Stupid decision by Nepal Rastra Bank

According to news Nepal Rastra Bank has just issued a circular that from now onwards the Banking and Financial Institutions should track the sender information of any remittance inflow into the country upward of Rs 75000 that is 750USD. This so called rule is being introduced supposedly to curb the money laundering activities that might provide for the terrorist act or other  incendiary activities. No matter what the reason is, it is perhaps the most stupidest and illogical  decision that NRB has made in recent times.  And following reasons simply underscore why so

i) Remittance make up about  25% of Nepal's GDP and to make the process stringent will simply discourage the free flow of capital into the country through legal means.

ii) The entire crux of curbing terrorist act from money coming to BFI from foreign countries is totally counter intuitive , since no terrorist organization will ever be wiring money in legal way.

iii) This will further encourage people to rely on illicit means such as Hundi to carry out their transaction. As a result the country's revenue from remittance will be drastically affected and will ultimately affect the Balance of Payment situation.

iv) Since the money thus arriving will have no legal source , it can't be used in investment and hence will be spent for unproductive activities of consumption and import. This increase in  marginal propensity of consumption and import will increase the inflationary pressure . Thus putting the already bleeding economy into further doldrums. 

Lesson learned from Delhi election

Arvind kejriwal party obtaining good result in Delhi election shows that in democracy there is always room for a movement that can usurp the strong hold (monopoly) of established political parties from the power. When 'Bibekshil Nepali" started a movement many ridiculed them for being  just a social media fad. And yes it did rang true in Nepalese context as they lost badly in election. But this doesn't mean that a movement at grass-root level can't blossom which will address the pressing need of common man. This common man  which Richard Nixon famously dubbed as "Silent Majority" comprise of middle class household which is always overlooked by established political parties. And despite this they are always inculcated with an idea, from their parents  and surrounding,  that their affiliation belongs with one particular party  akin to your affiliation with the football team you support.  And it is not only the case of Nepal but also in so called bastion of democracy United states where Blacks and Hispanics always vote Democrat and Whites vote Republican. As a result common man has no choice and ultimately the democracy is defeated.

This sort of behavior  of demographic factor rather than people's choice  influencing vote has caused the formation of, in Mario Vargas Llosa's word, Perfect Dictatorship as in Mexico during last century where a single ruling party keeps on winning the election.

For democracy to thrive there must be a sea change  so that our political system turns into a market place of ideas with perfect competition  rather than a oligopoly where ideas are available in  cartel. And "Aam Aadmi" party winning is certainly a wind of change in right direction.

Promise of Devil

Devil made me

worship the god

with promise of

mended broken heart

but in the stairs of the temple

all that was left for me

was pair of cobbled shoe

Devil made me

worship the god

with promise of

paradise in the dark

but all that can be seen  was

river  of sewage glittering on  

light of golden roof

Devil made me

worship the god

with promise of

songs from the lark

but all that was  left was

 the sound of despair from

 the  dying men  full of rue

Devil made me

worship the god

with promise of

mended broken heart

but in the stairs of temple

all that was left for me

was pair of cobbled shoe

Kathmandu Under Dashain Sun

Kathmandu looks lost

lost in the silence

silence so stark

that it cries out loud

loud among the empty buildings,

shops and roads

from where people

have disappeared

Disappeared towards oblivion

where blue hills stand

among roaming clouds  that

too will  be soon gone under

the pleasant Dashain sun

whose beam basks the

fluttering kites

whose colors now challenge

the rainbow that too

was long lost.

Kathmandu indeed looks lost

lost from the noise

lost from the hubbub

lost form the indifference

care free under  the angel's arm

full of grace drawing deep sigh

hoping dashain stays here forever.

In the passing

Outside the window

Clamor of ghosts

With fiendish laugh

Yells and scream

Under the fig tree

That lumbers in shadow

In the darkness

 When the dog’s wail

At the moon

Whose dew

Wets the grass

And  you hide under

The blanket

Waiting for the sun

And in the morning

Nightmares are forgotten

And world is alright

Floating among Floaters

As Sai became disenchanted by not being able to persuade Gyan to abandon his Gorkhaland movement and Father Booty got extradited from Skkim ; all the anecdotal plots suddenly became too tortuous to follow. A feeling arose that instead of reading “Inheritance of Loss” I should have been rather watching the episode of LOST which by the way was left in cliff hanger at 5th  season’s  episode three with Jack and company stuck in 1973 at Dharma Camp. But the idea of watching DVD vanished into thin air when cruel realization of looming load shedding that will turn my Tv dead for next 4 hours hit my mind.

 Disaffected by what seemed like the never ending energy crisis, I contrived to take siesta under greatest energy source of all, the sun. With insolation that had fallen to minimum due to approaching winter solstice accompanied by chilly wind, the sun god remain unkind. But still it was warm enough for my skin to kick in a feedback mechanism that eventually released enough melanin to act like natural sunscreen. With increased melatonin in my blood, magic started to take place inside the hypothalamus producing the hallucinogenic incidence of uncontrollable sleep. All of sudden as if being under the spell of that green angel Absinthe my mind delve into the uncharted peaks of Kanchanjunga. And before I knew, I was inside the booker prize wining novel floating along the mist surrounding Cho Oyu akin to when Alice went through that looking glass. The dampness in surrounding air and the musk of oak woods in library were as tangible as it really could be. I could clearly discern the scattered pages of national geographic strewn haphazardly on the table.  Meanwhile the mutt was also lying under the chair of judge. And unexpectedly, as if sensing my presence it began to bark on the top of the voice.  As if dragged by some intractable and unforeseen force I was pulled apart from majestic of Sikkim and suddenly found myself lying prone on my terrace. The usual suspect for the misdemeanor was Rocky barking at top of his voice spurred by no good street children making cat calls towards it.

Acquiescently I turned over yelled at the mutt on top of my voice. Hearing my remonstration, he quickly whimpered and stretched his legs to take a nap. And before I knew, it began snoring, a typical “ swana nidra”. As for me, akin to taking heavy doses of caffeine, my sleep   was lost to oblivion and what left behind was shred of temptation to again witness the grandeur of Cho Oyu. I longed for the Lucid dream. The class of dream that was pioneered by Frederik van Eeden, where one can control the flow of dream and do what one pleases to do. I myself have been fortunate to experience such dreams few times before, even out of body experience and believe me experiencing it is real fun. For instance many years ago, once in middle of one of my dream I suddenly realized that I have a power to control it, and not wanting to lose the golden opportunity I floated to place where the girl I had crush on lived and I kept on chatting with her as if there was no tomorrow. But the sad thing is that was probably the longest and perhaps the most memorable conversation I ever had with her. So my advice is if there ever is happenstance of experiencing it, then cherish it forever. But unfortunately experiencing it is not like calling a cab; it is more analogous to finding a gold mine in your backyard. Some say meditating before going to sleep can induce larger frequency of lucid dreams, but in middle of day after having lunch I was in no mood for meditating. So, abandoning all hopes of floating inside the book, I turned supine.

All of sudden something caught my eye. Up in the azure sky where clouds floated aimlessly, something else was also moving in random.  Like beads of iridescent speck it glided to and fro, bulk of intangible unidentified flying objects. More I tried to focus on it harder it became to isolate it. As if obeying the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle, that states electron’s position and momentum simultaneously cannot be computed precisely without compromising one another thus nullifying the possibility of existence of absolute zero, the floaters were also irresolute and there appeared no absolute rest. After a while I came to realization that Brownian motion was actually being exhibited by nothing else but dead cells floating in aqueous humor and owing to diffraction of sun light around its periphery all the shimmering was being manifested. So much for the romantics of UFO. This is what science has led us to, a world devoid of innocence where floating in dream is relegated to movement of dead cells and dreams like Gorkhaland and Utopia is subverted to cruel reality of subsistence.

How Human Decide

There are three level of decision making i) Instinct ii) Emotion and iii) Logic
These three qualities came through evolution. In lower life forms instinct can be witnessed. Even sponges and coelenterates have that characteristics.
Emotion meanwhile comes only in higher vertebrates starting from Aves and is entrenched in mammals. Logic however can be seen only in man with exception of dolphins and apes.

So question arise which one is best? Of course the answer is logic. But it is not as powerful as emotion. That’s why politicians play with emotion, we vote with emotion. Words like hope and change jingles in our ears and blind sights us. When reality sinks in logic takes over, but its too late


But this doesn't mean we all become a robot and be slave of logic. But at least we can try not be entrapped by emotion.


And of course there is something that encompass all three and which we though claim, we never have and it is called "compassion". Something only god possesses.

Lets hope we evolve from logical and emotional being to compassionate being someday.

Shadows and Charade

In the candle light

On the wall

Shadow lingers

Playing charade

A guessing game

With little clues

And sleight of hands

Moving parade

Mute shapes

Screams and laughs

Triumphs and struggles

Deafening dread

The world of shadows

Forms and crumbles

Like a bubble

On riverbed

Full of irony

Shadows dances

Till it disappears

As candle fade

In the candle light

On the wall

Shadow lingers

Playing charade

Riddles and Rhymes

She asked in riddle

and I answered in rhyme

She asked in riddle

and I answered in rhyme

she asked what does  the setting sun says

and I answered time has come

for shadows to go home

she asked why do tears always roll down

and I answered because rivers have

 to flow towards the south

she asked why do clouds drift aimlessly

and I answered because little do they know

they have to fall down as rain

She spoke in riddle

and I reasoned in rhyme

She spoke in riddle

and I reasoned in rhyme

she spoke life is constant ebb and flow

and I reasoned there's always

 moon to pull the tide

she spoke war is won and peace is lost

and I reasoned god is in his slumber

and love is forsaken

she spoke dreams are murky and nightmares are vivid

and I reasoned rainbow rises only during the rain

I asked in riddle and

She reasoned in rhyme

I asked in riddle and

She reasoned in rhyme

I asked should our path of

endearment take leap of faith

And she reasoned sometimes

Road less traveled is

less traveled for reason

Wistful Trash Can

The door that you never opened

and the door that I never closed

opens up the vault of abyss

that traps the echoes of past

loneliness of present and

longings of future into a colloidal

amalgam of  a ketchup

squeezed into a trash can.

The book that you never read

and the book that I never wrote

creates a fiction of memory

with a narrative of error where

Satan and God trade their

places and saints and sinners tear

away the pages which are

dumped into a trash can.

The song that you never listened

and the song that I never sang

plays a melody of emotion with

the destructive beat of drums

which forays into heartache

that lumbers to and fro

resonating the din of

slamming into a trash can

The road that you never took

and the road that I never left

led into a meandering trail of

misty forest where sun hid

under the canopy and the darkness

opened into the glade of deception

packaged in a wrapper of garbage

thrown into a trash can

The words that you never heard

and the words I never spoke

Recited a poetry of comedy

with vision of paradise whose gates

adorned by the warning sign

beware of dog scribbled on

the tarnished tin plate

corroded into a trash can

The door that you never opened

and the door that I never closed

opens up the vault of abyss

that traps the echoes of past

loneliness of present and

longings of future into a colloidal

amalgam of  a ketchup

squeezed Into a trash can.

From the Porch that Overlooks the Zoo

The lines read “Winding road in the desert was unending. My mouth was totally parched and a tranquil lake in front beckoned. I ran across sand dunes only to find it to turn into a bloody mirage. And alas! I woke up profusely sweating. It was a nightmare. Again! ”.  My first impression was little Miss Barbara Holmes was too much caught up in Twilight movies and her writing style though very persuasive was still bit childish, which was of course natural considering her to be just around fourteen and studying in ninth grade. She pressed me on to give my opinion and I said it was really good piece and complimented her by further adding that she has all the geniuses to be a great writer in future. Her face blushed and eyes sparkled with my comments. She became so ecstatic that she nearly overturned the hot cup of tea and upset few saccharine cubes into the parqueted floor which eventually induced swarm of ants to creep up through the small cracks thus invading the entire wooden cabin. All the racket however didn’t seem to have any effect on the vultures in cage below. They looked stoic and were somber as usual.

 I ran into Barbara at the Café Sundae which adjacents the zoo. The place is newly renovated house that boasts a fine porch which overlooks the bird section. With its low arch and wall engraved with fine stucco punctuated by beautiful murals the entire place is exquisite. Besides, the straw roof and hanging rafter that nested bevy of little swifts, gave the picturesque room a dose of inexplicable irony. At the end of the corner a low recliner stood, lying on which one could glance into the bird cages below that stretches to the far west corner where a dark silhouette of large Ostrich lumbered to and fro. As I spoke, hundreds of birds under the captivity, on a futile attempt to break free, were flying within the cage in Sisyphean manner. Inside one of the cage a starling was peering out venting a melancholy air perhaps with longing of murmuration, meanwhile nearby a golden pheasant was stoking a twig probably looking for some left over grains. Being a Sunday afternoon the place was not that crowded but it still harbored enough yelp and cries of little children to perturb the roosting aves. And in the middle of all there stood a tree with its overbearing nonchalance towards captive birds. It was showing no emotions and exhibited same countenance as it had shown several years before.

As I was watching the scenes unfold, Barbara and two of her friends Jason and Alexa entered the room. Jason, a freckled face boy holding a crib of A4 size paper, screamed at top of his voice pointing at bald eagle-“Look at that grumpy old fellow “. Alexa, a girl with braided hair and pointed nose, who seemed to be his sister, admonished him not to scream in front of strangers all the while squinting towards me. Meanwhile Barbara, a tall blonde girl with blue eyes glanced around indifferently and quickly reclined into a nearby couch followed by her friends. All three children were carrying textbooks and had a school bag with them. A waiter came along and took order for some junk food consisting of Nachos and Cheese Burger and they started to chatter again. With the presence of three kids the solitude I was looking for disappeared and place turned into a bedlam. In particular Jason was using a lot of colorful languages and was swearing at Earnest Hemingway for writing such a story as “Big Two hearted river”. Even Alexa who was disapproving of his behavior nodded and interjected saying-”How the hell a guy fishing relates to disenchantment towards war?” Being a huge Hemingway fan I couldn’t tolerate three snotty kids ripping him like that and proceeded to explain to them “Iceberg theory’  which was completely against my grain. The kids were astonished at first. They might have found it weird that some stranger lecturing them on English literature but after a while they came around and became friendlier.   

I learned that they were actually students at Lincoln school and were children of some diplomatic attaché at US embassy. Apparently, they were doing an assignment on creative writing which included an essay on Hemingway and in addition a short story of their own. They were at the café trying to get some fresh air that can stimulate their mind allowing the creative juices to flow. Upon my imploring they showed me the manuscript of text they have so far written. Alexa had written a story about a city girl trapped in the enchanted Dolce shoe that she bought in Wal-Mart. The narrative was fantastic but suffered from many plot holes. On the other hand Jason had written about a mercenary sent by CIA to fight Bolivarian Intelligence at Barquisimeto, who later is jailed in Carcasses. His knowledge of geography of the country particularly Andes Mountains, was impressive and without my further inquisition he told me that he had been to Venezuela several times accompanying his father and has even shaken hands with Hugo Chavez. Perhaps, future Fredrick Forsyth I pondered. Barbara, meanwhile was a shy girl. She was reluctant to show me her writing but upon everyone’s insistence finally she gave me her story. With her high cheek bone and large eyes she reminded me of someone I used to knew. Her cursive handwriting was beautiful and the best thing of her writing was proper use of punctuation mark. And the frame narrative she used is not something you get to read in contemporary literature.

Creative writing can be a daunting experience for anyone. To let your imagination run wild and at same to have a rein of control is akin to stepping on two boats, syncretizing which requires a skill that only few possess. It is said that through the means of creative writing one can gaze into others mind. For instance in Virginia tech massacre, Seung-Hui Cho, the psycho who perpetrated the heinous crime is said to have written several menacing essays that delineated his troubled mind and in the hind sight of the tragedy many of his teachers and peers were disappointed for not seeing the warning signs. Coincidentally Barbara’s story, entitled “Nightmare again’ also detailed all the blood and gore, despite that it didn’t occur to me at all, that she too had cultivated misanthropic tendencies. But in that surrounding the thought that all the lowlights in the society are at large while freedom loving birds were caged was a night mare indeed.  

As the food was brought in, all three of them jumped into the plate gobbling it up with total disregard to the manner, thus abruptly bringing an end to our deliberation in English literature. Kids being just kids I guessed. I too lost interest and again started to look towards the zoo. I saw a little boy being accompanied by his parents watching intently at jackdaws. Nearby a young couple were lost in their own world oblivious to the surrounding. Entire circle of life could be witnessed in that single frame. Kid comes to zoo with his parents, later with his girlfriend and afterwards with his own kid. And the birds are simply ancillary that becomes part and parcel of it. All the while the tree watches everything without passing any judgments. Just like it did in distant past, when a swing was attached to it and someone beautiful was swaying in the wind with the entire majestic. Believe me it was not a nightmare.

Ephemeral joy

You and I sat across the pond

Throwing pebbles into water

Unbeknownst of its fate

Making fleeting ripples

That took shape

Shape of heart,

Shape of joy and shape of hope

The ripples cut through silently

Making circles, interspersing each other

Dissolving into each other.

 With aim to reach the shore but

Retreating without sound

But now water has dried and the pebbles ran out

You and I still seat across the pond  

 without ripple without shape

with only debris of broken dreams left behind.

Daisy in the rut and nature at all smiles

Wind swayed gently and a bee waddled among the bushes, fleetingly perched on the sweetness of rose and finally nestled on the smiling daisy. Another one came along and made a sinusoidal crescendo of humming sound and settled on neighboring inflorescence. It is daisy’s day I thought. For some reason it appeared that entire swarm of bees on the hive were ignoring calls of all the other flowers in garden and crowding towards her.  Feeling slighted, proud rose seemed to have become crestfallen and was looking sideways. Meanwhile jasmine as usual looked indifferent and lily upholding her wont appeared jealous. With ranging emotions in garden the colors ignited into vivacious semblance akin to those portrayed in English summer of Jane Austen’s novel.

Just a couple of months back a article was published in British science journal that said researchers at Queen Mary  and Royal Holloway university discovered that the tiny bee brain can actually traverse the Travelling Sales Man problem. This NP-hard problem which is often considered as the benchmark for studying optimization and has captured imagination of generation of computer scientist all over the world all of sudden became a child’s play for these tiny hymenopterans.  All the anguish of Mathematician like Hamilton and Kirkman when they discovered the problem  and entire chagrin of any  junior at computer science course for having to read theory of computation and delve into  seemingly much ado for nothing realm  of computational complexity, abruptly appeared puerile in front of mother nature’s play.

Nature is indeed a mathematician, painter, scientist and artist. Otherwise how would she know that the symmetry of dancing flowers should follow Fibonacci ratio, or radioactive element should decay with years corresponding to natural logarithm.  Who knows some day, some where we might read that researchers discovered that school of fish actually triumphed in solving the convoluted partial differential equation of Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness whose partial solutions manifests as a grim reaper to any engineering students studying fluid dynamics. Perhaps this will lead to discovery of better aviation engines that will reduce the turbulence and make your flight as smooth as silk as advertised by Thai air in days to come. And you no longer will have to be judgmental towards the veneer in airhostess face that is trying to hide the inherent fear of flying while portraying a phony smile.  And probably the Clay Mathematics Institute will bestow Mother Nature with prestigious Millennium prize with cool cash of 1 million dollar, which she will certainly spurn just like Mr. Grigori Perelman did after solving Poincar`e Conjecture.

All of sudden, the atmosphere changed and flowers appeared to gossip again. The topic of conversation might be that bees were going back to their hives leaving miss daisy lonesome again. Though chrysanthemum seemed to console her, queen rose appeared to be leading the rhetoric while jasmine was again indifferent. Though all the girls in the yard were cursing the impropriety of bees, no one can hide their true colors mingled with tinge of schadenfreude. Actually what usurped the joy of princess daisy was the portending rain.  And before they could shelter the rain poured abysmally, which instigated helter-skelter among all the creatures that were hitherto enjoying the sun. Mother Nature was at it again, wielding her magic wand to bring forth another episode of chaos which ironically is called butterfly effect in mathematics. Only this time its precursors were those unseemly bees.  And before the order was settled a wayward squirrel jumped over with a trajectory characterized by Lyapunov exponent that even fastest computer won’t be able to compute, and adding injury to insult landed on forlorn miss daisy. Unable to shield against that brute force she eventually succumbed to the rut.  As if teaching the lesson of ephemeral joy and ubiquity of transience cloud went a drift, sun came out and nature smiled again.

Sound of eyes

When the eyes meet

There is no sound

But only trembling of heart

Along with beating of pulse

That resonates

Resonates subliminally

In frequency where passion

Whirl in eddies

akin to  driftwoods spinning aimlessly

When the eyes meet

There is no sound

But music plays

Music with colors

Palpable and sharp with brightness

Contrasting with monotonous

drab of grey clouds

that tears down

 into rain dancing joyfully

When the eyes meet

There is no sound

But flame is still lit

Which in wind dances

The Dance of tango

To and fro in the dark

With burning anvil

Forging the bond of hope

That grows slowly but steadily.

But when the hope has passed

Flame has died

Music has stopped

And hearth turned cold

The meeting of eye still

brings warmth

giving one more reason to smile.