An article by Krishna Sharma, former reporter at the Rising Nepal, is associated with the Washington Post in Washington DC, USA. He can be reached at kpsharma1971@yahoo.com . Article originally published at this location. This is an article that a lot of Nepalis have to read and think about! So, I'm reposting it here.
A few months ago in Kathmandu, a Nepali friend I hadn’t seen for a couple of years asked if I had a blue collar job in the USA. Honestly, I couldn’t answer his question in black and white. I had no idea what kind of job I was having in the USA.
For about a year between 2005 and 2006 I had worked as a cashier at the CVS Pharmacy, wearing a sky blue T-shirt. I knew for sure, I was a blue-collar worker then. But then, I changed my career. I no longer have to wear any blue collar or any other garment with specific color, for that matter, in my present job. Part of what I wear while I go to work these days includes a white shirt with a tie and a coat. Still, I can’t figure out if my job falls under blue collar or white collar category. And, truly speaking, I don’t care.
When my old friend’s assessment came afterward that my hands were rough, I immediately sensed the motif of his question and did not consider my options to answer him. I was prompt enough to tell him to his expected satisfaction that I was surely a blue collar worker and that because I worked more hours every day for a few bucks, my hands were rough enough for his smooth moth’s nose like hands.
Later, I realized that he felt bad for I had rightly sensed the motif of his question. I still did not furnish any real reasons for my hands becoming rough for his soft hands. I did not think it necessary to inform him that I had recently bought a townhouse and that I had painted it by myself to save a few hundred bucks for the labor charge; that I had tilled a small land behind the house to grow some vegetables; that I had power-washed and coated the deck by myself; that cooking and dishwashing were one of the regular features of our household, no matter whether you are a bread earner or not. I don’t know why I did not tell him frankly that America was not a bed of roses and that I had not gone to the USA expecting such beds to turn in.
As my date of departure was nearing, another incident of almost the same nature took place. After we were done with the shopping for that day, my brother-in-law asked for a coolie (street worker who lifts the load of the people to their destinations for a meager amount) to carry the goods to the underground parking lot of the supermarket in New Road where we had parked our car. I told him on his face that while we could carry our goods by ourselves, it was not necessary to hire a coolie. So sad that a small number of people with their own means of transportation consider others as their vehicles.
Pardon me if I am wrong. But let me talk about a nation which has earned its notoriety in the international forums as one of the most politically corrupt, socially unequal, geographically inaccessible and demographically hostile places in Asia. Thanks to our politicians, national level lawmakers, bureaucrats and the executives and lately, the Maoists, the so called social levelers, who made us to earn all these bad reputation. We can’t make any sense when our Prime Minister attends the United Nations’ high tea party and returns to tell us that the US visit was a success. I wonder what objectives he had that he had achieved to claim the visit as a success.
While at a meeting with the officials from the World Bank in Washington DC lately, I came across a photographer from National Geographic Society who asked me curiously, upon learning that I was a descendent of the Nepali heritage, if Nepal’s narrow highways were yet to touch Karnali; if Kathmandu was still a Valley of the rich businessmen and corrupt politicians and if the Nepali Maoists had any respect for humanity now that they had come to live with them. The questions took my heart to pieces. But they were all valid questions like my friend’s because he had experienced my rough hands while shaking them.
If it is my turn to ask, let me ask these questions to you my dear fellow citizens: why are we so snobbish about what we are not? Do we deserve not to work and expect a decent life? If we don’t, why do we look down upon others by their looks or by the roughness of their hands or by the way they dress? Why we hire coolies while we can lift our own merchandise to our cars? Why are we so intent about asking what others do while it has nothing to do with what we have been doing? Why we never help our mothers or wives in the kitchen? Why we never worry about how our kids are doing with their studies and hire tutors at home? Why we are renting a flat for NRS 9,000.00 per month while our monthly salary does not exceed that amount. Why we always take the issues to streets in a violent manner while there are other options to demonstrate our dissatisfaction to certain decisions of the government? Why do we keep stretching our hands and accidentally hit on the nose of the person sitting next to us? Why don’t we ask for limitations while we ask for freedom? When are we going to learn that everything comes at a price? Last but not least, what makes our Prime Minister to say that his visit to the USA was successful when he did nothing except addressing an empty UN Hall? Can we afford this luxury of our Prime Minister when he tells a flat lie before millions of us on a broad daylight?
Let us ask ourselves the rest of other compelling questions and try to be realistic. Without being realistic, it is futile to be optimistic.
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