Be skeptical

It is not uncommon for us to hear that we are living in a world of competition. Survival of the fittest, first cum first serve are phrases explaining this very theory. As kids parents often tell us to be careful and not to interact with strangers outside because they believe it’s a jungle out there. It sure is according to my experience of the world. As we grow up we gradually figure out the workings of the world and I tell you it’s all a bitter sweet experience. Bitter if you fail to work accordingly and sweet when you get your steps right.

A philosopher- Rene Descartes had once said “one should always be skeptical about everything in the world except for one’s own existence”. If I had read his philosophy few years back I would be thinking Descartes was a screw up but today I totally agree with him. People may say being doubtful makes you negative but isn’t it better to be a little negative rather than to be fooled by others at the expense of your own success.

A friend of mine was recently duped by his friends to not give exams while they themselves went forward and gave the examination. Call my friend stupid or his friends evil; that doesn’t matter. This is just an example of many such instances happening in the world especially in workplace and educational institutions. The contemporary-industrialized world of today has created such a high level of competition among people (especially youth) that they inevitably feel insecure unless they pull someone four steps behind.

It has also made people selfish, ruthless and narcissist. People of today live in constant fear of being over taken. I have seen people go from being best friends to giving each other ‘I can’t stand you’ looks, from sharing their feelings to sharing forced smiles. Someone once told me you cannot make friends in college and to some extent I now find truth in the statement. When in college we are constantly competing for higher grades and good remarks from teachers. In the process we fail to maintain our friendship. Sometimes the trust is broken and at times the friendship in an un-mend able way.

Living in a capitalist age people tend to become materialistic and hence due to that part of us become shallow. We are always on the get go ready to bring people down in order to take their position. Competition is good and is required in every walk of life. It is due to competition that the human civilization has been able to come this far. But, what is needed is a healthy competition and not an immoral one.

So, be careful the next time you decide to entrust someone. Don’t forget that the Gandhian philosophy of offering your left cheek to someone who just slapped your right one doesn’t work anymore in this world of ever growing competition. Be skeptical and be realistic.

Hear Us Out

"Yesterday you owned the sun

But today it is mine"

The above two lines are taken from a Tibetan poem titled “We the six million Tibetans.” The poem describes the Tibetan spirit and speaks of the love they have for their nation. Until few days back I was living a normal teenage life. With a “who cares” attitude I didn’t really think much about the independence of Tibet. All I cared about was I. An average college student; I spent my days attending lectures, hanging out with friends or simply reading a book.

Since I was always surrounded by Nepalese I felt I belonged with them. But deep down I knew I was different. Unlike them I had my roots entrenched in Tibetan soil and my link to the country was inevitable. Despite not having visited the country even once I shared a strong bond with it. It maybe because of the language I speak, the culture that I follow or because of my typical Tibetan family.

After reading and watching the ongoing Tibetan protests I felt deeply saddened and glad at the same time. Sad because I wasn’t being able to be a part of it and glad because finally Tibetans were speaking out. Since I stay in a University hostel I couldn’t take part in the demonstrations but I wasn’t going to sit idly either. I thought to myself at least I could write about it and let people know what actually is happening in Tibet.

It has been more than 6 decades that china took over Tibet and destroyed its independence. During 1950s the Chinese began their invasion and in the process killed, abused and injured thousands. Tibet with a meager population of 6 million was not able to resist to the Chinese power. Hundreds of children orphaned and many others displaced. Monks and nuns were tortured and all monasteries demolished. The Chinese not only took our land but also our freedom: freedom to live freely.

As Chinese became more and more brutal, Tibetans had no other choice but to flee their homes.Many sought shelter in the neighboring countries. I am so appreciative of all the host states that welcomed and provided us roof over our heads. But as we all know how much ever luxurious a hotel may be we would always prefer returning back home.

Tibet is my home and I cannot stand Chinese destroy it. The Chinese have time and again tried different tactics to defame Tibetans. The recent news about Tibetans planning suicide attacks is yet another Chinese tactic of showing Tibetans as violent and dangerous. It is indeed sad to read that such inhuman act is being linked to the Dalai Lama who stands for peace and non violence.

Tibetans have suffered enough from the hands of Chinese and the world needs to listen to our unheard voices. It is time we stand up and stop the Chinese from hurting more of our fellow Tibetans.

Do you Bunk?

Students in uniform hanging out in the public during the school/ college time are not an unfamiliar sight to us. No, it’s not a sign of increasing educational excursion by academic institutions but the growing trend of bunking. So, what do we exactly mean by bunking? To bunk is basically to skip the classes and go someplace other than school. In fact this trend has become so common we rarely find any student who hasn’t bunked his/her school or college at least once. Likewise, I too have bunked my classes. In my case it was more like hiding within the school compound. I and my friends would basically conceal ourselves in the bathroom or the basketball court.

There are many reasons why students choose to bunk school. To some following the same routine everyday gets tedious whereas some may feel that attending classes is worthless. The endless assignments, teachers’ complaints and a desire to break free from all these often leads a student towards the path of bunking. Earlier it was more common among the college students but now it is equally prevalent in the middle schools as well.

The trend of bunking has reached a height where the students often organize mass bunking. This new form of bunking requires everybody in the class to be absent thus showing the mass participation of students. It is organized in cases where the students want pre-holiday or post-holiday.

So, where do the students go if not to school. Well there are lots of hubs set up for this very purpose. From the early morning movie shows to early breakfast in restaurants or simply lingering the town the students have found different ways of indulging themselves to pass the time which actually was meant for school. Many of you might be astonished to know this but the horizon of bunking is very broad. It merely doesn’t mean few naughty pupils not attending classes but the whole class or even the college may be a part of it. Personally, I have seen the largest group of students of a particular college occupying the whole accommodation of a movie hall during college hours.

When the students get bored doing all the above mentioned stuff they choose to go partying. Different dance clubs have even shifted their opening time for students to enjoy the pleasure of clubbing early morning. But all these pleasure is not attainable without an amount of risk involved. There is always fear of being caught either by the parents or the school.

The immense increase in the rate of bunkers has called for firm action from school/college officials. They are obliged to impose strict rules and take bunking more seriously. It is not a bad thing to take break from studies once in a while. After all we are humans and we need rest. But when that rest exceeds too much and for too long then a person often fails to do his prime job as in the case of students –they fail to educate themselves.

GLAMOUR TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM

As the times have changed so have the people, their ideas and priorities. What I am talking about is the strong impact that glamour has in people's life. I am here not to criticize glamour based industries and neither to show any ill effects of it. But just to talk about the amount that people are wasting in wrong ways of glamorizing themselves. Being a teenager, I would like to write this article from the viewpoint of a teenager. Anybody would be ignorant not to have noticed the impact that glamour seems to have in today's world. It surely seems to have taken the world by storm. People's activities are all based for the purpose of beautifying and ultimately getting the tag of a glam doll or that of a stud. To speak of the entire world my article would be very long so I stick only to the Nepali context.

As I walk the roads of thamel, new road, durbar marg I see a lot of youngsters dressed trying to look like their favorite celebrity. From their hair to their clothes to the attitude they carry everything resembles the foreign celebs. They are constantly trying their hardest to keep up with the changing style statement. I do not think it is wrong to try and look good but I know it can be pretty harmful when you spend your whole time planning what to wear next. I have seen and personally know some people who keep doing that.

It is sad to see that people have become more shallow and materialistic. I strongly believe clothes do not make a person beautiful but it is the person who is capable of beautifying the clothes. But most people especially youngsters seem to have forgotten this and they take it vice-versa. Especially in high schools and colleges fashion is brain storming the youngsters in all wrong ways. This is visible through the kind of uniform that students prefer wearing these days. From the very short and close fitting skirts of girls to guys baggy and choose pants, misfit uniform has become one new trend. It is understandable that young boys and girls prefer looking smart and their best but it should not be done at the cost of spoiling the decency of a uniform. One should always respect one's uniform because it gives a certain identity.

Also, I would like to extend my thoughts to the growing consciousness in girls and women as a whole about their appearance. It may be due to the negative effect of entertainment world that people have become so very conscious. I feel like it has become some sort of law to be thin and look fabulous all the time. Otherwise you end up being the girl with the bad body and terrible sense of fashion. I have seen that my friends too have been infected by this growing disease of looking perfect.

What I am trying to say is we are not models and therefore we don't need to have a perfect10. We are just ordinary people and wearing the latest Chanel boots or carrying a Loui Vuitton bag is not going to make us extraordinary. Instead it will just leave a hole in our pockets.

The Other Side of School

I recently read the article “School is bad for children” by John Halt. In the article he discusses the hazards of sending a child to a school and why one should discontinue this form of education. Being a student myself I agreed with most of the points including some crucial ones which pointed that a school meant for enhancing knowledge actually destroys a child’s creativity and reasoning power.

To this day in the east we have more traditional patterns of learning where they still regard books and teachers as the sole source of education hence forcing them not to believe in their own intelligence but on somebody else’s knowledge. As kids we enter schools with so much zeal and energy to learn new things and meet new people. But all of these anticipation is shattered when they tell us what we have learnt to date is worthless.

School becomes an even more undesirable place to be due to the forced rules, compulsion of attendance and teacher’s ever swinging mood. All of these resulting in loss of freedom which we as kids had before enrolling in a school. The thousands of never ending rules that a school enforces on kids are a million pound worth of burden which they have to carry till their backs ache with pain of suppression.

Moreover, the continuous pressure from parents to excel in academics and succeed the son of the next door neighbour in the class ranking all for the sake of false prejudice. Little do parents realize that the pressure they are mounting on their children are beyond the child’s best of abilities except for some very brilliant kids who can mug the book in a day’s time.

And then there are the teachers with their biasness and mood swings. To be a good student rather than learning what we are suppose to, we have to first learn the different traits to impress the specific teacher. Some teachers like it when we repeat the exact same words from the book while others will say “answer it in your own words, be more analytical.” One has to be careful so as not to end up in the black book of the teachers for they sure are experts in avenging those students.

I have seen many of students suffer due to this very case. Sometimes an intelligent, deserving student would be sent home with a ‘D’ just because he/she chose not to bring tea to the teacher’s table. Not to forget the piles of assignments that a student is assigned never to be checked.

But still one cannot criticize it completely because not everything goes wrong in a school. With the passage of time many countries and schools are changing their system to more interactive and student friendly. Allowing them to do what they want but at the same time giving them guide lines is what a new form of education is all about. Gone are the days when a student would listen to a teacher just because of the fear of being spanked, we have moved forward with time to demand change and when everything else is in the path why should our education system still be the same.

A book review

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a gripping tale about the power of friendship between two women. Beautifully crafted this novel places us in Afghanisthan with an open heart. It is the story of Mariam and Laila. Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship strikes between Mariam and Laila; a local teenager. Their bond becomes as strong as that of a mother and a daughter. When the Taliban takes over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet, it is love that leads them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism. This novel is a heart-wrenching and inspiring tale focused on the women of Afghanisthan.

Hosseini is successful in making the story come alive and evoking the feeling of compassion and condemnation in the readers. It is a powerful portrait of female suffering and endurance under the Taliban. With his knack of story telling this novel is vivid and compelling. His narrative style portrays the terrible realities of war and suffering in a compelling manner. At the same time it also provides convincing glimpses of the possibility of redemption and salvation.

This book is universal in dealing with the issues of war and women. It is so captivating that you can feel the pain experienced by Mariam and Laila in the story.

Infatuation Not Love

I never plan things ahead of time and therefore whatever happens it takes me by surprise. Like the breakup I am going through at the moment. People who have been in serious relationship and then broken up will know it is the most hurtful and perhaps the most frustrating time period in a relationship. So, I am writing this as a sort of therapy and to be able to pour out all my anger, hurt and pain.

It all started with sweet kisses and sweet notes. In fact everything was so sweet in the beginning I almost felt diabetic. But good things don’t always have a happy ending, do they? I guess I was blown by all his boyish charm, good looks that I failed to notice the things that really mattered. After constant fights, disappointments and hours of thinking have I realized that I was just living a fantasy. Maybe it was the influence of all these cute Korean movies or love stories I was so willing to make that relationship last.

Now, when I look back I laugh at myself and am like what was I thinking? I was just 16 then and had literally planned my whole life with him. It is crazy to see how we keep falling in and out of love. They say love happens once in a life time but if that’s the case why am I not with the person I once loved. Maybe because there are other feelings called infatuation which often haunts teens. We always end up confusing crushes and infatuations with love.

I am afraid that the world has changed and this new modernized world of ours does not have a thing called love or true love. If true love existed then why do we see so many wrecked relationships, shattered homes and broken hearts? Love is something that is supposed to bring joy to a person’s life but from what I have seen all it has brought is tears and messed one’s life.

Plus, these days I am so taken aback by the amount of people who say they are in love. I just want to tell them please don’t confuse love with infatuation because it is going to hurt if you can’t tell the difference between two. This is especially for young boys and girls. When we are young and we find someone attractive we rush into things. First starts the friendship then the relationship and then the problems. I guess all these within few months. That is why I believe it is always good to wait and see whether we will continue loving the person even after he becomes physically unattractive or financially weak.

True love is rare to find but when we do find it I bet we will feel delight like no other chocolate cookies can bring or even a shopping spree. So I suppose it is best we wait, wait for the right girl or the boy rather than going out with a bunch of wrong persons just for the sake of being in a relationship.

Lonely

I never knew it would be so tough to spend my life alone. Without friends and a boyfriend life does seem a bit more challenging. I guess i always took them for granted and never valued people enough. Now when i am here in this strange new place, where i find everybody like an alien i miss all my friends a lot. I wish i could round back the clock and go back to the place where i really belonged. The place where i always laughed and had great fun. back then i wouldn't even be having a moment to be writing all this. Loneliness has become a part of my life and this part is kept totally aloof from all other parts of my life. No one knows exactly where it stays and where it goes or why is it there and when will it go????/