sd_man, Take it easy, brother. Nobody is perfect. And life is not always fair. It brings you all kinds of things. You take your share and move on. Ghalib knew it. गम-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किस से हो जुज मर्ग ईलाज शम्आ हर रंग में जलती है सहर होने तक (कहाँ मुक्ति छ दु:खबाट साथी मृत्युले छुँदा सम्म अनेक रंगमा जलिरहन्छ बत्ती मिर्मिरे हुँदा सम्म) A candle has to burn in every shade and color until dawn. *** *** *** *** Ashu, You are right that we suffer severely from lack of democratic culture of dissent. However, I think it is more a problem related to etiquette than a problem of faulty reasoning actually. I do not think Nepalis are intellectually challanged so much as to believe that our enemies are always wrong and our friends are always right. I can tell from my experience of Nepali life that we are as intelligent as any people in the world and we do know it when our enemies are right or when our friends are wrong. We just are unable to articulate that. That's all. And the things that disable us to articulate such things are our feudalistic values of 'dignity' and 'honor'. After 1990, we indeed were supposed to learn to replace the feudalistic values of "dignity" and "honor" with the democratic culture of "respectful dissent", "graceful acceptance" and likes. But we did not. Apparently something is not right. You and I have probably different views on what is not right. In any case, I am very optimistic and believe that things are happening in a right direction, although not in a desirable pace yet. Basically our weakness is that we are weak. We can not think of fighting the strong and powerful. By saying so, I may have sounded bizarre to some, because what we have been seeing in Nepal is nothing but fight, fight and fight. How can a fighter be weak ? Well, if we look at all political fights carefully, a pattern will emerge where we will see our fighters actually targeting a weaker and vulnerable party while dispensing the stronger and robust one. I know I am making a very general and very sweeping assertion. However, I believe that I am not very much wrong. Now, to all this, we are seeing a sign of change. People are emboldened and they are targeting the most powerful and the robust one too. Now I am hopeful that perhaps now we can show our courage to fight our own "friends" and patch up with the "enemies" if and when necessary, not based on the calculation of physical strength, but based on the bold and cold calculation of moral strengths. Better and brighter days are ahead. I have never been more optimistic than I am now. Nepe