Saturday, December 29, 2018

Phoenix

I know i Do not deserve
What you did to me
And i know it is enough
To drown any life in sorrow

And yet i know
That if i drown in my sorrow
That if i am unable
To find happiness

I Will be letting you win
I Will be accepting
That you are
More powerful than me

And that my (not so) dear
Is Just not acceptable to me

(The ram) doesn't take
Defeat for an answer

No matter How Strong you are
I am stronger
And i Will wrest from life
What you took from me

Monday, December 24, 2018

Cauldron

Some conversations leave you
More lonely and agitated
Than if you had Never talked

With so many things unsaid
Bubbling in your heart for hours

And it all boils down to
How much you miss
What you cannot have

Saturday, December 15, 2018

The shephed versus capitalism

On a hilltop as we were walking
We encountered a shepherd
A young boy, maybe a teenager
Or maybe slightly older

We wanted to talk to him about his sheep
How many he had? Where he was taking them?.
He refused to say a single word
Maybe he was shy
Maybe he was always in the company of sheep
And had never learnt the human language
At least not enough to talk to strangers like us

Then we met an old couple
seemingly happily in love,
weaving flowers into garlands
Who lived by themselves because
All their children wee abroad

And beside them was a man, a hotelier
Whose sons were studying to be engineers
in foreign countries
It's not enough for them to stay here, he said
They must go, they must be educated
Because nowadays without education
You cannot even talk, you appear like a fool

I thought back to the shepherd
and back to the days when
that would have been a perfectly
respectable profession
And now probably he does not want to talk
Because he feels that he knows nothing
Without a school education
Even though he is a world expert
on Himalayan sheep

This education we have
is not just about expanding your mind
Not just about job opportunities
For there are opportunities plenty
Like the shepherd shows
But it is also about appearing smart
About conversing
About appearing equal to the world
About appearing in the know
of these capitalistic ideas
of school and 9 to 5 jobs
of global opportunities

And that shepherd boy
He too will not let his children
become shepherds
Because society is circular
and he must move go up a notch
in the next generation

And what happens to the sheep?
And to the farms that lie fallow on the hillside?
Perhaps I have no right to ask,
I who will never go back
To her grandmother's profession
She who prided in raising dozens of cows

Stranger

I wondered why it was easier
To open up to a complete stranger
Or a new friend, a foreign person
who does not share your history

Than to you closest friends

And now I know

Because it doesn't change anything
You can tell them and your life
will remain the same
You just get a load
off of your chest

But if you tell your closest ones
you have to deal with the implications
every day they will be watching you
for change, which you may not make

You can become a drag on a stranger
If you carry it on too long

Or the stranger then becomes
Your new best friend, 
 In which case you will always need
a new stranger

A stranger is not a wanderer, who may come today and leave tomorrow. He comes today—and stays. But he has not always belonged to it, and so he carries into it qualities that do not, could not, belong there.
Since he is not rooted in the particularities and biases of the community, he stands apart from it, in an attitude of objectivity.
And the objectivity of the stranger leads to another phenomenon: he is offered revelations, confessions otherwise carefully hidden from any more organically embedded persons.
Objectivity, remember, is not non-engagement; it is rather a positive and specific kind of engagement.
Objectivity is also a kind of freedom. The objective person is not constrained by predispositions that would prejudice his perception, his understanding, or his judgment.
- Georg Simmel, The Stranger

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Battle of ideals

  
They say everyone is a communist
Before they are 25
And if you are not, you are a fool
But if you are still one after 25,
Then you are a fool

Here in Nepal it is the exact opposite

Here we grow up idealizing
And idolizing the west
Thinking how glorious they are
In their developed state
We want the same development in our country
We see the poverty around us, the hardships
We want these to be gone in a trice
We want factories, we want multinationals
We want money to be flying around
We want everyone to have a salaried job
We want televisions and internet
We envy the Americans who we hear
Have a car even if they are beggars
We think that is the answer

At this stage we might even argue
And fight with the communists
We are very passionate, and we will ask
So what did you do for equality?
Do you shun your privileges?
Do you give up your car and take the bus home?
Do you stand in line at the government hospital
Instead of paying for a fast track
at your expensive clinic?
Which sane person
would give up their privileges?
When your life is at stake,
where does your idealism fly?
And if you can be so selfish and greedy
And want the best for yourself,
How can you blame others for wanting the same?
How can you oppose capitalism which
Makes all this available to you?
What a grand idea it is!
Where a person with ideas can experiment
On the free market
And the person with the best idea wins!
So free and fair! Isn’t free competition the best?
Why should the winner not reap the benefits?
How can you be against such fairness?
Equality? Equity? Why should the world be equal?
Why should the system bear the burden
Of a freeloader?
If people have different capacities
And different capabilities to work hard
Why should their rewards be the same?
That sounds eerily like communism,
how suffocating!

How can you look at yourself in the mirror
If you wear jeans and skirts
And not promote home-spun Dhaka?
If you have not done all this,
Can you call yourself a communist?
You can do it because you are a fake!

And then we grow up
And start travelling our own country more
Spending more time on the news and features
Than on sports and entertainment
We see how factories pollute the environment
We see how multinationals extort
The poorest of the poor
And actually entrench the poverty
We see how packaged noodles
Reach the remotest village in the country
But the valuable resources of the same village
Don’t go out,
Because if they did the people would be rich
We see how the fight for nature
Be it forests or earth, minerals or water,
Has robbed nature blind
We see how coke and pepsi
Are killing our guccha soda
A farmer who works a body to death
Accumulates a lifetime of knowledge
Skills that she can pass on,
Stories that he can tell
Intuition that she can trust
And if she is curious, even wisdom
A factory worker who spends his life
Let’s say, for example
Cutting extra threads off of finished clothes
Learns a skill that is of absolutely no use
Tells stories of drudgery and dullery
And at no point has any chance of feeling
A magical connection with nature
Or a justification for the order of society
And their place in it
(Not saying that order was perfect,
The point is we need to improve that order
Not trade it for a situation where
The only option is a job in the factory)
We see people trading their independent lives
Full of stories and magic, and in tune with nature
Lives where they work when they want
Take a day off when they are sick
For a life of a nine to five
Where everything is measured in money
And no one has anything to fall back on
Unless they work their body to death

We see how free market is a myth
And it is anything but free
And how it is a just a playground
For the rich and the powerful
Who create monopolies with a flick of their hand
And watch their competitors bleed to death
We see how the world’s powerful
Entertainment machines
Slowly, step by step strangle our arts
Until we don’t know how to articulate
What we feel until they teach us

And we would like to do what we can
To stem this unstoppable tide

Perhaps, nothing can be done
And we only register our note of dissent
We want to say that all the world’s resources
Are equally given to all of us
And no one has the right to
Lay down fences and say
This is mine and you shall have no right
I will pay you your wages by the day
And I will take the billions I earn from it
Haliya system is gone in Nepal
But this here is modern day slavery,
Writ large, hidden in plain sight
We want to say that
No one has the right to monopolize
The earth, the water, the forests
No one should reap these benefits unduly
As much of humanity suffers and struggles
For the most basic needs

But the world has grown
So far away from these easy concepts
So convoluted, so unruly
That these simple wishes
Sound utterly ridiculous

But still we persist, on principle
Even though we fight a losing battle
And we know it
Even though we must be a part of
What we oppose, every day
Even though we know that
Even giving up all our privileges
And living in a squatter shed
Would contribute nothing,
Absolutely nothing,
To advance the cause

Because we want to keep trying,
Keep looking for solutions
Because we do not want to lose hope
No matter that the battle was lost
Long before we even recognized the battle

Maybe there are things we can do
Maybe we can say that a world where
Even a beggar has a car is not the ideal
But the one where the president rides a bus, is
That a world with the best private hospitals
Is not ideal
But the one where everyone is sure of
Being taken care of, is
That a world with many factories
Or “employment opportunities” is not ideal
But the one where everyone feels valued
For what they do, is
And are independent and secure at the same time
In each profession that is
Absolutely necessary to the world
And are not enticed away
By salary
Maybe we can slowly work towards this system,
Step by step
We may fail, as we cannot compete forever
Against the behemoth machines of capitalism
But some of our steps might even succeed!
But maybe we should refrain from saying
That these steps are inspired by
Our communist ideals

Because then it will be our turn
To face those dreaded “tough”,
“Unanswerable” questions
That we had been so smug at arriving
At the ripe old age of twenty five
What do you think you can accomplish?
Does your silent support make any difference?
Any difference at all to the lives that you champion?
Have you not seen how communism has
Failed and fallen all over the world?
This is a religion of dictatorship
Is that what you want?
So you are ok with a clamp on
our freedom of speech?
(This from the generation of democrats
Who fought for democracy,
Against totalitarianism
And for whom monarchy and
“communism” as they know it
Are one and the same in their dictatorship)
Are you saying we should annihilate
All those we disagree with us?
Isn’t that what Marx said?
So you support those killers who
Murdered their way to the throne?
Who completely brainwashed a generation
With their idealistic mumbo-jumbo
And now refuse to take responsibility for it
Act like the most capitalist of capitalists
And don’t even have any shame?
Are those your leaders?
Is that your communist ideal?
Have you gone totally mad?

We of course do not believe that
Our “communist” leaders are very communist
That actually has been proven long ago
And we want to do what we want to do
Without being a part of any political party
Because all politicians are capitalists,
At the end of the day

Which leaves us,
The Marxists and Engelsists on principle
With nowhere to practice
But that is entirely another story

Shrinkhala


Sure, beauty competition is a capitalistic venture
That extorts women for the purpose of profit
Objectifies them and further contributes to their
Stereotyped status in society
Sets impossible standards of beauty
That leads to low confidence, low self esteem
And eating disorders for so many
And is responsible for my constant struggle
To lose weight because
Anything above size zero is “fat”

For all this and more,
I oppose beauty contests on principle

But at the same time
Our world is not going to change anytime soon
It is not going to become any less capitalistic
Consumerist, or patriarchal anytime soon

And so why shouldn’t a woman
Leverage capitalism to her benefit
In a world which gives her so little already
In a world where women are so poor already
Why shouldn’t a woman use and abuse
The system that treats her like trash
And get what she can from it?

Because if she is going to wait for a utopian world
Where every person (read woman) is valued
For her personality and contribution to society
And no woman is objectified, bid on,
And her sexuality and sexual choices are treated
With respect instead of contempt
She will wait forever (or grow into a skeleton)

Until the world keeps paying
To see women’s body parts
And keeps buying the things
Advertised by Miss world or miss very hot
Let’s not blame the woman
Who wants to make a quick buck

Maybe women of a previous generation were used
(Not that women today are not used and abused,
But this piece is about women and beauty contests
And I will leave aside the notorious worlds of
Media, movies, pornography and
The hidden routes of flesh trade for now)
So, maybe older women were used by
Beauty contest organizers and cosmetic companies
But today’s young women
Have learnt from these past mistakes
They get into these things knowing how to perform
Knowing exactly what they need to do, to give
And what they will benefit from it
Today the young women negotiate for ways
To get more than they give
To leverage their 15 minutes of fame
For a lifetime of opportunities

And I am sure, the ones who win the crown
Are not unaware of their role
As the carriers of capitalism
And still they choose to go that path
Because it gives them easily
What they would take years to achieve, otherwise

And if they still don’t know these unspoken rules
After a hundred years of beauty contests,
If they still claim naiveté
Well, shame on them!

Within the large sphere of capitalism
A very, very large sphere
 Everything in included
The status of women, feminism,
Everything has to exist
And to negotiate everyday with
The unseen biases of capitalism
Including women and their agency

The world will remain capitalistic
for the foreseeable future
And within it are the multiple layers of
Women’s agency
The beauty contest winner is one of them
She who chooses to play along
And fit into the capitalistic ideals of beauty
Let’s not forget that she chooses to do so
Because she hopes to kick capitalism in the ass
And become her own capitalist

Again, I oppose beauty contests on principle
And more important,
I support on principle the agency of any woman
Who can turn its rules on itself for her benefit

Saturday, December 8, 2018

समीप


देख्छु म तिमीलाई सपनामा
दिन पर दिन, दिन पर दिन

खुशी देखिन्छौ तिमी
शायद म त्यही देख्न चाहन्छु

र मबाट टाढा देखिन्छौ तिमी
कहिले छानिएको छायाँ मात्रै
त कहिले गुञ्जिरहेको आवाज मात्रै
तिम्रो न्यानो साथ, मेरो ईच्छा र चाहना
म बाट सधैं टाढा,
भौंतारिने मृगले खोज्ने बीना झैं
सधैं अप्राप्य, सधैं अलभ्य

शायद म यही भन्न चाहन्छु
शब्दमा उतारेर सकार्न चाहन्छु
र बिपनीमा दिनदिनै तर्काएर  
दिन पर दिन सपनामा देखिरहेछु

Love is the (only) answer


It’s so easy to lose perspective
And be swayed by extremist thoughts
When you are looking for an excuse
An explanation of behaviors
And so important
To keep your balance

And it is so easy to lose hope
At the state of the world
At the real life dystopia
Murders, rapes and wars
Power rules and good is defeated
The more you look,
The more you find

So so so important
Perhaps the most important thing
In the world
Today, or ever
To not let yourself be sucked in
By the negativity
To keep your hope
You faith in love and humanity
Alive everyday