Posted by: jhigatighare September 8, 2011
India's Nepal Oven ? WTF
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Thank you for your concern for the owner Rajat, I don't think anybody hates owner, it's just name of the restaurant that we hate, coz that offends us. We know what it takes to set up a business and keep it running. The guy has no doubt worked very hard to take it to this level. Everybody does mistakes, and you know what I do when I realize that I make a mistake ? I correct that !! The owner, no doubt a good person himself, isn't taking that step. He now pretty much knows that restaurant's name has made so many of his countrymen feel ashamed and still he is not willing to change it such that the name doesn't sound like a compromising statement to anybody. Being a Nepali is different than being an Indian. We have very small representation compared to Indians anywhere in the world. Any small number of visible representation that we have, including restaurants, or any other form of organization or tags bring our identity with them. You may find many US born people who don't know about Nepal but has been to a Nepali restaurant. Today's Nepal is poor and behind hundred of years than rest of the world. You know why ? We had to maintain our existence between two giant countries, India and China. Just for the sake of existence, we missed out on times when formal education systems spread across the world, 19th & 20th centuries, we missed out on Industrial revolution, and now we are missing out on IT and other forms of economic revolutions that rest of the world is embarking on for their economic growth. In my family, my parent's generation was first to get formal education and that makes existing youth of Nepal second generation to get formal education. While, Nepal missed out on everything else, and gained only one thing, it's sovereignty. The point is, Nepal's identity is all Nepali people have earned so far and is a biggest asset. We can't accept anybody mess with it, in any form. If restaurant owner is good person, he shouldn't offend his countrymen. Hope this makes sense to you and understand why Nepali people are sensitive about country's name. We'll get to the point where we won't have to represent Nepal with a restaurant Name, but we are not quite there yet.
Last edited: 08-Sep-11 03:07 PM
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