A very principal factory of Nepal was closed during the Dashain and the consequence was that nothing bad happened to the majority of Nepalis during its closure. There was a huge lock on the gate of Nepali political factory and things were fairly peaceful in the country. Does it mean that when political industry is not in action, we are the happy lots? Once the political industry opened and the workers and technicians went in, the fanciful times were over.
On the tenth day of Durga Puja, I had a vivid dream while taking a short afternoon nap after the Tika ritual. I saw a huge factory on the way from Naubise to Thankot. The place from where the Ganesh Himal can be clearly seen. On your left when you are approaching toward the Kathmandu valley, you can see the icy Himalayan range. There was a big building complex on a nearby hill. The architecture was stylishly a ruin. Instead of the famous pagoda roof, there was nothing but an ugly and tall chimney.
I took out my telescope which actually was a blackboard duster, I remember. People were looking agitated at an oversize lock on the carved wooden gate. Someone told me that most of the onlookers were the famous Nepali politicians. They had closed the industrial complex for the Dashain respite and had gone home. Yesterday night, someone stole the key from under the pillow of the Family Minister, and now the politicians cannot enter into the factory and resume their good work.
I suddenly saw me standing by the side of a familiar politician though I was just passing by on a speeding Micro bus. There was a student named Romkant standing by my side who was smiling and content. "Aren't you concerned?" I asked. "Why should we? If the factory is closed, we are liberated!" He was overjoyed and asked me to pray to Devi not to find the keys. One of the politicians overheard him and wanted to inquire. "You must be the chor (thief), the politician wanted to hold Rom by his Puja garland. Rom started running up on the hill and the politicians started chasing him. One political sprinter caught hold of the student and both fell down the scree slop. I realized that Romkant was me hit hard by a rock. Both stopped and as the politicians hit me on my face, I was awake. I can still remember the dream and the big left fist of the politician.
When politics plays nothing, people and places are happy and safe. The times of festival are the occasions when political agenda have almost nothing to interfere with. Or to put things honestly political institutions lack intelligence to meddle with the rituals of religious kinds. Thus my proposed argument is that when politics is distanced, nation's course is smooth.
Why then politics makes things uneven? The reasonable question rather is why politicians of this country make things complicated Either political matters should not go with the politicians or politics is too intelligent a matter for our politicians to comprehend. There may be many more answers for the questions I have raised, but the interesting point is that if nothing party political happens in Nepal, life is calm and quiet.
The party politics has poked its nose in election matters, ethnic problems, electricity and petroleum, and what not. In the matters of festivals and rituals, the same active political think tank has no plans and programs. No slogans, no public participations, and no promises of faith! One would thank the politics and the politicians for not meddling with social rituals. Since most of the time politics has done damages while interfering with others instead of solving problems, the good for the nation is due to the pity politicians have shown towards the majority of Nepalis. One should thank them!
Thus festival times are calm not necessarily for being the time of worshipping the great goddess, but for politics not meddling with common rituals. Politics has left the nation calm and peaceful at least for some time. One still would not wish for such calmness because such kind of peace is not the course of progress the Nepalis would wish for.
The contents of the dream correspond with the contents of the desire. The desire is not to do away with politics but to question perpetual errors in the working of the political institutions of this country. Political functions have been weak, unplanned, leaky, and mediocre for many long years of contemporary times. Nepali politics acts and breeds frustration and when it is distanced, people are in leisurely moods.
I do not want to generalize that during the Durga Puja festival, Nepali political institution was inactive thus things turn good in the country. The problem one wants to point out is that political inaction makes nothing happen in the country like during the Durga Puja. When nothing happens things are calm and quiet but when things happen, politics makes them bizarre and even chaotic. Only if our politics could correspond with the moral goals of this country!
