Lamentation of a pensioner

The words appearing here are the “Lamentation of a Pensioner”.

Happened to talk to an intellectual personality who has got 50 years of work experience and who has clearly understood Nepal and its functionality to its root. She started the talk saying, “I graduated in 1964 when you were not even born (She chuckled), and since then I have worked in various places. I have seen Nepal going through her high and low, and now see what we are really going through. I am sure, I will not see light (She meant electricity) in my lifetime, but hopefully, you guys will got to witness that.” She then continued with her another question fired at me with a little more frustration mixed with the her humorous side, “Why do they have to provide us with electricity when we have natural light for 12 to 13 hours? What’s the point in supplying with electricity during the time when you already have daylight?

During my talk with her, it was clearly evident that she loved Nepal as much as we all do. We all love Nepal. But, then, there are just few countable one those who have completely marred the image of Nepal and they have to be kicked out of their position because that is what dragging us down.

She continued, “The people of our country was the one who was once considered as the most trustable people and we had a great pride in British Army Force. British use to trust more on Nepalese soldiers even over their own soldiers. Even in Indian Army our people are in significant number and they were the one in the front line of defense during India’s 1999 Kargil War. Where has that pride gone?” Till when are we going to be vainglorious and keep on flaunting our hollow words which nobody is buying now.

She even said, “Even when India is grappling with its fake currency, we are still standing pure and unperturbed in that context though we have got open border.” So true!

She then added, “If you ask me, what have you earned during your entire life time, I would say, I have earned my children. I have made them capable of earning money without being corrupt. People those who have already tasted the corruption money, they will never try to work on their own will and they will keep on following the same path — It’s just like a man-eating Tiger — once they taste the blood of human being, they will stop hunting the wild animals.”

So true!

A bright dungeon

I was so naïve when I first started to use computer; and internet on the other hand was a complete alien to me. I was so inane that I even didn’t know what an “address bar” is or how we should be searching something on the internet. Terms like “Google”, “yahoo”, “Hotmail”, “email”, “search-engine” were jargons to my infant-ears. However, I still consider and cherished those years of my life as one-of-those-golden-days.

But, over time, things have changed, and so do I. In the process of learning bit-and-bytes of computer world and IT world, I kept being allured to its beauty and was kept on being dragged to a completely new world unequivocally and unintentionally. But, that was a great move – say, either it was calculated by my fate or something else – but, it was something like a real positive turning point.

Since then computer has been a great company to me and I consider it my darling. I don’t know, it might have nibbled my knowledge, my perception and way my brain picks up things to some extent unwittingly, but in return it has given me my achievement so far, so tangible that I can’t ignore that.

But, even after all this long journey, the world of computer still seems hazy to me. Still those jargons are still jargons to me, but the only difference I have found is that those jargons are turning new everyday. Old are gone and new are still coming ever day. I have just got to read that Oxford Dictionary has now more addendum in their list of words which includes the internet languages like: “lol”, “WTF”, “OMG”, “IMHO” and many more like that.

Just few years back, when I use to hear those words —  I use to scratch my hair in frustration thinking what the hell! – “Why am I such a blockhead?” But, over time I realized that in fact, I was not – those words were really completely very new to hundreds and millions of internet and computer users in another corner of the world at that time. However, those words have now become so hackneyed these days and most of us know those little twitches in the sentences.

It’s not just that jargons that has taken me agape, but also the fact that what should and what should not be expressed in the internet. However, I still know thing which are sensitive, and I am always aware of those facts. I felt like internet is a world, but never realized that it is a new world – a world of confinement – a dungeon which is so bright that is hardly perceptible to realize that we are in the dungeon – this is a modern dungeon.

A dungeon of knowledge where we are captive of computer, internet, youtube and wikipedia. We are so captivated to this new technological gadget that we hardly realize how much time we have spent in front of it, we forget to even blink our eye (one of the case of computer vision syndrome), and our hands are so glued to the keyboard that in years down the line, we develop syndromes like carpel tunnel syndrome and many other related disease like that. Diseases like neutral degeneration, rapid aging, diabetes and obesity, depression are somehow related to our habit of computer-sitting.

I am also one of the victims of today’s computer world – positively!

Our words

How ironical does it sounds when we say, “Words are insignificant, yet valuable”. With time everything has changed and we have ourself experience some motley of those changes in our life as well. Everything changes most and with unceasing pace, but the language, the words, the sentences and its uses. The words and the language that pops out of our mouth is so beautiful, yet so ugly – yet another sets of ironical thing.

It  takes years before there is an official change in the structure of a sentence or it take couple of years or yearly before a new word is added to the dictionary. So, now we can guess how significant it is when it comes to adding new vocabulary and sentence and structure in our language (irrespective of what language we speak). When it comes to adding it appears significant and more valuable, while it does really sound little bit quirky and insignificant thinking that something that has already been incorporated needs extensive amendments and approvals before it gets accepted – In this case, it sounds really insignificant to even think of changing or going after those sorts of things.

These simple, insignificant words that we use in our daily life might be insignificant to us mostly, but they hold greater meaning to our life in what we speak and how we materialize it in our personal life. Those are just simple words which are capable of bringing fortunes and misfortunes in our life. We, therefore, have to choose it very wisely and with astuteness.

Knowingly or unknowingly we are making mistakes upon mistakes and amassing them, but we hardly notice it by ourself unless somebody points it to us. Those are also our words which is taking nasty course of action because of what pops out of our mouth. But, we take it as for granted sometimes to appease ourself rather than feeling a sense of remorse for what we have done because of our words. Some of our words of excuses includes, “oh! common, we are friends, right?”, Oh! dear, we are family, you should not be minding these things”, Hey! we are classmates, everything is okay, don’t take it seriously”………… and the list goes on.

We should not just be concerned with our words, but in fact, should be solicitous. Our messages, our good wishes, our letters, emails, snail-mails, everything are nothing more than just words. This is what creates fear, anger, remorse, envy, love, caring and all sorts of feelings (either good or bad). One of my friend use to say, “People are different, so we should present ourself according to them and not what we are”.  Everybody is special and they wants to be treated special and for that reason we have to change ourself. Because the way we might be talking to somebody might be bringing them closer to us while at the same time from the same group it might be pushing somebody away from us. But, the problem is how can we use the words suited for everyone. That is the fact, and we can’t control it. Because there is saying, “I am responsible for what I speak, but not what you understand”. And, also, “If everybody loves us, there must be something wrong, because we can’t please everybody at the same time”.

It is our words which help us to get respect, honor, and value and it the words again which will put us in grave danger. Words might be insignificant for a moment for the speaker, because usually we speak and we forget. But the story never ends there! There might be somebody who might be taking it by heart, it might be someone who is getting offended and it might retain with them for years to come or even till their whole life. So, its better to find the right words than to find excuse.

Our words are something that defines us inside out. It just do not only define us but it covers our lineage, our society from where we belong and in the family where we have been brought up. It is our words which defines our family and not just us. We are representing our family more than we are representing ourself in any society when we keep on moving. 

Our choice of words might appear to us as excursive to us, but using those words we are just excursing ourself but we are still trying to put the person in track with whom we are dealing at that moment – which is more important.

 

An Attitude of Me and I

“Treat yourself right – your energy is almost entirely focused inward, and you may want to try treating yourself to a little life of some kind. It’s a great day for a walkabout, if you can!” – so this is about me and my day today. This is what my horoscope is talking about me insinuating me to guide my day according to it. I found it soon as I was flipping through the pages of our national daily, “The Kathmandu Post”. This is what I use to do every morning till some few years back, but the days now are not still the same. Time changed and so do I – so, finally, I have stopped looking through my horoscope every morning. Now, this has been changed to “FACEBOOKING” – and  I have been habituated to it now.

If you think a little bit meticulously, you will find that we have now become more habituated to an attitude of “Me and I” kind of things more than just a Facebooking, and Facebook has provided us its platform to cultivate it. Over time we have become like egotistical and we have been developing it with leaps and bounds. In this context, it might be somehow situation-generated while some are natural – in anyway, we have finally been trapped within its seine . Even a person rebuffing the claim has in them somewhere.

Every morning we get up, the first thing we notice is ourself, and the first thing that rushes through our mind is, “How is our day gonna be today?” and then followed by the number of work loads that we have to accomplish and even that without having any kind of problems whatsoever. Because we have been consumed by ourself-attitude we try to find and run after horoscopes every morning which might not be true for everyone of us, but, yes, certainly for many of us – those who believe in astrology and mostly consumed by the thoughts governing orthodox.

Every time advertently or inadvertently we have been thinking of ourself, but this is justifiable being a human. Just try not inviting a tone of “Me and I – attitude” in your talk, you will be amazed to know that 3 out of 5-times we are talking about ourself with the same tone, gesture and posture that turns out really unnerving. This is just a form of human nature which might work best in the time of crisis and thus the kind of eternal law of Charles Darwin would hold to be true.

I think its just a situation that has made us self-centric, so I thinking blaming ourself might not be completely fair, but not working on it to mitigate might not certainly be inculpable. I have ever heard somebody saying that, “No body owes me anything that they will hail me or praise me vociferously, I have to do it by myself”. I think its funny and I have not idea how much it holds to be true.

One of the things that creates animosity among our friends and our connections is the way we speak. There is another saying that there are two thing that can’t be reverted back once it is released: one is the bullet fired from a gun and another one our own words that pops out. And these two things are really really very lethal. In fact, both hurts others but we are the culpable and we will be the sole loser and not the one to whom it is fired to.

So, thinking of not using the term I, me and myself might be a most prudent choice if we want to be gregarious. Using those words most frequently just simply makes people offended and will might not work to elevate our dignity, people’s look and reverence towards us. So, think about it before you make choices of making use of those filthy words most frequently in your words – in your speeches!!