My parents took my life, as a young adolescent, promised me all kinds of riches by taking me to the States, made me go through a series of experiences, broke my life, and then gave it back to me--telling me that my life was now my responsibility. Then, when I couldn't fix my broken life together, and failed in the tasks I was supposed to accomplish, they blamed me and joined their relatives in shaming me. And there I was, with pieces of my life that were working just fine once upon a time, before I left Nepal, but now I was holding broken pieces in my hands. I felt bewildered and puzzled. I could not understand what had transpired between the time my parts were working and now. And I could not explain to others what I did not understand. All I knew was that things were not working the way they once were. And that there were people standing around pointing fingers at me shaming me. Like a mute, all I could do was open my gaping mouth, unable to utter decipherable words that would clear me of my guilt in their eyes. And the unspoken words from their steel-like accusatory eyes, bore words of shame into my chest that I would carry in my heart for my life. I suppose I was what people call a 'victim of circumstance.'

I was so puzzled and amazed at the suddenness of my failure that I had not even fully comprehended what had transpired. Even then I had tried to ask for time and space and a safe place where I could fix my life. But my parents priorities were elsewhere from what was in my interest, as usual. The weight of shame and of public humiliation of my failure in college was too great for them. Not only did my parents not acknowledge the fact that their decisions broke me, they did not even acknowledge that my engine may be broken beyond repair. My failures, in their eyes, came from my choices, not theirs. After tiring me from making me jump through the many different obstacle courses in all sorts of foreign environments, they had once more sent me into another foreign environment to jump through yet another hurdle. But I was like a lawn mower that was way over used. And unlike the many times I had jumped through the many foreign hurdles in my past, finally the tiredness of the past caught up to me, and I could not jump another hurdle. And my parents, instead of stopping to see why it was that I couldn't jump, were very quick to look at me through the eyes of Nepali society and shame me and accuse me of laziness and frivolity. As my father told me, he would give me one more chance to prove myself (taking for granted all the foreign environments I had successfully jumped through in the past). I was a show horse meant to make my masters look good. And I had failed.

But from being a show horse, now I was converted into a pack horse. And like a pack horse with a broken leg whose owner accuses him of being lazy, I was loaded up once again so that I could prove my suitability or be retired for ever. And amidst calls and jeers of shame around me, I limped forward, only to fall again. I fell and those around me felt further justified in shaming me for my inherent laziness and frivolity. And I sunk within the pits of shame, unclear of how to clear my shame and my name. I was unable to communicate my innocence to those who blamed me. I was unclear as to how could it be that I was being held responsible for holding in my hands, my broken life, when others had broken it and then given it to me. I was socially caught-red handed in a crime that I did not commit. And my parents were more than happy to socially wash their hands off of me. Their wealth, accomplishments and status in Nepali society ensured them of being above any doubt in poverty-stricken Nepali societies eyes.

My parents were very American in their approach to their children. And I was like a broken lawn mower. In America there is no concept of fixing the lawn mower. No one knows how. No. You just declare it broken, discard it, and go purchase another one. And that is precisely what my parents did with me. They rode the lawn mower that was me through all kinds of foreign environments that I was not familiar with. And once I became sufficiently broken, they accused me of not working properly and shamed me and discarded me. The broken pieces of my life were my responsibility. They were simply responsible for enjoying a working lawn mower.

Looking back, I realize that my fault was that I had trusted beggarly criminals for the welfare of my life. In the whirlwind of my superficial life, my trust in my parents had been the constant in an otherwise changing reality. And when the glue of trust melted, there was little to keep the cardboard thin walls of the rest of the reality that was stacked high like a sky-scrapper...from crashing through.  

I was a person who had lost my life between the promises of the riches and lifestyle of the West and an unacceptable role of who I was in the East. I had lost myself between the promise of parents more willing to white wash the truth of my life to their society than face the reality that they broke my life. They'd rather not face that they gave me my broken life back for safe keeping saying, "This is your inheritance, go forth and make your life with it."

I lost myself in the shame I felt for my failures after coming back to the East, while having succeeded in following the guidance of my parents when they left me in the West. They had promised me that if I just would follow their able and educated guidance that my life would be taken care of. So then how could it be that all I had in my hands was my broken life? How could educated, exposed and so called well-intentioned parents have lied to me in such a way? How could it be that society continues to respect them but continues to shame me despite me having done everything my parents asked of me? I dropped in exhaustion from following every one of my parents instructions. And they were not blamed, but I was. I was called sojo and stupid for following their instructions. Apparently somewhere in all of that I had wronged. What was my wrong? What should I not have done that I did? I was a victim of circumstance in a nation that is a victim of a greater global circumstance. I was one more victim in the circumstance called Nepal; one more beggar in a nation of beggars. I was uttering one more genuine cry wincing at my pain in a nation where boasting, even if it is false, has more weight than a cry. And my cries were met the way an abandoned street child's is: with disdained silence. In Nepal the weak are expected to shut their pains up so as not to inconvenience the lifestyle of the powerful.

Knowing all of this is a big shock to me. It hurts. The most important value that they hold onto in the East is education. And somehow, following all my parents instructions before graduating from high school, it was educationally that I was compromised. I was compromised from being able to do well in college. I was then a social outcaste. I, who needed an identity. I who needed a sense of acceptance because of being tossed in multiple foreign environments. I, who between being tossed from Nepali schools to American schools in multiple environments, people, geographies, schools, etc finally needed one stable identity. And I thought my Nepali identity was secure despite all the turmoil I had survived through.

Not only did my career get ruined. Not only did I come out of all of that confused and exhausted. But I didn't even get absolved. What my parents stole from me for ever was my sense of identity. My sense of dignity in societies eyes. I never got to be proud of myself as a Nepali again. Why? Because by failing in college apparently I had lost myself beyond shame in Nepali societies eyes.
How ironic is that? 
I needed one thing, a stable identity, to be able to tell myself in a strong voice what I was...in the midst of the chaos of multiple screaming voices telling me to be a million different things. And I was denied the one thing that I thought was mine--my Nepali identity. My shame in my lack of my educational achievements denied me an acceptable Nepali identity. And that felt so cruel. I could not understand how fate could have been so cruel to me to have given me the parents I got, the education and experiences I got (all in the name of exposure) and the blind society I was born in, where not one person saw from my point of view. But I will not attempt to be arrogant enough to question fate. Life has taught me that she is better accepted as she is.

I have saddled myself with shame for years. I have carried that burden on me which has gotten heavier and heavier. But I don't wish to carry it anymore. I refuse to carry the burden of other people's ignorance any longer. And so I give back to them what is theirs...choosing to only carry with me what is mine. Take it, this is yours. And tell me how I can get back what was once mine--my own identity that I can be proud of. But this time just promise me that I won't have to share it with the blind.