KATHMANDU, May 21: I am not a politician, so forgive me for not understanding your motives. My last name has never been more than a last name to me all my life and it never stopped me to achieve what I want to do or where I want to go.
I have never been bothered by anyone’s last name either; I have Shrestha, Kharel, Thebe and Thapa friends and I didn´t become friends with any of them because they were Shrestha or Kharel or Thebe or Thapa.
I am an ignorant little girl, so forgive me for not understanding why you feel that my country needs to be divided into tiny ethnic pieces.
Does this mean I cannot be friends with any of them any more? Must I only have Sherpa friends now? Is it because we are too different? It is strange, because I never noticed those differences that you are so keen to increase.
In fact, most of my friends are my friends because we have so many things in common. We laugh at the same jokes, read the same books, and share similar interests. But maybe I missed something somewhere; may be our racial identity plays a bigger role than our identity as a human. Is that what you’re trying to say here?
I cannot understand why our country needs to be shut so often either. It must be for the greater good of the nation, because you, our great leaders, must know better. But it can be pretty difficult to live days cooped in, unable to go to work for money or buy food with the little money we’ve saved.
If I may say, it is also a little hard on us when we have our board exams for which we have been studying all night, and then we have to walk all morning to reach the exam centers.
I know that sacrifices are necessary to make a nation great, but sometimes I feel I am unhappy. That is probably because I am too much of an idiot to understand how by not working and staying home today my country will be better off tomorrow.
But I am sure you can explain it clearly to me and I don´t doubt it at all. And when you do that, can you also please explain it to millions of other Nepalis who are just as baffled by all this as I am?
(The writer is an A-Level graduate who is currently a Librarian at Khagendra Nawajeewan Kendra.)
PLEASE DESIST FROM ATTACKING THE WRITER PERSONALLY AND BE RESPECTFUL TO OTHER READERS.
Please give your full name while posting your comments. This is not to stifle the free flow of comments but your full name will enable us to print the comments in our newspaper.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
Copyright © Nepal Republic Media Pvt. Ltd. 2008-10.