Just my two cents here : I dont know who Ashu is, but I do know Gagan ( have drank few cups of teas with him when I was in Kathmandu), I associated myself with leftist politics back then, about 10 years ago,but now my personal affiliation with politics has no bearings whatsoever I am going to type here. For those read me from point of an unbiased point might be mistaken after they re-read my post and so will the bunch who think the other ways... Here is the crux of the problem about this thread itself : Gagan Thapa and Ashu both do not represent 95 percent of folks here in sajha and even more may be 99.99 percent in whole as Nepalese in Nepal. Ashu might have read Nepali history in details only when he decided to go back to Nepal to work ''for the people'',Gagan may have on the other hand read it times and again in the newspapers and have had a sense of what it is like. Why am I raising this petty issue as to what the hell this history stuff has to do with their 'visions' for Nepal and Nepalese. I have closely studied articles written by Ashu in Nepali Times and I have seen news of Gagan lately in the Nepali press as well. Ashu merited a comfortable job , due in part of his harvard education may be,where he can criticise students like Gagan Thapa and likes where Gagan goes to streets chanting slogans against King. The real problem here is not who is who and who has accomplished what and who writes well or not or who voices their opinions from the slogans. The issue here is the misunderstanding of both acts. Writing in a paper with praise or criticism of an individual or institution or the place where the individual hails from or voicing the slogan against monarchy or monarch itself is the solution to our problems back home.Our problems back home are utter ignorance and not being able to realise the importance that'good politics only can change people's lives for good' Let Ashu join the King and his junta or Gagan be the supremo of the revolution, how does it matter to a nepali in the street? Ashu may have the comfort of writing from an air conditioned room in kathmandu,Gagan may have had assurance about some political aspirations of his own, which are both good for these two anyways, nothing wrong with that. The question is do they really understand the fundamentals of Nepal's poverty,politico-economic impact of the armed conflict of last ten year and the new world order that is brewing up due to globalisation and its impact in the everyday lives of the farmers and workers of Nepal? I guess not! because when you have never become poor in your life, you dont acknowledge its cruelty in real, only in seminars and bichaar gosthis. Both of these fellows have gone to boarding schools in Nepal, anyone here tell me how many kids have gone to boarding schools in Bajura? dadeldhura ? and even in Morang district where Mr Ashu once wrote in his column about koiralas?...The numbers are dismal and majority of the ones who even make it to SLC in Nepal cant afford RR college itself, albeit the Harvard and lucrative potential of power and 'instant popularity' i should say who both of these fellows have had for granted with the foreign education and and one street fighter. The bottom line is :it's just an argument about who is more stupid than the others, not that who is more visionary than the second one. Both of them to me are an alike pair, just like hatti and hatti chhap chappal. King is not right at all, my point was not to back him up...still a leftist at best.