does a leader need to lead?

Different people have differing views about leading. Some like to be vocal, some like to take charge of everything, some want others to follow them, and some just want to be noticed or heard.

I think I like to bring ideas forward and listen. I am left amazed at the multitude of ideas that spring up during the discussion. I get to hear from angles I had never thought of or even considered important.

At the end of the discussion I usually find myself taking actions on ideas/views I had never considered while bringing up the topic. Also, it feels good when people chip in with their thoughts/views when they know I am going to listen or just because they like to he heard. Well who doesn't like to be heard?

karma

i believe in karma. what goes around comes around. i have learnt my lessons on karma. still i mess things up.

being needy is something that has been in my system for as long as i can remember. it started with the "white rabbit dance". i was in lower kindergarten when i was chosen as a dancer for "the white rabbit dance" and i was to wear a white dress for the event on parent's day. my parents never bought the dress for me deeming it unnecessary or maybe they were not able to afford it. anyhow, they did not get the white dress for me even though i kept telling them that it is required for the dance. longing for a bicycle all my childhood and feeling crappy for never getting it! the feeling of not getting what i wish for can be very damaging to my psyche. and i end up hurting myself more often than not.

my need to be believed is so ridiculous that i get very upset for not being accepted right away. i have a history regarding that too. dad did not believe me when i told him that i came second in my second grade. it has left me so scarred that since then i get very upset when i am not believed in.

because of my neediness i end up doing stupid things and i have done quite a few stupid things lately because of which i am suffering. i brought it upon myself but it hurts me even more because i have ended up hurting the person i love and because of the pain i caused her unintentionally there is some friction between us and things are a bit uncomfortable. she is the reason i am emotionally stable. hence, when things between us are not right it makes me highly unstable.

may peace be upon her,

may peace then be upon me.

a new start

so it is a new start. a new place. new friends. looking forward to being at KUSOM for my mba program. left ACE last friday and had a great time with my pals from ACE. they are just grand. pretty cool with no egos. all of them comfortable with each other. we went bowling and played a bit of snooker and i absolutely suck at snooker but i enjoyed it nevertheless. 

so this tuesday it will be a new place. a second orientation in as many months. i wonder if it will be as good as ACE's. i have to say i enjoyed Ace's orientation at Nagarkot. the faculty pointing out students flaws was something i did not enjoy though. i hope they learn not to do so in the future given that their principle is to keep learning!

it would be an understatement to say that i am looking forward to this Tuesday! 

ciao,

me back to the book i am reading nowadays- into thin air.

we are the greedy and the needy generation

we are the youth of the age of "globalisation". few decades ago most of the youth would still be "here" and by here i mean "home" and by home i mean "nepal". it is grand to see nepalese youth doing so well in many corners of this round globe! many of you hold prestigious, respectable, and high paying jobs that most ordinary nepalese people do not even earn in their entire lifetime (but if a nepali was a cat and if they had nine lives then yes they could definitely earn what you non resident high paying job holder nepalese are earning!) makes me wonder what would a nepali do with nine lives when they find it hard to live one single life in nepal. no wonder the youth flee at the first opportunity they get. when i say "flee" i am not labeling you a coward or a "judas". you just flee, under various circumstances. and by fleeing i mean you never wish to see the face of nepal until you are so bloody homesick that you can think of nothing but the old streets you once walked upon, the hills and the mountains you used to gaze at, and the same fucking dal bhat you cannot live without! and then you come to nepal and then once you are in nepal you talk absolute shit about nepal and nepali like you are not a nepali anymore. and all you end up seeing are the problems but not the opportunities that lie beneath. most of you want everything readymade like the burgers you get at McDonalds or at White Castle! you want everything at your fingertips!

i am not the only one who feels like this and when i look around i can hardly find my classmates in nepal anymore. i do not need you and nor am i the needy type. i do not need you and i can assure u of that. you need nepal. you cannot run from nepal no matter how much you want to. nor can u deny the fact that you do need nepal. it is your identity! that is why most of you living abroad suddenly find the "om" t-shirt so enchanting!!!!! you suddenly find the word "Mt.Everest" or "Buddha" as your last resort through which you are recognised by a khairey!!!!!! "Ah! so you are from the land of Mt.Everest!/ the land of Lord Buddha!!" recounts the khairey and deep inside you feel proud and your chest fills with pride unlimited! why? it is not because you are an inherently proud person but because you are being recognised and with recognition comes some semblance of acceptance! you need nepal. and if you think nepal does not need you, you are fooling yourself big time! yes big time! we need nepal and nepal needs us. it is as simple as that. it is the fine balance that is the ultimate truth but the balance is being toppled now and will continue to do so.

i say what is left to do in the big, developed western countries? what really is left to do? i am not asking you the question. i am asking you to ask yourself this question! i say, except for finding a cure for AIDS and cancer and to find out how to make the most out of stem cells, they have figured out pretty much everything. and many of you will still argue pointing to me that there is yet more to be done there. and i can think of few things like the possibilities of cracking the mystery to "teleporting", "time travel", "making more efficient drugs", "discovering the gene to youthfulness or for anti aging(for that matter)", or discovering the drug to make hairy chicks and dudes hairless! 

i ask again- what is left to do in nepal? the list is endless and within that endless list i see possibilites!!! tons of possibilites!! there is so much to be done here my fellow nepalese! from getting a girl child educated to getting nepal on the global map. there is so much to be done. getting a road constructed to the village you came from to getting clean water to every house! from constructing better roads to constructing a better future for the children! well pardon me for having said constructing a better future for the children cuz i forgot that your children will be growing up in the developed countries and they would be studying with the khairey ka baccha bacchi haru under the highly educated khaireys! and pardon me also for saying constructing better roads and better this and better that! you are already living in the better world so why even bother because nepal is only something you read in the news and discuss in parties with beer in your hands! all of you are so highly educated that nepal is small for you. there is absolutely nothing you can do here cuz you think you will run the rish of being humiliated with a job that you think a gauley will do! well, nepal on the global map is far worse than even a gaun(village)! and you happen to belong to that worse-off-than-gaun on the global map country "nepal". what makes you think you are so advanced under that khairey skin you are wearing??? 

i have abused you enough. that was my anger pouring out cuz i am hot-headed and if you could look beyond my rant i do have a point. what is nepal going to do without most of its skilled youth? how far will nepal go without you? you can "be the difference". would you not rather want to "be the difference" than just make the already developed countries more developed? would you not be more satisfied by trying to take nepal forward rather than helping to further the causes of an already developed nation? the country needs its skilled,highly qualified youth now more than ever.

please come back when u still can make a difference and come back only if you want to help nepal and not if you want to help yourself to a nice relaxing vacation! 

when your house catches fire you do not desert it, you do your best to put the fire out before any harm is done. nepal is burning! the decision is yours!

on that note
"jai nepal"

wondering

I sit here feeling like a brown leaf floating with the river. Drowning under its waves and resurfacing once in a while to feel the warm sunlight again and to see the blue sky and the clouds floating across it and then I drown again under those waves stronger than me. This makes me feel like I am aimless and that I am being dragged with the river against my will. These are times when I tell myself,"I used to be green and colourful and I used to have a purpose." Now things are still. My life moves like a snail while my day breezes past me like an F1 car! I stand perplexed at the complexity of it all.

I sit all by myself in the open space of Caferina looking over Durbar Marg, with a novel in my hand sipping coffee and watching people and cars roll by.I see young people and old people and those in between. Somewhere between them I find myself stuck. Unable to move though I am free as a lark. I know what I want to do now. This, I say, will give a purpose to my life. I wonder again, "Is it all that I want?" "Will it make me complete?" "What about other things then?" "Will Ms.Y wait for me or would she disappear in the crowd while I am gone achieving what I expect to make my life purposeful?" "Would I be loved again?" "Will there still be a hole in my life even after feeling purposeful?" I light another cigarette and inhale it deep letting the nicotine kick start the flow of juices deep inside my brains cells making me feel light for a fleeting moment and then the moment is gone. 

Winding down the years gone by I find myself thinking about myself in New York, roughly two years ago. That was the only time in my life when I felt alive. The city felt like home to me. I was never awed by the big city. I absolutely loved it, still do, and always will. To me New York felt as though the energy in me had taken its form as a city. It was me and I was it. I was one with it. Full of life, energy, enthusiasm, and ambitions. I remember telling myself while walking around NY,"People in NY need to put a smile on their faces!" not knowing that it was here that my lights were going to be put out soon and with such brutal force that it would have me reeling on my already bleeding knees and begging for life; that it was here that death would be the only indulgence of my mind(passively in the beginning and actively towards the end) for the next year and half almost killing me in the end.

"How do you like NY?" was the first question I was asked. I did not know what to say as I made my way out of JFK and I did not answer.Being able to speak my mind was not my forte then. How I wished it was! "It's just the same. Its a place just like any other with buildings and streets," quipped the person who had come to pick me up. I thought it made sense and left it at that.

Being thrown into a new place is not a new feeling to me. I have been in Mumbai for my Bachelors and in Haryana and Delhi during my Masters. NY though happened to be a horse of a  different breed  altogether( considering all the factors which were mini storms that would take up the form of a destructive hurricane in my life). In NY everything is fiercer-from life to jobs to academic competition. The final one being the one that I had to endure. Everyday was a struggle with inferiority complex combined with having to deal with the double edged sword of having a close relative living right there in New Jersey and working in Manhattan, just a fifteen minute walk from my dorm apartment, and a relationship that was draining me lifeless.

Having my own room was the closest I have ever come to being able to call anything my own and it was one of the few things I loved while living in NY. Going grocery shopping on my own and learning to cook for myself were the first of the few liberating experiences of independence I have ever had. It was blissful though first few weeks of cooking was not so pleasant as I had to eat whatever the end product of my cooking turned out to be like. I was on my own and I was my own man. I had never been more happier. Life had never felt more fuller and more rewarding!

Well, nothing lasts forever. I learnt it the harshest way possible. The exuberance and the spring in my feet were soon replaced by feeling of endless sadness and of being lost without someone at arms' reach to whom I could have turned to for help or assistance. Weekends were occupied by visiting my relative and her boyfriend and returning to my dorm with a heavy heart, a disturbed mind, and an existence filled with rage. I had spent my life after my high school abroad and most of my friends were temporary and I never got a chance to bond with them as much as I would have liked so I never reached out to anyone. Not only that I never reached out to anyone I did not even think of anyone when I was down. I was just sick and I never came to know what was eating me up until it was too late to do anything about it. I was already sucked in the quagmire of depression and hopelessness before I realised what was happening to me. What happened is history now and need not be made public. Few people know about it but none know the entire truth. I now prefer to leave it at that until I am courageous enough to dig up graves of my misery again.

Two years sInce I touched down at JFK life is a fog dimmed morning. I do not like to go slow and I cannot risk speeding too much. Life is more full of questions, the answers to which lay in the future unseen. Life is not a mundane routine that flows unconsciously but a quest for answers. Life is not a dull passage of day that flows into the night and back and forth again but not pleasantly interesting either. Life is not smooth sailing but a thrills and chills filled roller-coaster ride now. It is an uphill climb-the steepest that I have faced in my life. And all I have for my parting words are,"I do not need pity nor sympathy laden love. It is worthless to me. All I need is compassion and understanding and a bit more empathy. All I need is you and your love and for you to hold me through the storm." Asking you of this makes me feel like a beggar but I needed to say all of this to you,  and i hope you were listening to me. And I wonder."Was it any good that I confessed this to you and the whole world?" All I can do is wonder and I am wondering......