छोडे स्यालहरु चिच्यौदै पाखा पाखा दौडिन

आगो भर्भर गर्दा मेरी आमा भन्नुहुन्थ्यो "बाबु आज पाउना आउछन घरमा "
आमाको अनुहार चन्द्रमाको रंग जस्तै उज्यालो हुन्थ्यो
हामि उफ्रिदै दिनभर बाटोतिर भलाक्थ्यौ
नभन्दै तम्घास देखि फुपू आउनुहुन्थ्यो सोलिभरी पाउर बोकेर।

दाया आखो  फरफर फर्किदा आमा भन्नुहुन्थ्यो ' सेनो छोरो बिरामी भयो कि' ?
आमाको अनुहार चंदग्रण लागेजस्तै अध्यारो हुन्थ्यो
हामिलाइ पनि नराम्रो लाग्थ्यो दिनभर
नभन्दै बुवाले साँझ खबर लेर आउनुहुन्थ्यो ' बाबु बिरामी छ रे ।'

बिहान बिहान पारि पाखामा स्याल कराउदै गर्दा
आमाको अनुहारमा अत्यासका रेखाहरु सल्बलाउथे
आमा भन्नुहुन्थ्यो अब गाउमा के बिपत्ति आइपर्छ
नभन्दै टाडाबाट एकोहोरो संख बजेको आवाज सुनिन्थ्यो।

मेरो स्कुलमा रिजल्ट आउदाको अघिल्लो रात आमा सोध्नुहुन्थ्यो
बाबु सपना कस्तो देखिस त?
मा भन्थे ' आमा मलाई खोलाले धन्न बगाएन, बल्ल बल्ल तरे
आमा भन्नुहुन्थ्यो 'नडरा पास हुन्छस बल्ल बल्ल।

तर ,
आज न र्भराउछ आगो अगेनामा, न आउछन पाउना
न कसैले मान्छ चिन्ता आखै फर्फराउदा
न कसैले गर्छ सांकेतिक कुरा देखेको सपनामा
न त दौडन्छन स्यालहरु चिच्याउदै पाखा पखेरामा।

Sakhi

Sakhi Ramlal Joshi is a social novel with various stories of poor community and the characters who were born and raised in poverty, discrimination, segregation. These characters represent different aspect of the society. Manav is the central character of the story who was migrated from Doti, a rural village of western Nepal to Dhangadi. As a young child, he was a friend of Sakhi who was a kamlahari, a servant in his house. He teaches her to study, plays with her. However, when he goes to school, he meets Malati, a daughter of a local king called Chandra Bahadur. Malati used to sit alone in the classroom as per the command of Chandra Bahadur. Chandra Bahadur represents the upper class of the society who exploits the kamaiya. Kamaiya is a social system in which poor people go to the rich man’s home to work in their farm, to work in the kitchen. The owners of the kamaiya often rape the women and impregnate them. Those impregnated women are arranged with second marriage with some poor person who agrees to do so with a few bucks. 

Sakhi is a girl who grows up in the Kamaiya family working as a servant. She befriends with Manav. Once Manav escapes the village after his letter to Malati was found by the teacher.  He was also beaten up by the gang of Malati’s brothers. Sakhi is raped by the owner. Then she gets married with a poor man of the village after being pregnant from her owner. After that she marriages with three different people, has three children. But at last she is left alone with three children. She actively participated in the revolutionary movement. She was in the front line in the everyday demonstration. She became the headline of the news.  

She again became a scapegoat of a journalist who purposed he to marry. Sakhi gets entangled with him thinking that her marriage with him can be a shelter to her three children. But later on, a white lady jou rnalist started relation with her husband and her marriage ends here.  

Then she starts working in a hostel as a dishwasher with the help of a teacher. One day brings in a woman who has no food to eat no place to take a shelter. After that one after another she brings in those people who has no home to go, no food to eat and disable to work. She buys some land with help of the donors and builds shelter for those people.  

On the other Manav is wondering one place to another. He is a character of uncertainty. When he first leaves the village, he arrives to Charpala, a remote village of Gulmi. He starts his life away from home herding cows and working at a house. He also goes to school for a few days. But he can not stay longer. Then he returns to Dhangadi, completes his education , works as a teacher.But wherever he goes his childhood memories always hunt him. He becomes a poet goes to India for the recitation of his poems. This is the summit of his carrier. But he can never be satisfied with his achievement. One day his wires in the head stop functioning. He is admitted in the hospital. it is published in the media. One day his brothers, sons of Kaila kaka come to bring him home. He returns home after long time and also knows that his father and mother both died and shakhi  is disappeared. the childhood memories hunts and follows him like a shadow. then he embarks in search of Sakhi. He disguises himself as a mamfooli man hoping that Shakhi will come to buy mamfooli. 

But at last he sees her in a program where Sakhi was the chief guest. Knowing that saki is famous and most successful, he hesitates to go in front of her. He calls her by her name  while she is going off the stage toward her car parked on the street. Sakhi recognizes him at once and brings himm to her place where she shares all the struggle she has gone through with Manav. 

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas eve. This is holiday season. Most of the employees are on the vacation. The building is quiet though Christmas songs are echoing all over the places. I am sitting on my desk and in front of me is a big screen displaying the images from the surveillance cameras. For hours I have not seen any movement of the people on the grounds as well. The whole ground is covered with snow and ice. No birds are seen fluttering from one tree to another. However, two bunnies sneak in to the bush of spruce trees just now. 

After ten minutes, an image looms on the camera #25 behind the Telus stage. I hold the joys and zoom the image where I can see a man walking lazily towards the stage. I know that he cannot get into the building because all the entrance doors were shut down. The subject walks towards the North entrance and looks up the roof. Then he yawns and scratches his back. Then he checks the astray, picks up some smoke butts and moves towards south. He often limps while walking on his bare foot. It is below five-degree calciols outside. He is not dressed up for the weather. He walks all around the building looking for any doors open to get in to the building to warm up himself. But all the doors were closed and locked.  

After fifteen minutes, I pull the camera #15 which covers the south side of the building. He is still limping and pulling the doors. He checks the garbage bin where he finds a couple of recycles. He takes them out of the bin and crushes them on the ground with his bare foot. He throws them in the black garbage bag, holds on his shoulder and walks towards the casino.  

Once he enters the Casino’s area, I continue to check the screen pulling different zones of the cameras. There are more than 25 cameras in the building property. I noticed a girl coming from the LRT. She is about five foot tall and lean. She is wearing a jacket looks not warm enough to protect from the cold. She is holding a coffee cup in her right hand. She hangs out for about ten minutes at the entrance. She looks as if she is waiting for someone coming out of the LRT so that she can ask smoke or some bucks to buy smoke.  

My judgement turns to be a truth when a guy comes out, she extends her hands and the man gives something to her. At the same moment another guy comes from the northside of the station. He stands under the statue, looks around and makes a phone call. Soon, there appears a third person. All of them stand on a round circle. The girl comes to them exchanges a bag and quickly runs into the station. Both the guys walk towards the medic door of the coliseum building. The camera of that area does not cover them. I waited for about ten minutes for them to come out. Then go to the washroom. When I return to the desk, they are seen standing by the LRT gate. To my surprise, there are two police officers standing right there. When I pull the camera closer, I see the hand cuffs in the hands of those two boys. 

At the same moment, I see the motion detected in the main kitchen. There are no staffs tonight. All the contractors from the day are gone home already. I pull the camera closer zoom to identify the object that triggered the sensor of the camera. As I wait and watch a few minutes, I see a big mouse running into the kitchen. Mouse? I feel disgusting. The main kitchen where last week tons of food prepared for the Christmas party is infested by the mice. It would be a normal for the barn or some other stores. But in the kitchen is really bad. The mouse has been running to and forth four times by the time I go to the restaurant for coffee.  

While driving to the MacDonald I do not see anything on the road. As soon as I reach to the restaurant, I see a man sitting next to the garbage bin eating some foods from the container. Really? Is it possible to the people of the rich country like Canada eating from the garbage bin? On the day of Christmas? How some people are having lavish party in the star hotels and some other citizen of the same land eating from the garbage at the day of Christmas. I remember my festivals. I have never seen people so poor that they are looking for the shelter in the isolated building ad searching the food in the garbage bin.  

I remember our festivals like Dashain and Tihar. We always celebrate with the slogan of brotherhood, family gathering, carnivals in the public. We generously divide food among the neighbors and relatives. I have never seen people eating from the bin at the time festival. We care each other so much. I feel sorry for the people living here.  

People exchange the gifts among the friends, enjoy the Christmas party, take time for family and children. But birds, bunnies and squirrels doing their course. They look all equal. There is no powerful bunny which controls the small bunnies. There is no birds living different life style. But man is different from each other in term of race, religion and culture. They are divided by the wealth, race and religion. Rich are way rich and poor are very poor. Christmas is celebrated as a symbol of love and free from sin. Are we free from the sin in the real sense?   No. We are celebrating the festivals but not celebrating the humanity. I slammed the door after me and sat silently on the chair. 

 

The Influential Mind: What the Brain Revels About Our Power to Change Others Tali Sharot

The Influential Mind: What the Brain Revels About Our Power to Change Others 

Tali Sharot 

The influential Mind is a book about human brain and how it really functions while we play our everyday role as a teacher, leader, preacher or the parents. Our duty is to influence others with knowledge. However, our personal judgement sometimes makes us rigid in our delivery. We become bias and contribute to the one-sided judgement. Instead of arguing on the basis of knowledge, we should find out the facts, evidences.  

The most interesting fact the writer shows in this book is the two people sharing the similar backgrounds, similar profession and earnings can be the best friends than the different. If husband and wife share the same culture, grew up in the same background, watch the similar tv shows and movies, read the similar kind of books has more trusting relationship than different backgrounds.  

I Am Canada. BLOOD AND IRON- Building the Railway by Lee Teen-gwong,1882

I Am Canada: Blood and Iron- Building the railroad, a journal by Lee Heen- gwong, 1882 is an account of the Chinese workers while building the trans-Canada railway. Lee was about 16 years old when he came to Canada with his Ba to work with the Chinese company as a contract worker. His grandfather was a gambler and had a debt. He had lost his rice store in the southern part of china. So, he decided to come to the Gold mountain to make money. 

 However, it was not easy to make money working in the harsh weather and rough terrain ion the Canadian rockiest. His Ba was gambler, too. Whatever he made the money his Ba always took from him and would go to gamble. He used to make $1.00 per day. From his collection he had to pay for food, shoes and the ship ticket. Sometimes he had to pay back to the company when he was sick and could not work. But he was smart. He used to write letter for others and made extra little money. He used to go to fishing too.  

Besides, Lee describes the horrible situation of the Chinese workers in the mountains. He saw many accidents in front of him. Luckily nothing happened to him and his father. Many Chinese workers were dead due to the fall of the trees. Some of them are rolled over by the plank of the rocks. So many of them lost their arm, legs and live a miserable life.  

They had to work in the blistering heat as well a severe cold. Sometimes, they were tear apart by the forest animals like cougher and bear. There was no sanitation, no medical facility. Workers should pay for the medical fee if they go to Yale town in a Chinese hospital for the treatment.  

Once the Chinese worker’s tent was set in fire by the res beard men. They were beaten and three of them died and many of them were badly wounded. After this incident, Ba returned to China. Lee decided to work for the season to make enough money to pay off the grandfather's debt. He sent the journal with his father to china including his account thinking that his journal would be safe in China. Later the judge did not charge the red beard murderers. But the company fired more than three hundred Chinese workers. Many of them even had no enough money to buy the ship ticket. Lee was smarter than others so that he managed to pay the ship and came back to china.