Why is our nation so messed up?

It was after I left Nepal, that I was forced to see the reality of my nation from a very different perspective.

I got this opportunity to work in a foreign country, a developing one, and as we flew above it, I was surprised by how structured the landscape below looked, an abundance of greenery, clean blue waters and even the houses were so orderly.

And the drive from the airport to the place where I would be staying, I just could not believe that a country can actually be that pristine and clean. For me what seemed like only a distant unattainable dream in my nation, here was a reality.

Gradually, I started noticing little things that made the difference between being in Nepal and abroad. I saw people patiently waiting in line, I thought it must be something official by the look of it, only to realise that they were there to get bread. Even in department stores, banks, people leave space for you and don’t clobber over you and don’t shout or get into a fight.

The most surprising aspect public buses – people stand in line and actually don’t push and pull, even the bus conductors don’t take in more than the stipulated extra five people. The public toilets were speck and span and you can use it without feeling like throwing up.

All of it though small little things that one can easily undermine, at first amazed me and eventually made me sad, thinking why my country does not have any of this.

After the small things it’s the big things you notice -- the government has rules and regulations not just on paper but that are actually implemented. Basic necessities like water, electricity are available without any worries. Not just that but free education and health care, benefits for elderly are provided,

And they have no bandhs – how magical is that, when people had to express their dissatisfaction it was by staging a sit in protest, a peaceful one, no tyres burning, no bandhs, even major political rallies were peaceful, which all made me wonder how.

The ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ just kept piling up, how does a four year old kid there know that the plastic wrapper needs to be thrown in the dustbin, and a 40-year-old dad here will just fling it out of the window. Children learn what elders teach them, so if this is what parents are teaching their children, is it going to be a never ending cycle. This is just one example of the hundreds of things elders should be teaching children right, but themselves are doing it wrong. Will the children here ever learn to stand in a queue, will they ever learn to stop their bikes and cars and let people cross the roads, is it just wishful thinking. Why is it that we as a nation lack even the most basic civic sense?

Sidelining these small issues, if we were to talk about more imperative issues, I had always heard that foreigners and very hard working, very intelligent and all that and believed that we are not all that they are, that is why our nation is in the state it is in and theirs so much better. But being among them I realised the notion I had held all my life wasn’t exactly true. I’d worked in Nepal and was working in a foreign country, but I didn’t really find such a huge difference among my colleagues. I saw that my countrymen were equally intelligent and hard working, so why didn’t our nation prosper as theirs.

Previously, when I was in Nepal, I had always been proud of the fact that though these countries maybe far developed, they lack what we have in terms of family and friends, tradition and history. There again I had to rethink my beliefs. I saw that they had as close knit families as ours and history they were as proud of as we were, so what exactly did I have?

So, what was it, was it because they had a strong government that had plans and policies in place, was it because people followed the rules, was it because the literacy rate is higher, how do they have such an effective system, I had too many questions and no answers.

Being back here you see the country is going from bad to worse in so many ways listing them isn’t even possible.

What bothers me most is the nagging doubt, will we just go on playing the blame game, will Nepal ever change, will we forever continue in this state of despair, with our complaints and problems with and find no solutions to it.