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In Buddhist philosophy, it is constantly reminded that “Life is uncertain, but death is”. To remind myself that I am mortal and will perish one day, I go to funerals. This might sound off-putting to some but every time I am at the ghat or any other funeral home, it just reminds me how fragile life is, that one day we are full of anger and ego and the next day we are gone.

Last week, I attended the funeral of a close friend’s dad. Since 2020 January, every time someone is admitted to hospital, we ask if it is covid. For some reason, we find solace when it is not. It is the trauma we all are suffering due to the pandemic. My friend had this weird satisfaction that his father died of a regular pneumonia and not of covid, as the family would now be able to do the final rituals personally.

A loss is a loss and no one but the family can feel it. We might feel similar emotions but the absence of that one particular person in their lives is forever irreplaceable. Sometimes the suffering during the last days are prolonged, giving the family time to cope. But a lot of times, it just comes as a shock. Such losses take more time to heal.

And each time I go to the ghat for a funeral, the demised person is different but I see few similar characters. I believe these items exist in every family, this set of few people who have to guide the family with the rituals. They keep pestering with the do’s and the don’ts. They somehow make the family believe that if they do not do the right thing—that is according to the “guru” or the way the rituals are traditionally done—the deceased will not find their way to nirvana.

It makes me question, what is the right way? I understand there are family rituals that need to be followed. I say family rituals as I have seen them done differently, from family to family, even if they come from the same religion. So again, what is the right way?

Here, I wish to give an example of my own family. I appreciate the presence of a particular uncle, who probably has not missed any of the family funerals until now. He is always there and I respect his dedication. That said, somehow he expects the funeral to run according to him. He keeps on breathing down the neck of the family, especially the son who is doing the rituals. Think of it, he has lost his father or mother, he is traumatized, he is grieving, he has so many things already going in his head due to the loss—and there is this immense pressure to do the rituals right.

That makes me think, maybe hundreds of years ago someone rebelled and did not listen, which changed some rituals in the family. That is why even when we are from the same religion, some of our rituals are different. Maybe it is time we should let the core family decide how they want to do the final rites. Perhaps we can just stand quietly in the corner and make them feel the support and not talk at all. Silence is a response and support at the same time.

Psychologically, many have this notion that the final rituals need to be done properly or else the soul will not find its way and those like this uncle gather a few more like-minded people just to make it worse for the grieving family. I think we should let the family do things the way they wish to do. There is no right or wrong way, as they already have lost a big chunk of their lives. Giving them a little peace and space is what we need to do.

Another thing that pinches me a lot is the language we use. When we are alive, we are called by names. But once we are dead we suddenly become las, a dead body. The term people insensitively use. “Who is bringing the las?”, “Can someone cover the las with abir?” Maybe I am too sensitive but it is high time we curated another way of speaking at these places. The deceased still has a name and the named soul lived in that body until today.

Funerals are already an awkward place, always under confused clouds. Even when we feel we are part of the family, it is important not to burden the family with our opinions. Our presence is enough for them to understand we are there, our priceless opinions can wait.

“While doing my PhD in the US, I was convinced that I will return to Nepal after working for a year or two here. But it's been three years since I completed my doctorate, and the long thought about ‘homecoming’ is nowhere in sight!” Medani Sangroula, a postdoc research associate at MIT, wrote on social media this week. The main reason for his change of mind, he writes, is the education prospects for his children.

Sangroula is a perfect example of the ‘well-intentioned and self-exiled’ Nepalis who have got access to a ‘better’ life in developed countries through their education. Now associated with one of the best institutions in the world, he has all the right to think about his personal ambition and progress. Most of his education was done in Nepal and now, he is hesitant to return because of the lack of matching education facilities for his offsprings in his home country.

From this perspective, the decision is a no-brainer. “I am pleasantly surprised by the science paper of my son who studies in grade 3. School education in the US is free, while in comparison, good quality education is not affordable in Kathmandu’’, he writes, obviously referring to the poor government schools and some of the costliest private schools of the valley. Combine this with the country’s poor health infrastructure and returning to the country becomes unthinkable for many Nepalis.

It's an open secret that our education system, combined with the health system, have become the most lucrative business for the politically connected influential ‘mafias’, and unethical business practices are common. Marred by corruption and irresponsibility, people don't trust the government-run hospitals and educational institutes on quality either. But a major contributor for this decay is also brain drain. And Like all things, politics is at the center of this vicious circle.

Political turmoil, long uncertainty and the natural preference of our society to work abroad--the lahure culture--have caused mass migration of both skilled and unskilled Nepalis. As of today, a third of our working population is estimated to be outside the country.

Remittances contribute almost 40 percent of the GDP, and they have saved the economy from crashing, but unproductive use of capital, barrening of arable land, lack of focus in production, and completely derooting of the traditional farming system based in a family set-up have caused us to import almost everything that we consume. The fiscal deficit is at a dangerous level.

The biggest impact of this mass exodus is on our politics. The long overdue revolution to purify politics through a youth intervention has not gained any momentum as the youths are mostly away. But most ironically, the hesitance of qualified people like Sangroula to return to Nepal also contributes to the poor state of our educational institutions.

Despite this gloomy picture, some committed education leaders are trying to make an impact at the grassroots, both at community and private schools. Gyan Pande, a teacher of the Mirmi Basic School in Kaligandaki Rural Municipality in Syangja district, is one such champion. His struggles in the school for the past 15 years have given great results: school activities are mostly run by independent and motivated students and school teams excel in almost all district level competitions. The students also produce their own weekly radio program that is aired across many FM stations. 

Another example of an individual with proven commitment to changing the status-quo for the better, in the private sector, is Pratibha Dangol, the founder of Kamane School in Hetauda municipality. Dangol has focussed on experiential learning principles and worked hard to educate parents to accept her progressive ideas of using the community as a curriculum. Happily accepted by the local community, she now has plans to build her school as a base to create a research and training center for experiential learning methods in pedagogy for other teachers too. 

In Kathmandu, Sauriya Khanal, the founder of Prasiddha Model School, is fighting hard to establish an educational institution founded on the principles of excellence and affordability. After returning from the UK, she invested her savings and also some ancestral assets to build a school on progressive ideas. Now she is trying to raise funds for a residential school that “provides a combination of high quality international education with Nepali Values, with botany at its heart and moral education as its soul”.

I have brought in these examples in my column with a clear aim: to bring to light the efforts of many such individual champions who are putting their best foot forward to make it a better country, despite all the hurdles. The criminal-minded dark forces are well connected and their nexus will be unbreakable unless, like the late Ujwal Thapa used to say, we make a syndicate of the ‘good people’. 

Those who are working hard to make your home better are crying for help--the least you can do is support them.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 is a historical milestone. Anyone who has read the opening sentence of this document’s Article 1 that ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’, in any version of over 500 languages it is published in, considers all human beings equal.

As if the opening statement were not enough, among other explanations, Article 25 states, ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’

The declaration covers rights to freedom of opinion and expression, religion, marriage (which also implies reproduction), possession of property, governing by equal and universal suffrage, equal pay for equal work, parental prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Do all these not make people equal? No.

These declarations and provisions are in paper. In practice, things are different.

The world treats people differently based on sex and it starts as soon as the gender of the fetus can be identified. Synthesizing birth data from 1970 to 2017, from 202 countries and regions, and using a modelling method to fill gaps in countries with poor statistics, Fengqing Chao of the National University of Singapore and her colleagues report—in the 2019 April 15 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—excess male births in some years in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), Georgia, India, South Korea, Montenegro, Tunisia and Vietnam. The reasons were valuing sons over daughters and thus selectively aborting female fetuses. As a result, at least 23 million girls went missing before birth.

In a 2020 statement, UNICEF acknowledges almost one-third of countries have not reached gender parity (defined as having a GPI value between 0.97 and 1.03) in primary education enrolment. In Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, girls are more likely to be disadvantaged than boys. In Chad and Pakistan, for example, the GPI value is 0.78 and 0.84 respectively, meaning that 78 girls in Chad and 84 girls in Pakistan are enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys. The situation is no better in higher education.

Gender imparity in income is also reflected in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020: the global average income of a woman is about $11,000 (in Purchasing Power Parity) while that of a man is $21,000. Citing OECD data from 2010-2019, the World Economic Forum says the differential in men’s median income and women’s median income is about 13.5 percent. The gap is wider in non-OECD countries.

Grant Thornton’s Women in Business 2020 report shows that the proportion of women in senior management roles globally reached the highest of 29 percent in 2019. It is not that women’s share in managerial leadership is any better in developed countries. The same report shows the percentage of women in senior management was 38 in Africa, 35 in East Europe, 33 in Latin America, 30 in the European Union, 29 in North America, and 27 in the Asia Pacific.

Life expectancies are different for babies born in different places. It is 85 years for one born in Japan, 70 years in Nepal, and 52 years in Afghanistan. It is not that all babies in a country or a region are born equal either. Take Fresno city in California, for example. In a southwest ZIP code of Fresno, life expectancy is 69 years. Six miles away, in a northern ZIP code of Fresno, life expectancy is 90 years.

Status of one’s language makes a significant impact on the economic performance of the speaker. In 2011, Tarun Jain of Indian School of Business—using the 1956 reorganization of Indian states on linguistic lines as a natural experiment to estimate the impact of speaking the majority language on educational and occupational outcomes— concluded that districts that spoke the majority language of the state during colonial times enjoy persistent economic benefits, as evidenced by higher educational achievement and employment in communication-intensive sectors. Such a scenario is self-evident when one applies for jobs in international institutions, national bodies or other attractive areas, which eventually leads to income gaps.

Race matters, too. A 2016 UN Report on the World Social Situation shows, in a majority of countries where data were available, the share of ethnic and racial minority workers in skilled—managerial, professional and technical—occupations is lower than that of workers in the majority or dominant ethnic group. Similarly, people living in rural, remote areas characterized by poor infrastructure and little access to off-farm work had poor job opportunities.

In countries like Nepal many elementary school-level brilliant students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds are lost on the way to higher education while poorly performing ones from well-off families are able to get higher education and take leadership positions in politics, influential institutions and business firms. More often than not, the ones from affluent and influential families and society find it easier to get established as celebrities.

Media report in positive light minute details of those born with silver spoons in their mouth. The poor are also reported, but it is done just to make the news sellable. Multinational companies make every penny of their profit by overcharging poor consumers and try to create an altruistic and philanthropic image by selectively supporting some advertizable persons and projects here and there with a fraction of their profits.

In short, there has been much talk about creation of an equitable society but implementation is weak. At present nowhere on earth are people born equal and treated equally. Better drop the insincere slogan of equality and practice an honest principle of doing no harm to fellow humans.

The author is a professor of pharmacy at Tribhuvan University

I can bet this is a typical family gathering scenario in Nepal: the men of the family on one side, drinking and debating why the current prime minister is a total failure. And then, there are women on the other side, discussing the children, their schools, the difficulty of budgeting and how the new helper is better than the previous one. I should definitely mention the kids—you will not be in the men’s or the women’s discussion group until you are married. Even if you are 30 and unmarried, you are still considered a kid in the family—who are either on their phones complaining to their friends why they did not want to be a part of this gathering because it is boring, or they will be busy making #cousinunite Tiktok.

Maybe I am stereotyping. But I have been part of these bewildering gatherings for years and one conversation never gets old. I know you all must be thinking, the ever loved and haunting “When are you getting married?” but no. Here I discuss the love for the discussion of health issues.

When I mention health issues, they do not, in closest proximity, include mental health. When it is family, we discuss only diabetes, blood pressure, thyroids, arthritis, gastritis (our national disease) and migraine, to name a few. There will be one uncle or aunty who is the yellow page for doctors. They will instantly recommend you to a doctor who will run a wand around you and fix everything. The same person will also be an expert at suggesting medicines and alternative hacks to deal with your health problems.

We take our health for granted until the issue is so severe that we might have to live with it for the rest of our lives or to go under the scissors. In both cases we are jeopardizing our future. Similarly, we do not have a culture of seeking help from an expert or having a mentor.

Mentor is a person who is specialized in a subject, and guides and motivates you in professional and personal life. A life coach or a wellness coach can also be a mentor for your personal growth. In recent days, the culture of seeking such expertized services is growing. While life coaches motivate you to keep your personal life running, professional mentors are also necessary for smooth and healthy career growth. In simple Nepali terminology, they are called Guru.

In my humble opinion, there is a slight difference between a teacher and a mentor, even though they are interconnected. A teacher is a person who will help you acquire knowledge whereas a mentor will guide you to use and incorporate that knowledge into practice. A mentor will not exactly teach you but s/he will keep you on your toes to use the knowledge.

When you have a stomach ache, you are advised to go to a gastroenterologist and not the expert uncle who might give you a random medicine and screw it up more. Similarly, it is a smart approach to find a mentor from the same field of work as yours and keep questioning and learning. Finding a mentor is not easy. A lot of times people might not even give you the attention and time that you need. It is extremely important to approach people with a clear intent and communication. You might work in the same firm, you might work for him/her, or it could be totally independent.

Another important criteria while choosing a mentor is that they have to be an expert in the field where you seek help. You cannot go to a clinker brick maker to learn how to stitch a pair of shoes. For that you need a cobbler. Having said that we need to find a mentor, there will be a time when you have to look for a replacement. There is always a limit on how much one person can share knowledge and mentor someone. In time, the gurus can change, with the changing needs of the disciples. And it is absolutely fine to keep moving.

If you ask me, my mother is my first teacher and mentor who still holds a major credit for the person I am today. I guess it is so for each one of us. Beside my mother, luckily, I found a life coach in my early 20s who has helped me with my outlook and approach to life. Even after two decades of pestering him, I still give him my social audits once in a while to get validation.

For my professional mentorship, each person who is from my field of work is my mentor. I learn as well as unlearn from their actions.