One of the many issues I identified growing up in Nepal, which I believed would be the source of many unwarranted struggles to make something of myself, had been my severe lack of social capital. So, I worked really hard to escape from the country. Succeeding in doing so and spending most of my adult life abroad, I practically ensured I would have even less social capital when I finally returned home! #LifeEh!
Was the universe putting obstacles in my way to direct me homewards? While I enjoyed both teaching and traveling, issues at work and outside -- especially ones based on my nationality and/or skin color -- were making it harder and harder for me to continue to do so. With time, I also discovered my options for places I could seek work decreasing. I even lost a job!
Another #LifeEh observation. This one about how I did everything I could to leave behind, "escape" from, and rise above the yoke of the Bhote label...only to return to Nepal as a middle-aged man after spending pretty much all my adult life abroad studying, working, and traveling just to discover I have come full circle!
All the time I was abroad, even while preparing for the eventuality of returning to Nepal, I had never had a timeline. The first time I contemplated a timeline was the Summer of 2009: I gave myself five years. In February 2013, almost four years later, I decided, the time was right to return. Timing was right for a number of reasons, namely, financial, career, weariness with moving, and a little one at home.
This is all about how I went from thinking of myself as a Tibetan-Buddhist to a humanist, from a Tibeto-Nepalese to a human being first etc., and how and who I have become and where I have gotten to in life -- through my international education, profession, and travels -- was one of the reasons for turning down a job offer in February 2013 to return to Nepal.
A brief history of the tradition of bandh (shut downs) in the country and how this tool employed by everyone from political parties to trade unions to even disgruntled families, along with the politicization of education, have robbed many youths of their potential. The youths, invariably, were always the ones mobilized to enforce them!
Men using their positions of power to thwart women's drive and squash their potential by focusing on her body is a form of violence. This is the story of a young, driven, and talented woman who was a victim of just that!
Development aid industry is a failed industry. Sustainable development rests in the hand of the locals, not the big bilateral and multilateral development aid agencies. To be part of that I decided to turn down the job offer and to return to Nepal.
When we raise and educate children using violence, of course, they grow up to be violent, especially the boys. No wonder, domestic violence is such a major issue in the country. We have to do a number of things to curve that. One of them is to eliminate the use of violence against children, whether at home or at school. We should instead raise and educate them compassionately and by engaging with them in a healthy and developmentally appropriate manner etc.
16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign started a few days ago. A campaign that started in 1991 aims to raise awareness about the subject and to spur people into action to end violence against women and girls.