Last week I was reading a series of posts from this bhai, NayaJivan.
http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/OpenThread.cfm?forum=2&ThreadID=84713

He seemed to be going through a crisis and was inclined to take his life. He posted in sajha and seemed to be reaching out to people. One of the things this bhai was saying was that he was disconnected from the way Nepalese think. For me, reading his posts, it was obvious that he was influenced by American culture to the point that he did not know how Kathmandu culture functions. Kathmandu culture is not the whole culture of Nepal, but Kathmandu culture, for obvious reasons,  influences the rest of Nepal disproportionately compared to other major cities in Nepal.
As sad and sympathetic as I was reading this bhai's posts, one thing that really struck me about the way this NayaJivan bhai wrote was that he sounded like someone expressing pain on Oprah. What this bhai did not seem to understand is that in Nepal, we don't have an Oprah culture. In our poor nation life is merciless to those who fall behind. If someone is in pain, we are more likely to blame them for doing something wrong. We are a nation with very few resources and we encourage our children to be baatho enough to, by hook or crook, be able to get their way. There is no room for stragglers who fall behind in our culture. We encourage them to be someone who is baatho and is able to make even a bad situation work for them. We tell them to be chaalu in being able to do office politics, business or whatever to get their way. In Kathmandu we highly respect people who can get their way in all kinds of circumstances. In fact, in many ways, these are the kinds of people we want to be connected with for 'source force.'
But interestingly enough, as much as we encourage these qualities in our children, when these same children grow up and some of them become politicians who find all kinds of creative ways to be baatho at the common man's expense, we express great regret. We call these politicians all kinds of negative names like corrupt and evil. And yet, in many ways it seems that we teach our children to be baatho and encourage being able to survive in Kathmandu culture by hook or crook. How contradictory?

How much are we Nepalese responsible for the quality of politicians that we produce by the culture that we encourage? Or is this like pointing to the emperor that he has no clothes on? 

I think that our main complaint about leaders, whether they are political, business or in the bureacracy is that they are not willing to sacrifice for the sake of 'love of the nation.' We the Nepalese people feel like we can demand that these leaders *should* sacrifice their self interest for the sake of the nation. We feel adamantly that sacrifice for the sake of the nation is an unquestionable belief for every Nepali but especially the leadership. We feel that any type of leader in Nepal should not only choose to be a leader if he/she can meet our standard but should voluntarily abdicate his position of leadership if he is not willing to abide by *our standards.* Our standards (the people's standards) is that only those Nepalis who are willing to sacrifice for the nation should become a leader.

Unfortunately, most of the people that become leaders in Nepal don't give a damn about our standards. It seems that for them, the incentive of loving the nation has a very low ROI (return on investment) compared to pretending to have the nation's interest in mind...while looking out for their own. It seems that many of the leaders feel that Nepal has a very little to give to them. So it seems that sooner or later in their political life they become more interested in being able to survive untill the next election rather than sacrifice their political careers like a suicide-bomber, for the sake of the good of the nation. It seems that many of the leaders feel that no one is really looking out for them. So why should they put themselves on the line for everyone else? We have all managed to justify our own excuses. The more educated you are the more sophisticated your justification.

So in this way, all us Nepalis people are pointing to some one else. We are all pointing at someone else who we feel should sacrifice ahead of us. Even on sajha forum I have read postings where people are saying, "Don't ask me to go back to Nepal and do something. The educated and qualified people should go back to Nepal first. They should rescue Nepal and then the rest of us will go back to Nepal when everything is honky dory."

Many of us are all standing on this island called America and Nepal is looking like the Titanic that is sinking. It is a ship that is going down fast. And all of us in America are looking at this slowly sinking ship from the safety of standing on the solid ground of the American island. And we are telling each other, "Hey, you are more qualified to be captain of that sinking ship than I am. I don't have any skills that will help Nepal. So I think you should go to Nepal. Look at me, I am not that intelligent, educated, dedicated, etc. So please, you do something. I will fully support you with heart, mind and spirit. Why don't you do something?"

Pire,

You are right that since 1950 Nepal has developed a lot. But the world has developed a lot too.

Compared to where Nepal was in 1950 in relation to the world, do you feel that Nepal is in a better position in relation to the world or in a worse condition in relation to how the rest of the world has developed?

I don't see people who left the Titanic, Nepal, as rats. I more see them as the rich/educated passengers aboard the Titanic who used their influence to get out of the ship before the poor passengers could (which is what happened aboard the real Titanic). I basically see that those who could afford to escape the ship, did. And many of us, now that we are safe on the island, we are looking back at the Titanic and cursing the captains and the crew for their horrible navigation and leadership. After all, it was their negligence that caused the Titanic ship called Nepal to hit all these political and economic icebergs. We could all have been enjoying the wonderful parties and social activities and fun aboard the Titanic called Nepal. Instead, here we are stranded aboard the island called America where we are trying to figure out how to make peace among the wild and uncultured aboriginal natives aboard this island who don't speak our language. Many of the poor passengers aboard the Nepali Titanic were living in squalid condtions in cramped quarters and low quality food. Many of them, now that they are aboard the island, are actually finding that their condition is better on the American island than it was aboard the ship. The rich passengers aboard the Nepali Titanic feel quite torn. They remember the good times they had aboard the Nepali Titanic and wish life was still the same. Many of these passengers feel trapped on this American island and wish that they could be aboard the Titanic again...enjoying those good old days. But alas, looking through their telescopes the Nepalis aboard the American island can see that the condition of the Nepali Titanic continues to deteriorate and more people are abandoning ship to come to the American island.

Surrounded and overwhelmed by the strange customs and practices of the abroginal natives on this exotic American island, both the rich and poor who were on the Nepali Titanic are finding a certain kinship to each other on the American island that they did not have when they were aboard the Titanic. They find themselves drawn to each other with a commonality of culture that they wouldn't have shared if they had remained aboard the Titanic.

 I got carried away with the analogy. Pire, is my analogy convincing you yet?