I Am The Maitreya

Horray! Horray! It’s A Holi-Holiday!

Horray! Horray! It’s A Holi-Holiday!

–Boney M 

I am going on vacation from December 23^rd to January 2^nd, much needed break, after eight hours of writing algorithms and coding, five days a week, all around the year. Finally flying to the west coast, to meet my buddies who reside there, Twaaks and Preeti are flying from Boston, Ahmed and I are flying from Baltimore, we will meet up at Los Angeles airport.

Going to Kali-fooooor-nia.

Much like I did, from Nepal, Borat (the movie character) from Kazakhstan too, came to the US to get married to Pamela Anderson. My dream didn’t get materialized, I gave up that dream after a sharp thud on the head with reality—she lives in Hollywood, I ended up in some real wood. But, that dead feelings has been resurging again with the prospect of going to Los Angeles, and with a glimmer of hope that I might bump into her with accident—a sheer serendipity, but chances are not that bleak too, to bump into her with those over sized mammary which fill half the room. But on second thought I should get over my juvenile mammary-phile, and wish to get bumped into someone younger like—I don’t know, anyone would do.

Gravity is cruel a thing as you grow old, Newton missed some finer points in his postulates of gravity, like—gravity is directly proportional to age.

Those gravity defying knockers of hers in younger days (Bay Watch) hang to her knees these days, sometime I fear for her that she might trip on her own boobs. With all those silicon in them, it must be like dragging plastic bags filled with water on the floor behind her, and she can tie them like shoe laces one with another with beautiful knot.

हय्य्या!!!! जे पाए त्यै! मेरो वकवास यही रोक्छु।

If I see any celebrity, I will let you guys know.

This is how the itinerary looks like, for now, but can change on the road:

Baltimoreà LAà Las Vegasà San Hose {MontereyàNapa Valley}à
San Franciscoà LAà Baltimore

I will post some pictures, while on the road.

Pandu The Toddler

We always had pets in a pair, but we never tried anything other than canine. We were scared of cats as children, all credits go to the mean hag—my neighbor, whose old house was adjacent to my compound wall, for instilling that fear. She was stout in stature, but even looked shorter with that acute stoop at the hip, which made her belly never see the sun, anymore. She was all gray, and had more folds on her face than wall nut. She was always followed by two equally mean black cats. She would be in a perennial bad mood, and there was none that didn’t get charred with her foul mouth, in my neighborhood sometime or the other. At the frolicking kids, she would brandish her cane, and shout, “machikne! anikal ka beu haru,” her curses muffled between her gums without dentures,  lost its vileness and almost sounded cute.

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On retrospect, I presume, all those bitterness of failures, hatred, disgust accumulated over the long journey gets brewed in the pressure cooker– life. And, when one is not bound by any civility and moral codes anymore, or may be the pretension of such social protocols become obvious at the old age, they just let it go like a whizzing whistle—all those pent up emotions. It must be pretty exhilarating to just let it go, at anyone, anywhere, anytime, that’s their prerogative, and they have earned that right.

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All the children in the neighborhood thought she was a boksi, and her two cats– agent of devil. So, the question of cats as pets was never there. Besides cats are ungrateful animals.

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As I said, we always had pets in a pair, a month before we got Pandu, we had a son and a mother of Tibetan Apso, and the mother had just died of old age, who we had brought from some Rana Sahib’s Darbar, keeping their aristocratic traditions, they had appropriately named her—Sashi. Believe me, she had the most elegant name in my whole family, including maternal and paternal sides, among Bir, Pancha Maya, Birke, Mahili, Sante and others. Damn dog wouldn’t eat until given an adequate reverence almost in the manner of— vuja kai baksiyos hajur!

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When she had puppies, we gave them away, but kept one—smallest of all, the weakling, we thought he wouldn’t survive, but he did, and we named him Kale. It was almost in reprisal and contempt to get back at Sahsi’s aristocratic heritage and her snobbishness, so we found the most quintessential Nepali bourgeoisie canine name—Kale, doing so, we made Kale one of us, and razed the wall of aristocracy between us. Sahsi wasn’t happy, and she never took Kale as her son.

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And, we always wondered, what would Rana Sahib name a male dog?  Pratap, Randhir, Shakti? Imagine a sign reading on the gate, “Trespassers Beware! Randhir Bites”, now, who would cross the property, if the proprietor were to bite offenders himself?

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When we got Pandu, he could fit between the palms—a furry white little ball, with large black patches, around his eyes and back, looked like a baby Panda, so we baptized him—Pandu. But, there were few elements of society, who weren’t happy with his nwaran. One was our long time family friend, with his last name– Pandey. Every time he would visit us, he would complain to my dad, “heterika, Golay Ji, couldn’t you find any other name?” And, he would say to his children, “lau aba Pandu kaka lai namesta gara,” and cute little girls would bow down to Pandu, and the happy dog would smother the girls, get on top of them and lick their faces all wet. The other was a self proclaimed Vedic scholar, who thought; we were soiling the Pandav Brothers, who were affectionately known as Pandu too, and admonished us for a heresy. We told him to fuck off! Once, he visited us, and one of his shoes got lost, he thought it was a prank by the kids, but we never took his shoe, to this day we suspect it was Pandu– after all no one likes asking their names to be changed.

To be continued…..

Warning: Senseless patriots; please do not read; might put your mercury high, which is harmful for health.

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Gold, silver, diamond, ivory, rubber, oil, and poppy, we Nepalis are better off without them, is my conclusion after watching Blood Diamond. To have resources with high liquidity value in international market is catastrophic for any country with no law and order, it’s a treasure chest which invites marauding pirates, donning different ideological hats.

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Lack of any resources (high liquidity) is the reason, why Nepal was never a part of British India. There was nothing to plunder upon for the British Empire, unlike India, China and other African nations. Our history misinterpreted the lack of Angrejs’ interest in Nepal as their cowardice, thus by default our bravery, and the legend of Nalapani Killa got an opportunity to instill us on the self proclaimed pedestal of the bravest in the world, as if there is a tape to measure bravery.

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Blessing in disguise, paucity bought us sovereignty. And, I am of opine that it’s a healthy habit to doubt the established facts objectively once in a while, the practice keeps you honest about yourself, and helps in self appraisal. Just shed your pride for a second, and ask yourself, how hard it would have been for the Brits to conquer us, who already had the known world under its feet? In retrospect, had the goras conquered us, we would have been annexed into the greater India as one of the princely states, come 30s and 40s, during the satyagraha, we would be marching behind Ghandi, by 1947 we would be free of colonial rule, but still singing Jana Gana Mana, most probably a part infamous Bihar, run by Laloo.

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Pakistan got partitioned after sectarian violence; we didn’t stand that chance, since we were/are predominantly Hidus. Failure of Sikhs’ struggle for Khalistan in the west, and Nagas’ Bodo Land in Northwest in recent history, suggests that we stood no chance to chip off from federalism of Indian states. If lucky we would be a separate state like Sikkim. On the brighter side, there wouldn’t be debate about republic, Namgyals and Shahs would be sipping Darjeeling tea together reminiscing on their past glories. Maoists would be yet another naxalites fighting Delhi.

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In the present context, the insurgency has a façade of: struggle for the justice and equality for the marginalized, inherently it is nothing but a fight over resources and the claim of its just distribution. To keep my argument in perspective, I would give an example on the diminutive scale of resources we are fighting over in Nepal: the annual budget of major public universities in the US surpasses Nepal fiscal budget, which is around $2 billions dollars for fiscal year 06/07. Pause for a minute, and give a thought on the math. Out of which around 50% is generated from revenue and taxes, and the rest is provided by foreign grants and loans, it’s just a fight over who controls it.

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Until now, all the mongrels have been fighting over this $2 billion dollars pie, now just imagine, how intense would have been fighting, if the pie were to be topped by cherries like: diamond, gold, silver, rubber and oil—icing of greed? Don’t you feel lucky that way, we are abjectly poor? How wonderful, hallelujah!

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Now coming back to the Hollywood flick—Blood Diamond, it is about the diamonds that come from fighting African nations mostly in the
north west of the continent, which are washed with the blood of the miners. The secondary objective of the movie was to make the western audience and consumer guilty about their ignorance, particularly Americans, while primary was to make profit for studio, on the expense of someone else’s misery. But, do have to give credit, where it is due, the movie has managed to make consumers skeptic about the sanctity of the rocks that they buy for the loved ones. Now, every time, all the hopeful wives put on the diamond ring, the question would always hunt them, if the rock they wear cost someone a limb, somewhere in Africa. I don’t see myself buying rock anytime soon, not that I can afford, so I have been spared of the guilt, but I see a moral equivalence, when I walk on Nepali carpet, or wear garments from South Asia, I am an accomplice in robbing the sweat shop workers of their rightful wage.

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Over all a good Hollywood movie after a long time, this must be the first movie of DiCaprio’s that I enjoyed. Ah! What to say about Jennifer Connelly, she is a perfect MILF. Last I fell in love with her was when I watched Rocketeers back in high school.

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I recommend you to watch this movie, along with usual masala from Hollywood; you do come out of the theater a little more informed than you entered.

Epilogue in Prologue 

He would have made 20 this December, was 19, when he died. My mother must have cried her heart out, over the death of the son, she never had. Yes, that was my four legged brother; Pandu—a Tibetan Apso. He was my sibling, the one I grew up with—a furry one; he constitutes most of my childhood memories.   

If god were to grant my mother a wish, for her diligent puja every morning; after living through her children and her expectations from them, and disappointments, she would have asked to switch her biped son with that lovable qudra-ped mutt at a heart beat. And, by god, I wouldn’t have any qualms with her decision.  

After all, it was him, who bore the onus of being a responsible son, in the absence of biological one. He did a better job than I could have ever done. Gave company to my parents through their old age, in health and in sickness, he must have listened to my mother’s constant nagging without a single complain. He never argued. Unlike me, he didn’t have any priorities in life; he never had this urge to go overseas, and was always ecstatically happy to be around them—gave the finest example of unconditional love.  In fact, the only purpose of his life was to make my mother happy, like any good son would want. 

He would marry a bride, my mother would choose, without any questions, and take my mother’s side on sasu-buhari fights. He would have given them pleasure of playing with their grand-children. And, if my parents went blind of old age, he would put them on his shoulders, and taken them around to pilgrims, just like Srawan Kumar did. What mother wouldn’t want a son like that?  

And, if I were to entrust anyone to delegate my responsibility as a son, it would be him. 

Since, all the children have left them, including Pandu, they are emotionally devastated, to have any courage to bring another one home. They always say, ‘no dog is like Pandu, he is irreplaceable.’ 

They buried him in my court-yard under the Vokate ko bot, with a small ritual, but complex enough to comfort my mother, that it would ascend him to heaven. Mother tells me, this year vokate grew like no other years, best we ever had in fifteen years, that’s how old is that tree.  Usually, mother would give those vokate to neighbors and relatives for Bhai Tika. This year no one got any, she says, all are still hanging by the tree. For others, they might be any other stupid purposeless vokate, but for her, it’s her son, who she never had—PANDU reincarnated.

That inconspicuous tree at my court-yard has turned into a shrine, which blooms every year to remind– Golay family, that one of theirs’ lie there in serenity.  

How flowers on that vokate ko bot would bring joy and smile on my mother’s face every spring, yes, that’s the son my mother pines for. 

One of the characters of my newly bought book, ‘Children of Cain’ (haven’t finished it, yet), passed away this Sunday– General Augusto Pinochet. News read, in the midst of his departure, there are mixed sentiments of rejoice and mourning, in Chile.  Well, I could understand one prong of the bifurcated emotion—rejoice, on his departure, since he always topped the roster on the bad ass dictators around the world, but at the same time mourning of the Chileans on his passing away completely baffled me.

Popular media have us believed that General Pinochet wouldn’t weigh an ounce less, if measured against other ruthless dictators in scale of evilness/vileness—Edi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and many more. During his reign, Pinochet killed over 3000 political dissents, 28,000 people were tortured in secret detention centers, and hundreds of thousands of political exiles. These numbers are irrefutable fact, which put a legitimate stamp of a monster on Pinochet’s forehead. So, why would people mourn over such an individual? Why would Santiago ablaze in fire, in the clash of those contradictory sentiments?                 
                       Santiago of capital Chile: Could have been Kathmandu.

The answer to this obscure question lies, somewhere, in yet more obscure nation of
Himalaya—Nepal. There might be better explained answers to this question, but for every Nepali, I guess this should have a strong parallel. When a large part of the population in the outfit of Maoists, in the rural areas, are dead against the idea of monarchy, and substantially a huge demonstration of protestors with different political ideologies got down to streets to show their disgust/contempt in the king’s rule, in the April Rev., in the capital, same time around equally large amount of people were standing in the line at Naryan-hiti to get Dashain Tika from the same king. It’s a fine example of public display of simultaneous contempt and reverence for the same institution, from different pools of population, which is pretty confusing, at the same time quite difficult to discern the subtleties at the cursory glance. I guess it was the same confusion for me, to read the mixed sentiments of people of
Chile on Pinochet. For my linear understanding of Chile, it should have been just simply disgust for him and rejoice over his death, from everyone. But, it isn’t. Pinochet, took the reign after the bloody coup, aided and funded by CIA, and Chile was the last bastion against the tide of Marxism that swept Latin America. Chile was a proxy war for the US, against the communist block. With the favorable trades and funds from the US, Chile’s economy was stable; in fact doing a lot better than ever, there was a market confidence, trade and commerce was up. Any hard working citizen could reap the benefits of this upward economical trend, only downside was, no dissenting views were tolerated. All dissents were sent to gulag.

So, who were mourning over Pinochet’s death, weren’t just his cohorts and cronies of the old oligarchs, but were simple hard working people too, apparently who had a better life under him than any other political larders or systems. If you were bovine as cow, system was perfect. There is no distinct demarcation of right and wrong, I believe, it’s entirely a personal choice, how much one is willing to trade off freedom of thoughts for economical advantage and security of all sorts. Once, again no one can argue, if one is completely happy in George Orwellnian society of his book 1984.  Once, again, it’s a personal choice. And, in the same breath, I strongly believe, one shouldn’t be persecuted for having differing views as well.

Now, I understand, why Chileans are mourning and rejoicing at the same time. But, as someone said, ‘amount of tear drops in the world is always constant.’ If one is dead, another is born, somewhere else.

What Pinochet did to Chile was to polarize it between, one who would give away their freedom of thoughts for economic advantage, and one who wouldn’t. Apparently, who valued free thinking society, out numbered him, and he had to step down. Contrary to popular demand, he was never tried for his crimes. I don’t know which one was triumphant at the end in Chile—forgiving and moving forward, or failure to make any dent at strong oligarchs, which was down but not out, still mocking at the victor.

Now, do you see the parallel?