haddock, my thoughts exactly. while one would wish for an ideal society without "Bahuns and Chhetris" and all forms of societal disfunctionalities, one cannot wish them away and unfrtunately work with them. it is the myopia in the society that we must fight instead of playing the blame game. about Mr. Karthak, he did come along with a great series of posts in KTM post a few months ago about reminiscenses of 60's and 70's KTM. i liked that series of articles. i haven;t read "everyman everyplace" yet, but one of these days will. I doubt that Mr. Karthak is much a fan of the "Raj", but he grew up when the "Raj" was collapsing and di witness the decay of Darjeeling along with dysfunction that set in Sikkim after the Indian takeover, that may be the root of his discontent. the whole deal with stagnation of Nepali society is something else and should be discussed in detail in other posts, i guess.