Life Is Too Precious To End By Oneself

 

Recently a bad news story entered our staff room, 'A girl studying in B.Ed. third year committed suicide!' Soon, I found who the girl was. She was one of my students whom I knew personally. It was very hard for me to accept her passing away. So, I contacted her best friend for confirmation. She sent me a long message explaining the incident,

'She got married to the man she liked after talking with him on the phone for two or three months. They got married in Chaitra. After their marriage, things changed in my friend’s house. Her family did not accept her husband, and everyone stopped talking to her much except for her grandmother. My friend's relationship was not good, not only with her parents but also with her in-laws. Her mother-in-law had started feeling uncomfortable because of the gossip in the community. She wasn’t happy with the daughter-in-law and didn’t talk to her openly. During Dashain, she and her husband were invited to her parents’ home. She stayed there with her family during Dashain and Tihar. Last Sunday, she returned to her husband’s house from her parents’ home. On Tuesday night, she talked to her grandmother from around 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. before going to bed. But around 1 a.m. that same night, her family got a call saying that their daughter was no more. I had talked to her on Monday evening. We had planned to go to Jhapa in a few days, and she told me she would return home in a day or two. I heard the heartbreaking news yesterday, while I was on my way to Jhapa. We still don’t know what really happened or why she passed away.'

 This message included a lot suspicious questions, however, the girl had written a suicide note where she had not blamed anyone for her death but only herself.

It was not merely my student but two other cases of suicide appeared in the mass media this month. A singer Neetu Paudel set fire on herself and lost her life. The news reports said that she had been in a romantic relationship for about seven years and the couple was having some kind of arguments on when or whether to get married. A similar case is with Janaki Khadka, a lower secondary mathematics teacher from Bajura. She also committed suicide due to an unsuccessful love affair. What is common in all these incidents is there is an involvement of love or marriage which claimed these young ladies' life. And these are only some examples; there may be several such cases.

Globally, what available research studies show is that generally young girls or women are more likely to attempt suicide because of failed love affairs or relationship problems, while young boys or men are more likely to die under the same circumstances. Because of this, comparatively male suicide death rate seems to be higher than the female suicide death rate. However, if we consider Nepal alone the scenario looks quite different. Research indicates that young girls have higher suicide rates than boys due to failed affairs or marital problems. The main reasons for this are recorded as cultural factors, economic factors or interpersonal factors. Nepal, still being a patriarchal society, the cultural factors play the most significant role here. Females have many restrictions to follow. All these factors may quickly lead them to hopelessness and eventually to a decision to end their life.

I think it is just a fraction of time between the suicidal thought and action itself. If somebody is available at that very moment to talk to, the fatal situation may be avoided. There is a beautiful story in this line. An American airman Irving was struggling with some mental health issue, so he was thinking of ending his life. His colleague Palacious noticed something was wrong with Irving. He asked his friend, 'There's that barbecue happening tomorrow. If I let you go home, am I going to see you there?' Irving promptly answered, 'No. If I go home, I'm going to kill myself.' Palacious immediately knew Irving could not be left alone. He called for help and saved his friend's life. Like Irving's there are other hundreds of inspirational stories of  suicide attempt survivors.

Life itself is uncertain and too short. At the same time it is much more precious than anything else. So, is it fair to terminate it by self? Every suicidal person is not as lucky as Irving to find a friend on the spot to save their life. What can be done in such a critical situation then? We all have our high and low times, helplessness and other sad feelings. We have to deal with them ourselves by utilizing the available tools. I think among such tools spirituality is the most powerful one. It teaches us the temporary nature of this physical world. If one can internalize the truth that nothing is permanent including their life, family, property, love, marriage, in short, everything, it will be easier for him to accept all the gifts that life offers. No matter how happy or sad the moments are they all pass like flitting thoughts.

According to Hinduism we get human life only after passing through many other life forms. It is said that we have to go through 8.4 million different forms to be a human again. With our good karmas we have become humans this time, so why not to live this life to the fullest before it perishes itself?

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, November 14, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]

Heal the Aching Motherland

 

It has been more than one and a half month of the gen Z revolution, and general people's initial enthusiasm for change has gradually been fading away. They had expected the newly formed interim government would take an immediate action to punish those who were directly involved in the murder of more than 70 innocent people on the 8th and 9th of September. Unfortunately, there arose so many other issues to be addressed which blanketed the main issue of finding out the guilty people. This has created frustration in general public, and they are skeptical to get justice.

The current scenario of the country is full of uncertainties. There is no doubt that the government is trying its best to maintain normalcy but there are many challenges. In the first place, the council of ministers has not been complete yet and time is ticking out. More than this what is ridiculous is that several people who the Prime Minister recommends as minister to the President turn not to be with clean image. I think there must be extended research before taking any decision so that it should not be changed time and again. In addition, the process of selection could also be accelerated. Once the cabinet is full, then the government's sole focus would be on the main issues, which are to find out the guilty people involved in the mass massacre during the gen Z protest, to start working on anti-corruption and to hold elections successfully on time, i.e., on the 5th of March, 2026.

The government has formed a three-member probe commission headed by a former Supreme Court Judge Gauri Bahadur Karki to investigate everything related to gen Z protests and the commission has been given three months to complete the probe. I am hopeful that without being influenced by anything or anybody the commission has been working fairly to reach its goal.

The Nepali people are witnessing many unprecedented happenings during such a volatile situation of the country. Among them the most annoying thing that I am experiencing is that how people are spreading negativity using the social media platforms. They are posting fake news instigating awful comments. There is the use of foul language, swearing words and what not. 

Sadly, the same bad language used in the cyber world has come to the real world as well. It seems as if the Nepali people use this sort of language in their everyday life, which is not true. A language is related to people's identity, so using the taboo language what sort of identity we are creating? What will be an impact of this on little children who are in the process of learning the language and being massively exposed to swearing words?

We have recently seen different groups of unauthorized people entering the government offices with their demands and threatening the officers. They even asked for their resignation. It was absolutely a wrong doing in the name of so-called gen Z youths. A responsible gen Z group would never involve in such a filthy task. There must be a protocol to follow if you want something to be done in a formal organization which was breached by a bunch of young people who had pretended to be an authority themselves. Activities like theirs create terror and insecurities in people; and how can they work peacefully in their work place? After a couple of such incidents, the government has arrested some of the people who were terrorizing the government personnel. Let's hope this kind of irresponsible activities will not repeat again.

An acute blame game has also been developed after the gen Z revolution. If we believe what people are claiming, there is not a single person we can find in the country with a clean image. Whether you consider the great personality Dr. Sanduk Ruit, the Prime Minister Sushila Karki, the Minister of Home Affairs Om Prakash Aryal, the Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Kul Man Ghising or anyone who has done something good for the country, they are being criticized baselessly. Some renowned e-papers are also selling the same sort of stories. The interim government has a lot of tasks to do within a limited time. These nonsense stories may distract its main focus, and this may be the intention of rumormongers.  

 

Journalism is regarded as a very sacred  profession. It comes after the three branches of democracy - executive, legislative and judiciary. So, it is called the fourth branch. These days some journalists have also failed to follow their work ethics. I think such journalists are not journalists in real sense but they are self-proclaimed ones. I remember a so-called journalist who was shouting at one of the gen Z representatives to take accountability of every damage that had happened on the 8th and 9th of September. The poor gen Z boy was trying to clarify that the probe commission has already been formed to investigate the incidents of killing and vandalism happened on those dates but that pathetic journalist was unable to process this information. His stubbornness was ridiculous.

For the past some days Balen Shah's poem had got an entire attention on the social media platforms. In that poem only an expression 'as dirty as a farmer' was being attacked . A majority of people interpreted this expression denotatively instead of connotatively. They stated that Balen Shah insulted farmers saying that they are dirty people and they vented their anger upon him. More interestingly, the All Nepal Peasants' Federation even issued a press release asking Balen to remove this expression from the poem. The word 'dirty' reminded me my PhD days. At that time my research supervisors used to tell me to dirty my hands while conducting my study, then only I could succeed. Doing PhD and farming are equally daunting and without working hard neither PhD scholars nor farmers reach their goal.

All these examples are the evidence of our mental level on an average. We do not have practice of critical thinking, as a result, we are unable to differentiate between facts and rumors. During this critical time we, as responsible citizens, must be united for a common cause to relieve the country from all the problems that she is facing right now. 

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, October 31, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]

 

 

 

 

 

Stop Discrediting Gen Z Youths

 

What comes to your mind when you hear the term 'Gen Z group '? If you ask me the same question, I would answer that it is a particular generation of people who belong to the age group 13 to 28.  They are globally connected via the internet, so they are pretty aware of the worldly affairs and they are eager to question if they find something is going wrong or they need further explanation on certain issues. Sadly, some notorious political leaders accuse the Gen Z people of being terrorists, traitors or they even compare them with YCL (Young Communist League) people. Are Gen Z and YCL people the same? In my opinion, they are like chalk and cheese. 

The Young Communist League was born during a decade-long Maoist movement in Nepal, which dated back to 1996 and continued until 2006. Since the Maoist movement was an armed struggle, YCL was also obviously an armed youth force to support this movement. The people of my generation have experienced the terror of Maoists at that time. Do the youths of Gen Z hold the same terror? Are they calling for a civil war like YCL? Are they carrying arms? If not, then how dare those politicians address the young Gen Z people as terrorists or YCL?

Economic background 

Thanks to Aashika Tamang, a popular social activist, who, through her videos, has taken us to the places of Gen Z protesters who were injured during the protest of September 8 and 9. Tamang has shown us the real Gen Z faces. Most of the injured people seem to be college students from different villages and they have rented rooms in Kathmandu. They do not seem to be the children from well-to-do families. Through the condition of their rooms, it is clearly visible that their parents are struggling enough to support their children's education.

Whether Aashika Tamang has met the Gen Zers in their rooms or at the hospital beds, all of them look innocent, friendly and determined to bring positive changes in the country. None of them has said that they are in favour of violence. In an unequivocal voice, they simply ask for justice. I have also heard many Gen Z representatives and all of them are presenting their agenda clearly. None of them wants to instigate the violence again. They have seen a lot of loss and destruction in two days, i.e., on the 8th and 9th of September. So, they are begging for no more damage on the part of people and properties. It also does not mean that the Gen Z group is the only group that participated in the protest. There are thousands of others out there who belong to this group. Are they all terrorists?

The Gen Z protest in Nepal attracted an international audience as well. A number of international media outlets have covered the news positively. One of the Indian news channels had made a headline, 'Jis or jawani chalti hai or jamana chalta hai' or the youth leads the world. Nobody can deny that the protest was initiated with a pure intention but it is another story that it was contaminated by various anarchical elements in between. I have seen many school children in foreign countries marching on the streets with placards in support of the Gen Z protesters in Nepal. 

Not only this, in countries like India, Peru, Kenya, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco and  Madagascar also youth-led protests have begun to show their dissatisfaction on different issues. A recent CNN report 'From Kathmandu to Lima,’ states that youth-led uprisings are driving thousands from their screens to the streets, demanding accountability, change and, in some cases, toppling governments. In such a situation, how wise it is to blame the Gen Z group for every mishappening that can be observed recently in Nepal? When we go back to the Maoist movement, it never got international acceptance. 

Even though there was a ceasefire and the Maoist party entered open politics and signed a peace treaty, it still had its terrorist tag. It took six solid years to get this tag lifted by the US government. So, there is no point in comparing Gen Z with YCL. As mentioned above, Gen Zers are globally connected. If something happens in a corner of the world, it spreads everywhere in no time. It is people's basic right to get access to the information they need without any censorship. The KP Oli-led government tried to confiscate this right and all Nepali people are facing its consequences. 

Categorisation 

Based on their birth, the world's people are roughly categorised into eight categories. They are the Greatest Generation (born between 1901 to 1927), the Silent Generation (born between 1928 to 1945), the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 to 1964), the Generation X (born between 1965 to 1980), the Millennials (born between 1981 to 1996), the Generation Z (born between 1997 to 2012), the Generation Alpha (born between 2013 to 2024) and the Generation Beta (born between 2025 to 2039). 

According to their category, these people have their typical characteristics too. The available statistics shows that the younger generations, such as Gen Alpha and Gen Z, are growing rapidly and they are becoming a larger portion of the global population, approximately 24 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. In this way, Gen Z represents the world population instead of being a small political group of a country like YCL. Therefore, dear people, do not defame them by labeling terrorists, traitors or YCL. 

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, October 10, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]