Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Crap

The children are gathered in the open under the dim sky for their evening play. They are running and chasing, hugging and fighting, crying and making faces irrespective of the world, irrespective of a man who is watching them from the terrace of his home. In the background, the hill fades away but some portion of its surface that is not spilled with the shadow of its own enjoys the warm evening sun. In the courtyard Sarita is trying to show magic to the neighbors but every time she wants to vanish the coin away from her hand, she fails she stomps, folds the skin over her nose but keep trying it. Sane moves from one corner to other as the sun light no longer warms him. He looks at the place understands it isn’t warmer either and just slips inside the room, into the passage where his warm bed awaits him. Women in the neighborhood are picking their clothes from the clothesline, mums yell at their children for not wearing warming clothes while fathers are entering home. My elderly neighbors are talking with each other over a cup of tea, the old woman looks content as she laughs exposing the gap between her teeth. A row of birds are returning home after perching in the day. They maintain strange harmony as they make a perfect arc as they fly as if they were held in a string tied in their beaks. I am instinctively lazy and so I am feeling lazy. Laziness is more a desire not to do work rather than having no work. Work can be sought. My room needs dusting, there are wires snaking through my room, the books are in mess and there are spots in the mirror and the closet, the photos trapped inside the frame looks obscure as thick layer of dust has clung upon them. I have never done these things, I find my room cleaned, dusted, my clothes hung or kept on their places either by Mummy or by Sarita so I have taken these things for granted. Once a relative of mine after seeing the poster of Che Guevara tilted on the wall, said it suggested how careless I am when I should have been a perfectionist. Unfortunately I had hung the picture in such way intentionally I don’t know if the hidden intention was driven by my carelessness.

As I type words making these lines, I have a feeling of mockery for myself. What I am writing? Just writing what it comes, no subject. Yesterday I wanted to write a letter to the finance minister on my way to office and was pretty confident till I came to my cubicle only to find there was no electricity. Tsunami swept away my zeal and no letter was written, my laziness hiding under the excuse ‘Why would a Finance Minister read a letter that come by thousands in his site?’. I recollected my spirit later in the day which was again let down by a call from a colleague who wanted my help. “Destiny“ didn’t want me to write a letter to the minister, spare him from reading a thought of one of his citizens. What would I have written? I would have suggested him to open up the economy don’t be another protectionist, embrace the globalization with proper precaution, identify the impact of ICT and use it to speed development and democracy, get rid of sycophants, get the YCL dissolved and if it cannot be done filter it and enforce strict discipline, remind him China got into the track of prosperity only after it adopted the open market policy and so on. Some day I may write it to him anyway but I am just in the right mood.

Its already dark now. I feel a block inside me and somewhere I acknowledge the current anxiety with this deadlock within myself, not being able to do what I wanted. 

Monday, January 19, 2009

It's a flat world

The world is indeed flat. Just two days after turning the first page of Friedman’s “The World is flat”, I sit in my chair mesmerized by the proof. Being an IT guy when I get to read how ICT has narrowed the world, how it has created opportunities and how it has played a pivotal role in pushing people dipped in the gulf of poverty into the brightness and prosperity I pat my own shoulders. But having done nothing to contribute to the above mentioned ICTs gifts I do feel low. More importantly being in a country with GDP hardly greater than 1100$ I do wonder if what the field they are talking about is the field where I have claimed my own space. Well, I do not however intend to discuss ICT, the wonderful gifts it has given to the world, I will talk a little about its impact in globalization and its contribution in shrinking the world.
Before I begin with my own experience, I want to remember an old lady with whom I shared the Micro-bus on my way back to home a week before. The old lady, her hair would have all been gray had she not colored them brown. Her skin thick and shiny and her eyes expressive and intelligent. She was telling to another lady how much she was worried when her husband had gone to India for about three months and how difficult it used to be those days to keep in touch with ones folks. Now she said her grandson went to “Amrika” a week before and she talks to him every day, she can even see him as he talks. “We seem to have lived in a different world back then”, she added. Distances are really being chopped off as the prices of PCs have gone down, the networks have embraced the world, fiber optics and wireless communications bringing miracle to world. We are friends with people who we have never really seen in real life, we talk with them watch them as we exchange greetings with them. How small the world has become? My friends live oceans apart but I know what did they have in dinner or breakfast. Stereotype mums today might say after chatting online with her son soon after he left home for abroad, I wouldn’t have cried so much had I known he had gone nowhere but just inside the computer.
Anyways time to begin my experience. People who say they have little work at Government Offices are sometime really right. When you have no work even surfing the Internet is really boring, you miss giggling with your friends, passing comments in their social networking sites only when you are engaged in other work. Even then just yesterday, I was very free and internet had nothing exciting to offer. My friend sent me a nudge over the msn messenger, I ignored like I was no time, even my status said I was busy!!! Of course I was busy wondering what to do. Thinking it had been some time wandering in facebook, I went there just to see what my friends and people were doing. Following the network of a friend I came across a familiar name though I wondered how that name sound familiar. But its face I cannot remember, I usually have no problem recognizing people and names. There she was a classmate from my primary school, grade four and five. Was it her? Fair, mischievous, short hair (we probably used to call that hair cut ‘thai hair cut’), prettiest in the class. The photo in her profile looked different, I did not have a clear image of her look but I knew how she looked. What wrong in sending her a message and there I was writing a short message asking if it was her. I wrote and forgot. The next morning (today) in half sleep I checked my mail and a mail said ‘hi I m from Kshitiz’. The book (Friedman’s “The World is Flat”) was lying flat on my flat table upside down so that I could begin from where I left it. I was in my flat floor scratching my head, I had learned the world is not round, its indeed flat. Someone who literally didn’t exist for me just pops up out of nowhere. Three hours later I am talking with her over the phone, just trying to fit faces we both knew, some we remembered many we missed. It’s a flat world.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

From below the line of poverty

Even with a power cut of 16 hours a day, the city of Kathmandu looked still polluted and noisier. Not only the people who contributed to the hubbub it’s the new range of generator that not only polluted the air but also made irritating sound. My pocket was a little heavier than yesterday since my salary was deposited today. With installment of loans and few more deductions my payroll looked so helpless. I am planning to enroll to a graduate degree but even with all my salary I will fall short by Rs. 3000 (Roughly around USD 45) a month. I have to get a part-time job in the morning. I am enrolling myself to the degree for the sake of interest in spite of the fact that I could have enrolled to cheaper degrees but I didn’t. 

For the first time yesterday I remained almost hungry even after the lunch since my wallet was empty and still three days remained for the end of month in the Nepalese calendar. At home I was so frustrated since I had to compromise the very basic need of a human being, ‘food’.  For those who know me, know me as someone forgetful and rather unpredictable. I ruminated over the expenditures this month since this was the first time when I hadn’t been able to save money when a month ended. I pondered with closed eyes, still frustrated for the way life had turned out to be. Even stressing my head which was already aching for more than ten minutes, I couldn’t find where I had failed. Apart for my allocation for lunch and travel only books are the one where I deliberately spend relatively large sum. I usually allocate around Rs. 1000 (USD 15) for books. I had been to Pokhara where I had over spent but even that shouldn’t have made my situation miserable.  Just then I got an SMS from a friend which said “I won’t be able to return your book before the second week of next month”. OK, that is what I had forgotten, I had spent another Rs. 1000 (USD 15) on that book. I had bought four books this month which summed to Rs. 2500, Rs. 1500 more than regular. No electricity means no computers, no television which means the only time pass, enjoyment I can offer myself are books. I have finished seven books this month.

So, I started with the weight of my pocket. The city doomed in darkness was still displaying its glamour in the sun which will excuse itself for the day anytime from now. Just to avoid climbing the steps over the over-head bridge built by the KMC’s office (Kathmandu Metropolitan City), I cross the road at the zebra-crossing a little earlier but to my dismay the traffic police had blocked the zebra crossing. I looked at the detested over head bridge which seemed to make face to me. I pulled myself but just at the door of a book shop I just took a turn and I found myself asking ‘do you have Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers?’ the expected reply ‘No’. May be this is what they call the power of money. Yesterday I couldn’t feed myself fully and today I was giving me a different treat. I wanted to backtrack right away but the smell of fresh leaves of books was just too irresistible. I was looking at the shelves decorated with variety of books. There were Bestsellers which would have normally landed to my hand anyway and the pages would have been turned but no. All of a sudden it seemed my appetite for fiction seemed to be a passé. I spent a greater part in the management and economics section. I looked if there was any politics and development section but there wasn’t any. I returned empty handed. I cannot wait for the day when I will be enrolled in the college where a good library awaits me.

But then for those who know me also know my love for books may be just temporary. It may be replaced by new one very soon. Albeit, books and movies may decline in the list of my priorities, they will reclaim their position sooner or later. The recently read books has certainly changed and widened my view of this world. These days my subject of choice is economics and development. Luckily these books have made me realize we as a nation are not at any hopeless situation but the recent power crisis has terrified me that we are already in the path of sharp decline. Everyday more and more industries are closing, surplus labor with no jobs in hand is in rise. While I was pleased to know in spite of the civil war the living standard of people in average had risen I am so taken aback the restoration of peace hasn’t been able to do much.