Overly Concerned

I was just thinking a few days back, and I phrased amazingly once of the most all-embracing truths I ever stumbled across. Have a look:
“Relationships don’t work out becasue although we love the other person and want him/her to be happy, we want them to happy according to how we define happiness. We don’t want them to define happiness in their own terms and then be happy”
And I learnt this only after I tried to define happiness for someone else (a friend) and then realise my mistake.

I am SO sick of overly concerned relatives who want me to start studying. I mean, it’s not like I’m planning to stay a “high school (only) graduate” for the rest my life. But I’m taking my time, working a little and figuring out what I want to do.  And I am NOT going to be addicted to earning money.

What Patriotism Isn’t

• Patriotism IS about being concerned about your country, but it IS NOT about staying in another country, and ranting about what’s wrong in your own country.
• Even worse, patriotism is NOT about complaining that the people who still live in their country are making it “go through hell”. Yes, there are untruthful insincere people in Nepal. But there are people who do the best at whatever they do, and actually care about the country they live in, and it’s people. Sure, we can’t decrease the amount of loadshedding per week or make the availability of petrol better, but at least we’re not running away from the problem.
• What annoys me more about these cranky whiny NRNs (non residential Nepalis) is that they whine about things:
  they don’t have to live with,
  they don’t have a solution to,
  they don’t even care about fixing.
• The whiners should mind their own buisness. Or they should invest in Nepal. AND they should stop saying bullcrap about how “No lights, No Gas, No Security” correlates to “No King”. You know, those of you who live in forward un-StoneAge countries should know that most of the countries in the world (including our very own USA and France and Italy and Singapore and India and China and blah blah) are republics. Or at least you should know about Google and try to verify stuff before making statements.
• Of course I can understand the fun of working at a “gas station” (the thing that a petrol pump suddenly starts being called once you step into America) and whining about a country that’s literally on the other end of the world. But for those who have to listen to the amazing quantity and level of bullshit whining you do, it’s TORTURE.

Well, CLARIFICATION: I AM planing to go abroad to study. But I’m not gonna stay there forever, or whine about my country (and complain about how different people have contributed to it’s bad state) from a “gas station” abroad with no intentions of coming back.

Of course, Patriotism, the concept, is itself interesting. For some people, borders don’t matter. Borders are just for the rulers, the kings who capture lands to feed their own egos. They think that, at least to them, their SOCIETY is more important. Depending on the people, this may be ethnicity or caste or religion. But for someone who comes from a so-called “upper” caste (not that Brahmins have more to eat than anyone else in the same conditions) those don’t really count. For me, my society is more or less my country. (and then there’s Asia and then the World, but those come later.) Anyways, my thoughts on the “patriotism” issue also apply to other forms of  “responsibilty towards one’s society”, which I think HAS TO exist.

Quite a heavy topic there, huh? Comments please.

Alarming fact!!!

I just don’t have the words to comment on this right now… maybe later. But here’s the article…

“Nepal ranked 57 out of 88 nations in the Global Hunger Index 2008, a malnutrition survey of developing countries and countries in transition carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The Himalayan nation fell into the “alarming” category, ranking below Sudan and North Korea.”

“One of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal receives more than 60 percent of the cost of its economic development from international donors including the United Nations.”
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/12/04/asia/OUKWD-UK-NEPAL-UN-FOOD.php
(The International Herald Tribune website)

Bodhgaya

I’m sorry for the long silence, and it’s partly because I’ve either been traveling or busy making ends meet (okay I don’t really need to feed a family, but that doesn’t mean I can get away without working.)

Anyways, so this post is about Bodhgaya, and how an utterly unreligious person like me had nothing to do but do koras (which is basically going around in clockwise direction) around a temple when the nuns I went with (my students) were doing their puja. I used to sit in the park of the Mahabodhi temple (which is a world heritage site and very very beautiful) and write, but then men: mostly Bihari but also Nepali and Tibetan used to peer over, sit next to me or try to make conversation. At one point, this guy put on shades, walked up to me, and said “Where are you from?… Myself Rajeev, I am a sportsman.” I freaked out, and when it got too freaky I went inside the puja and sat inside the whole remaineder of the day, and the next day. I was known as the girl who sat alone and write and a young monk, on the last day, asked if I was lonely.

As a whole, the trip was pretty good. I don’t know what about it was good, but it was. I enjoyed going to places of religious importances to see them, and even felt, at two different occassions, a type of faith. I’m still not religious enough to convert (or even start to believe in the supernatural) but my 9 days in Bodhgaya did increase my curiosity about world religions, and especially about Buddhism. (I did spome reading after I got home and my faith still hasn’t increased.) And like every other experience (especially those away from home) this one helped me grow.

I experienced Bihar, which was, unfortunately, not very different from how people say it is. There are beggars on every road, and cheats at every corner. You hardly pass a woman in the streets. Oh, and people LOVE spitting (not quite different from Kathmandu) and when they do spit, it sounds like they’re trying to spit their intestines out. (“Ktthhhhh thhuuu”) The places (mostly place of religios importance) were beautiful. There were places of worship inside caves, under trees, and on hill-tops. There was a place where you had to imagine you were dead, and the person would act like he was chopping you up for the vultures like they do in Tibet and cut a little part of your hair to burn. And EVERY place of religious importance, without fail, about 40 beggars, half of them children who admitted that they wanted to eat chocolates with the money I gave them.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

The statue of the Budhha inside the Mahabodhi temple. You have to see the ornaments to believe it.

The statue in the main temple

A random sunset in Bihar, picture(s) taken from the bus on the way to Bodhgaya.