes behaves weird. We are so engrossed with these facts that we can’t isolate ourself from it. We have to be a part of it otherwise we will be like “odd one out”. This situation is something like a story of a kind that I have just finished reading couple of days ago in a book: “Veronika Decides to Die”.

The story in a twisted form is something like this, “Once upon a time there was a village which was governed by a powerful man of that village. Being envious to his will, power and governance, his enemies set a notorious plan against him so that the entire inhabitant of the village would turn against that leader. The enemies of that leader mixed some kind of potion in the meal which was as usual distributed for lunch for entire village. The entire village turn out to be mad except the leader. After that whenever the leader use to give orders to his men including the soldiers, they use to think that their leader has gone mad and they started thinking that their leader is now insane who behaves weird giving orders that doesn’t make sense. Finally, the leaders without any hopes of returning back to the normal life thought of having that potion too in his meal. He turned out to be mad as well. Afterward, whatever orders he use to deliver orders the villagers started obeying and meeting his orders with their hearts thinking that their leader has become normal and as revered as always.

The moral of the story is that if the whole world is mad, you will be called insane even if you are not, if in case you behave normal. So, it is better to behave how the world behaves otherwise there is no escape out. We too have to be mad just like the leader to be counted in the coterie of normal sane persons.

Now, its up to us, how much we believe on others and their words. If you keep on believing on others blind-eyed, you will be duped easily, because people are not sane as you are. They might be insane who might be on the way of revenge for something that doesn’t have meaning, for something they have never seen, done or heard by themselves – and its all just because they blindly believe on others which in today’s context is mostly deluded with information which is twisted and marred with ulterior motif to make world look down upon you.

People these days do not compete fairly because they know very well that they can’t stand on the competition if they will be fair. So, as a result, they take some other way out which might be easier and filled with malice and ill-wills and motifs. That’s why it is said that, “It is hard to make a house than to demolish it”. Anyone can demolish a house but not everyone can build a house.

There a similar story our granddad use to tell us. The story is something like this: “There was  a family that had a heavenly happiness in their life till their both sons become old enough and they wanted their respective shares from the dad’s property. Finally, they distributed everything except cow. The problem was that they had three cow and they can’t distribute it equally. So, they did a lottery to be fair. Finally, one got one cow and another one got two cow. One of the two brothers who had just one cow was so envious with the another one that he started penance. Finally, the god appeared and asked him (the brother) to ask from him (god) what he wants. Finally, he broke his year long silence and said, “My lord, my brother have got two cow, but I have got just one. I want his one cow dead so that we can be equal again. It will be fair for me.”

The moral of the story is we do not long for striving our best to compete with others, but instead we are trying to find their Achilles Heel to bring them down to our level. So, it is now up to us whether we want to believe in somebody who is trying to bring somebody else down in front of us when they are backbiting others and afterward become victim ourself to our same messenger or we should just keep doing what we want to achieve and what our target is.

Paraphrasing an “Unspoken Love”

It is said that love has no boundary: no boundary of country of origin, age, color of skin or anything else we can think of. That’s true! Can you imagine a love between a person who is schizophrenic guy and a normal girl who is condemned to die counting her final days –might be four, five or six in maximum?

I have been reading a novel, ‘Veronika Decides to Die” by Paulo Coelho. I don’t know how many of you have read it, but this post paraphrased for those who have not gone through this one. And, I hope that my review will move you and titillate a desire to read it at least once. This is one of those books I can bet, you will not be able to put it down before you consider it putting it aside for some other work. This is so gravitating!

Plot: Veronika (the main character of this novel) tries to commit suicide despite a life full-of-life: she is so beautiful that any guy on the walk would like to commit their life once and for all without considering giving a second thought to their decision if she desires to give them a chance, a nice family who takes care of all her desires and demands, her successful life professionally – a complete perfect life everybody desires to have and the one that everybody envy her for. He failed attempt to commit suicide lead her to a mental asylum where she is now counting her final days which is no more than a week or so because of devastated heart which has been damage irreparably.

Her decision to die is now taking a veer – a turning point in her life and in her last moment of her life, she feels like she wants to live this life and what she use to think is now turning to be just an illusion, and she now realizes that world is far more beautiful than what she had thought, though, she knows that he desire to live now is just like plucking star from the sky.

As she is counting her days in a mental asylum where she is being treated for her fragile heart in the last moments of her life, she meets this guy (Eduard) who is schizophrenic – who is bouncing back and forth between his own imaginative world and this real world.

During her final days in the mental asylum, she use to play piano for Eduard as he stands in the same place in front of the piano and waits for Veronika to play for him, without uttering even a single word.

---

Veronika decided that she had to go to bed, but Eduard was still standing by the piano.

‘I ‘m tired, Eduard. I need to sleep.’

She would like to continue playing for him, dredging upon from her anaesthetized memory all the sonatas, requiems and adagios she used to know, because he knew how to admire without appearing to demand anything of her. But she body could take no more.

He was so good looking. If only he would take one step outside his world and see her a woman, then her last nights on this earth might be the most beautiful of her entire life: Eduard was the only one capable of understanding that Veronika was an artist. Through the pure emotion of a sonata or a minuet she had forgot a bond with this man such as she had never known with anyone else.

Eduard was the ideal man, sensitive, educated; a man who had destroyed an indifferent world in order to recreate it again in his head, this time with new colours, new characters, new stories. And this new world included a woman, a piano and a moon that was continuing to grow.

‘I could fall in love right now and give everything I have to you,’ she said, knowing that he couldn’t understand her. ‘All you ask from me is a little music, but I am much more than I ever thought I was, and I would like to share other thing with you that I have only just begun to understand.’

Eduard smiled. Had he understood? Veronika felt afraid – all the manuals of good behaviour say that you should never speak of love so directly, and never to a man you barely know. But she decided to continue, because she had nothing to lose.

‘You are the only man on the face of the Earth with whom I could fall in love, Eduard, for the simple reason that, when I die, you will not miss me. I don’t know what a schizophrenic feels, but I’m sure they never miss anyone.

‘Perhaps, to begin with, you’ll miss the fact that there’s no more night music, but the moon will still rise, there’ll be someone willing to play sonatas for you, especially in a hospital, where each and everyone of us is a “lunatic”.’

She didn’t quite know what the relationship was between mad people and the moon,but it must be strong one, if they used a word like that to describe the mad.

‘And I won’t miss you either, Eduard, because I will be dead, far from here. And since I’m not afraid of losing you, I don’t care what you think or don’t think about me. Tonight I played for you like a women in love. It was wonderful. It was the best moment of my entire life.’

…………………………….continued!

 

 

Something personal: Some moments of my childhood

There are things that we call our personal. If somebody is habituated of writing or maintaining their journal, those things will be confined to their personal journal or diary, or if not then, it still remains confined in their dungeon of heart somewhere hidden that would take ages for even sun to reach there – and finally, it dies with them. This is what our general conception of “secret-of-our-life” is, which is in fact true.

For centuries, we have been believing that personal things are something which is not have to be shared  because we fear that one day that fear will turn into reality and our life will be doomed as it might prove to be our Achilles hill. But, what we fend to understand or dare not to understand is that life doesn’t have a meaning in itself if it goes as it comes, and the milieu keeps on cogitating and surmising about our so called “secret-of-our-life” – more specifically; our personal life.

As a matter of fact, no body is interested in our life or whatever we are doing or engaged in (with few exceptions who are horribly and badly interested in our life) – though, thanks to them – at least our life is worth something for those folks to get into. The reason is we all have got something more substantial to think, to cogitate, to plan and engaged into to prepare ourself for the future; as it is not in our arena of control or area of influence.

Today, I have got something memorable and some of the most cherishing moments of my life to share with you all.

July 03, 1992 (Approximate)

I guess, I was six by the time I first started going to school. July 03 seemed to be one of the most sunny day that year as the sun was early up and it was all scourging hot already by 8 in the morning. I was so small that I had to hold my mom’s head while she use to sit and lace my shoes. I was bit terrified to be the first in school and it was all evident through my faces, though not as horrible as other use to have and still have at that age – thank god, I was at least not crying for which I am still getting praised from my parents for being a nice early kid.

Since my mom guessed that I might make a scene or something or make some excuse for not going to school as other kids do, she handed lacing my shoe duty to my dad that day. Forget about making the scene, I am still so scared of my dad that I can’t utter a word in front of him and I even have hard time making a second plea for something once he ignores or rebuffs.

I was standing holding his head to finish my shoe getting laced as my younger sister who was still young enough to join nursery was standing behind my mom popping her head from one side in sulking manner and evidently more scared than me. The day might have had appeared to her as if I am going to some kind of war and I have to win the battle of my life for my life. Her twinkling marbled-eyes appeared to me as if she is wishing me good luck to win that battle and come home safely………… (….life continued after that…..).  

October 1994 (Precise time and date unknown)

I was sitting in one room as my mom was preparing for worshipping (puja) the goddess-of-wealth; it was sometime in the late autumn and the festival called Tihar. The whole environment was dazzling with the bright lights all over. Those were the days when Nepal was prospering with leaps and bound with seemingly with the double digit of growth rate – unlike any other neighboring countries and unlike itself if we view in today’s context. We didn’t even know the meaning of load shedding and what’s it called when there is complete blackout because of shortage of electricity.

All the kids of my age and younger and older were appearing in colorful dresses of approaching winter season with multiple types of light illuminating fire-crackers in their hands – some getting assisted by their brother, sisters or parents to light it. It was so wonderful that I don’t find words to explain it how it really looked like.

I was sitting in my room as I was observing what my mom and my elders sisters were preparing for the puja in my newly gifted suit from my dad for the festival. Then, when dad appeared with few more clothes for my younger sister – in fact, she was and still is more loved kid in our home for being the youngest one. The environment started becoming hot as I envied her for getting something extra than me, then when dad decided to buy something extra for me as well. I didn’t know what time it was when he left home at night to my magnificent demand of that time which he might thought of utmost important to perform. He never thought twice where he had to go to find it, whether or not he would find it.

July 1995 (Time: 4:15 PM approximate)

I was already feeling monotonous and bored waiting for my dad to finish his work before he left the office before 5 PM. I was too small and uneducated to understand the sophisticated meaning of the words in one of the English paper resting on the tea-table in front of the couch I was sitting nibbling something from my hand. As a result, I had no other choice than to flip through the pages of the newspaper and pass time. First time when I saw the paper, I was so inane to think that the pictures in the paper are animated through machine to put it in the movies where the actors are singing and dancing all over the silver-screen. But, never understood the fact that from where the music was coming when they were dancing in the woods and garden. However, I was not even that curious to researching myself to find the exact answer, but contended myself thinking that, “Okay, I know! They might be hiding somewhere behind the wood with their musical instruments”.

It was raining outside when he appeared all of a sudden in front of me and without mentioning about the newspaper, he asked me to leave. Since it was raining hard we could not go out in motorbike, so even his friends suggested that we can leave after sometime. The waiting turns into hours and finally we had to leave the office in rain at around 7 PM, but fortunately, he was able to manage one raincoat somehow.

Even though it was raining that hard, he never cared for himself, but he made sure that I should not get wet. He hid me inside his baggy motorbike-raincoat and I could barely see anything outside as he drove. On the way he mentioned to me about the English newspaper and he said, “You remember that English newspaper you were turning pages through?”

“Yes!”, I answered abruptly and briskly.

“One day, he continued, when you will be able to read and understand those English newspaper, I will buy you loads of it”. And, now, I feel like I am looking at his face just like I use to when I was as tiny as I was then.

(…continued…..)!! 

 

 

………………Thanks dad for everything!

Dear Alchemist,

Dear Paulo Coelho, would it be a nice of me to designate you as “Sir” or would it be a disgrace when I call you “Sir”. I have no idea with what designation I should be recalling you, citing you and adoring you. After much brainstorming, I find myself ending with this short piece of word which sounds to me profound to designate your name with because of what you have left in me with your book, as a reader. But, apart from that bewilderment, I never had to cogitate twice to pronounce your name and I had therefore taken this chance to call you our “Alchemist”.

So, dear Alchemist, I know you don’t know me – that is quite obvious and understandable. You might have millions of readers and thousands of followers or even more who might be just like you or might just want to follow you to achieve at least even a motley of what you have done and achieved so far.

By now, you might have already understood, that I am one of your millions of readers but I am not sure whether I fall in those thousands category who are your followers. I do not say that I am a writer, because writing few words and few paragraph doesn’t make anybody a writer and it would be inane to say that even without starting anything significant. I am not even saying that I am an avid reader, but I can assure at least that I am an avid reader of your books, but a mediocre reader of else.

Out of your all master pieces, “Eleven Minutes” is the one that I read first completely unknown to your image and your contribution in the literary world. Soon after finishing that book, I was already following you and that had left in me an immense impact of your writing ability and your folkloric ability which is found in just countable from those thousands of writer.

Your dictum, your ideas and your philosophy has left me with no choice than to select your another masterpiece and start reading it right away. This book has been proved to be a major turning point in thousands of readers who have taken it literally and now they are something that they had never imagined they will ever be. They have gained power in themselves and enlightenment to achieve the one that use to be thought as impossible.

I have got just one lesson from your this book (THE ALCHEMIST). We should not give up because of fear, and we should not lose our hope for achieving the best. If we want to achieve our dreams, our destination, we must overcome our fear at the first place because just as you said, “Fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself”.

I have no words to say, but to thank you for your masterful and profound enlightenment in real life.

Our words

How ironical does it sounds when we say, “Words are insignificant, yet valuable”. With time everything has changed and we have ourself experience some motley of those changes in our life as well. Everything changes most and with unceasing pace, but the language, the words, the sentences and its uses. The words and the language that pops out of our mouth is so beautiful, yet so ugly – yet another sets of ironical thing.

It  takes years before there is an official change in the structure of a sentence or it take couple of years or yearly before a new word is added to the dictionary. So, now we can guess how significant it is when it comes to adding new vocabulary and sentence and structure in our language (irrespective of what language we speak). When it comes to adding it appears significant and more valuable, while it does really sound little bit quirky and insignificant thinking that something that has already been incorporated needs extensive amendments and approvals before it gets accepted – In this case, it sounds really insignificant to even think of changing or going after those sorts of things.

These simple, insignificant words that we use in our daily life might be insignificant to us mostly, but they hold greater meaning to our life in what we speak and how we materialize it in our personal life. Those are just simple words which are capable of bringing fortunes and misfortunes in our life. We, therefore, have to choose it very wisely and with astuteness.

Knowingly or unknowingly we are making mistakes upon mistakes and amassing them, but we hardly notice it by ourself unless somebody points it to us. Those are also our words which is taking nasty course of action because of what pops out of our mouth. But, we take it as for granted sometimes to appease ourself rather than feeling a sense of remorse for what we have done because of our words. Some of our words of excuses includes, “oh! common, we are friends, right?”, Oh! dear, we are family, you should not be minding these things”, Hey! we are classmates, everything is okay, don’t take it seriously”………… and the list goes on.

We should not just be concerned with our words, but in fact, should be solicitous. Our messages, our good wishes, our letters, emails, snail-mails, everything are nothing more than just words. This is what creates fear, anger, remorse, envy, love, caring and all sorts of feelings (either good or bad). One of my friend use to say, “People are different, so we should present ourself according to them and not what we are”.  Everybody is special and they wants to be treated special and for that reason we have to change ourself. Because the way we might be talking to somebody might be bringing them closer to us while at the same time from the same group it might be pushing somebody away from us. But, the problem is how can we use the words suited for everyone. That is the fact, and we can’t control it. Because there is saying, “I am responsible for what I speak, but not what you understand”. And, also, “If everybody loves us, there must be something wrong, because we can’t please everybody at the same time”.

It is our words which help us to get respect, honor, and value and it the words again which will put us in grave danger. Words might be insignificant for a moment for the speaker, because usually we speak and we forget. But the story never ends there! There might be somebody who might be taking it by heart, it might be someone who is getting offended and it might retain with them for years to come or even till their whole life. So, its better to find the right words than to find excuse.

Our words are something that defines us inside out. It just do not only define us but it covers our lineage, our society from where we belong and in the family where we have been brought up. It is our words which defines our family and not just us. We are representing our family more than we are representing ourself in any society when we keep on moving. 

Our choice of words might appear to us as excursive to us, but using those words we are just excursing ourself but we are still trying to put the person in track with whom we are dealing at that moment – which is more important.

 

Money can buy happiness!

It might just be another one of those co-incidences that I have just finished watching movie “INTO THE WILD” and just recently and in parallel finished watching a TED talk by Michael Norton on about “Money Can Buy Happiness”. In fact, both of these things have just one thing in common – exploring the true nature, beauty and the meaning of being happy and finding the source of happiness. But, what is uncommon in these two things is the source of happiness.

It is really difficult to define the true meaning of happiness precisely and understandably, because the meaning changes with the situation, perception of the people and their individual circumstances. Mr. Norton believes that the true happiness lies in helping others and being philanthropic in our attitude and our deeds. Helping others will make us feel more good then helping ourself for some motley  and insignificant things. An act of selfless attitude is the one simple gateway to ultimate feeling of pleasure and salvation. And, this fact concedes with the theological understanding in almost all cultures, religions of the world – “What you give is what you will get in return”.

I am hereby just summarizing the main points from these two sources. So, finally, the true meaning of happiness is about helping others with what you have, but not at the cost of your own life or shavings. Share what you can without hampering your and your family life, share things with the people who really understands what its mean to be sharing and being happy, make less friends and stay tight depending on the situation and in the environment you are.

Spend money wisely and not like a spendthrift. Being spendthrift might be a momentarily pleasure, but after that you will have some real tough time – this is where money buys happiness. There is saying, “If earning bring happiness, then saving is an earning”. Money has fettered us all somehow. People say that its our stomach that we earn for, but what I say is that if it would have been just for the stomach, how would a fat-wealth just accumulates with somebody. Why aren’t they like just some other ordinary people? Earning too much and accumulating too much wealth brings misfortunes than fortunes while spending too much also does the same thing.

If we say that money buys happiness means its not about giving a gift to your loves one but to buy a new life for someone who is not your loved ones. The meaning of bigger happiness is not just being confined within our family making each other happy, but to share your fortunes with somebody who are completely destitute. Sometimes, I wonder, and get lost in my own world of imagination that what would be this world like when we would not have to shut our doors for safety, no money to buy foods, no thieves and no wealth to loose, no feeling of envy and no traces of enmity – just like a Kingdom of Heaven. We created money over gold and silver and those things over the things older civilization use to use to exchange things. We have made it valuable.

Share things with whom you think are your real honest friends who knows nothing more than your friendship – so be choosy and be parsimonious in this case because this is where you will cost more if you fail to choose things that you are suppose to over what you are not supposed to. The gist is people these days don’t listen to you, they just hear you. They will never listen what you really mean but they will listen what they want to hear – this is very dangerous situation.

When we were young, we use to hear that the then scientists have that huge salary that they do not have to think about their family and the money they will need to meet their basic needs. In fact, their salary are something that will deter them from even thinking about their family so that they can concentrate more on their research work then something else for better productive results. This is where we can say that money can buy happiness.

So, what we can summarize from all these is that money can truly buy happiness, but the essence of happiness lies on what we choose to do with the money – are we going to spend on ourself or we would like to spend it on somebody else, do charity work and help the needy who will understand the true value of that money and the happiness it brings to their life. 

 

 

Pedagogy and Brain

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The world has changed quite a bit more, and so does our life style and the way we use to do things, to something more tangible and more perceptible in a way. Over time we have become more sophisticated, more learned, and more practical in our things. The way we use to handle things have been changed to something we never ever dreamt of. The more important issue here is the art-of-teaching or in one simple word we can say, “Pedagogy” – this is what that makes real sense than to protracting it like a rubber. In dictionary meaning, it is called “teaching methodology”.

Since the beginning of my writing blogs, I have been more engaged in discussing things particularly on two things: first, technology which has always been one part of my fascination which keeps me glued to it, and secondly, the politics and ongoing changes which has been fettered with the political influence and interference. Interestingly, these both things bothers me at some point of time, which is why the idiom: “Excess of anything is bad!” applies quite logically in the instances like these.

Over the time, technology has developed with leaps and bounds and so has the trend of pedagogy. But, the difficult part of this puzzle is on demystifying this issue on whether we have really developed and also whether technology has helped us through this acclivity to this level, is still there. In fact, what I personally believe is that we have unwittingly become the slaves of the technical era. The thing is we are just like handicapped when it comes to even calculating simple things without getting our hands on our computer or calculator.

Because of our dependency on computer and other gadgets we have become so unyielding in our intellect that we can’t even do simple computing – simply, enough, we have forgot the simple method of multiplication we use to study in our primary school. Calculator and computer for computing mathematical equations and calculations, computer for checking spelling mistakes and vocabulary – everything has changed over time. Though, these technologies have made our work smoother, I feel like if everything would be doomed all of a sudden, I think there won’t be any creature on this earth as pathetic as human beings and its all because of the dependency we have cultivated in ourself.

Till high school students in our country (Nepal) are not allowed to use calculator – not even in the board exam and even that is strictly prohibited. And, in case, if somebody is find using calculator in their board exam, they are simply liable for restriction from that particular subject exam or even for other further exams – leaving no choice for the student than to wait for another one year, and even more worse that they will be labeled for ever in their life time as the student who have been restricted once in the board exam – which is really really very fetal for the carrier ahead, though, not a completely the only last determining factor for being eligible for things ahead.

Dependency on technology has barred us from using our mental agility. Our brain needs exercise just like our body. Restricting using our brain will make it numb over time. Putting our brain under stress of learning more , grabbing more, understanding more, using logical ideas and solving difficult problems without any dependency on technological things, solving mathematical problems is just like a marathon for Olympics, a study shows. Which means, the more we use it, the better it becomes gradually over time. It’s like generating stamina to its root.

The pedagogy of chalk-and-talk method have gone and forgotten, though still used in some remote districts of Nepal, and we have migrated from over-head-projector to slide-method and PowerPoint study. In fact, we all know that chalk-and-talk method is the best way of teaching, not just because it will help student to learn better and understand better, but because it will also help teacher and tutors to prepare themselves better before coming to class. The good part of chalk-and-talk method is that the process goes slowly and it is more extensive then the slide-based method. One reason is that in slide-based method we are restricted in our thoughts and ideas in explaining things because we see what is coming next which prevents us from thinking and elaborating the one we are discussing right at that moment. While in case of chalk-and-talk method, the process goes bit slower, as a result even the students who are slower in grasping things will understand things better before the tutor proceeds to the next topic.

These days our study is not determined what we understand and grab from our class and by the time we finish our exams, unlike in past, but it is rather being judged by the time. Time is the limiting factor now!This is not about whining what we have incorporated, nor does it mean that we should completely abhor it and stop using the technology completely. I think that will not definitely be a good idea in this competitive world, but we can definitely curb using technology, and using our brain more on the things than using technology, if we can and if it feasible. Because the changing trend of pedagogy is good for a university, college, school and institutes as a whole in their overall development, but at last we are being victimized of this system – our brain, our agility is going downhill. At least somebody have to sacrifice for the development and to reach the apex of development in competitive world!

Think about it!

 

 

 

 

Pornography, Social Media and the Society

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In today’s context, the world is truly changing in every front including our social status, our achievements, quality of life, education, health sector (most importantly the millennium development goal Nepal has unprecedentedly achieved), technology and communication and our perspective and perception towards things – specially the one which use to be considered a social taboo (sex, pornography, sexuality and things connected to it), and in most part it is still considered when it comes to Asian and Middle-East countries.

The big question today is, “Whether have we really developed in terms of our thinking perspective and way of visualizing things it has to be or is it just in some twisted form?”, “Have we really become pragmatic in our views, ideas and our morality or have we just incorporated the things of so called western society and western world?” In fact, it is difficult to answer and it might take ages before we find the real answers to these questions. And, this is not because it is really difficult to find, but because we have not really developed that level of so called sophistication in our thinking ability, agility to perceive things that easily – in fact, overtime, we have become more hidebound, sulking in our attitude and our thinking and insular in our thoughts, but sadly enough we are still pretending that we have changed and we are in the process of evolution.

I have just come across a debate program in NDTV (http://www.ndtv.com) which talked about our morality as a human being, and whether or not it is fair to be called things we see today in the sexual world as nudity and porn – or in a simple meaning – defining PORNOGRAHY. What I finally figured out from the program by the time I finished listening to debate was that the perception of general public regarding sex, profanity and vulgarity is still hazy and it is really difficult to make a demarcation line which is infinitesimally thin when it comes to defining the nudity, pornography, porn and finally implementing law against to limit the context and content.

Though, across the world countries are trying to limit the use and access to the profane websites, it’s the internet in itself which is making it hard for them to get control over the content on the web. The thing is, it is limitless and secondly it is the most lucrative business in the world surpassing any business net profit leaving it the best business in the world garnering the highest net profit. This has become even more dangerous and deleterious than the drug itself – the reason is it is more easily accessible. And this has become one of the mental-addictions of the current generation and the generation to come.

It is really commendable the way Nepal has developed in IT and communication sector in this last decade. Today, our country (Nepal) is buckling up to thwart the use of internet for these things and strengthening the laws against it to create a moral society. But, the measures taken is still not enough to tap these things – it has just proved to be futile and unyielding. When we search something on the Google, we all will not get the same results (If you want to try your hands then convene in a place with your friends with different internet and different computer or mobile devices and try to find it) – the reason is Google provides us the information based on what we have searched over time; depending on our track record it has heaped over time – IT-engineers term it has a search-bubble. The Google makes individual search-bubble on those records, so that whenever we try to find something it will always provide us with the information which we always care about on our preference basis.

This is the general concept, and I guess the world knows about it as the internet and technology has become customary for our society today, and I also don’t think that Nepal’s Ministry of Communication and Technology is filled with goons. So, then on what basis Nepal’s Ministry of Information and Communication had blocked just 150 of those prone sites on internet in 2010? I think, there is just some kind of mistake or might be a communication gap  that has lead to this information. Whatever it be, finally, the measures government has taken is simply not enough and now they are going for some other alternative ways to tackle this problem through awareness program, fines for misusing computer and internet to pass profanity, misusing computer for destroying the database and information in some other computer, getting access to information through hacking and so on.

We all know that we can’t even imagine today’s world without internet, but limiting its use has just simply become a major serious problem today for the world. Got to be serious about it now or else we will have a completely skewed society in the days to come.