Mr Kiddo, ooh, when you try to threaten me with that "don't you dare touch my flag", you sound rather desperate but it makes for a rather good rhetoric to all those so-called patriotic Nepali crowd, doesn't it? Your patriotism is really as good as mine, I don't really feel like saying "trust me" right now.

That day is coming when all the unjust practices are gonna come back to haunt you (or us). See what happened to the Shah dienasty of Nepal. What did Shakespeare say? All is well that ends well. They could not keep up with the changing times. It was not the Maoists or the democracy seekers who brought an end to the last kings. They did that to themselves; they crumbled from within. I have a strong hunch Mahendra Shah was assassinated as well. Oh the times were so unsurmountably tough and he was trying to get ahead of himself , or more precisely, ahead of the actual power-players to reckon with. The game has gotten too complex; one boy cannot be controlling all those marbles. I don't want to digress too much into that now.

This flag is not perfect. It was created by people like you and me and thus can be amended by you and me.

 

When you say Kshatriyas united the modern Nepal you are not giving enough credit to the foot soldiers and the battalion leaders who led from the line-of-fire and who hailed from Kirat, Gurung, Magar, Newar, and numerous other groups. All those groups, not just the Kshatriyas banded together as one army to engulf the rest of the principalities during their campaign of territorial expansion. There was no meritocracy in the Nepali army during those times nor does it exist in its fully glory in any Nepali realm today. People will not forget that the top appointees of the army had to be a Pandey, a Thapa, or a Rana, or something like that. Having said that, are you still hell-bent on trying to persuade me to believe that Bal Bhadra Kunwor, Amar Singh Thapa, and Bhakti Thapa were like comic book super-heroes who could destroy opponent armies by themselves? I can't f_ucking believe I had to put myself through studying some wasteful chapters on Bhim Nidhi Tiwari and Baal Guru Khadaanand (clearly does not sound like someone with an erectile dysfunction) in those Nepali textbooks. My question is how did they help Nepal become a better society? There are numerous such examples of glorifying just the Bahuns and the Chhetris in the Nepali textbooks, carefully designed to brain-wash the young minds with superiority of the ruling class. Bhanu Bhakta was made immortal by the same textbooks because he is said to have translated Ramayan, a sacred Hindu scripture of mythological significance from Sanskrit to Nepali. What a waste if you look back, it's not of much relevance today because frontier Nepalese understand Hindi better than the Nepali language Madhav Kumar Nepal and Gyandendra Shah cannot manage to speak fluent Nepali but I am sure they will not give up trying entirely. Motiram Bhatt "discovered" that Bhanu Bhakta was the translator of Ramayana. Consequently, the propagandists made him immortal as well. Until recently Bhanu Bhakta was the best known son of Nepal ahead of even Gautama Buddha, the Light of the World. What does that say about Nepali culture, values, and sense of fairness? We need to revisit those wrongs and make them right. Sometimes, I wonder if the life of Bhanu Bhakta from Ramgha, Tanahun is factually as true as that of Sherlock Holmes from Baker Street, London. Though, Motiram Bhatt on the other hand could be for real like Conan Doyle was.

As long as we allow this flag to flutter above our heads, the backward and corrupt Hindu religion and culture will never allow Nepal to progress itself. It is as painful a reminder of those dark times as Abu Ghraib and Tribhuwan Sadan. This flag is innocent but not the history of our nation. Mind you, I don't want to destroy or desecrete the flag of today. I am proposing to respectfully retire it after we have found a more suitable alternative. Now, who is being narrow-minded?

If the King's portraits could be removed from the Nepali currencies and if the national seal could be amended and the national anthem could be re-written, why is the national flag still a holy cow? 

Today, Nepal hardly makes or builds anything in the larger context. The only currency that the outside world knows or accepts of Nepal are 

1) Mount Everest and the Himalayas

2) Gautama Buddha (of course, f_ork Bhanu Bhakta)

3) Gurkhas

4) Sherpas

5) (you tell me)

6) (you tell me)

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Dear all Nepalese, accept it or not majority of the world knows our country of Nepal because Mt. Everest is in Nepal or because Buddha was born in Nepal and not in India. Why not put these two on the new national flag and free up some facebook time for nation-building instead? Gautama Buddha, and not Bhanu Bhakta, was the greatest mind (perhaps one of the greatest in freaking history) ever to be born in present day Nepal. Gurkhas and Sherpas represent just certain ethnicities and not all groups in Nepal, therefore cannot be and should not be included on the new flag.

There you have it - Mount Everest and Gautama Buddha on a regular rectangle-shaped national flag. Steve Colbert would have to zip up after the new flag is unveiled. And it would make the job of my local tailor so much easier as they would not have to deal with those stupid crescent-shaped pieces.

Mr. Kiddo, unless you want to put an image of a man with gastric ailment on the new national flag as MaHa jodi famously said it is one of those things that can saliently distinguish a Nepalese from the foreign crowd. I am already picturing the demeanor of that wretched man hoisted up in the air to every patriotic Nepalese' attention.

Last edited: 31-Aug-14 04:57 AM