Honestly, I’d rather have Hitler.
Meanwhile, out on the streets, we’ve taken to worrying about the most ludicrous things. Like what’s the alternative to driving to work when NOC decides to stop the supply again. When I was growing up, the only other alternative to driving would be riding a bicycle because we knew no better. Now there are people making a very good living from selling hundred different varieties of electric cars and what not.
This is a country where we’re so content and so happy with our lot that the government is bored. You’d imagine they would have many important things to do, but somehow they find the time to draw up precise rules about which particular day out of 15 days of celebrations should Lhosar be declared a holiday. And how you can still talk “peace” in the press while goons in the Tarai are having a field day kidnapping and killing whoever they please. And how the government is forming a high -level Commission to find an alternative to the fuel crisis after a shortage of two months and counting.
It’s pathetic.
The evening news is even worse. Almost everyday, it’ll feature a smiling politician sitting on a sofa, a cup of tea in one hand and an overflowing ashtray perched on the carved table in front of him. His stomach is huge. Next to him, other people are seated comfortably on plush sofas, talking politics to the reporters who seem to be hanging on to their
every word. There’s the usual rhetorically gibberish democracy talk, people power, transitional phase, and all that familiar crap.
One of them is talking about how much they’ve managed to achieve during the “transitional” phase even though the Constitution, the very reason they were elected to the Assembly in the first place, is nowhere close to being completed in time. And he says they’re very proud of having come so far. No dear, that’s the wrong word. You’re not proud. You’re a stupid waste of the country’s resources.
And he’s not alone. In fact, I’m becoming increasingly concerned with the sheer number of properly idiotic people who call Nepal home. One of the penalties for people like us refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Now, as I understand it, there are certain conditions that have to be met before you can run a country. One of them is that you must have a sound mind. This was included in the rules to prevent the juvenile politicians from tearing their vests, getting drunk and making dolphin noises throughout the proceedings. I strongly feel you can’t have someone decide your future just because they make tall claims about making the world sit up and take note of the “change.”
During the last three years, we’ve all encountered hopeless leaders on an industrial scale, people who fill up with vanity while going on state-sponsored foreign junkets, people who breathe through their mouths and drag their knuckles on the ground, and people who could out-gump Forrest Gump.
How has this happened? How, in 21 years of newfound democracy, have we gone from a society where everyone had a right to peaceful existence to a society that worries about basic needs like water, electricity and food?
The only conclusion I can draw is that the leaders in question are as stupid as a field full of bees and as daft as a brush. Perhaps they couldn’t remember in the heat of the moment what they were chosen to do, or what they should’ve been doing for the last three years, or that going abroad to chair a seminar while the country is in dire conditions, or doing nothing while the countrymen die of hunger is wrong. I think then that if these incompetent so-called leaders are removed from the political scene altogether, if nothing, the state will save money that’s otherwise spent as stipends for doing nothing and sponsoring their lavish foreign trips which amount to little or nothing.
I mean, do you honestly believe anything will come out of the PM’s Turkey visit? Furthermore, because they’ll have to walk to wherever they want to go and make their speeches to whoever still wants to listen to them yap, there’ll be fewer traffic jams. And we can all reach our offices in time.
Because the next thing you know, they’ll be worried about global warming and they’ll definitely want the world to take notice of their concerns. So they’ll spend millions and organize a “successful” campaign somewhere close to the highest place in the world while driving around in their SUVs escorted by fuel-guzzling pickups and still have the audacity to ignore the bill for the event. Oh wait, haven’t they done that already?
My suggestion to the politicians is this: If your life’s that empty, it’s time to take up fishing or embroidery or hairstyling. If this happens, I reckon this would probably get somewhere between 90 and 95 % of all the politicians out of the picture. In some ways, that’s rather depressing. In others, it’s not depressing at all.
But then again, politics isn’t a bad profession. If you succeed, there’re many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.
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