Vacation at home

Our brand new medical school, with no passed out students yet, doesn’t believe that student need time to relax and vacation is important part of student life. We have no New year or Independence day or Krishna janmastami or summer/winter vacations or anything else. After more than a year, we got a leave for about one and a half week for the biggest festival- Dashin. We were provided with tasks to accomplish in vacation, but who cares? we kept it for last day of vacation. I left for home. I was being at my home in Dashin after three years.

At Lahan

The road in front of my house joins different villages including my ancestral home. The road is not black topped and always muddy. The bus is always overcrowded. Election camping have already started entering inside these villages through this road. Let me tell you, the vehicles used by the political parties are mostly Indian. See the number plates in photos below. They are using vehicles which probably pay the road tax and other payables to Indian government. If not to the Indian government then to no one (for stolen vehicles). Neither way, they are paying the taxes to Nepal. Can any morality let me (or anyone) vote them???
I remember, even cops used vehicles with indian number plates last year. Mostly by APF (Armed Police Force). Later on they were stopped to use such vehicles.

While talking about politics in my home town, I can’t overlook the president of UCPN-Maoist, comrade Prachanda who is a candidate in the election from same district, siraha EC No. 5. Talks are being heard how he made Dr. Birendra Mahato to take his name off. Dr Bidendra was candidate of MJF and has goodwill in that area and would easily win. Prachanda used all sham, daam, danda and bhed (convincing, buying, beating and exploiting/confusing) for it. It’s claimed that Prachanda threatened his businessman brother Dr Upendra Mahato that he would damage his business if Dr Birendra didn’t take his candidacy back. Candidate of Nepali Congress is also already made to step back.

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These seven years in Kathmandu have slowly made me friendly to Kathmandu and an outsider to this place, my place. I remember one evening at hatiya (vegetable market), the shopkeeper didi gave an amazing look towards me. I thought for a while why this happened? This had actually happened because I addressed her “madam” while paying, saying “madam linus”. It’s not that common there.

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In Nepal, wherever you go you will definitely find corruption. The next day of tika in the morning, there were few cops in the road in front of my home. They were checking all the bikes coming. A rider didn’t have license. The punishment given to him was a small treat (breakfast) in nearby hotel. I was seeing all these live. Other than the payment of hotel, they also might have taken some bribe (black money) from him. The rate at Kathmandu valley for not having a Driving License or other small errors is NRS 100 to 200. I think the rate is similar throughout the country including my hometown. Interestingly traffic police and cops don’t accept bribe for Ma. Pa. Se. i.e. driving while drunk.

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My elder brother recently completed his study and is posted as dental surgeon at Sagarmatha zonal hospital. He leaves home at 9 am and returns back at around 1 pm. He has plenty of leisure time now. The private dental clinics there are all run by quacks (duplicate/untrained doctors). The quacks threaten and don’t let registered dental surgeons stay there. A doctor from BPKIHS Dharan had recently come there and was made to leave. This is Nepal. These all happens. Being a local resident we are not in danger but we don’t want any dispute as well. After enough brain storming, he decided to start his own clinic. He asked me to suggest a quote for his dental clinic. Few I suggested were-

• Put on your best smile every day.
• A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear.
• You are never fully dressed without a smile.

Best one is still to be selected. I would be more than happy if you suggest/select the best one. 

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Before leaving Kathmandu, I went to bookstall to get few novels for myself in vacation. I bought ‘Malaya express’, Damini bheer and Santa chaudhari’s “Kamlari dekhi sabhasad samma (कम्लरीदेखी सभासदसम्म). I dropped the plan of buying Ghamkiri and Jiban Kaada ki phool because of condensed size of my pocket. I have kept these two for next vacation. Malaya Express was bought unplanned. I didn’t know about this book. The name is not so interesting thus I must have missed to see the reviews in daily newspapers. In bookstall, the authors name-  Akhanda Bhandari draw my attention. This author’s column “Voice of the voiceless” in The Kantipur Daily is my favorite. His tactful way of presenting things has always impressed me. Thus I bought Malaya Express and read it first. This book as well was nice enough. Few paragraphs were identical to the one printed in “Voice of the voiceless”. Yet it was interesting and I completed the whole novel in 10 hours or so.

The next was damini bheer. That is a name of a hill (भीर) named on a (so called) lower cast’s female (दमिनी). This is pretty famous one. It was awarded by reputed Madan Puraskaar this year. I remember an article in Nagarik dialy. The author could not believe his novel won Madan puraskaar because this news was given to him by a person who had updated his status in facebook advising not to read the novel Damini bheer. The person’s reason was, every so called lower cast author write swearword and abuse upper caste people and there can’t be anything else in this novel as well. So better not read it. I struggled a lot in the beginning of this book. It went interesting after I completed half of it. The endings are good and interesting.

For me both of these novels are not a must read one. I would rate three out of five (3/5) to both of them. I am yet to read the third novel Kamlari dekhi sabhasad samma.

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As always, vacation time passes faster than anything else. In no time the vacation ended and I am back to Kathmandu. Back to the same life with some hope, some frustrations and a lot of fun...