HITESH KARKI

If the title sounds familiar to Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, it’s more by design than an accident. I loved that book.

I recently met a group of friends to discuss about funds we had collected to set up a foundation seven years ago after the sudden death of our mutual friend. The fixed deposit had matured and the money doubled. We were there to do decide what to do with it.

Perhaps that was when I realized why things don’t get done in Nepal. Everybody is always talking about lack of funds, but raising funds is pretty easy. We had raised some funds seven years back where our average income was barely fifteen thousand rupees, and within a week we had managed to collect almost 50,000 rupees. We Nepalis even raised funds to get a certain Prashant Tamang to become “Indian Idol”. We are compassionate by trait.

There’s another way we can raise money, and that perhaps has always been the cornerstone of Nepali NGOs. We sell poverty at international forum, write reports on how our villagers walk four hours to fetch a bucket of water, and how our children cannot go to school because they have no money. We will later send reports to donor agencies describing how, with their donation/aid (call it what you may), Harkamaya has access to drinking water in her backyard and Junge is now getting educated. I was appalled when I first learned about the trend. All we do is fabricate: ask Harkamaya to put up a smile or have Junge all dressed up for a day.

As compassionate as we are, we are also gullible!

Our friend lost his life working in a departmental store in the UAE. Till date, his death remains a mystery. At the time I was done with my bachelors and was stepping into the professional world. Not everyone had mobiles, but somehow I and other friends came to know of his death.

Sometimes immaturity can be a blessing. It makes you jump the gun without thinking. Upon hearing the news, we immediately gathered to etch out the next course of action. First, we needed to establish if that information was true, and next, get the body back to Nepal, inform his parents who lived in a remote village of Dhading, and perform his last rights. He had completed his high school under full scholarship in Kathmandu. His parents, both farmers, knew virtually nothing of him.

We knew nothing of him either after we parted ways to pursue our bachelors’. When the news broke we had no idea what to do—even little things like who to talk to. If someone told us we should talk to someone from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our follow up question would be “Where is that?” Even if someone told us it’s in Shital Niwas, we wouldn’t know who to meet.

The next three weeks were hell, running from pillar to post until we managed to find a senior from school whose father happened to be in some high profile position at the MoFA. We collected the casket at TIA and managed to get it straight to Pashupati. When a person approached us offering to buy the wooden casket for Rs. 600, we were shaken. Inside the casket was a body minus any flesh, with a note in which everything was in Arabic, except one word: ‘suicide’.

That was when we realized the harsh realities of migrant workers. Years passed and Bagmati has almost been reduced to a drainage canal.

At the meeting last week, we realized that after an emotionally charged moment where we collected funds and deposited the amount in a bank, we hadn’t done anything. We discussed what we could do next. We had matured a little bit, and we now plan to use that money to do something unique.

Since the meeting, I have been immersed in migrant issues. I have been scouring YouTube, be it ‘The plight of migrant workers’ posted by Aljazeera or Bhagirath Yogi’s short studio interview with the BBC after a much hyped story in The Guardian. The conclusion I have drawn is that it was bad then, and it is worse now. It gave me a gut wrenching feeling. I realized how alienated I have been from Nepali society, and the uproar about a certain ambassador is now much clearer.

The figures are astounding—a thousand Nepali youth leave every day, and on average, two to three caskets arrive in a day: thousand two point five.

I also scoured through other news reports. I read a communiqué from Hassan Al-Thawadi, secretary general of the Qatar 2022 Organizing Committee stating the obvious, that there are no deaths and if there have been any lapses, they will be rectified.

Of late I have been sickened by it all. I hit a wall when I came to know that almost all documentaries made on these workers have gone on to win awards at different documentary festivals around the globe. On my way to work the other day, I got a call from my deceased friend’s brother. He told me he had come to know about our recent meeting and the foundation in his brother’s name. He did not say much, apart from asking if he could borrow some money. When I asked why, the answer was baffling, to say the least. “Dai, I found this manpower company. I know the person very well. He is from my village and he tells me the salary is good…” I was hearing without listening.

All that kept ringing in my ears was thousand two point five!

Published on: 25 January 2014 | Republica