As the process of constitution drafting chugs along in Nepal, one fundamental question hasn't been debated enough. The form-of-government issue seem to have been forgotten amid the rancor of federalism. I argue in this piece published in Setopati.net that the parties, leaders and the people must realize the faults of the parliamentary system as it is practiced in Nepal and give the presidential system an honest chance.
In June 2014, I was invited to speak to Nepali students aspiring to study in the US. The event was hosted by United States Education Foundation (USEF - Nepal) in Kathmandu. I had a great time. Thanks for the organizers, especially my friend Sulav Bhatta.
At the recent
Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) conference at Yale
University, I had a good fortune of meeting someone by great serendipity. After
I gave my presentation, I received helpful comments from Carole McGranahan of University of Colorado, Boulder. Later, we began talking as we walked to the
lunch hall and she introduced me to a gentleman. He had served as a Peace
Corps volunteer in Nepal in the 1970s. Whenever I hear that someone was in the Peace
Corps or somebody mentions Peace Corps in any conversation, I have a story that
I have been telling for many, many years.
When I was
growing up in Kathmandu, maybe when I was about 10 or 12 years old, my mom by
chance brought home a copy of a publication made by the United States Embassy
in Kathmandu. The magazine was printed on glossy paper, unlike most others
published in Nepal, and it included a number of interesting articles written or
translated in Nepali as well as many color photographs. I remember reading the
magazine cover-to-cover and learning a little bit about American political
system and whatever the news was at the time.
One particular
article specially stuck my imagination and it has been imprinted in my memory
ever since. It was a story written by an American man who had come to Nepal
with the Peace Corps and settled in the home of an old Nepali woman somewhere
in a remote village. He called her his Aama,
which means mother in Nepali. The article described how, after he was done with
the Peace Corps, the man brought his Nepali Aama for a visit to America. I
remember being fascinated by the experiences of a woman from another generation
and a far-away country of Nepal as she faced the modern sights, sounds and
interactions in the United States of America. Especially, interesting and
memorable was the fact that the old lady found spiritual and religious messages
and motifs in many of the day-to-day American experiences. While most of the
details of the story had been forgotten, I remembered vividly the fact that the
old lady believed that the water fountains that she saw somewhere in America
must be imbued with godly powers and she prayed at the water fountains. Thus,
the powerful memory of reading that memorable story in my childhood has been my
stock narrative whenever a topic of conversation touches on the Peace Corps.
And so it
was when Carol introduced me to Broughton Coburn; I related them my story. I also wondered if either of them knew of that story. That magazine had been
lost long time ago and I never learned what happened afterwards with either the
writer or the charming Nepali Aamai.
Mr. Coburn listened intently and corrected my last detail. He said they were
not water-fountains in DC or New York, but it at the geysers of the Yellowstone
Park. He also explained how Aama began praying at the natural wonder of the
geysers. Even then, it took me a few additional minutes to realize that it was Broughton
Colburn, the gentleman standing right in front of me, who was the author of
that article and the man we who had brought his Nepali Aama for a visit to
America in the 1990s. I finally realized the fact, which helped solve the
unresolved mystery from my childhood and it felt like I was meeting an idol, a
little like meeting the Beatles! I was lucky in the next two days to have some
moments when I could talk again with Brot, as I later learned he was called, about his experiences in Nepal and the books on Nepali Aama he had written. I loved hearing his perfect Nepali accent!
Since the
conference I've had a chance to visit Brot’s website to learn more about his
work. I learned that he published two books about Nepali Aama, her visit to
America and the meaning that experience provided him in his life. I learned
that since then Brot has been working to bring Aama’s message of peace and
spirituality in more than a 100 presentations in various universities andinstitutions around America. Along his interests on Nepal, he has also written
best-selling books on Everest and the Himalaya. I watched the following video of a presentation
that Brot had given, which formed the only surviving piece of a possible PBS
documentary that never came to fruition.
What a
mesmerizing picture that we get from Nepali Aama’s images and expressions in
this short, seven-minute clip. As Brot explains even at the age of eighty-four,
Aama was eager for her pilgrimage to this land beyond the oceans, a world away from
her little village in Nepal. She opened
her arms to all sorts of experiences and seems to have thoroughly enjoyed
America. It is heartening to see her at a Las Vegas explaining how the conventionally
garish arts and the sculptures at Caesars Palace must be part of some temple or
a religious movement. The same honesty of her views is seen in her experiences
of kissing the dolphin. Later, we see her explaining that the dolphin could not
have been real. For a person from a landlocked nation mere imagination of such
a creature as as trained fish is impossible and thus she resorts to a very
probable explanation of a mechanical being used to amuse visitors. I
appreciated Brot and Didi’s resourcefulness in using a booster seat to allow
Aama the thrill of a proper American road trip, so she could better enjoy the
views from the windows of their station wagon. The picture of her on the
backseat of a Harley is priceless!
And finally
there was the image from my childhood, till imprinted on my mind: Aama watching the
Yellowstone geysers along with a group of American tourists. As she begins
joining her hands in prayer, along with her, the viewer participates in the
notion of natural spirituality that so animates Nepali religious culture. Aama
is praying at the wonders of nature just like I remember praying at a shapeless
boulder near my ancestral home in Panchthar.
I became
sad to hear Brot inform us that Aama died two and a half years later after
returning from her pilgrimage to America. But the manner of her death and the
words of rememberance and prayer that she spelled out as she lay dying, in
front of the Himalayan vista in her house in Syangja, gives us some manner of
solace. Just like Brot’s luck in finding a Nepali mother in her, Aama was lucky
to have had a son as resourceful and dedicated as Broughton Coburn.
I am
looking forward to reading Brot’s two books on his and his Nepali Aama’s mutual
journey.Yet, even in the last few days,
since meeting Brot so serendipitously in New Haven, I have begun to understand and
appreciate the universal humanity embodied by Aama, as well as her American son,
in their mutual love as well as their appreciation of each other’s countries and peoples.
Recently, I had an exciting sensory experience. I discovered that I was able to hear songs from memory. It does not sound like much but it was exciting for me. I was in an airplane, bored and unable to sleep, and I tried passing time by remembering and silently humming my favorite songs. Due to the presence of strangers, I wasn't audibly making any sound and I concentrated my full attention to my ears while keeping my eyes closed. In a short while the songs I was humming in my brain started gaining audible qualities in my ears. At first it was as if whatever song I was thinking of and internally singing the words to, began to play in my ears but in my own voice without any music. But quite suddenly I began to hear the actual recording of the song, it happened to be an old Bollywood song, in the original voice of Lata Mangeskar accompanied by all the music in my ears. It felt no different than listening to the song from a headphone. I stopped consciously controlling the words of the song but it kept on playing in its own rhythm and its own original version that I am so much familiar with. Once that song was over, I consciously chose another familiar strong and in a few moments without much effort that one also began playing as if from a radio or a headphone. I was able to spend a good hour in the state of auditory bliss hearing songs that I loved and enjoyed.
There was one major, maybe understandable, limitation – I could only hear those songs that I was quite familiar with, that I knew or had known the lyrics to, and that I had listened to in the past repeatedly. New or unfamiliar songs did not bring on the affect. Yet, I was quite astonished to realize that many songs that I hadn't listened to in a number of years, for which I had little conscious memory of lyrics, I got them to play quite nicely. So songs for which I wouldn't know the lyrics, if I consciously tried to sing out loud, I was able hear from unconscious memory.
Reading Lawrence Rosenblum's book on the extraordinary powers of our senses, See What I’m Saying, I immediately thought of that personal experience. The book presents empirical examples and recent research on the extent and quality of human perception and sensory powers. Relating stories of many special people who have been able to use the non-dominant senses to compensate for their loss of their primary senses, Rosenblum presents evidence of our exceptional sensory capabilities and our brains ability to use various senses to help us in our awareness, perception and function.
