Ranjana Oli

Kudos to the Supreme Court for ordering the government to ban smoking in public places as well as imposing a ban on advertising of tobacco products.

We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to a major public health issue simply because the tobacco industry is a good source of revenue for the government. The next logical step ought to be launching of campaigns to debunk the macho image often associated with smoking. A real hero is one who can say, “You can’t make me smoke for a thousand dollars!”.

I am sort of allergic to cigarette smoke. Traveling in Nepal was a real pain in the neck with smokers around.

” दाई, सिगरेट नखाइदिनोस्‌ न!”, I would plead but all I got back was scorn and scowl for having the chutzpah to challenge the smokers’ inalienable right to smoke. Did I come from another planet? And if I was not in a mood to give up so easily, pat came the stock rebuttal - the ultimate defense in the smoker’s arsenal, ” यस्तो हो भने, आफ्नै गाडीमा जाने हो ।”.

And there would be those who would be amazed by my request: ” के भन्छ, अब सिगरेट नखानु रे; अचम्म छ, टाउको दुख्छ रे !”. I would then open the window and try to breathe in some fresh air, but the sudden blast of freezing cold air would jolt the one behind me out of his slumber. “ओ! दिदी, त्यो झ्याल बन्द गर्नु न हो!”, he would bawl out, still half-asleep.

I hope now, I can probably boldly say, ” दाई,बसमा सिगरेट पिएर अरुलाई दुःख दिनु गैरकानुनी कार्य हो। मलाई धुँवाले टाउको दुख्छ। कॄपया सिगरेट नखाइदिनुहोस्‌” and I wonder what the reaction would be! It would be interesting to see if my fellow passengers would spring to my defense should the smoker suggest that I’d better travel in my own private vehicle.

Janandolan 2 has indeed been a quantum leap for Nepal. It has created an unprecedented awareness among the common people that they can be the vehicle of change for the better. Legislation is lame without effective enforcement. An under-staffed and over-stretched police force cannot be expected to enforce the ban on smoking without public support.

सबैलाई चेतना भया !

Ranjana Oli

How many of us ‘Hindus’ have read - and digested - the Bhagavat Geeta? How many of us really understand what Hinduism is all about? How many of us know why we are called ‘Hindus’? Which of our scriptures say so? Or, are we just Hindus because we were born Hindus?

There is a growing concern amongst upper class Hindus about the lower caste communities being allured by Christian missionaries and the oil money. But who invited this situation? The so-called upper-caste Hindus themselves. For centuries, the privileged class have exploited the low caste communities in the name of religion while they themselves deviated from the righteous path of ‘dharma’. In the Mahabharat, Acharya Drona, a learned sage (Brahmin, of course) with the mastery of all the divine weapons, was so poor he did not even possess a cow to feed milk to his young son. Imagine today’s Brahmins with such knowledge and powers dutifully following their dharma. When there has been a massive transformation in the social order for which a particular code of conduct or set of laws was designed, such code of conduct and laws are no longer applicable. Read the rest of this entry »

Ranjana Oli

On behalf of all the Nepalis, both in and outside the country, I salute the death of a pro-democracy activist, Bhimsen Dahal [and Tulsi Chhetri -Admin]. They chose to die than to be chained.

Their death is a warning to the King to hand over the power to the people. We need freedom immediately, we need freedom before 9th April, 2006. And this is not a fairy tale.

We do not want to pay ‘royal’ expenses anymore. We shall not obey anyone but our motherland. Our brothers and sisters are being killed and the king is responsible for everything. We, the people of Nepal, have suffered enough. We have paid heavily to support the royal family’s extravagant luxuries only to receive bullets, bondage, curfew and death!
We do not want to whisper to our children to bow before anybody. We want to proudly tell them they are born equal to one and all.

The relationship between the King and the subject is broken the moment the subjects say we do not want to be ruled. We can rule ourselves. We do not want to be enslaved anymore. We are free. Read the rest of this entry »

Ranjana Oli

You have your Nepal and its insurgency and monarchy.
I have my Nepal and its beauty.

Your Nepal is a battlefield for men from the Left and men from the Right.
My Nepal is the magnificent Himalayas standing tall, the Daphen singing and the red, red Gurans beautifying the land.
The playing of the bamboo flutes of gwalas leading the cattle to the meadows giving the music to tall hills.
The whispering winds, the crystal clear roaring streams and the tall mountain peaks. Read the rest of this entry »

Compiled by Ranjana Oli

What went wrong in Nepal? Was democracy to blame?
“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.” - Irving Kristol

On the myopic vision of egocentric political leaders and their followers, who effectively betrayed the popular uprising of 1990.
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security” - Benjamin Franklin Read the rest of this entry »