Questioning: The Youth Movement

For the last six years I have been involved with different youth organizations and network in one form or the other. Starting out as a volunteer to leading a recognized youth organization gave me various experience and opportunities to work at different capacities. But lately I have been questioning the whole youth movement and its course. I am in no position to comment on the political youth wings as I hardly have any experience on this area except to base assumptions on literature. And the literature that I had gone through might be biased in some aspect which is why I am only in the position to talk about the youth organizations/networks with which I have experienced. Time and again we hear the stories of young people leaving the organization and forming another organization or even networks and taking away all the projects and donor. Is youth movement an income source to young people and are we looking for job within youth organizations and networks? I am amazed at the amount of growing youth organizations and more precisely youth networks. But what amazes me is the corruption going on within these organizations and networks and the amount of money spent by donor agencies and ministry in these organizations even when they are aware of the on going misuse of power and resources. The young people who seem to be idealist and are seen on the streets with anti-corruption slogans and banners are the most corrupted. The board members employed as consultants and only person in the organization going everywhere from a small street event in Kathmandu to the high level meetings in New York is not a new thing in Nepali youth organizations. The practice of knowledge, information sharing and leadership transformation is almost rare in most of the youth organizations. Young people are insecure of their colleagues, tend to hide information/opportunities and are in constant look out to seek opportunity for themselves and the young people in general are left out. The policies, the opportunities and the programs never reach out to those young people who are to be benefited by all these initiatives aimed at youth empowerment and these young people have no other option than to leave the country in search of foreign employment. With majority of the young people leaving country as cheap laborers, young politicians following the steps of the corrupt politicians and the so called youth activist following the trend of corrupted development sector, I am sorry to sound pessimistic but I just can't see the silver linings right now.

Plane Crash : Heading towards statelessness

After almost three hours of the plane crash I'm still flipping from one news channel to another to get the Real News. The media is giving all kind of details and don't know which one to believe. Some say all are Indian nationals but others say there are few European. I don't understand why they can't talk to the airlines and give the details of the deceased and their nationalities. The government channel Nepal Television is running PM's address at the UN General Assembly!!!!!!!!

According to the people out there in Kotdanda, Lamatar, the police were keen on looking at the incident rather than saving the person who was still alive. They said "the guy was still talking and could have been alive if he had reached hospital on time." According to them he said "I can be alive please save me and take me to the hospital". The villagers themselves brought the injured in stretcher but the police van didn't stop to help him rather they asked to wait for the ambulance to arrive. I don't know what is the most important task for the police? Is it to save the injured or to go for inspection of the incident? I think people from Lamatar did whatever they could to help which is really commendable.

Last week when the earthquake shook us with 6.8 Richter scale, we didn't hear anything from our government and now with the behaviour of the police. I have now come to realize the absence of state and our country is heading towards statelessness.

Those Green Bangles

The day before I left Dar Es Salaam, me and Kodili, my friend from Uganda, finally bought them in the price that we offered after bargaining for so long with the shopkeeper in Mwenge. I loved them so much that I wore them the moment I bought until I left Tanzania and landed in Nepal. But the moment I landed in Nepal took them out and I haven’t worn them yet and I am happy that I can freely wear them them from today.You might be wondering what made me take them off and why suddenly from today I can wear them.

When I left Nepal it was still Ashad and women here had not gone crazy for green bangles. As most of you might not know that in Nepal we have two major working calendars, so the months are obviously going to be different. So from mid July, the month of Shrawan starts where woman wear green bangles, put on Henna tattoo and fast every Monday for the well being of their husbands and unmarried woman fast to get a good husband. I don’t know how good is defined as these fasting are also said for Lord Shiva, who is often associated with the one who smokes marijuana and addicted to opium.

Till date I have never seen a guy who would fast in the hope to get a better wife or for well being of his wife. So why husband is made so important in woman's life and wife doesn’t have any importance in his. Isn't it the way of making men important and women useless and aren’t these things make men feel they are important and are to be treated in a special way. Aren't these practices leading us more towards inequality or making women feel inferior to men?

I can wear them freely now as month of Bhadra is starting . And of course I don’t want people to speculate that I was wearing them to get a better husband. It is not that I think too much about what people would think but I don't want people to believe that few green bangles can change the person we will be marrying into a good human being.As I believe there is no relation between green bangles and the nature of the people and I don't think it can have any impact either positive or negative on people's persona. Please correct me if I am wrong.

If I retaliate I will be characterless If I voice out I will be a slut

I wore my family's honour
and walked hurriedly
trying to be on time
got into the public transportation
where
the uncomfortable gaze follows
me everywhere
and also the lewd remarks
the strange hands
trying to touch me
the strange eyes
judging me
If I retaliate
I will be characterless
If I voice out
I will be a slut
I get down & again
known try to get
cozy & unknown gaze
the same process
continues each day
& I struggle
Amidst managing
home, children and work

Where I belong to

I stop and stare
at the dark sky
to see if the
moon and stars are out

the twinkling light
lightens up the sky
the evening breeze
pushes a bit
and takes me
to where I belong
into the arms of
the loved ones
into the warm embrace
of the closed ones
to the earth
that identifies me
to the sky
that protects me
I still stop and stare
to see if these
stars still belong to me
to see if these
breeze still brings
the fragrance of my wind
I still stop and stare
at the sky
I still stop
to feel the breeze
in the hope to be pushed
back to where I belong to
In the hope to be pushed
back to where I belong to

Exploring

I am here in Tanzania thousands of miles away from where I actually belong to. It's been a week that I have been away and not speaking Nepali. It never occurred to me that someday I would be craving to speak Nepali. It also let me wonder that the thousands of people who migrate everyday in search for better livelihood options know only one language.

Here people speak Swahili, have a loud voice and greet everyone they meet, I guess this is the part of their culture. People are very lively and friendly here in Tanzania. The perspectives and perceptions that we come with changes drastically when we get exposed to the real reality. But often times reality is blurred because we want to see them through our lens and try to see what we actually want to see.

I haven't travelled much here and can't tell you about the places to visit or to eat or drink. The Global Platform is where I am most of the time and I can't give you the details of it either except for the training hall, which sounds quite boring.

Now I am outside my room as it is only 5.00 am here and don’t want to disturb my roommates who work really hard during the entire day. It is pleasant here outside my room except for the crows and my best friends who love me very much as they come along wherever I go and the cream that I use to scare them doesn’t quite work for a long time.

As the morning light and the darkness of night is blending people are getting ready for another day and I'm getting ready for a day filled with exploration, exploring Tanzania and myself.

Free writing@ Salsa Class

I'm here at the place where there is loud music and people are learning Salsa. It is fun to watch them and it left me wondering how I can be so quiet sitting at the side and writing. There is a big mirror where people can see themselves dancing, ah such a joy. I remember myself growing up dancing in front of the mirror. Oh I wish I could be child again and do all the moves once I learnt. Dancing was always my passion and will always be whether I dance anymore or not. The music is loud and lovely, I want to dance with the music but I'm afraid I might make a fool out of myself which is the saddest part of being grown up. I don't know why we always want ourselves to prove intelligent and talented when we actually are not. I still want to dance in the rain and with the wind but I'm scared what will people think? But we need to overcome this and dance; here I don't mean dance as in its literal meaning but dancing for me is living my life and dance with the music of life. Often times we complain about those which we don’t have and forget to listen to our inner voice. So I believe it is essential to dance with the music as life plays and do the moves accordingly.

I wonder these people dancing with the music played by the instructor are not they capable of making their own music and invent their own form of dance. Are we always being guided by some seen and unseen forces? Are we not creative enough? Are we not intelligent enough? Yes we are but the fact is many of us don't know about the fact that we can create our own music, our own rhythm and our own dance. It's just that we all are busy imitating what others do, we have forgotten our hidden talent or else we are just too lazy to invent our own. The unseen forces has made each of us unique and given each of us different talent. But in only some they give the passion to continue their uniqueness and reach the ultimate peace. Often in solitude I ask myself what is the ultimate peace that human being are looking for ? And are human even capable to attain that peace ? And above all what is peace, are we looking for peace in money, knowledge, love or something else? What is our priority, what is that we are exactly looking for is the question we need to ask ourselves time and again. Is the peace that we are looking for is in that innocent smile or that mischievous look or as someone said peace is in seeing the other person growing up. I still don't know and I don't want to search for the ultimate peace as until and unless I don't stop searching for answers to my never ending questions. I will never attain peace and I think its ok sometimes to fail and to make a fool of ourselves or to behave as a child and to cry like a child and to live life in our own terms. Are we strong enough to feel all the emotions life has to offer? I remember one of my friends saying that life is to feel all the emotions and the challenge for us is to be capable enough to experience all these emotions.

Now something caught my eyes in this place i.e people dancing here are wearing different kinds of shoes. Their shoes tells their stories i,e where they came from and where they will be going. As each of our shoes tells their story; we all have our own stories to tell, some have stories of joy where as some have sorrows but we definitely have our own stories to tell. Sometimes we confine ourselves so much that we are scared to share all that we have felt the emotions of love, anger, hatred, joy, and sorrows. Human beings are so selfish that they don’t care for their own feeling. Have we ever cheated ourselves in that way, suppressing our own feelings and pretending that you never felt that way? Have you ever diverted your feelings and tried to ignore them? I don't know about you but I am sure that I have done that several times and it doesn’t bother me to admit it. There is no bigger sin than ignoring what we feel. These days I have been thinking about all these for long but could not find the solution as it is said that solution comes attached with every problem. And I think most of the times we only focus on solution and do not discuss about the problem or we cannot find what the problem actually is? Many times we focus on one thing and some other thing rises up. So it is up to us to analyze how far can we go or how far can we reach. I don't know what is wrong with everyone of us; we are racing to find something which does not belong to us or those things that we don't need to be happy. Running after materials is like counting the stars in the sky which will never end and you tend to run after the same material again and again and never be satisfied. I feel very much depressed and sorry by looking at those who run after happiness given to them by materials or some meagre money. Will it bring them happiness; will it bring them closure to peace? I wonder whether it really does but I believe they take you one step forward to more pain and one step backward from peace. So, it is up to us to decide on which direction where we want to proceed and it is up to us whether to live life with happiness or be in a miserable condition.