May 2077 bring peace and bliss to the entire humanity !

Dr. Narayan Narsingh Khatri

Human mind: the product of many yesterdays

13 April Kathmandu : We are the buildup of many more yesterdays and the present we live in is just the passage of the past to the future. The meaning of time is self-evident. An hour consists of a certain number of minutes, a day of hours, a month of days, and a year of months.  Nevertheless, we hardly know what happens when.

We undergo innumerable events that   occur   in an apparently irreversible succession as time keeps passing non-stop.  Days, months, years and decades pass away endlessly. We just cannot say what exactly happens when time passes. What we do is we follow it by clocks and calendars. The 2076 calendars hanged on the walls have become obsolete today.

How was 2076?

The ‘POLSE—political stock exchange’ market lost its credibility sharply.  Believe it or not, people slowly and gradually have started hating politics for so many obvious reasons. Nirmala’s rape and murder is now a history and is likely to remain a mystery. The Wide-and the Narrow-body aircraft scams ended up with the late Rabindra Adhikari. The Gold Smuggling- and the Lalita Niwas Land scams appear nowhere near the search and investigation. The Gokul Baskota’s  Audio Tape issue surprised everyone except some who dared to defend that  the voice in the Tape was not his own. Many such misappropriations can be cited on, and on, and on. As always, corruption reached sky-high and vilified the entire governance system.

Some countries that have been hit hard have already warned that they may solicit compensation from China via proper channels.

The  year during its end  encountered the deadliest punch—the Covid-19—  China’s Wuhan-originated pandemic— and terrorized the entire human beings around the globe infecting almost 1.8 million people and claiming more than 100  thousand lives. The entire Europe and the United States of America are hit hardest.

We have faced no any casualty yet.  But we follow a plain truth that casualty anywhere is a pain everywhere.  We are not safe either.  We hoped we would not enter the local transmission stage—the so-called stage 2—a very disturbing phase. This stage would have not been reached had we been effortful to hunt the covid-19 patients having followed the ‘trace, test, isolate and treat’ rule on a war-footing basis immediately after the Covid-19 outbreak.

Multilateralism and the Covid-19:

Most governments of the European Union along with that of the United States have started blaming China that the Covid-19 figured before December but was covered up.  American president—Donald Trump—has alleged the WHO to have sided with China in covering up the case. He has already issued a threat that the financial support America has been extending to the WHO would be greatly downsized.  Some countries that have been hit hard have already warned that they may solicit compensation from China via proper channels. It seems likely that China may have to face an unprecedented wrath of the rest of the world.

China’s world-beating export status is likely to face a nosedive fall for there have been indications that the multinational companies working therein are likely to get back to their home countries. Japan already decided to call back its investors from China for which it has set aside a $2.2 billion budget.  The days to come could explain many more things explicitly   as the Covid-19 outbreak mystery keeps becoming clearer.

Peoples’ uproar and panic:

People hardly fear doing immoral, being unkind and impolite, and amassing wealth by bankrupting the nation and the people, and hurting others for self benefit. But everyone fears death having known that die one must. Why is this so? It is so because the fear is not actually of death but of losing association with the belongings—wealth, properties, families, kith and kin, etc.  Covid-19 pandemic has triggered the death fear immeasurably doubling it every day and quadrupling it every night.

We may have to face the music if we keep ourselves complacent that   we have just some 12 people infected. Simple lockdown is not the cure all solution.

 The panic, paranoia and anxiety instilled into people from most depressing and distressing news from around the world have prompted more mental health issues.  Most people these days sleep the sleepless nights. This is something more serious than the Covid-19 itself. Children do not go near their parents, humans are afraid of humans, and the health workers fear their patients. Reports coming from the countryside reveal the most ironic instances that the village folks do not join the death of their neighbors suspecting it to have been caused of Covid-19; albeit ‘Marda Malami, Parda Janti— participating in a funeral of a dead person as mourners, and attending a marriage procession as celebrators’—  is what we have been abiding as a must   since time immemorial.

Can Nepal contain the contagion?

The United States of America and the European countries enjoy medically well equipped status and are capable of offering   the most advanced health care services to their people. But the outbreak has hit them the hardest.  Why? The plain and the simple answer is the carefreeness and the easygoing way of life the people kept practicing even after the outbreak. Many of the governments including that of Italy now confess that they were unprepared to combat the contagion. Call it an irony that we failed to learn from their mistakes.

Rumor has it that almost 150 thousand people—mostly Indians— have entered the Far-Western Region alone and tens of thousands of Nepalis have come back to their respective home districts after the outbreak.  But ‘how many of them have been hunted for tracing, testing, isolating and treating’ remains unanswered; although,  one of Nepal’s minister talking to the Radio Kantipur was heard saying that all Nepalis that have come home have been traced and tested.

We may have to face the music if we keep ourselves complacent that   we have just some 12 people infected. Simple lockdown is not the cure all solution. It is simply an appropriate period for   tracing, testing, isolating, and treating the people that are infected. These phases are intertwined and   need to be completed parallel.

Germany also resorted to the lockdown with intent of hunting the people massively for test. Doctors ran from home to home for testing the people during it’s a fortnight lockdown. This is what the lockdown should have been opted for and this is how the lockdown period should have been utilized.  What are our achievements during a three-week-long lockdown? Lockdown per se cannot be accepted as an achievement.

Health workers are asked to battle the covid-19 without being equipped with the much needed safety measure.  Health experts observe that the country is not adequately prepared to contain the pandemic. They seem worried for there have been no enough tests because of the dearth of health equipment. There are a lot of people to be tested. The ongoing snail’s pace test could invite ‘the doctor after the death’ situation.

The president’s address to the nation unnecessarily   defended what the government has done at a time when there is almost a consensus that the way the pandemic is handled stands nowhere near to the requirements. This is evident in itself that we have had the local infection stage.

 Let us hope  phase 2 does not end  up resulting in phase 3—community transmission—a very  devastating  stage, and phase 3 resulting in phase 4— the epidemic stage wherein transmission could be uncontrollable and the loss irreparable .

The Covid-18 positive in the three Indian nationals residing in Birgunj calls for a strong G2G understanding with our two neighboring countries especially with India for sealing the boarder to control the human influx.

Corruption and Covid-19: Which one is more pandemic?

The people in the government have once again faced allegations of corruption .The Health Ministry’s tender award to a private Chinese company to procure medical equipment worth more than $10 million got widely criticized both for quality of material and the intent of the ministry behind the deal.  The decision to assign the Nepal Army to procure medical equipment after the Ministry decided to annul the tender is not free from the criticism either. Assigning the Army with the job of buying and selling the private goods does not enhance its professionalism including its entire rank and file. Observers also smell rat in this decision for there is a practice that the Army’s work does not fall under the scrutiny of the CIAA.

Corruption—I mean sucking the nation— on anybody’s part in a bid to contain Covid-19 at a time when the entire Nepalis are uncertain of their very survival with increased exposure to distressing news and the panic and anxiety caused of increasingly growing number of infected people along with the death around the world is something people cannot tolerate. One of the debates at the moment remains: which is more pandemic— corruption or the Covid-19?

The government needs to act, does not need to look for a favor from the ceremonial head— the patron of the nation and its people— to defend its inaction.  The president’s address to the nation unnecessarily   defended what the government has done at a time when there is almost a consensus that the way the pandemic is handled stands nowhere near to the requirements. This is evident in itself that we have had the local infection stage.

Allowing the president to act in a hyperactive manner could end up with the danger of a dual regime. Her   meeting with the ambassadors in a bid to inquire on Nepalis’ condition living abroad was a cup of tea of the foreign minister. But she did it herself. Let it not be misconstrued that the president cannot do so. My simple concern is doing so does not befit her ceremonial status.

The good, the bad and the ugly:

We are society’s creation and society comprises both good and bad people. The worst and the ugliest story is that we are cursed with the people at the helm of affairs that dare to amass wealth through awarding tender to their people for procuring health equipment, the shopkeepers that ask any amount for a N95 mask which costs Rs. 250 normally, and the death merchants that charge Rs. 16,000 for an infrared thermometer which costs around Rs. 3000-3500. They are busy doing so at a time when entire Nepalis fear the deadliest fear.  But hold on, it is just one side of the story.  Let us not discomfort ourselves having looked only at them.

Let us make a bird’s-eye-view also on the greener, the brighter and the positive sides. We are blessed also with the health workers that remain busy healing the sick, and the security personnel that remain busy standing in the streets to caution us to stay home. Both help us not minding that they themselves risk the Covid-19 transmission. We are blessed with the people that feed the hungry, including the wage earners that have lost their jobs after the lockdown. Are these instances not adequate enough to solace ourselves that there is no dearth of good people too? Common, cheer up!

Nepal’s economy and Covid-19: A negative growth cannot be ruled out:

A fortnight before, I have written that the world could face an economic depression greater than that of the 1930’s. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, voiced on Thursday that there could be the worst economic downturn since the great depression.

This simply means the size of the cake could reduce substantially causing the social pie smaller. The longer the pandemic,  the bigger the loss. I am afraid that the growth rate could be even negative. 

The heavier a person, the greater the pain when s (he) falls steep down. Nepal’s economy worth not even NPR 3.6 trillion may not face that big jolt. But there is every fear that people especially at the bottom rungs of the community could face a serious starvation. The increasingly deteriorating supply chains could cause severest food shortage situation thereby causing riots, turmoil, and lawlessness. The wage earners may have to live sub-human lives. Such indications are there right now provided we could have eyes to behold.

The three of the sectors of our economy—agriculture, industry including manufacturing, and the services will face a deepest downturn.

The lockdown decision was made in a feverish haste. The decision should have been made only after allowing the people from the countryside that reside in Kathmandu as wage earners to go back to their respective villages. Had it been so, many villagers that are now in a state of becoming the street beggars, could have attained the opportunity of working on their own farms. Moreover, people in the countryside generally do not starve for many obvious reasons.

The three of the sectors of our economy—agriculture, industry including manufacturing, and the services will face a deepest downturn. The harvesting of crops could come almost into a halt in want of agricultural labors and chemical fertilizers. Most firms and factories are already shutdown.  Production of construction materials has come almost to an end causing a complete break in construction works. Hotel businesses have suffered too. This simply means the size of the cake could reduce substantially causing the social pie smaller. The longer the pandemic,  the bigger the loss. I am afraid that the growth rate could be even negative.

Remittance alone amounts almost NPR 1000 billion of our total national income. This situation will prevail no more. Nepal’s income from tourism industry will fall too.  Both of these could affect Nepal’s overall resource flow situation adversely.

The covid-19 could affect us in a multifaceted way. It could affect our economy, our social relations, our physical and mental state, and our people working abroad.  Above all, it could affect our tolerance level. One of the most serious issues is what about the job continuity of almost 6.5 million Nepalis working abroad and the measures Nepal may have to resort to accommodate them gainfully in case of  their come back.

The government should have first formed different core groups comprising politically neutral experts of different fields that could take stock of all the issues as above and recommend the needful.  Acting in isolation, deciding things in dark rooms with self interest motive, backtracking many of such decisions,  pondering always over  ‘which chair I am to occupy’ and ‘what benefits I am to get’ issues , and satisfying oneself with the lockdown decision and the ‘wash hands with soap and water’ teaching to the people do not mean anything.

Ours is a democratic polity with empowered citizens. Leaders and the people in the government are public property. People keep watching them and their actions with all vigilance. How could things remain hidden, and if hidden at all, how long?

New Year greetings:

Today marks the beginning of 2077. I am a born optimist and follow PB Shelly’s optimist note ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ whenever I sit down to writing the New Year greetings. I admire his style of cheering his readers up with the optimism that people are not cursed only with the bad days but blessed also with the good days in a cyclic manner. Making people hope is always appreciable.

I wish them a very happy and prosperous 2077 and also urge keep becoming hopeful for ‘hope ‘ is only one such word in the dictionary that makes us zealous and enthusiast to keep working with an inherent urge to survive and develop.

The need of the time is peace and bliss. Peace comes only when we ourselves are peaceful. I have one clue to offer for attaining peacefulness. Accept the covid-19 as a sort of ‘quiet reflection’ period, update but do not overload yourself with inflated and exaggerated information. Get deep down  to the meaning  enshrined in  the following ‘Shlokas’ that call your attention  in hearing only the words that make you calm and quiet; seeing  only the things that do not disturb your peace of mind; living  a  strong and  a healthy life with oblivious of everything , and remaining always  graceful to those that have given you a life:

ॐ भद्रं कर्णेभिः शृणुयाम देवाः ।
भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्राः ।
स्थिरैरङ्गैस्तुष्टुवागँसस्तनूभिः ।
व्यशेम देवहितं यदायूः ।

Rewind the past while in self isolation and memorize the Spanish Flu—the 1918 H1N1 virus— that claimed almost 50 million lives. Solace oneself with a feeling ‘Corona has come, it will go too’.  Every problem has a solution. Corona will have a solution too.

Winfrey’s optimistic note— ‘Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

Do not get mental disorder.  Remember that a small group of youth including some You Tubers is coming heavily with a counter claim that Covid-19 is just the outcome of conspiracy theories championed by a handful of the global mafias. Watch those You Tubers, but stay alert. I personally have not yet reached any conclusion to this end. I, however, find some truth in them.

I salute the health workers and the security personnel for their hard work in coping with the present pandemic. I salute all those that have been helping the helpless by way of providing meals.  And eventually, I salute fellow citizens who have been living the lives of deprivation of all sorts but have never given up their hope to get a better tomorrow. I wish them a very happy and prosperous 2077 and also urge keep becoming hopeful for ‘hope ‘ is only one such word in the dictionary that makes us zealous and enthusiast to keep working with an inherent urge to survive and develop.

I conclude my New Year’s greetings quoting an American talk show host— Oprah G. Winfrey’s optimistic note— ‘Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right (FYI: Oprah is best known for her ‘The Oprah Winfrey Television Talk Show ‘ broadcast from Chicago and also popularly known as the greatest Black American Philanthropist)’.