Two speeches

If you look at the twitter handle of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli (@kpsharmaoli), the banner picture shows him appar­ently “standing by the truth and being dauntless in the face of power”. Whether or not we agree with such a depiction, Oli does have the opportunity to prove his mettle now. In the past two weeks, he deliv­ered two speeches. The first was in India during his state visit at an event organized by the India Foundation in New Delhi. The second was delivered to the nation from Rara Lake on the day of the Nepali New Year and start of the Rara-Karnali Tourism Year 2075.

 

Both speeches overflowed with good intentions, potentially transformative ideas and new beginnings. PM Oli does deserve some credit for at least pro­jecting an image of himself and his cabinet that is different and is committed to change in the forms of economic devel­opment, good governance and anti-corruption efforts.

 

Glorious past, rosy future

 

Both speeches carried an intrin­sic message: Nepal has a rich and prosperous past. But things slowly fell apart. While it is our good fortune to be born in such a beau­tiful country, it is now mired in a vicious cycle of poverty. But there is no reason why we cannot reverse this situation by utilizing our vast resources and natural beauty. Together, we will change the course of our collective des­tiny and reclaim our history.

 

In India, Oli’s exact words were: “I have a mandate to work for the long-cherished socio-economic transformation of the country. Ours is the dream of a prosper­ous Nepal where people will have a decent living and youths will have decent jobs; where our infra­structure will be better and our vast, untapped resources will be converted into economic bene­fits and wealth. It’s a dream of overcoming the vicious circle of poverty, underdevelopment and social backwardness.”

 

Reading just this much, it seems almost as though Oli is talking about some other country, and as if Nepal’s last 20 years have no meaning or significance. If the language were slightly more refined, the speech would resem­ble that of a first-world leader. At Rara Lake, Oli’s speech was simi­lar: more about history and glory and natural resources and wealth. He tried again to remind us that there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful about the prosperity of this country.

 

However, back in reality and on the ground, our woes remain unchanged and unlikely to change.

 

On the night PM Oli returned to Kathmandu from his India visit, it was around 8:30pm. Inciden­tally, I got stuck in the traffic jam he created as the route from the airport had to be cleared for his entourage. No big deal. After all, these are the kinds of things we have become used to since the days of the monarchy and the Panchayat years.

 

Similarly, immediately after the glorious Rara Lake speech, PM Oli returned to Kathmandu. What Oli left behind was gar­bage littered all over the coun­try’s prized natural possession on whose back—according to him—Nepal is supposed to prosper through tourism.

 

Panchayat-era mentality

 

Of course these are just anec­dotal examples, but they reflect the unwashed remnants of the Panchayat era mentality that if you talk sweet words about prosper­ity, unity and development, you will not be expected to walk the talk. During the Panchayat era, we witnessed royal trips to different parts of the country. Thousands of people used to gather to listen to the rosy speeches of the royal family members. But once they left the venue, the organizers left everything in chaos, forcing the people to clean up afterwards. The purpose of the speeches of those days was to cheer up the public and had literally no practical value or real intent to transform the people’s lives.

 

Looking at the antics of Prime Minister Oli, there is a growing worry that he will continue to cheer up and cheer on Nepal and Nepalis, but do very little to actu­ally make a positive impact on our lives. That is the last thing Nepal and Nepalis need.

Melamchi ‘Finally’

With great fanfare it has been announced that the tunnel connecting Melamchi with Kathmandu has broken through! It’s only taken 20 years, but Kath­mandu will be getting water soon right? Well, not exactly. A few more months is projected as needed to complete the work on the tunnel structure. But we will, we are reas­sured, have water by Dashain!

 

Haven’t we heard it all before? New infrastructure is proposed and the given timeline seems very rosy and optimistic. Everything, it seems, will be up-and-running within two to five years, regardless of the com­plexity of the project. Part of the rea­son is that Nepalis just don’t like to disappoint. So saying no or giving a realistic timeline seems impossible. I don’t think there is anyone read­ing this who has not been on a long distance bus or on a trekking route and asked “when will we reach our destination?” to be told it will be an hour; but four hours later, you seem no nearer the end.

 

Then of course there are those unforeseen natural and unnatu­ral stumbling blocks. Like the facts that rock is hard to drill through, or blockades do happen. Why is the unexpected not figured into the plan, especially when in a country like Nepal the ‘unexpected’ pretty much happens every week?

 

Many moons ago (about 16 years’ worth) I worked with WaterAid on a little handbook intended for peo­ple in the valley so that they could best utilize their water. There were drawings, technical and lay-persons advice on a rainwater harvesting sys­tem (did anyone?) on the house roof, how to reuse grey water, how to install a well (there was still ground­water underneath us in those days), how to maintain hand pump, etc. The name of this booklet? “While Waiting for Melamchi”.

 

Maybe an addendum needs to be added now which includes things like how to turn your dry well into a garden ornament, or how to use the weather app on your phone to gather rain in a bucket. Of course we didn’t think we would need a whole rain-water harvesting system as Melamchi was coming soon.

 

And before we get too excited about the amount of water that will be coursing through our taps, let’s think about the population of Kath­mandu now and then. When the fea­sibility study was done on Melamchi I’m quite sure it was during the mid-1990s. What was the popula­tion of Kathmandu then? And what is the population of the city now? I don’t have the figures but I think it’s something like a hundred percent increase. More than the population of the whole of Scotland!

 

And speaking of Scotland, we also have a vast river network. Which we utilize. All the water coming from Scottish taps is water from our rivers. And all our elec­tricity comes from the same source. In more recent years this has been supplemented by wind-gen­erated power. Because hey, like rain-water, wind-power is free after the initial installation and a little maintenance.

 

I feel some people think that making use of the rain and wind is ‘old-fashioned’. While it is true that these nature given gifts were utilized by past generations around the world, they are certainly not ‘old fashioned’ as can be seen by the upsurge of use and interest in devel­oped countries. Solar-run houses are springing up, and although those are pretty expensive at start-up, a solar panel or two is a great idea. Just ask any villager living in the hills and mountains here—they have had solar panels for decades. Just ask me (snug look on my face as I switch on my solar lights).

 

So yes, as the papers are all announcing—‘finally’ there is a breakthrough on Melamchi. Let’s see when, ‘finally’, we will see the results in our taps.

What goes around comes around

Black Comedy

BLACKMAIL

CAST: Irrfan Khan, Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh, Omi Vaidya, Pradhuman Singh, Divya Dutta

DIRECTION: AbhinayDeo.

 

Black comedies with their cross-cutting plot lines and humor derived from character desperation can be tricky to crack. Done well, this is the genre that leaves lasting impression. Think about Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fic­tion’ or The Coen Brothers’ ‘Fargo’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’.These movies find their way into­every film buff’s canon of modern classics. Given the seductiveness of this style of filmmaking, it has attracted its share of copycats who have dirtied the pool with their for­mulaic and revisionist approach. So whenever a multiple protago­nist comedy with a crime at its cen­ter hits the screen, people invari­ably say, “It’s like Tarantino!”But even Tarantino and Coen Brothers haven’t been spared by detractors, as they have been accused of ripping off their earlier works in their lesser known offerings.

 

Abhinay Deo, the director of 2011’s much-loved black comedy ‘Delhi Belly’, has just released his new film, ‘Blackmail’. So does Deo play his old riffs or perform a new tune? I’m pleased to say that he finds a delicate balance. ‘Blackmail’in places reeks of ‘Delhi Belly’ but still manages to score a mean punch thanks to Irrfan Khan’s wide-eyed and effective deadpan central performance.

 

Dev (Irrfan Khan) is a toilet paper sales executive stuck in a thankless job and a loveless arranged marriage with wife Reena (Kirti Kulhari). He would rather spend time playing PacMan till late hours in office than go home to his wife. One day, egged by his office colleague (Pradhuman Singh), Dev decides to surprise her by going home early. But when he gets home, he’s the one getting the surprise. As he peeps into their bed­room, he spots Reena in bed with another lover (Arunoday Singh).

 

What does a heart broken Dev do?

 

He’s a meek sales executive, so Jack Lemmon-like in ‘The Apart­ment’ that his character, if he walks into a room where his wife’s canoo­dling her lover, he would rather apologize and excuse himself than violently confront them. So Dev runs away quietly.

 

But as he is under a pile of debt, he makes up his mind to use this new found information about his wife’s affair and in a stroke of weird genius decides to extort money from the lover by blackmailing him. But his action backfires. Without spoil­ing the movie, I can just hint that what starts off as a harmless black­mail scheme instigates a chain of events that circles back to Dev and he finds himself getting blackmailed in the end.

 

What works well in ‘Blackmail’ are the moments where Dev needs to come out of his repressed existence and improvise to escape from sticky scenarios. There’s a point where he flees a crime scene and to make himself unrecognizable strips down to his boxers and covers his face with a lingerie brand’s shopping bag. Irrfan Khan shines in the film’s fish-out-of-water scenes and he does so by keeping a straight face, thus escalating the humor.

 

His nuanced acting is matched by Arunoday Singh, who plays the dim­witted body-builder lover of Dev’s wife. This lover in turn is married to an alcoholic and ball-busting rich lady (Divya Dutta). Similarly, Omi Vaidya makes a comeback after a short hiatus from Hindi films as Dev’s boss who wants to teach Indi­ans to save water by wiping their bottoms with his toilet paper. In a standout scene, Vaidya’s charac­ter announces a war against jet-sprays which he deems his product’s toughest competitor.

 

But director Deo’s eagerness to make Khan’s character emotionless definitely weighs on the movie’s length. The film’s runtime is 2 hours 19 minutes(nearly 30 minutes longer than the runtime of ‘Delhi Belly’) and much of the middle part is spent treading water. So it is a little slow, you could say.

 

But ‘Blackmail’ deserves a view­ing for its quirky sensibilities and colorful characters. I don’t think it will have the same recall value as ‘Delhi Belly’.Nonetheless this black comedy scores high on originality and twisted humor.

 

3 stars ***

Did PM Oli have to visit India first?

There is no point crying over spilled milk, right? Perhaps. But what does it say about the mindset of the seemingly all-pow­erful Prime Minister KP Oli, and his equally strong counterpart, Nar­endra Modi, that the head of govern­ment in Nepal was once again forced to make New Delhi his first foreign stop, sorry, pilgrimage?It suggests that much of PM Oli’s talk of pursuing an independent foreign policy course is bluster. His hasty visit to New Delhi is an indica­tion that he too subscribes firmly to the view that Nepal’s leader should always toe India’s line, nay, try to obey the old master even before he has made his wish public. The hush-hush one-on-one between the two leaders in New Delhi, for an hour and a half, fans this speculation.

 

On the other hand, India’s eagerness to welcome Oli before he ‘escaped’ to any other country betrayed a colonial mindset and an inferiority complex vis-à-vis China on Modi’s part. But in retrospect Modi was perhaps confi­dent that he could use his charms to get Oli to turn his back on China.

 

If a Nepali prime minister could first go to, say, Beijing instead of New Delhi, it would kill two birds with one stone. One, it would dispel the widespread perception that Nepali leaders are always beholden to India and cannot act independently. Had Oli dared to venture to China first, he would have poked a big hole in this self-defeating narrative. And it would also be a credible proof of his nation­alist credentials.

 

Two, it would also benefit India, whether the current Indian establishment realizes it or not. India could then perhaps deal with Nepal as a rising global power, which it is, rather than as an insecure regional bully that likes to scare its small neigh­bors into submission.

 

Were Indian leaders and bureau­crats more relaxed in their role as rep­resentatives of a rising global power, they would see that India enjoys nat­ural advantages in South Asia that is hard to emulate for any other power, including China. The allure of the largest democracy in the world, with such potent soft power tools as cricket and Bollywood, would be virtually impossible to match.

 

PM Oli seems to be in a mood for a bluff. By going to India first, he, some way, wanted to show his allegiance to Modi. He would then be free to pursue his pet agenda of closer ties with Beijing. (Or perhaps it is China he is bluffing.) But why does a strong prime minister like him, perhaps the strongest in the history of dem­ocratic Nepal, need to resort to such chicanery, and one which would likely backfire when he eventually plays his hand? If he was so sure of himself, and so keen to protect the national interest, as he professes, why could he not take India into con­fidence into breaking a useless and self-defeating tradition?

 

Again, it is a ridiculous tradition, sustained by fear (in Nepal) and insecurity (in India). With such anx­ieties and apprehensions guiding bilateral relations, Nepal-India ties are unlikely to come to an even keel. If there was one person who could have changed this hoary script, it was Oli—that dogged bulwark against the Indian blockade.