SAG is here

First of all, let us wish our PM a good recovery so that he will at least be able to attend the closing ceremony of the 13th South Asian Games (SAG).  We have to give it up for our folks at the Nepal Sports Council and the Ministry of Youth and Sports for doing their best to host this event despite all the problems in this land of ours.  

Let us not only blame our Oli government but all successive governments since we became a multi-party democracy have been ignoring the youth and development of sports in this country.

We only have one national stadium that too built during the days of the Pancheys. In the past 30 years, our government could have built at least one bigger venue enough to fit half a lakh people but I guess all the money meant for youth and sports only went to our civil servants, cadres and cousins of our clowns instead. 

We may still hate the Pancheys for everything that went wrong then but we can’t keep on blaming them or the monarchy for all the problems since 2006. Our netas should own up their mistakes and work together to make it right instead of blaming it on each other or even the public for all the chaos in this land. Maybe, our netas can show us that they are also human by going to a club at midnight and having some good old fun rather than drinking whiskey and going after government employees.

We hosted the first SAG in 1984 and then the second one in 1999 and now twenty years later, we are hosting the 13th SAG and we are still using the same old Rangasala for our opening and closing act. And instead of our own government building stadiums in all seven provinces, we have a comedian who is doing all he can to build an international standard stadium in Chitwan. 

I think we should just let a few hundred comedians run this country while our politicians can participate in comedy shows across the land. That way, our politicians can at least be proud of the fact that they are making an honest living rather than using their shitty brains to engage in more corruption than ever.

Our government allocates a few billion Rupees for sports development in this land and so far we are still waiting for the cricket ground in Mulpani and we all know that most of the venues will probably need repair and renovation in matter of months after the SAG. This is the land which sends more officials than athletes to international sporting events. 

There are hundreds of sports associations and most of them are headed by folks who have never even played Dandi Biyo in their lives. And the heads of these sports association go overseas more than once a year to attend conferences and sporting events while the real athletes are even forced to pay their own airfare even in the events they have qualified and are entitled to free tickets and other perks.

Our athletes have been getting the shaft forever. It’s time we honor our athletes who have made this country proud.  Baikuntha Manadhar won us three SAG gold medals in marathon. The guy is 66 years old and he gets nothing. But the guys who have stolen from our state treasury get free health care, free vehicles , free security and boras of freebies just because they are stupid netas who have managed to trick us all into voting for them. 

We can’t blame our chors because we are the ones who voted for them. So, all we can do for now is admit our mistakes and vote for another chor the next time around because the current chor in the kurchi will have made enough in the next three years.

If Manandhar was an Amrikan, then he would be like at every Independence Day Parade or all big parades in that country. He would have made millions of dollars from endorsements, book deals, movie rights and what not.  Let us honor the man and all those athletes, men and women who have made us all proud as athletes. 

Our Sports Council and the Ministry and the so-called Olympic Committee wallahs should be ashamed of themselves. Our athletes get paid peanuts and our coaches do it for the love of the game. Our officials are the ones who are having all the fun because most of them are affiliated to our major political parties. That’s how the system works in this land. If you want to steal government funds then you must be part of the government. 

It’s about time sports in this land be under the President’s authority or we have our athletes under government’s payroll and help them to play their sport while providing enough for their families as well. I think we can just go ahead and tax our alcoholic and tobacco products to the max and make it the most expensive in the world. 

Yes, let us be number one for once. Let’s beat Bosnia and be the number one country in the world with the highest tax on cigarettes. We can put that tax money for development of sports and our youth. But of course, we have already seen the good use of our vehicle taxes in this land. I think it’s time to bring the Liglig race back. Yes, whoever wins the race can be our King or Queen for a year. After all, aren’t our buffoons who now sit on the Kurchi think of themselves more than Kings and Queens?

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

Retire at 60

Our hardworking civil servants will soon be retiring at 60. The current retirement age is 58. But those who oppose the government might not even get their pension. Yes, our Oli government is coming up with all kinds of laws to stifle dissent. If our comrades had their way then even their own party members who have been vocal against the government would land up in jail. 

If you are a civil servant then just continue to do your job and not go on YouTube or post comments in social media that might get our thin-skinned government off the bed. Just be quiet, go to the office and do nothing. Well, that’s what our civil servants have been doing for ages.

We would like to request our comrades that their ‘magic’ book is outdated and they need to revise Marx’s guffs for the 21st century.  If our government had its way then there would be gulags everywhere. Don’t be surprised if our government bans social media someday. 

Gokul dai thinks his decision to ban porn has helped to prevent violence and rape in this land. Prohibition in the United States didn’t stop people from drinking. Instead, the mafia made tons by selling bootleg liquor. People will find ways to get around it. 

Our government must learn that they are certain things they should ban while they should regulate others so that even the government can earn some money. This is the land where our state treasury is dry but the backyards of our politicians and civil servants are filled with boras of cash. You pay a fine of a few thousand Rupees to the State while you add a few lakhs for chiya kharcha to our sarkari hakims. That’s how this system works and no wonder this country is going broke.

Our government should ban cement factories in this land because it will not help us at all. What good is it that we are sufficient in cement and we have urban jungles everywhere while we cannot breathe clean air. Our government should ban all those who are destroying our hills and rivers in the name of construction. Our government should ban corruption, human trafficking and other stuff that makes our lives miserable. 

But instead, our manpower companies continue to exploit our own people. Our sisters are still sold in brothels in India. Why can’t our Oli government pass a law that strips all assets and even citizenship of those involved in human trafficking. You don’t have to hang a person to death just to make us all feed good for a while. 

There can be laws that makes their lives hell. And it’s about time we all saw the faces of those engaged in criminal activities. What’s up with all those arrested for heinous crimes wearing face masks. This is the only country in the world where criminals and tax evaders seem to have privacy rights while the rest of us do not have any rights at all.

Maybe it’s time our politicians did us all a favor by passing a bill that also sets a retirement age for our lawbreakers. Our civil servants have to hang their bags at 60 then why not do the same for our clowns as well?

It seems that our politicians want to hang on till they drop dead. It really doesn’t matter if our civil servants retire at 58 or 60 or 65 because most of them are lazy bums anyway. 

Our bureaucracy has not change a bit in the past three decades. We thought things would get better when our starving democrats came to power in the 90s. But instead, our Congressi government screwed it up and made it a place where their cadres got to enjoy all the perks and power that comes with the positions.  Today, we see political interference everywhere. 

Now, our civil servants will get two more years to do read more newspapers, drink tea and play cards on computer and use Facebook during office hours.

If our government hired an independent body to investigate ill-gotten wealth in this country, then our civil servants would top the list. We only blame our politicians for all the chaos in this country but we tend to forget that our civil servants are the ones who need to be held accountable. 

Our chimeki the dim sum wallahs tell us that we should be engaged in friendly negotiations with our samosa wallahs when it comes to Kalapani. I guess our politicians should now understand that our chimekis are in it together and we don’t really matter at all. Most of the folks in the international community will continue to pay lip service over Kalapani. 

Maybe, we can just play a friendly football match with the Desis or if our government can bring out a political map of Nepal and we can have everything we owned until the British came rolling. Then, our map would show us bordering Delhi. We can’t go to war with India over our disputed territories. Our opposition wallahs can shout all they want but when they are in power, they will also remain silent.  

Maybe, it’s time our hardworking civil servants really did their homework and our honest politicians finally have the political courage to sit down with the Desis and resolve the disputes with Susta and Kalapani. If not, then bring out a law that bans all protests against foreign governments and that would do the trick for now.

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

Climb the Mountain

Nirmal Purja has done it. He has now set a world record for climbing 14 highest peaks in less than seven months and this record will probably never be broken. Nirmal had an all Nepalese team and this shows that we Nepalese can work as a team and be successful unlike our clowns, civil servants and contractors who never complete their tasks on time and within the budget. People like Purja should get a medal from our Madame President instead of fake VAT-bill byaparis and other controversial figures. 

Purja has a MBE from the Queen in England. Someday,  he might get knighted but I don’t know if he has a British citizenship yet. I think it’s time our government give at least a ‘green card’ to our NRNs abroad. 

Let us even open our hills to the rich foreigners. I think a lot of rich folks from Hong Kong would love to buy our hills and build villas. We can tax them a little bit more if the land value appreciates and they want to take their money back home. If most of the buildings in Manhattan can be owned by foreign entities then why are we scared of foreign investors in our real estate market? 

I think it’s time we follow the ‘Bhutan’ policy when it comes to tourism and just follow the rulebook from China and India when it comes to attracting foreign investors. But of course, the only folks who really don’t want this all to happen are our civil servants. 

Our bureaucracy is bloated and corrupt. I think it’s time to realize that our civil servants have destroyed this country and help our politicians to loot more. We need politicians who have the political courage to take on the bureaucracy. If not, this system will never change. I think it’s time our civil servants took responsibility for their incompetence and resistance to change and do the right thing.

Maybe, our politicians should learn a thing or two from Nirmal and his team. Climbing Everest or any other mountains require mental and physical endurance. Most of our politicians have neither and maybe that’s the reason why we are still stuck at the base camp when it comes to the socio-economic development in Nepal. Purja could not have done it without the help of his team members and our Sherpas are the true heroes of Everest. 

I think it’s time our government set a fixed amount folks need to pay to our Sherpas for helping them to climb our mountains. I think a minimum of ten thousand dollars is a good amount. We need to make Everest more expensive so that our Sherpas are paid better and we can also minimize the traffic jam up there and cut down on the trash as well.

Oli is not feeling well. Let’s hope he gets better soon. I think it’s time Oli fulfilled his side of the bargain and let our Emperor move in to Baluwatar. Our greatest communist government on Earth sometimes forgets that the reason we voted for them was because we thought they could better than the Kangaroos. 

But it seems that even with the two-third majority, our Oli government still acts like they are in the opposition instead. The recent arrest of two artists has led us to question our government’s intentions when it comes to freedom of speech, press and religion. 

Our comrades are here today because they fought against the system that was against our right to voice our opinion. And they should not forget that they may bring out new laws and ban everything in this land but one day, a new player will emerge and our old political parties might be banned as well. 

So our comrades should stop shooting themselves in the foot. Power does not last forever. Elections will happen and Nepali voters are not ignorant fools. We will have no choice but to give the other chors a chance to loot us all again come next election.

We all know that our Emperor is still in the game because he ditched one partner for another. And who knows, he may do the break-up act again to fulfill his own self-interest.  It’s about time our political parties stop supporting their own cadres even when they have committed heinous crimes. This culture of impunity must be stopped. 

The CIAA should be an independent body and report to the President and not our politicians. Our justices should not answer to their political masters. Our civil servant should be able to work without political interference. And sad to say, but this is only possible if everyone reports to the President. And then our Madame President will be too busy to go on foreign trips or attend inauguration ceremonies in town.

Visit Nepal 2020 is round the corner. Nepal Tourism Board should appoint Nirmal Purja as our brand ambassador or maybe we can appoint him as our Ambassador to the UK if he meets the minimum requirement. He could help in bring a million Brits next year. Prabal Gurung should be appointed the brand ambassador in the US. 

He could bring in thousands of his fans and even Michelle Obama and a dozen Hollywood celebrities to Nepal. And we have a Chinese brand ambassador but how about the Desis. Yogesh Dai, please ask Sachin Tendulkar and Rajnikant to be our brand ambassador in India. We could get tens of millions from the North and the South. 

Our Emperor is waiting. He is itching to move to Baluwatar. Will the greatest communist party on Earth break up and we will see a new political set up soon or will the Eh-Maleys give the Maobadis a chance to lead the government. We all know that this ‘unity’ natak will not last long. The question is when will they break up and we will go back to the same old nataks again. It all depends on the smog in Delhi. 

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