Rich Wives, Poor Husbands!

Let us all thank our man Oli and his courtiers for letting us know about how much gold, land and other stuff they own as if it will make us feel better to know that most of our mantris are rich folks and will not engage in corruption to enrich themselves further.  Our government tells us that they have a zero tolerance policy against corruption. We must remind them that they can tell us funny stories when Gai Jatra is around the corner.

If we were to believe that our civil servants and netas have stopped taking commissions from our byaparis and boras of cash from our sarkari folks for promotions and lucrative postings then we should also believe our PM's dream of making our country a heaven in a decade. 

No one who has been to heaven has come back to tell us what it's like but it must be a place where no bribes are needed, no syndicate nataks in all businesses and where the common hardworking law-abiding folks are respected and live better lives than the corrupt evil doers. Yes, we are all allowed to dream and hope that our dreams will come true some day but as a Prime Minister, we want a doer not only a dreamer.

Our Transport Minister Raghubir Mahaseth is the richest mantri in Oli's cabinet. And we should not be jealous of this man. After all, his last name already tells us the whole story.  As usual, most of our mantris like most of our netas and civil servants, have their land and gold in the name of their wives. 

Mahaseth also has more than 40 Karods invested in stocks in the country. I think Nepal Stock Exchange should make him their brand ambassador  as well. If a mantri has so much faith in our stock market then we should also join in and invest our hard-earned money in stocks and let the big players manipulate the market and make a killing while we lose our life savings. 

We must thank all those rich father-in-laws who supported their daughters' marriage to poor, starving then political activists or sarkari folks. Or maybe they knew that someday, these poor  young men would become mantris and hakim sahebs and make Karods of cash.  Karods is nothing in this land. We see mundrey dons driving around in luxury vehicles. It seems that our politicians are the godfathers and they can get away with everything. 

No wonder, our Emperor is known to have invested in hundreds of businesses and real estate in this land.  Yes, after all, those who wanted to change the system are now part of the corrupt system. This country will continue to witness intense looting of state coffer and resources by the thulo mancheys till we go broke and have nothing left. Maybe then, we will rise up and finally get rid of our blood sucking parasites.

It seems that our politicians do love gold as much as the common folks. The only difference is that they can buy kilos of gold with their illegal money while common folks have to work hard for years to buy a tola of gold. And talking about gold, our smugglers have made a fortune and so have our police wallahs, civil servants and our netas. 

Gorey is not the kingpin. If our government is really serious to take action against those leading the gold smuggling racket then many of our politicians, hakim sahebs and police wallahs will be in jail instead of only the small fishes. 

Anything illegal in such massive scale can be done only with the blessings of our politicians. We all know that except our courts and our police. It's about time, somebody was brave enough to expose our chors instead of just keeping quiet and spending their time in jail to protect the big sharks.

Our PM also has 18 tolas of gold and nearly half a Karod cash in the bank.  In three years since his last submission of property details, Oli has managed to buy three tolas of gold and has parked more than forty five lakhs in the bank. If you want to know how to save money then you can learn a thing or two from Oli. 

After all, the man doesn’t have to pay for his medical expenses, vehicle and security and other nataks as well. It's good to be a thulo manchey in this land.

Our man Lal Babu Pandit has an old rusty cycle but also has lots of cash and land as well. Our Home Minister has even listed two dogs in his asset list. And our Energy Minister doesn’t have any land or house in the valley. And the man was our Finance Minister once.  And our two women ministers seem to have a lot less than our other mantris. 

Yes, not all of our politicians are rich people but it is very hard for us to believe that most of them will not take kickbacks from our con artists. How the sytem works in this land is that thulo mancheys do not need to go out and beg for cash. 

Their personal aides (PAs) or staff below them will collect the cash and distribute it to all those concerned. So if Oli really wants to end corruption in this land then all personal aides of our politicians should be asked to come to Singha Durbar and hand in their black books. 

Our political parties only want to make hard cold cash. They do not care about the people. Our mantris have to make cash from their ministries through promotions, commissions from contractors and inflated bills so that they can at least give half of their illegal money to their parties and then keep half for themselves. 

That's how our system works and no politicians or political parties dare try to reform the system because if they did then they would be broke and then you can't win elections and become mantris to make tons of moolah from other chors. 

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

The 'New' Communists

Let us congratulate Oli and Prachanda for finally merging their two parties to create a big fat Communist party in the country. Yes, it took them seven months of chiya guff, whiskey talk and what not to finally get their thulo mancheys together to agree to create the biggest left party in the nation. 

And let's hope that we will finally have free education, free healthcare and lots of freebies from our communist government. But our communists are fake and most of them have invested in schools and hospitals and in the transportation sector. So let us not expect our communists to act like communists because they are just capitalists wearing the 'communist' tag.

The UML needed the Maoists to take control of the parliament and our Emperor knew very well that he had to tag along with the UML to be relevant and continue to enjoy power.  

That's politics and if the UML had not started their fling with the Maoists then Sher Bahadur Deuba would have been our Prime Monster for a few years and then Prachanda would enjoy his stay in Baluwatar as well. It seems that Prachanda will be around for a while and continue to enjoy his power, whiskey and mint some more dough along the way.

Oli and Prachanda tells us that the UML and the Maoist Center no longer exist and we now have the Nepal Communist Party to lead us to prosperity. Biplab Dai will continue to do his voluntary donation or will bomb your gate nataks for a while. I think the new party should just call him for lunch and make him a mantri. After all, Nepali politics is all about money and has nothing to do with serving the people at all. 

The new party now has two chairperson and other seven folks in the central secretariat and has four folks who have lived in Baluwatar.  Our comrades tell us that all properties owned by the two parties will now be transferred to the new party.  

If our comrades were real communists then they should also transfer all properties and cash made from illegal means while in power to the party itself. Then, the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) will probably be the richest political party not only in Nepal but also in the world as well. The party will also have investments in colleges, hospitals, transport, media, cooking gas and even supermarkets as well. 

The comrades will have a 441 central committee members and forty plus standing committee members. There won't be much problem filling up the central committee slots as they already have the same number of folks in their old central committees but it would be interesting to see how they will manage the standing committee quota. It's not easy to make everyone happy.

The NCP tells us that they are all about people's democracy and socialism but in practice our comrades and all other political clowns from other political parties do not care about the people and only engage in crony capitalism to enrich themselves, their cousins and their cadres.

Our Emperor tells us that the merger of two parties is like formation of water, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Let us hope they don't add carbon dioxide and make it a carbonated water. We just want plain clean drinking water, comrades!  Our netas have always promised us stability, peace and prosperity. 

We might have political stability for now but many of our folks are still threatened by underground militant outfits in the plains. We also have the Biplab Maoists doing their share of nataks. And prosperity is only for the clowns, civil servants and contractors and not the common folks. 

Prime Minister Oli tells us that the new party is not a tempo but a jet and needs two pilots. But let us not forget that our tempos are environmental friendly and either uses gas or electricity while jumbo jets burn lots of fuel. And let us hope that the two pilots will agree to take off and land the jet as planned and not try to do it their way and screw it up for all of us.

And thanks to our Prime Minister Oli, who has done us all proud by showing us all that no matter how much our politicians bark, at the end of the day, they have no choice but to bow down to the Desi Uncles. 

And it's about time somebody asked the Indian Embassy for an explanation on our 'flag' fiasco as well. Modi came, had some fun and went back home. NaMo and Oli finally laid the foundation stone for the Arun III hydropower project, the same project our comrades had protested against then and the World Bank had decided to withdraw from it more than two decades ago.  

Let us hope that the Desi developers will finish the project on time instead of lingering around for decades and doing nothing. But at the end of the day, we have no one but our own netas and civil servants to blame for all the mess. We can't even spend our own budget on time and then we waste billions of Rupees at the last month of the fiscal year!

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

The Good, Bad and the Ugly

The Good thing about having India as our chimeki is that we don't need a visa to cross the border. And of course, the Indian don't need one either. If the Desis think that they are like Americans then maybe we should consider ourselves Candians. We are much friendlier and laid back while the Desis do want to rule the world someday and do act like the Amrikans in the SAARC region. 

They want to be a superpower while we don't know what we want to be. Thanks to our incompetent government, we are not being able to capitalize on the middle-class Indians and Chinese who could visit our land and spend some dough.  We are not talking about a few million, we are talking about hundreds of millions of Chindians. 

We mostly get Indian tourists who book a bus, throw a few cylinders of cooking gas on the roof, bring their own food supplies and have picnics along the highway as they come to visit our temples or those who come for a few days to have fun in our casinos and that's about it. Maybe, we need to ask the Ambanis to host a wedding party for one of their kids in Chitwan or Everest or Pokhara. 

Let us ask Jack Ma to visit Nepal and tell us his stories at Bouddha.  If we had really good officials at our Ministry of Foreign Affairs then we would have asked Prince Harry to plan his honeymoon in Nepal.  Our Nepal Tourism Board has millions of Rupees in its promotional budget and we don't know where they spend it. 

Just attending travel expos or placing ads on buses in Western countries is not enough. Why not give a free trip to Nepal to each person from each country in the world? And we, the people can provide free room and board for the promotional campaign. 

But it's sad, that most of the tourists don't even spend ten dollars a day while visiting our land while domestic tourists spend five times more in Chitwan, Pokhara and even Rara.  Maybe, we should have a rule for our citizens as well, that makes it mandatory to visit at least one rural district other than your own and get a stamp on your special passbook before you can go abroad.  It could help us bond with our brothers and sisters and as well help to bring in some dough in the local economy. 

We need tourists who can spend more so that our government can make more from taxes, our byaparis can have a decent return on investment and millions of us can find jobs in the tourism sector. Yes, we really need to learn a thing or two from Bhutan when it comes to making money from the tourists. 

It's about time Oli and Modi sit down and work on a wall so that we don't hear about Indian border security forces throwing away the border pillars and harassing our citizens in our own land. Instead of an open border, it's time we regulated our border and kept track of all those who use our checkpoints, be it our own folks or the bidehis. I think this will make both countries safer and we can also help our citizens who may need help across the border if we at least have some information about where they were heading. 

It's sad but true that many of us do pay tons of money to visit India for medical treatment. We, the people pay cash while our corrupt netas use the taxpayers' money to fund their treatment.  Our civil servants and netas should learn a thing or two from the Desis when it comes to medical and other education institutions. It's about time, our incompetent government asked the Desis to help us set up schools like IITs and IIMs in Nepal. 

We can have seven such schools in each of our provinces and select the best of the best. Instead of allowing only byaparis to open medical schools, it's about time, the government asked for help with our chimekis to open medical schools run by the government. It's not only about asking the Desis for help. We can also ask the Chinese to pitch in. 

Millions of our brothers and sisters do work in India and they do their best to support their families back home. But they don't get any respect neither in India nor in Nepal. Yes, washing dishes in Japan will help you earn more than if you do that across the border. But work is work and even a few Indian Rupees helps to provide for families in our villages. It’s about time. we have a database of our folks who are living in India and contributing to our economy as well.

Yes, the Indians have their special agents in the capital taking care of business.  Yes, most countries have their intelligence folks doing their stuff in foreign lands except ours. Do, we have our special agents in Amrika or even in Delhi? It's time the Desis change the name of their intelligence agency from RAW to something that sounds a little bit more scarier like the CIA or Mossad.  And we need to revamp our intelligence services as well. 

After all, except for our land, all countries in the world first look after their self interest and then only figure out how to help their chimekis. For our government, our civil servants and our politicians, it is the other way round.  Let us hope Modi will have a good time here and Oli will use his tricks to get us more than the usual cheap gift hampers. 

Maybe, we need some help with setting up a nuclear plant. If the Desis are not willing to help, just call the French. Now, that could finally help our chimekis to listen to us once in a while!

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

Modi Again!

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (NaMo) is coming to Nepal next week. We are not really excited like we were the first time around. Let us hope NaMo is prepared with witty one-liners, jokes and mix-masala guff to change our views on his government and its natak during the blockade. 

NaMo is going to rule India for some time. We have no choice but to make sure that we get the best out of any deals with India and our civil servants and netas should make sure that NaMo is happy while he is here. Somebody should hire a guy from Gujrat to make the 'best' chai in the world for NaMo. Yes, little things do count when you are trying to flatter your chimekis.

Our man Oli was in Delhi a month ago to eat some chai and samosas. That's what our thulo mancheys do when they visit our chimekis. They act like they just won a free travel package and are happy to spend our taxpayers' money. 

Instead of getting good deals for one's country, they sign on agreements that benefit the chimekis more than us. Oli did not sign any new agreements but we could have at least made the Desis aware that they should not play politics and tell us that they will not buy electricity if the hydropower projects were not built by the Desis. We have no one to blame but our civil servants who always fail to do their homework before our netas visit foreign lands.  

The Desis want our water and electricity. But what do we want from them? At least the Indian civil servants know what they want from Nepal but our civil servants only want scholarships for their kids in Indian universities and nothing for the country. It's a shame that our netas and hakim sahebs have failed again and again to do what's best for the country.

Namo is a vegetarian. Oli should ask NaMo to try the Veggie Momo in Nepal and the Desi PM can tweet about it. We can even officially name our Veggie Momo, "NaMomo" if that helps to get lots of freebies from India. 

We are tired of getting bicycles, buses and ambulances.  What we want is less hassle at the border for our folks who work in India. We want our byaparis to get their goods from the Indian ports or export their stuff without obstruction as per our agreement with India. We want better trade deals with India. 

Oli told the Desis that friendship is more important than agreements while he was in India.  But it's about time our netas and civil servants hired experts to figure out a way to reduce the trade deficit with India. We export less than a billion dollars worth of goods to our chimeki while we import ten times more. 

Our politicians talk about economic revolution but just having new cement factories is not going to make our country prosperous. We need real jobs. It seems that the only folks who make money in this land are the folks with the Department of Roads and the contractors who get the contracts to build our roads. 

And our politicians and civil servants get the commission. The same road is built, dug up for other works by other government agencies and then rebuilt again and again and our contractors get extension forever to carry out their shoddy works.  

When Modi first came to Nepal, he did manage to win the hearts and minds of the Nepali people with his nataks. Yes, just say a sentence in Nepali and we all jump off our chairs and start applauding as if the guy just gave an hour speech in fluent Nepali. While our politicians hide behind luxury vehicles surrounded by armed guards, Modi decided to stop his vehicle and walk around to meet and greet Nepalis. We wished our politicians were like NaMo! 

Then, came the blockade and we had to pay Rs 500 for a liter of petrol and more than six times more for cooking gas. Our government, our Madhesi parties and the Desis didn't care that the millions of Nepalis suffered during the blockade. The only folks who cared about our suffering were the folks who were protesting during the day and then helping to provide us fuel and cooking gas during the night by getting it from India. 

Instead of landing at our one and only international airport, NaMo will land in Janakpur on an Indian Air Force helicopter. It would have been nice if NaMo landed in Bhairahawa, drove to Lumbini and finally admitted that Buddha was born in Nepal and requested all to visit Lumbini. Then, all would be forgiven and we would probably forget about the blockade and other nataks from the Desis back then.

NaMo is expected to land in Janakpur, then offer worship at the Janaki Temple and then fly to Mustang on the same day and then come to Kathmandu. A while ago, three former Desi Ambassadors to Nepal were having a reunion in Dolpa. It seems that the Desis are interested in our beautiful rural areas right next to China. Either they really do enjoy the scenery or they have other things in mind.  

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