By Devendra Gautam

“Dinma adha ghanta khalkhal pasina bagaunus, tapain ekdamai fit hunuhunechha.”

During his recent one-off morning walk near the Nagarjun woods, this lazybones overheard the above-mentioned nugget of wisdom. It was a gentle reminder from one fit-as-a-fiddle bro to his rather obese neighborhood mate to take good care of his health. 

BTW, how many hours should an individual burn in a gym or elsewhere to remain healthy—mentally, physically, spiritually? What type of food and drinks should s/he opt for?
Perhaps it all depends on factors such as an individual’s fitness requirements, health, age, weight, gender, medical status, career path, availability of time and the station of life s/he is in.

Health is wealth

Indeed, also because illnesses often cost a family fortune in our country where healthcare is far from affordable. If you guys throw caution in the wind, who will come to your rescue, save your family members with finite resources, unless and until you happen to be from the corridors of power or thereabouts, with loads of ill-gotten money hidden in your deep vaults and/or parked safely in foreign banks? What’s more, money does not rain anymore and flood even those badly-burnt corridors post the September 8-9 GenZ protest, or does it?  

Even if you happened to be one of them big-time politicos or their near and dear ones, who could fly to all sorts of state-of-the-art hospitals around the globe and avail themselves of every imaginable medical treatment with the taxpayers’ hard-earned monies, it’s a different matter post the protest, right? Even for that lucky bunch, who profited immensely from a decades-long royal rule of the troika in this ‘republican polity’ rocked constantly by policy corruption scandals, bad governance and political instability, availing treatment abroad with taxpayers’ hard-earned bucks has become a bit more difficult post the September 8-9 uprising, what with intense public scrutiny if not with outright austerity?

With loads of cash taken out from inbuilt bunkers of your bungalows and burnt or looted (presumably, those were not AI-generated images, after all) and those towering fancy trees made of precious gifts gone in a jiffy, workouts within the confines of homes or other secure places maybe the best way to remain healthy for our dudes leading a life of pleasure and plenty in this great republic of milk and honey for a select few. 

Disclaimer: All this is no professional advice as this primate has no association whatsoever with body shaping and health-making. Let subject experts like medical personnel, fitness gurus and columnists, who often feature in very many publications with their long disclaimers, be your guide, guys. 

Destiny be damned

Rather than his life, this freelancer remains more concerned about the health of this great nation. Ironic, isn’t it? Yes, indeed. 

In Nepali, there’s a proverb that perfectly explains this kinda behaviour: Nadhukheko tauko dori lagayera dukhaune. A freelancer’s so-so translation of this saying goes: Tying a rope around your head to give yourself a headache! 

We have but one nation and worrying a wee bit about our present and future won’t do us a helluva lotta bad, regardless of such nuggets. 

So, this scribbler keeps worrying about and commenting on abstract things like national sovereignty, our collective future as a sovereign people, our collective destiny under a royal republican order and the like, despite gentle and not-so-gentle reminders from moneyed and influential kith, kin and well-wishers that destiny has not chosen him to worry about these things, that he should focus rather on providing for himself and his family, so on and so forth. 

Destiny be damned!

Choose with extreme caution 

As this Nepali sapien navigates from personal health to the health of this nation, how about wrapping up this piece with some questions to both the clique, which had been ‘ruling’ this country like its fief till September 9, and a public, which never seems to get tired of voting a tried, tested and failed political leadership to power despite their repeated below-par performances over the decades? 

What forces have benefited the most after each wave of change brought through our blood, sweat, toil and tears?

In this day and age of fast-changing technological landscape and immense geopolitical as well as geostrategic challenges, should years spent behind bars for higher ideals like democracy and human rights be the sole criterion for repeated elevations to the most powerful positions that shape our destiny as a nation? What of things like specialization, expertise, meritocracy? Granted that some or other ‘dynamic politico’ way past his/her prime can wax eloquent on all things under the sun and beyond like good governance, transparency, cybersecurity, data science, the internet of things, machine learning, artificial general intelligence, artificial superintelligence, geopolitics and geostrategy but does that pure talk—and the utter lack of proven expertise—make the person automatically qualified to run—leave alone govern—this fragile state that almost collapsed within 48 hours after the start of a protest?

Even if this is to be a criterion, how many times should the members of this mediocre at best bunch return to power citing the same contributions and hold our collective future and our collective destiny hostage? 

What ‘feats’ will it achieve that it has not already during its decades-long tryst with state powers? Engage in more treasonous deals to sell Nepal down the river, further? Opt for more policy corruption scandals to bring respective parties to power through vote-buying and consign this nation to eternal darkness?

More than once, this scribe has heard members of this narrow bracket complaining that, in total, they were in power for barely a term or so despite repeated electoral wins, due to frequent changes in government. Who is to blame for such unstable governments, if not the three major parties in general and their top brass in particular?

Above all, is the old guard physically, mentally and spiritually fit to rule—let alone govern—Nepal?

Let’s ask ourselves—and our political leadership—these questions and choose our leaders with extreme caution, without giving the untried and untested lot a wild card.