Role of Youth in Country's Future: What, How and When?

  Samuel Ullman, an American bard, in his famous poem "Youth" stated youth as a state of mind, but not as a period of time. So rightly, youth is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips, supple knees or stout muscularity; it is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination and vigor of the fervor. Youth means a temperamental predominance of adventure and courage over timidity of the adversity, doubt and despair .So long as our heart receives messages of cheer, courage, faith, grandeur, hope, self confidence and zeal, we are youth. Our ideas count as much as our passion and devotion. Youths are the backbone for progress of a country; the ability of youth determines the relative position of a country against the hurdles to reach the acme position. Better the youths, easier the hurdles. Therefore, it largely depends upon youth to hone future of the country through scientific, technological, socio-economical and political excellence. But, are the youths of this south Asian country prepared to revive their country from this slack period of doldrums? If not, exactly in what ways can youths play their crucial role in country's future? 

         It would be better to analyze the present condition of our country at first. Nepal ranks 157th in Human Development Index (HDI) and 154th in a report published by Transparency International, inferring Nepal as 24th corrupted country of the world and the most corrupt country in South Asia. We live in such a paradox that surprisingly large area of country is flooded every year by heavy rainfall, yet we acquiesce to incur 10 hours of load shedding, in average, due to low rainfall (that is what they say).  As a matter of fact, we have potentiality of producing electricity that could even lighten our heavyweight neighbors, but to our dismay only 1.53 percent of potential electricity has been harnessed even after a century that first hydropower project was successfully completed. We could not grasp the opportunity to create our constitution by ourselves even after doubling the allocated time and investing billions of rupees. To exacerbate the matter, cases of bribery, conspiracies, corruption, murder and vandalism are in rife and plaguing our country. These records clearly delineate the bleak picture of our country, and one could sense that our country is turning into an unsuccessful state.

Underlining this fiasco, there is rarely anything for youth as such to emulate from our leaders. However, the younger generation should not undermine their ability to become steadfast leaders; there could be no better option than being a leader to serve for better future of the country. Most of the political thoughts prevailing in our country are antediluvian; political leaders what time has shown are egotistical and have not been able to rise above their own political concern. Moreover, our leaders lack fresh insightful ideas and thus are not able to cope with the needs of modern generation. In this scenario, youths should be updated with the political issues and should actively take part in political activities. If anyone declares to become MESSI in politics, it is when hot blood of youth runs through his/her veins, not when his/her hairs need hair-dye to look young. Younger the player better is his stamina, skills, power and composure. Along with time these ability deteriorate, and this is exactly how leadership ability go in politics as well. Youths, thus, have to look after political system of the country and should give their best to eradicate social bigotry, accelerate the economic progress and bring a seismic wave of development, and, in the mean time, learn from the mistakes of the past.

        Different abilities of youths should never remain lurked whatsoever; youths need to make contribution to their country from every possible way. Apart from politics, youths can make themselves heard in mainstream of development by getting involved in non-political, non-profitable and non-governmental organizations, better known as NGOs; being a part of civil society would be other alternative. The former are termed as second organ for development, for their work in the field of social welfare, youth empowerment, women empowerment etcetera. Additionally, these organizations are working to rehabilitate victimized girls, children and youths to maintain the social harmony. Furthermore, their contribution against different social prejudices prevailing in our country is highly appreciable. Amid present chaotic political turmoil and economic recession, role of civil society is crucial in maneuvering country in right direction. United we stand divided we fall; youths need to be united for national integrity, social cause and also for the betterment of country’s future. Actions from facebook group Nepal Unities to draft constitution on time was noteworthy. Youth initiatives project of “May the corruption rot” is another paradigm of youth’s collaborative action to eradicate corruption deep rooted in the bureaucracy of our country. Similarly, dedicated, loyal and workaholic civil servant is what our country requires at the present. Erudite youths can embellish these important aspects of development through their charisma, creativity, energy and scholarly knowledge.

   Socio-economic aspect needs to be as stout as political governance for a country to make any coherent, proportionate progress. Having said so, entrepreneurs are resilience for upgrading economic status of a country, for their ability of creating wide range of jobs, national revenue, income generating opportunities and utilization of raw materials. What differentiates successful entrepreneurs from other is their devotion and perspiration; and this is exactly how youths are characterized: by their devotion and perspiration. So, Nepalese youths can prove themselves as good entrepreneurs and certainly have the ability to walk down same line as the greatest of entrepreneurs of the world to boost up the economic status of the country. Similarly, youths can get involved in international businesses or international diplomacy and propel their national economy to a whole new level. Moreover, scientific agriculture is another area where youths can work to improve economic aspects of our country; youths can also utilize fallow yet highly arable land to revolutionize agriculture in the country where two third of the population is dependent in agriculture. Youths also have the great responsibility of educating upcoming generation and their uneducated peers to bring new complicated technical skills in building sound transportation, communication, technological and agricultural networks across the country.

        It would not be a generalization to assert that youths need to be involved in every aspects of development, their involvement ranging from agriculture and culture to machine and medicine.  Youths can help country in education by making drastic improvement over existing education system or become environmentalist to conserver environment. Similarly, youths can become doctors to abase the mortality rate or become engineer to escalate infrastructural development of country. They can make radical breakthroughs in science by being a science wizard or become revolutionary writers to take literature and society a step ahead, as illustrated by protagonist in Indian writer Chetan Bhagat's latest novel REVOLUTION 2020. Following the present deadlock of winning remarkable medals and trophies at international sports arena, youths can prove their worth by being a sports personality who can bring long awaited glory home finally. Nepal is renowned for its cultural heritage and ethnic diversity across the globe; youths can activate themselves to protect and preserve these aspects which have glorified our identity in outer world. Youths, thus, can invest, both economically and technically, in tourism industry and influx the astounding number of tourists through appealing advertisements or can come up with similar master plans like Visit Nepal year 2011 or Visit Lumbini Year 2012. In addition to that, youths need to participate in these sorts of projects to make them successful. No matter what youth become, they should rise above their mere greed of earning more and should commit to work voluntarily for country at times.  At the same time, they should not be hesitant to work in the rural communities of the country. Steve jobs, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, once said, "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary". So, it is important that Youths follow their passion and set their aims by keeping their credentials, qualifications and interest in their mind, but not by what other expect them to be; this way country can benefit a lot.

   

 Nevertheless, there are copious of examples where youths have ruined their life falling in a trap of lust, drugs and other illegal and immoral activities. Every passing second, we are losing youths who might have had a tendency of bringing overwhelming changes in our country and who could have mattered a lot. Aware youths should distract their peers from getting indulged in unethical and illegal actions. It is necessary for youths not to be divergent from their path; youths need to be scrupulous about what they are doing and should analyze whether their work is morally, legally and ethically correct. Moreover, it is an undeniable fact that these young generations are, one day, to become parents. So, they need to make up their minds to provide an environment where their children can grow up as responsible citizens. In the mean time, they should warn their children not to get involved in illegal and immoral activities and keep them under close scrutiny and fulfill the responsibility of parents in true sense.

    

 However, things are not as easy as they look; there is whole lot of difference in what is said and what can be achieved pragmatically. It is a unanimous fact that we have not been able to live up to our own potentiality and expectations from our motherland. Thus, we need to contemplate what has gone wrong and come up with the vibrant ideas and exorbitant of zeal to cope with our loopholes and drawbacks. We had enough of ideas, philosophies and master plans in papers and verbose speeches, it is a high time we work to make designed state of utopia come true. It is now or never for youths. There is a famous patriotic saying, “Do not ask what country has given to you; instead ask yourselves what you have given to your country?” It is not the time for youths to file grievances against the country, its history or, its system; rather it is our  turn to fulfill our responsibility of embracing the democratic values of New Nepal through social conscience, political awareness, self-confidence and the patriotic feeling clutched somewhere in our heart. However, youths should not falter to make possible change in our system.  On top of that, youths should be meticulous not to be  presumptuous, foolhardy and should not work out things in precipitate manner but their actions should be adhered by a bit of tolerance, little patience, positive attitude and accompanied by exhaustive knowledge and conscience.  Our nation needs commitment, promise, toil and sweat from youths.         

Open letter to all the parents

                                   

                                        

Dear parents,

         Success is not a one night achievement; it's gradual and can take plethora of time.  We understand your concern, but we are as much worried about our future as you are. At times, we might have flunked our exams, jeopardized our grades, and dropped our merits; however on an optimistic note this is exactly how life goes on.  Not a single person in this world is impeccable, not even a person that you think as the paradigm of excellence for us; have you ever realized how austere their life is?

We are old enough to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. Moreover, it is upon us to choose a career among different alternatives in our life, ourselves. Albert Einstein once said, "Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid". We surely have different credentials, qualifications, interest and talents which vary from individuals to individuals. To put it other way, everyone does not have a charisma to be erudite in what society recognizes as highly reputed jobs. Some might have passion in music, some might want to be sports personality while other might be enamored in different forms of arts, and might want to peruse their career in it. Passion varies, and so does the aim in our life. Nevertheless, all the professions are equally respectable and even equally lucrative, if one can exploit them well.

Parents, we have some question to ask: What would have Justin Bibber achieved by this age if he had wanted to become an engineer? Had Sachin Tendulkar taken biology as his career, what would he have become, a lab assistant? They certainly would not have achieved as much as they have achieved in their respective fields whatsoever. There is no guarantee as such that your choice of career works well for us. One's chance of succeeding does not only depend upon knowledge and effort but equally on the emotional devotion one has put into it. We cannot have our emotional devotion into anything unless our passion drives our emotions.

Give us the time and we will show our virtue to the world with patience, confident, motivation and toil. We assure that you will never have to bow down your head because of us, if not held it high. We might not become a doctor, an engineer or an Ivy League graduate, but one day, we promise, you all will be proud of us and probably bragging about us, for whatever we might have become. Parents, that very moment, we all will be in a common ground and will have a common reason to smile.   

               We hope to see positive response from you.

                                                                                                             Yours faithfully

                                                                                                                                               Sons/Daughters

                                                              

Politics, you must be kidding!

When I was small, my teachers used to ask us what we wanted to become when we grew up. My friends would say doctor, engineer or any other lucrative profession. When I was asked, I replied that  I wanted to become a politician. Everybody laughed, for the reasons I was unaware of.  I, now, wonder what triggered those little minds to laugh at my choice.

 Why is there so much of hatred for the politicians in our country? One obvious reason is that , with all due respect to our politicians, our politicians who are in the acme position, what time has shown, are morally lewd, power fanatics and have not been up to the expectations of the people, let it be in the time of Rana or king or even after country have been established as a federal republic.  On top of that, our country has not been able to witness so much of political success despite making much of breakthrough lately. On top of that, our rate of progress has always been hindered by the political turmoil.  For instance, our economic growth of this fiscal year has been the lowest of last 3 years, almost regularly occurring strikes at the last quarter of the fiscal year amid political uncertainty being one of the main reasons.  These may be few of the reasons why general public have not had the positive message from politics.

    Similarly, there are very few paradigms of students who have taken politics as a career from the urban family of higher social status, excluding some business person turned politicians. The politicians generally hail from the rural part of the country with their family not with strong economic backgrounds. The social prestige of politicians is such that the parents do not want their children know about the political news let alone making politicians the idols.

Moreover, political leaders do not have security of their life, and so often they have to run after the signals of other people. When they do not, they make their decision suicidal. One could find many examples where popular, influential and inspirational political leaders have been murdered; Communist leader Madan Bhandari from Nepal, Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi from India, Julfikar Ali  Bhutto and his daughter Bennizer Bhutto from Pakistan , Yitzak Rabin from Isarel are some representatives examples from Asia. Recent murder of judge of supreme court ,Rana Bhadur Bam, is also believed to be connected with some politicals decisions, and  the responsibility of the incident has been taken by a political party. These incidents also push aspiring politicians to have a second thought about their career.

     Despite all the odds, we cannot forget that politics is at the core of any country and it is through the political process and institutions that any nation runs. Keeping these things in mind, the political status of a country needs to be stout if a country is to make any good progress. So, it may be a time for youths to think about becoming political doctors and engineers to rescue the country from bed of political fiasco with a panacea and to create a  new torso of the country.

Darkness Beneath the Light

 One hazy winter day, I along with my friend had to go to Lainchaur for a work to be done. We got on to a microbus reaching old bus park.  The microbus was packed and we had to complete our journey without having being seated in microbus. A boy who seemed to be in his early teen asked us for our fare. Upon giving him our fare and student identity card, he passed our identity card to the driver to scrutinize them. I then had a feeling that he did not know how to read or write. Eventually, he returned our identity card after verification from the driver who, for us, seemed articulate enough to know the expiring date of the card.

 We then started our journey towards New Road on walk. Near Keshar Mahal, building of Education Ministry, my eyesight caught two children sniffing the drugs in the used packet of milk. I also overheard them quarreling with each other using vulgar words which would have been very hard for normal people to digest.The incident was under surveillance of several policemen but they all were stoic. The Policemen were rather entertained by the act of those children contrary to what we expect them to do in these situations. Furthermore, the body looking after the education sector is Educational Ministry near which the very incident had taken place.

Few meters ahead, some kids of school going age were begging for money; claiming they felt hungry but had no money.   I really felt pity of our country from the incidents that I witnessed in quick succession of time.  Slogans of child right or education for all seemed not to have existed for those children I came across. It was ludicrous to have witnessed such things in front of the Ministry which looks after educational system of the country. And, lack of education is root cause of these problems. The incident was clear illustration of the proverb, darkness beneath the light.

 Country, now, is preparing to draft a new constitution. In these circumstances, the prerogative rights of the children such as to read and write should be ensured in new constitution. Also, the constitution should be implemented pragmatically and not  within the words of constitution only. Government, Ministry of Education (MOE), several non-governmental organizations looking for the welfare of children needs to be more focused to their task.

Let times come as such, that no child would be a bus conductor or get engaged in any menial labor work but all would get an opportunity to read. Let those streets be occupied by cheerful faces who promise to lead the country in the path of success, one day.

Amid the Season of Revolutions

Chetan Bhagat is a familiar name for young readers characterized by his simplicity in writing, humor in sentiments, and ability to touch the hearts of youths by exploring the youth contents in his novels. Revolution 2020 is his latest book emphasizing on love, corruption and ambition. This is a story of a place called vanarasi of India and revolves around three school friends Raghav, Gopal and Aarati,.

Gopal hails from a poor family who loses his mother at an early age and lives with the father who rarely had any time  to prepare him a lunch for school while Raghav belongs to a  well off family who had far better economic status than his friend. Raghav believes in revolution, a change, while Gopal believes in money but they both love the same girl, Aarati.

   Raghav gets into an IIT college while Gopal fails to do so in his first attempt. He then joins IIT entrance preparation course in Kota leaving his father and his beloved friend Aarati apart in Vanarasi for entrance for next year.  In the process, he loses his bonding with Aarati who was inclined to IITian Raghav . The major blow for him comes when he loses his father after being unable to make it to an IIT college after two successive attempts.

 The story gets an interesting turn over when Gopal utilizes his disputed land with his uncle to establish a college by taking a support from corrupted MLA Sukla. Raghav, an IIT graduate, on the other hand decides to get into revolutionary journalism to make his desired changes changing the pattern observed by most of IIT graduates. The Novel offers unobvious and dramatic twists as two friends turn into enemies. Their adopted profession takes them toward next level of rivalry, rather a cold one, one taking the use of corrupted system for his goal  while other denouncing it through media for his desired changes. Lots of drama is then revealed   when Aarati , girlfriend of Raghav ,then gets inclined to Gopal after high profile of Gopal and low times of Raghav. Story nevertheless ends in a good note after plenty  more of struggle for love, success and happiness in Gopal's life.

Chetan Bhagat

 Bhagat, who has been tagged as a cheap writer by the critics has so largely strengthen his writing this time around. The battle between two talented and ambitious friends for their dream and love makes the script so flowing with suspense which unleashes chronologically.  Revolution 2020 is one heck of a novel which could shut all sort of cynicism about Bhagat's writing and there should be no one arguing that this is by far the best novel by him.

The novel is an obvious option for reading for youths like us who should look for the change in our (corrupted) system .Moreover, It would be a no surprise if this story gets turned up into another Bollywood Blockbuster like 3 Idiots (5 point Someone), Hello (One night at a call centre) both of whom are written by Chetan Bhagat himself.        

Bidding Farewell !!

The day was perfect; bright shafts of unimpeded light and zephyr added perfection to the perfect day. The scenario in itself had its significance to the event. Former gave the metaphor of exposure to the wider world we were to get incorporated with and latter the sensation of something moving, leading indeed, on their contrast. It was the last day of our glorious college days.

Feelings ambivalent. Last day at college does not feel good no matter how good the scenario might look like.That was the last time we, teachers, students and college staffs,were at the same place, same attire and same way.All of the sudden it felt like unbreakable relationships have been snapped out of nowhere. Frankly saying, we all were contained with our emotions and I could feel even the hashes of the voices were chocked in melancholy.Yes, parting is painful but we were, at the end, happy to leave the college by achieving for what we had joined the college two years ago. Nevertheless, I felt little sad for leaving place and people  that bear as a part of my identity.

College days, I feel, were the best day of my life and these days passed like a happy dream in very quick succession of time. I will definitely miss everything that my college offered to me from reprimanding assemblies and college lectures to extra-curricular exposure and exciting tours to delightful smell of canteen to pungent smell of chemistry laboratory. Most of all, I will miss the very heart of my experience as a student; my friends and teachers. I must have my sincere gratitude to my teachers, for all the lessons they taught-lessons that extended beyond the walls of classroom. And thanks to my colleagues who had constantly been with me in my high as well as low times. Thanks everyone.

The sweet memories of my college days have made an impact on soul and self. We, however, will now make our journey on the foundation laid by our college. We may veer from the premise of our second home but memories remain afresh in our mind and heart forever. As Oliver Holmes says where we love is our home , home that our feet may leave but not our hearts. Farewell College days!

Need Potatoes?

For last couple of weeks, I have not been able to go out and spend my spare time elsewhere. I am, now, locked in the walls of rooms preparing for the A levels finals. But, let me be honest, I am not giving my cent percent effort in this. I spend half of my potential reading time watching television, surfing net or sleeping. However, this time has given me an opportunity to witness a weird kind of incidents around the place. It is not that I have not had experience of these things before but not like this time which has actually triggered me write on these. Or maybe I had not given so much of attention to these things before.

   In all of the days that I was at home, I always heard some loud voices tempting to lure the attraction of people. The intensity of this sound so loud that even a person in his deepest of sleep would awake. As for me, I always got out of my seat by the voice that came out of nowhere. It either used to be vegetable seller, fruit seller, or KAWAD WALA (as we call them). The two former would ask the people whether they wanted some and the latter asked whether they had some to sell them, bottles and old newspaper of course. One thing that made me laugh was the language of fruit and vegetable seller. Their appeal would sound like they needed some rather than they were at our doors to sell theirs. By the way, what would one understand when someone says "AAlU CHAEEYE, PYAAJ CHAEEYE". Using simple logic it meant the person needed some potatoes and more.  Did not it?

Similarly, I got surprised by the zeal of children around the place. It was again the loudness of the voice that took me by surprise. Every time electricity was cut off or back again, they would shout on loud voice either "BATTI GAYO" Or "BATTI AAYO". They, for me, at one instance, apparently seemed like messengers, kind of what we still have in my real home back in Parbat. We call them "KATUWAL" there. They shout information that has to be parted to the general people from a place that is audible to most of the people. I tell you what they are very effective means of communication in places like ours.  It may be their impact, the children's, that other older members also started doing the same but this time with few decibels less. So, every time the line came back people shouted in jubilation probably more intense than for a much awaited goal by Nepalese strikers.

Shouting has been both compulsion and hobby for Nepalese. Call it the struggle of 2007 B.S. or mass uprising of 2047 B.S. or April revolution of 2062/2063 B.S. Nepalese have shouted in roads for their freedom , for their voices to be heard and for their plead of change. We shout in our house, our leaders in house of Parliament. We shout in streets, cinema hall, stadium, public places (you understand what I mean), public vehicles and just everywhere and in almost every occasions.

When a player from opposing team scores a century in England, assumed to be most civilized country of the world, everyone applauses the effort. If a player from opposing time scores a century in our soil, we yell at him, we shout at him and we may even go to the extent of throwing some stone at him. Pathetic, is not it? Someone once said this particular behavior of South Asian people have pushed their civilization a step backward. But, still we shout, still we feel o so comfortable in shouting. The shouting habit as it goes.

Is it enough?

Shakti Gauchan

There was all excitement and euphoria around the faces of sports fan across the country when Shakti Gauchan was called by IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals for trials to play in IPL. Shakti Gauchan along with Paras Khadka was selected in team of eleven best players in ICC T20 World Cup Qualifiers tournament by espnstar.com.  Same Scenario was created some four months ago when Sagar Thapa scored a stunning goal which was widely appreciated all over the world. The goal proved pivotal in making Nepal go through to the semifinals stage of SAF Championship after 12 years. However, these are very few of such incidents when Nepali sports fan are able to celebrate success of their team and players in International sports arena.

  Sachin Tendulkar, one of the living legends of cricket, recently scored a century of centuries in International Cricket. This brought many Indians a cause to celebrate and a reason to be proud of their country. The way Tendulkar pointed and kissed Indian flag in his helmet after scoring 100th century must have delighted all of the Indians hearts. Why not? In fact, they belong to the country where Sachin Tendulkar was born. More importantly, India is the current world champion of ICC cricket world cup. While our neighbors have had every accolade in game of cricket, we still look for a small turnover in Nepali sports to celebrate. Call for Shakti Gauchan to play in the IPL may come as the highest achievement for Nepali sports player but when retro analyzed these achievements belong nowhere among the flamboyant performances of our neighbors. It is not only about India but we are surrounded by the bunch of countries which have been able to show their impact in one sport or the other in international arena.

Sagar Thapa

Bangladesh cricket team recently reached to the finals of Asia Cup, upsetting the teams like India and Sri Lanka, which was held in Dhaka. This team used to be tagged as the minnows in cricket. The performance like this will help them get out of this tag. Not to forget, this team is constantly giving neck to neck performance with the power houses in Cricket and now it itself is evolving as one. Similar is the success story with Afghanistan Cricket team which is showing off in ICC cricket world cup for two consecutive times. This team, in the other hand, has made an identity of surprise Package in International Cricket in very short period of time. Believe me, this teams has a very good future in cricket if they continue to perform in same way.  It happened to be the same time when all these countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal ,have performed well in cricket. Well, you may reconsider the latter country, but seventh position out of sixteen is not really bad for a team who went in the competition as the worst of all.  We can only hope that this momentum goes along with our team and this provides a really big reason to celebrate in days to come from the inspirations of the two former nations.

Third edition of AFC challenge cup pounded the hearts of Nepali football fan, for that the team could not score a goal in entire competition. Following this poor performance, Nepal was knocked out from the group stage of the tournaments. Nepal was second seeded team in the competition and only behind three times champions North Korea. Out of the expectations, Nepal failed to make any impression on its houseful supporters who had to walk away with their heads down after every match.

Let Nepali sports fan have a bigger reason to celebrate, a celebration bigger than that for a goal or an individual performance that is only capable of making to the trials of an event. Nepali sports fan want more of the same achievements that our geographical neighbors are having. If not now, let those days come and let us have new identity of our own, we are the citizens of the country.....................................................

About me

 I  started this blog to conduce my chain of thoughts in an articulate way.