eNeka writes: "I wonder whether Ashu is trying to pour his continued battled with some GBNCers who constantly criticize him since his GBNC days." Since you brought this up, I think that a VERIFIABLY TRUE clarification is necessary. I look back upon my GBNC days with great pride. There are two parts to my GBNC career. Part 1: When I became GBNC president, that is, after taking over from Sanjay Manandhar, I spent a lot of time practically recruiting many of the team-members myself. The result was that we had a first rate team of Raju Pradhan, Sunil Shakya et al. It was at that time, during my presidency, that GBNC FIRST started hosting momo parties, mailing out newsletters and GBNC phone directories and so forth. Accounts were made clear and transparent too. If you ask old-timers in Boston, and I am sure they'll be happy to support what I have said here. In fact, in Kathmandu these days, I still hang out with a number of Nepalis whom I first met as GBNC president in Boston. ******* Part II This happened when Rajesh Babu Shrestha was the president of GBNC. I had had a jhagada with Shailesh Nath Gongal (SNG) over some non-GBNC matters. That jhagada could have been resolved by having a face-to-face conversation (my usual method for resolving misunderstandings and jhagada). In fact, I offered to meet Shailesh face to face and resolve it. But in the hands of Shailesh Nath Gongal, that jhagada took a life of its own. To his credit, he was able to: a) recruit others to support him, b) tell them his side of the story, c) paint a picture of how he was wronged by me, d) show me in the worst possible light, and then e) and get a chorus of GBNC-wallahs to to bad-mouth me personally and publicly. At that time, I was a bit down on my luck in my personal life; so I took the hit -- right in my stomach, again and again. It was painful, but, then, I ended up experiencing a rainbow of human emotions that I had only read about in fat Russin novels!! Looking back, I think I NEEDED, for my own maturity, that particular experience at that time in my life . . .that experience of being backstabbed, attacked and publicly ridiculed . . . for the result has been that I have survived all that quite all right with a smile and with my head high, and have become much, much stronger in so many ways. I remain in touch with many of my Boston friends, and life has gone on quite well for me -- both personally and professionally. Today, I harbor NO ill-feeling toward Shailesh Nath or toward GBNC. They did to me what they had to do, what they were capable of doing at the time. Sure, much of what they did was NOT right or fair. But then, who says, "Life is fair?" It isn't. And I have learnt to live with that fact. oohi ashu