Happy Holi Oli!

The Holi festival like nearly all of our 'Hindu' festivals is about victory of good over evil. But it seems that evil in this land of ours will continue to gain the upper hand for at least another decade or two. 

Maybe, when our current batch of corrupt clowns go away in retirement or exile or down below then we will finally get leaders who want to do good instead of loafers who only want to loot the state. 

But of course, we thought that the new netas after 1990s would bring change and do some good but they are still here and instead of repenting for their past misdeeds, they continue to repeat the same nataks of corruption and cronyism. 

We know very well that our politicians will never change until we the people stop bowing down to our 'new' Maharajas. It's about time we take a stand and help each other to fight corruption and nepotism in our land. 

Our President is planning to join the 'Clean Bagmati' campaign. Maybe, we should start 'Clean our Government' campaign first. No matter how much trash we collect from our Bagmati river, things will not change until our own folks dump their garbage and the sewage is properly managed instead of being dumped in our Holy river. And it's about time we manage the sewage in our bureaucracy as well.

Our Madhesi politicians did not celebrate Holi this year because they are not happy with the way our incompetent government is dealing with their demands. But they had the time to visit the Indian Embassy and meet Ranjit Dai to extend Holi greetings and get free breakfast as well. 

It's not only our Madhesi netas but nearly every other politician and civil servants will not miss a chance to eat for free or get any gift hampers from foreign embassies in town. Why can't our Madhesi super-heroes meet our President for breakfast and then inform her about their plans to intensify their protest programs after Nepali New Year?  

Our Madhesi warriors want to carry out a nation-wide protest program. But I think we have had enough of all these protest nataks. If you really want our incompetent government to address your demands than please shut down Singha Durbar instead of our borders. Pitch the world's largest tent in Baluwatar and organize a year-long 'Holi' festival to make up for the 'Holi' party that you missed this week. 

Invite us all to join in the fun and we will even bring some food for your cadres. Yes, let's all have a picnic!

If you really want to win our hearts and minds then promise us that you will provide us cooking gas even during your shut down programs. You can even introduce a 'one cooking gas cylinder, one volunteer campaign'. 

Our government can't seem to figure out where all the cooking gas goes? It's been a month since the border blockade ended and we still can't get cooking gas. If our Madhesi netas can deliver us the cooking gas here in the capital then we will pledge our full support for their protest programs. 

You can even ask us to send at least one person to attend the 'Holi Festival' in Baluwatar in exchange of one cylinder of cooking gas. Each household can send one member to attend the 'protest' dance party until the cooking gas cylinder is empty. And when it is replaced, we will send another one to dance his or her head off!

Oli is in China and he is busy with his usual hawa-tari (wind power) guff! The Chinese folks must be falling off their seats as they can't stop laughing when Oli tells them that Asian countries should adopt an inclusive model of development. 

Yes, our politicians do practice an inclusive model of development only amongst themselves instead for the people. They share the state funds amongst themselves. They offer each other ministries so that they can stay in power. Oli thinks that Asia will be peaceful when poverty is eradicated. 

Yes, Nepal will also be peaceful only when our parasites are prevented from political engagement. Oli should first sit down for 10+2 exams while Prachanda should go back to school and teach instead of preaching what he does not practice.

Oli tells the Chinese that states should not exploit the vulnerabilities of others while his government has so far done nothing but only loot the state while millions of our folks are still out living in tents and have received no relief even after getting hit by the Big One.

Dear PM, do not go overseas and tell the bidhesis what must be done to develop their own economies. Look at your own land, look at us! Thanks to trade unions and political extortion, most of our industries have already shut down. 

No jobs are being created for the youth of this land and that's why every year hundreds of thousands of able-bodied youth get exploited by man power agencies to go overseas to earn a few Dinars and Ringgits. And owners of man power agencies then provide 'voluntary donation' to our politicians and civil servants so that continue to exploit our folks!

And Mr Oli, please stop lying about our constitution. It's not a democratic and inclusive constitution like you claim it to be. Yes, it was us who elected you buffoons and you did not do a great job at it.  

Oli should have not spoken a word in China. Just enjoy the state banquets and be a happy tourist instead. Our Nepali Embassy should have organized a 'Holi Festival' and it would have been fun to see Oli play some 'Jhilli-Milli Holi' with Xi and Li.

It seems that the bideshis really know how to win the hearts and minds of the Nepali people. Prince Harry is in town and he seems to be enjoying his visit to our beautiful country. 

Yes, let us forget his 'buff' dance in Las Vegas a few years ago. Even a Prince needs to get some fresh air once in a while. Harry has extended his visit to Nepal so that he can help in rebuilding one of our schools in the earthquake-affected district. 

Harry will leave Nepal as Hari Bahadur. And if Kamal Thapa and his cronies really want monarchy back then maybe we should just offer the crown to our honorary village chief Hari Bahadur Windsor. 

And what about our Prime Monster Oli? Well, our comedian will come back home tomorrow with nothing but some gifts for his cousins and cronies. Yes, need to spend that free money from our state treasury on little shopping for dear ones!

He could have at least shown some Wushu skills to the Chinese or spoken in Mandarin for a few seconds. But of course, our netas do not know anything about publicity stunts. They only know how to stun the public with outlandish promises while calmly emptying our pockets.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

Yes, We Are Happy!

The World Happiness Report is out and it seems that we are much happier than the Desis. That calls for another round of celebration for all of us. No matter what, be it the earthquake or the blockade, we Nepalese can drink more than the Irish and the Polish combined. Every Saturday is St. Patrick's Day for our politicians, civil servants and contractors!

Maybe the folks preparing the report just added the 'happiness' formula right after we beat India in football in the recent South Asian Games. We know that we can't beat the Bhutanese on the 'Happiness' rankings because they are the ones who came up with the 'Gross National Happiness' natak in the first place. 

And of course, you too will be happy when your neighbors are thrown out of the country and you get to have their land!

But to find out that the Pakistanis are happier than us means that they really can stand anything than just earthquakes and political nataks. Yes, the Pakistanis have to deal with both domestic and foreign terrorists every other day and they still seem to be happier than us. We need to send someone there and find out what makes them happy. 

I think the bideshis coming out with such 'happiness' jokes should first live in our country for at least a year and experience the shortages of everything before they rank us in their 'whatever' index they come up with. But of course, most of the so-called bideshi consultants who come in our land should consider themselves lucky because if you are white and drive around in a blue-plate vehicle then you can get away with anything in this land. 

If you are a Nepali and you are walking home from work at midnight, you are certain to get harassed by our cops. But if you are a Bideshi and you are dead drunk and literally crawling to your apartment at two in the morning, the cops will either escort you home or will ignore you because they don't or most of the time can't carry out conversation in other language than Nepali.

We are happy that our incompetent government has done nothing to rebuild the districts affected by the earthquake. It's been almost a year and maybe our government is waiting for another big one so that damaged buildings still standing now will be completely demolished and they can save some money on demolition jobs. But of course, whatever is saved is then siphoned off in this land. 

If you want to know more about the fake bills then you can just ask our former APF IGP sahebs. These thulo mancheys should speak up and tell all of us how much they paid to be the chief. Why are they sacred to name names? Why is that only our civil servants and contractors get  to face the music while our politicians never get caught?

We are more than happy that we had to face six months of border blockade. We were very happy to pay six time more for a cylinder of cooking gas and three times more for fuel. Some of us even wanted to go back in time and feel the spirit of our ancestors by using firewood to cook our food. 

And now, even after the so-called blockade is over, we are still happy that we can't seem to get a cylinder of cooking gas but we are sad that we can now get as much petrol for our cars and motorbikes than we would like to have. I guess someone should now come out with a petrol chulo because we have seen the induction and diesel stoves already.

We are also happy that our Prime Monster Oli is visiting China. He went to India and didn't really bring anything back home. Let us hope he will bring more gift hampers from the Chinese. We have a communist PM visiting Communist China but of course the folks in Beijing really don't give a rat's arse about our good for nothing pickpockets.

China is communist but when it comes to trade and nearly everything else except politics, they are more capitalist than Donald Trump. And when it comes to our domestic affairs, the Chinese have long outsourced the headache to the Desis. 

The only thing the folks in Beijing only care about is not allowing our Tibetan refugees organize concerts to celebrate the birthday of His Holiness Dalai Lama. And our Nepal Police and Home Ministry officials are very good at it as they receive chiya kharcha from the Chinese Embassy to rain laathis on Tibetan protesters every year.

Oli should first leave his Nepali Topi and Daura-Suruwal at Baluwatar. Wear tie and suit like the Chinese and don't forget to dye your hair black like they do. The only time you will see a politician with grey hair in China is when they are caught up in some corruption scandal and are sent to jail. 

I guess the Chinese jail don't provide black dye to prisoners. Mao is no longer relevant in today's China. Yes, you can see his posters in government offices and bank notes but nobody really wants to go back to the days of the cultural revolution. 

I think it would also be better if our Emperor Prachanda got rid of the Maoist tag and renamed his party after Deng Xiaoping. Maybe then the Chinese in Beijing will give them more respect than the usual free trips and banquets for our comrades. 

Oli should find ways to flatter the Chinese so that we can get something rather than aircraft that fail international standards. First, congratulate China for their growing trade with India. The Desis have a trade deficit of more than fifty billion dollars. Second, congratulate Xi for going after his both tigers and flies to consolidate his power. 

In our land, we only go after flies while tigers get to roam around freely and make more money. And last, blame America for all the problems in the world and blame half the American folks for thinking the world will be a better place if Hitler Trump gets to move into the White House.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

image source: wsj.com

The King is Back

Sher Bahadur Deuba is the new President of our country's oldest circus company. Our three-time Prime Monster defeated Ramu Dada, who had earlier tried for 17th time to be our PM and had failed miserably. Krishna Sitauala should be given the most valuable award for 'time-wasting'. 

Our own Lord Krishna knew that he didn't have enough followers supporting him but just wanted to stand up for election because he had nothing better to do and waste more time so that the Kangaroos could go for a second round of voting. 

The Kangaroos made an ass of themselves by choosing 'pani tankies' instead of electronic voting machines. If they had chosen the EVMs then the results of the election for Central Working Committee (CWC) members would be out in minutes after the election. 

But no, they had to go the 'old' way and 90 candidates had to have their representatives in the room to make sure that nobody swallow or steal the ballot papers. It will probably take another week to find out who gets to be in the CWC.

After nearly two decades, the Kangaroos have a non-Koirala President. It's a good thing or else we would have to rename the party as 'Koirala Family Football Club'. 

But still, a Koirala has won and he gets to be the General Secretary. Let us hope that our eye specialist will do more good for the party his father founded and led instead of promoting factionalism in the party organization like everyone else.

The Kangaroos have a lady as the Treasurer. I think women are better at managing money than men. Let us hope that she will keep the party books right and submit financial reports on time to our Election Commission. The party tells us that they spent 4 karods for their general convention while the candidates fighting the election probably spent ten times more. 

After all, our politicians vote not for the best candidate but for those who can provide the notes. If you roll out the cash, you get the votes be it your own party elections or national elections or any other elections like in business, social and even sports organizations. Just ask Ganesh Thapa how it's done!

Deuba considers himself a 'Youth' leader.  It seems that '70' is the new '40' in Nepali politics and that means Gagan Thapa is only 10 years old in Congressi Years. He might have to wait another decade before he finally gets to be our General Secretary and another decade more before he gets to head the party. 

Most of our young folks had hoped for more from Thapa but since the 'Ghaite' scandal, he has shown his true colors like every other politician in this land. After all, our politicians need mundreys but when mundreys get too big for their boots then our Nepal Police shoot them. 

Yes, you can't just kill somebody just because you wear the uniform but you also can't just keep on supporting mundreys who like to extort, abduct and even kill folks who don't pay them off and then not expect them to face the music later on. Even our PM Oli was once seen visiting the late don 'Chari'. I guess that really sums up the whole mundrey-neta relationship in Nepali politics. 

Deuba did a 'Special Puja' at Pashupatinath after he won the election for party president. And he will probably conduct a 'Maha Yagya' when he gets to Baluwatar again. Yes, don't be surprised if he becomes our Prime Monster for the fourth time. 

Anything is possible in Nepali politics. The man who gave the orders to shoot at the protesters during the Jana Andolan-2 is now our Deputy Prime Minister. As a foreign minister as well, he gets to travel around the world and enjoy some shopping at the expense of the state

Deuba is the same man who put the price on the heads of our Maoist leaders then. But everything is forgotten now because the issue of the day is to how to share the loot and let everyone have fun except the common folks.  

Deuba's speech impediment has not hurt his political career. Yes, we , the common folks never really understand what he says but his cadres, cousins, contractors and opponents seem to have no problem understanding him. After all, Deuba is good at making everyone happy, be it Pajeros, foreign trips or anything that will help him to stay in power.

So if Gagan Thapa wants to be the party head in 2036 AD then he should start now. Instead of thinking before speaking, just blurt out gibberish and confuse the journalists asking the questions. But make sure you keep your cadres and those needed to win elections happy. 

Offer them meals, deals and wheels and you will get ahead if not just stay home and if the time is right, you can always break away from the mother party, open your own football club then merge your club with the old and then wait for a decade or two and take over. It's the 'Deuba' formula and it also works in other political parties as well.

It's been over a month since the end of the so-called border blockade but we still can't get cooking gas. Nepal Oli Corporation (NOC) is more than happy to allow Birat Petroleum to sell its fuel for Rs 130 while NOC is selling its fuel for Rs 99 only. 

I guess we should allow the Birat wallahs to sell cooking gas as well. We paid six times more for cooking gas during the blockade. I guess most of us won't mind just paying 30% more. I guess our mantri saheb is happy to make Karods from both NOC and Birat while the public has no choice but to line up at the gas retailers and pray that they will get a cylinder or two. 

And whatever happened to our load shedding hours going down by two hours after importing 80 MW of electricity from India?  We just don’t know where our fuel, cooking gas and electricity disappear in this land ruled by pickpockets?

Oli is planning to visit China next week. Good for him. He should be out of the country every other week and make sure that his diplomatic passport is filled up before he leaves Baluwatar. 

Once again, let us Congratulate Deuba for his victory. He has promised to take everyone alone, be it his friends or the other faction wallahs for a ride. Don't be surprised if you see like hundreds of new Range Rovers in town.

He has promised to work towards resolving the 'Madhes Crisis'. Please don't. This is the same clown, whose idea of resolving the 'Maoist' crisis then was using more force and coming up with new laws to violate everyone's human rights and of course getting thirty million dollars from Bush and then helping his dear ones get some commission on all those arms brought in from foreign lands. 

He is not the only corrupt clown in town. Let us not only blame him for having fun while in power. They are all the same and it's such a shame that this country of hardworking and honest people is ruled by incompetent, lazy and immoral parasites.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

image source: setopati.net

The CON(G)-RACE!

Our grand old party, the Nepali Congress (NC) is hosting its 13th General Convention here in the capital. NC is nearly 70 years old. It would be safe to say that it is a senior citizen party whereas Baburam's 'Naya Shakti' is probably the youngest party in the country right now. 

Nepali Congress seems to not be in good terms with Kollywood. The Maoists have Rekha Thapa whereas Baburam has Karishma Manadhar. Nepali Congress once had Manisha Koirala but that was because of family ties.

I think our Kangaroos should ask one of our Kollywood actress to join their party just for the sake of having a 'filmi' touch. But of course, our politicians are better actors than the ones in our film industry. At least Rajesh Hamal in his movies will claim to use his 'iron hand' to crush his enemies and will do so by the time the movie ends. 

But our politicians claim to fight against foreign hands but will then go overseas and kiss their arses instead. And they come back and lie through their teeth as if we believe them when they say that they looked the bideshis in their eyes and told them to take a hike.

I think it would be better if our political parties stopped conducting their nataks at the Khulla Manch. Why on earth would you want to create traffic jam and bring the capital to a standstill by gathering thousands of your cadres in the middle of the city in the middle of the day? 

Yoga is the 'it' thing these days. If you really must show your strength in the heart of Kathmandu then begin the day with some 'Ram Dev' stomach-wave thing at 5 in the morning. But of course, most of our politicians love to stay up late while they finish up their drinks and it would be tough for them to wake up early and do some exercise. You really don't want to do anything when you have a bad hangover.

Our political parties should host their conventions and other programs outside the Ring Road area. They should organize their nataks on the hills. But of course, only a few will be able to hike and reach the top because most of our netas are over the hill and have weak legs and heart. 

Our clowns could organize their programs on top of Pulchowki or Shivapuri. Do not disturb millions of residents in the capital by your nautanki nataks. Get some fresh air for yourselves. Nagarkot is a good place too. You really don't need hotel rooms. 

You can just do a camping convention, sleep in tents and enjoy the scenery up there. Why spend Karods on masu bhat and what not? Why not just organize the world's biggest dal-bhat karyakaram by asking your volunteers to cook the meals in big drums? At least get your name in the Guinness World Records!

The Kangaroos have been around forever. They claim to be the only party that has led nearly all of the so-called people's movement in the country. Yes, they played their part in toppling the Rana Regime so that the House of Shah could rule over us.  They played their part in the 2046 BS movement where the King alone could not have all the fun. 

While the King still had the army, our politicians had everything else and it was our Kangaroos who showed us how to rule by only favoring your cadres and cousins while making sure those who may not be in your good books get the boot regardless of their competence.

The Kangaroos ruled the country for most of the two decades after the 2046 BS movement. Girija Babu showed us how to play the dirty game of politics. Ganesh Man was not around. We still had Krishna Prasad Bhattarai but the old man was sidelined by Girija. 

We also had Deuba becoming our Prime Minister three times and doing nothing except introducing the 'Pajero' culture in Nepal where politicians could be bought over cash, gift hampers, vehicles and foreign trips and what not.

Here we are now, nearly 25 years later since the Kangaroos made a comeback. We have seen the fall of monarchy, the rise of the Maoists, the superpower of our Madhesis and even the comeback of our Mandaleys. What's next?  We don't know but the country could be in good hands if we let our Raute 

Uncles lead us rather than the usual bunch of thieves. More than three thousand NC delegates are in town to elect a new leadership. We have three stooges who want to lead NC to new heights of more looting of the state funds and selling out to foreign bidders. 

But it's not only the NC but all of our political parties carry the same agenda. Sit on the Kurchi and make as much dough as you can before you leave and when you are not in the ruling coalition then carry out bandas and get some good deals from the government.

We have Ram Chandra Poudel, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Krishna Prasad Sitaula who want to be the NC President. Poudel's claim to fame is that he tried for 17 times and still failed to be our PM. 

Deuba has already been our PM and if he gets to live in Baluwatar again then don't be surprised if he allows our lawmakers to buy a helicopter each that too tax-free and interest-free installment payment for the next thirty years. Sitaula was our Home Minister once and was the man who brought our Emperor and Smarty Pants to the capital when they decided that they would have more fun out in the open than hiding underground.

It really doesn't matter who becomes the next NC President. All of three candidates will do nothing to transform the party, nor will they find middle ground and bring every Kangaroos together to make NC better. Our politicians only know how to divide and rule. 

If they keep on dividing again and again then one day, they will be left with zero and they will no longer exist. I guess we are all waiting for that day when this country will have leaders not loafers to lead us to prosperity and peace instead of dragging us all down towards poverty and war. 

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com