Winter Project

Since 2015 winter project has been reaching out 200 children who lives in children home across the country and this year we started from Bhaktapur to give what we have made and distributed with the help of generous people who responded to our call to help support the cause. ​

Kopila Foundation is a children home located in Bhaktapur. This Children home is run by a woman who is a Cancer Survivor Sanu Thapa for more than a decade. Due to her illness now she is taking care of only about a dozen. when she was not ill she used to take care of about two dozen children alone. She sure will appreciate your help to raise these children. JB, thank you for helping me to reach out to these children and my special thank you also goes to Shradha Rana [ Gaura ].

Adarsha Griha is a children home as well as a shelter home for the women who are victims of rape, domestic violence and trafficking. This is located in Krishnapur, Bharatpur. This home has total of 35 people in it, [ including women] which is operated by a very well known women rights activist and a resected social worker in the area named Mina Kharel. Gaura, thank you so much for your support to reach out to these children. I could not do it without the help of you guys.

Satya Sai Girls Asharam is located in Anandpur, Chitwan. There they are providing all the care for 27 [ 23 girls and 4 young boys ]. I was delighted to meet Dr. Mamta Sharma who is one of the organizing member of this children home. Out of three ashrams I have been until now this is the only ashram which sends its children to normal school for education. I would like to thank Debra for your support to reach out these children. 

Hamro Ghar is a rehab center for street children. This is located in Nagarban, Naranghat [ Chitwan ]. At the moment this children home has 28 children in it. Unlike other children homes which shelters orphan, abandoned or underprivileged children, most of the street children have their parents, but they have left the home on childish whim. ​

I Truly appreciate your support so would like to thank you [ Ishwar Jee ] for your support to help me reach out to these children. I also would like to thank Binod Dhakal, very respected local social worker and a rising name in politics who helped me to visit all the four children homes during my visit to Chitwan.

P2C2 is a children home were all boys - mostly from street - organised by police force in Krishnapur, Chitwan. It is said that when Mr Ramesh Kharel who was high ranking police officer, very respected person in his field but also known for being headstrong; convinced government to give an old, empty school for this purpose. This Children home has 25 boys in it. It seems these boys won't have hard time job if they want to enter in police force as they get certain training from very young age. Chewang, I am so thankful to have a friend like you. Without your support I could not have reach out places like this.

The New Youth Children's Development society is located in Chamasing, Bhaktapur. I met Shiva Shanker Nepali, founder and Chairman of the children home who has been running it since 2002. It has 42 children in it which he has been running with the help of continuous support of local and international for food, shelter and education. ​

I would like to thank my dear friend Amita and her close knit circle of family and friends for helping me to reach out to these children. And this is only half of your support, more is on the way. 

Only one in 20 children homes has a kitchen garden at their service. This is one major part of daily expenses as we need it day in and day out. Fresh vegetables not only best for health reason but the garden for it also serve as a mean to discipline children from very young age.They should be allowed to do is weeding and watering it according to the age. Tilling the land before planting should be left with adult hand.

This kitchen garden has been the source of vegetables to feed 40 plus children for more than a decade. It is a river side land which belongs to the government under the the local metropolitan division. Here mostly riverside land are used as garbage dumping side so, The founder of the children home first cleaned it up and then started growing vegetables for children. In the beginning authority from the metropolitan office rejected the idea [ better dumping site than the kitchen garden ]. Then Shiva Shanker Nepali convinced them saying when you need it we will leave it to you since then they never said a word against it. And its feeding the fresh, homegrown organic vegetables to almost 50 people everyday.

This is Nepal

It is not easy being a Nepali and living in Nepal. A few cases to ponder about: How many times you have read news? About vandalized hospitals and doctors threatened by the family members of the deceased; just because, their loved one has just died in that hospital?

Hospital is where people die!

If you do a survey, you will be surprised by the number of people who die in hospitals. More people die in hospital than they do in their own home. That is because; hospital is a place where people go for treatment of their diseases. Some of those diseases are curable and others are incurables. There is no guarantee that everybody recovers from the illness. Then, why do these people blame the doctors all the time? It is because the deceased person was young and has not seen the life? Will vandalizing hospitals and thwarting doctors solve our problem?

Road Accidents 

When some road accidents happen, the people start a protest on the street. They torch the vehicle(s) that had already met with the accident as if, that wasn’t enough. As if, the accident was pre-planned and was a plot to cause trouble for the road users.

Since when has road accidents become an intentional act rather than an accident? Will torching of vehicles and thwarting the driver reduce the road accidents?

Political Natural Disaster

When there is a natural disaster like flood swiping a village, river bank encroaching a land on its way, land slide, the politicians are blame for the disaster. I don’t know about other countries, but here in Nepal, natural disasters happens due to the political inability. It is a political issue. Will the blame game eradicate the such disasters in future?

Meri Bassai… the Language

And then there are programs on NTV like Merri Bassai and Jhai Kuti Jhai. Loud and cheap comedy programs made to teach the public a lousy way to vent their frustration. Teaching such loud talks and disrespectful manners to our kids is nothing to laugh about.

But, it seems nobody cares about it. These programs have always enjoyed good TRP (Top rated Program) on viewership ratings.

Nepali Media

These are some of the day-to-day happenings in Nepali media don’t have time to talk about such problems. Nepali media is too busy feeding us political junk – news, views, and deadlocks – to distract our mind from the main problem of our country. Our journalists have been complaining about not getting a true respect from the society. When will they learn to earn the ‘respect’ they desire and stop asking like beggars ?

Note : This article has already been published in Xnepali.com on March 9, 2011 

Mistake I made in my life

It was the time I started riding my scooter and I did not knew much of the street rules. It was the time, I didn’t even know I had flat tire and somebody else has to tell me about it. You can call me ’empty head.’ But, that was what I was in the beginning years of my scooter ride.

I am talking about an incident of the year 2004. I think, I was on the Lainchour area, when a micro-bus driver made a gesture with his five finger open and close twice and fast.

Okay, I have to admit it now, I misunderstood that gesture. Before I could even give him a damn look, he was off on the road. But, I didn’t want to let him go without teaching him a good lesson. So, I followed him as the it was going in the direction of my office.

At around Jamal area, near the Nabil Bank, the same micro-bus was stopped to let passenger get on it. When, I was close the the vehicle, the micro-bus driver made the same gesture, again. He opened and closed his five finger twice and fast !

When, I was close to the window of that the driver, I spit my mouth-full of saliva on his face and then ran as fast as I could. I was very happy for the revenge I got from the misbehaving micro bus driver.

But, the happiness didn’t last more than 5 minutes. When I was making turns to get in to my office, another guy, about to leave the parking area, made the same gesture. Now, something strike in my mind that the gesture means something other than teasing a lady on wheel. It was only when I looked in front of my scooter, I found the answer.

My headlight was on !

Now I realize, that was what the driver had been trying to tell me more than once. I felt terrible after knowing about my mistake. I deserve a punishment from that micro-bus driver!

I don’t know how to find that driver. I wouldn’t even know him if he appears in front me as, I never saw his face clearly. But, whoever he is, I would like to offer my sorry to him for the stupidest mistake I have ever made in my life.

I am really sorry !

Ed's Note : This article has already been published on February 10, 2011 in Xnepali.com 

The Illusionist

When Sai Baba was frisking gold rings and chains from the air and was giving it to his devotees, a Japanese interrupted him to ask a question. When he got the permission to ask, the Japanese asked Sai Baba, “Can you convert the mountain behind you into gold, just like the way you can do this gold rings and chains ?”

After a brief pause, he said to that Japanese guy, “Come tomorrow.”  And, that “tomorrow” never came.

I was in my second year of college when my English lecturer told me about the incident to our class.

A couple of years ago, India TV ran a program disclosing some of his tricks Sai Baba does in front of his devotees, with the help of spy cameras. The program host had also had invited scientists to explain the reason behind those tricks. But, these revelations hardly mattered to his believers as they believe the television was running scam campaign to taint the image of Sai Baba.

At around 1997, my ex-boss had the hardest and most personal experience of Sai Baba’s art of magic or illusion. It was her uncle, who was suffering from cancer, causing him a lot of pain. Her uncle and aunt went to Bangalore for check-ups. The visit required them to go through Chemotherapy to stop the growing tissue in his stomach. The couple, being believers of  Sai Baba, went to visit him during their Bangalore visit. Sai Baba saw the sick believer and did a magic.

In their next visit to the hospital, the oncologist was puzzled after seeing their fresh sheet of x-ray report prior to the chemotherapy. There was nothing in that  x-ray report, not a trace of cancerous tissue. The delighted couple canceled their chemotherapy treatment and returned back back to Nepal.

But they didn’t realize the sad truth: cancer was never treated. Within a month of his return back to Nepal, he had to go back to the hospital in Bangalore due to unbearable pains in his stomach. New tests showed that, within that one month period, the cancer had spread all over his stomach. The chemotherapy would have stopped it, if Sai Baba hadn’t done his ‘magic’.

My ex-boss’s uncle died within two months of his visit to Sai Baba. A death, which could have been postponed for some time if not for forever; came too early to him just because he believed more to an illusionist than doctors and their combined conscience.

They say, at the time of desperation, we believe what we want to believe not what is said to be believed.

Moral of the story – an illusionist can not cure diseases. He may conceal it for a short time but, it resurfaces itself.

Ed's Note : This article has already been published in Xnepali.com on February 4, 2011

I like West, I like East

We grew up with teachers who told that we used to have a secret formula to make devices that can fly in the sky – as described in Ved and in Ramayan, as a ‘Puspak Biman’. However, it was the Wrights Brothers who made the first real flying plane. They didn’t have the formula to work on and the flying machine was the product of their own imagination. So, the West rules here !

People in the Western world spend billions of dollars on fitness instruments yet, they are more obese than people in the eastern side of the world. Thanks to Yoga, even a penniless can do it with a little knowledge. East rules here !

They hired 200 best engineers for an idea, and invested 200 billion dollars to design a Space Pen, pen to be used in the space. We ask, why didn’t they use graphite pencil for the job? I don’t think “graphite dust, requires sharpening, and is erasable,” is a valid enough reason to spend such a huge resource.

People in our country worship Goddess Laxmi for wealth and Goddess Sarashwoti for knowledge. But, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry page, Warren Buffet should never have cared of Laxmi or Sarashwoti in their lives. Their brilliant minds have created enormous wealth – not only for them individually but also to the overall economy of their country. Do Americans worship those goddesses ?

Pfizer pharmaceuticals, an American drug company, spends billions of dollars to research for a medicine called ‘Viagra’ and we solely depend on natural herbs – hot spices for the same hob. We still have bigger pie of population to contribute to this world: 60% for the world population come from Asia alone.

We have at least one god to worship everyday of the year, in contrast to the Western people most of whom have only one god, Jesus Christ. Yet, millions of gods haven’t helped the people in the East with their poverty and West-dependence. Ever wonder why we have 330 million god and goddess ?

Western culture accepted the idea that school children should be educated on sex, a lot earlier than the East. We, here on the eastern side still go nuts over the idea of educating them on sex. Have you ever imagined what would have been the population of China and India, if they have said ‘yes’ for sex-education in school? May be, it would have been less than the 60% of the world’s population.

Ed's Note : This has already been published in Xnepali.com in January 25, 2011

Shiva Linga – why worship the Shiva phallus?

It really has not been that long, when I came to know, we Hindu worship a Shiva’s Linga (Shiva Lingam); Lord Shiva in the form of a phallus (penis). But, this knowledge made my skin crawl shiver in sheer disgust.

One of my friends, who is devoted to Shiva, tried to make me understand her side of story, a good side to that story. But I was so disgusted; my mind refused to understand the good-good things she was telling me. My mind simply rejected to hear her version of the worship culture. I am a Hindu by birth but, I have lost the respect for the religion due to absurd things like worshiping the Shiva Linga. Going temple every morning to worship somebody’s phallus (who cares even if belongs to a god) is just too much in the name of Dharma. Give me a break. I am not that type.

I don’t care what you do in your bedroom. You are free to explore your wild side but, do me one favor and don’t tell me all about that.

I am not a temple visitor, as it requires me to walk around the temple area on bare feet and temples are not that clean do to so. But, it’s been decades since I have visited a temple.

Wait a minute; do I need to enter temples ?

Most of the time it’s on the roadside to see how clean the area is! Some says Pashupati is cleaner than before. But, I don’t wants to know. After knowing what exactly in the temple, I am not sure about others but, I am least interested to visit it. 

One of my good friends once said about ‘Unmatta Bhairav’ that, it’s image boosted his mood occasionally; and time and again he used to go to see the image just to recharge him.

I am wondering: What does worshiping Shiva Linga teach us? What should we be learning from this worship? Why do thousands of people visit Pashupati Naths’ temple every morning? What’s in their mind ? Why is it so important to visit that place that houses Shiva Linga?

In the Shiva Puran, a book written about lord Shiva, says, ‘The linga of Shiva, cursed by the sages, fell on the earth and burnt everything before it like fire. Parvati took the form of a yoni and calmed it by holding the linga in her yoni’. The shiva linga seen in the first photo is the symbolic sculpture of that procedure. The religious pundits believe it to be the symbol of creation.

It is not only Pashupati Nath Temple that houses Shiva’s Linga. There are many other sexual sculptures in our temples. In fact, the sexual representation in our religious destinations are more than such books we can buy from the Nepali market (Ok, let me admit one thing here, this kind of book is some thing I don’t go for hunting and blue movies do not appeal to me either). There are few explanations on why such erotic images of gods and goddess in the temple like -to ward off the bad intentions in people; don’t make sense.

I wonder, what kind of bad intention people might get while visiting temples? Or, is it an advertisement – so that people visit temples more often?

I wonder, what image comes in those people’s mind when they really cry and need to reach out for the God and kneel down praying ‘Oh God’ !

Just wondering ! 

Note : This article has already been posted on Xnepali.com on January 10, 2011