Untouchable

Namaste,

In another dramatic, exciting, heart stopping, palpitating, effervescent, totally complete silence, the entire country of Nepal, (No Electricity Power And Light) decided to have a general strike. Everything is shut down. Locked steel shuttered businesses decorate main street. 

There are 36 castes here. Give or take 100 sub divisions. A caste is a traditional hard core socially cultural belief and practice bestowing style, honor, privilege and status to selected humans born into a specific family. Anthropologist and pathologists consider this invention a specialized branch of the value based Angiosperm.

How do you spell discrimination?

"Muluki Ain (1854) divided Nepalese citizens into two castes "the caste whose water is allowed to remain pure" and "the caste whose water is defiled". Chiefs of the various castes were entrusted with sorting out issues related to their own castes.^[1] The heads of Kamis (blacksmiths) and Sarkis (tanners and cobblers) were called Mijhars. Similarly the head ofDamai (tailors and musicians) was called Nagarchi." Read more.

As Shiva, a female ear hearing specialist explained, "People are striking to abolish the caste system. They want equality."

"Yes, said Vishnu her friend, "They want to be a musical blacksmith cobbling a life. They want to walk empty streets selling hot delicious cinnamon flavored pastries. They want to develop and profit from vast mountainous snow capped high altitude regions of pure air in never-never land. They want to tan their hide or hide their tan. They want to impersonate Elvis after dark.

"They want to be a brick boy in the Kathmandu valley. They want to be a free person in a free country."

Three strikes and you're out.

Metta.

Quiet

Namaste,

You gotta love a Nepalese tourist town when residents have a local transportation strike.

One day. No formula racing cars, blaring horns, buses, motorcycles, diesel belching noxious tractors, broken Chinese dump trucks, mini-vans, maxi-vans, amphibious assault vehicles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, school buses, or any combustion engine requiring petrol. Shops are shuttered. No school. It's a free holiday.

Yoga and meditation classes are cancelled. Proceed at your own risk. 

Happy kids ride their bikes. Up, down all around. They crash and burn. They laugh. They share guiding gliding secrets. 

People stroll main street. They stare into deep dark caverns with vacant eyes. Shadows whisper, eat an apple.

Birds sing. The town's lone singing smiling mad minstrel serenades sweet tranquility. 

Metta.

Fairyland

Namaste,

The Electric Fairy waved her magic wand. All the lights in Nepal went out.  
Ha, ha laughed the Electric Fairy.

A business man with an Olive food joint in a small tourist town near a lake below Annapurna crammed with:

18,543 restaurants,
69.306 money changers,
456 trek clothing stores,
283 travel agents,
32 adventure companies,
19 boarding schools,

8,032 comatose, dulled out, dumbed down students
dreaming of better Indian educational/employment futures

27 female Tibetan refugees selling their recycled sidewalk dreams,
401 guesthouses,
8 dance halls,
1 jazz club,

3 supermarkets,
numerous mom & pop shoe string ops,

52 barber/massage shops,
9 bookstores,
6 bakeries,
85 wandering oxen,
3 tailors,
2 shoe repair experts,
1,208 anxious lost tourists,

and 50,001 bored residents with very short economic attention spans said,
I will buy a $15,000 gas generator to solve this energy conundrum. 

When it ran out of gas the Electric Fairy laughed ha, ha, ha. Now you see it, now you don't.

Metta.

electric

Namaste,

The unemployed Nepalese teacher, hustling 10 million visitors asked, "Do you know what NEPAL means?"

Big business? Economic survival? Mountains? High altitude sickness? Adventure travel? Peak experiences?
Whining, demanding Chinese?
Sitars and raga symphonic structures?
Extensive deep raging rivers?
Riding an elephant looking for extinct tigers?
An old woman collecting and loading cow shit patties into a wicker basket for home fire fuel?
Chakra, crystal healing?
A Chinese woman walking with her Nepalese lover, both measuring the ground with the eyes feeling the inevitable end of a quick painless short term physically satisfying fix?
Stoned out ragged travel casualties? 

Big fat culturally insensitive white Europeans wearing fancy expensive climbing gear as their Sherpa guide in flip flop sandals carrying the world on his back runs up the mountain, leaving them in the dust?

Young Israeli cowboys fresh from mandatory military service staring at a sacred cow shitting in the street? 15 million Nepalese women on their hands and knees mopping floors with a dirty rag because mops are too expensive?

Rolling fuel shortages because a) the government wants to increase demand b) India reduces supply?
Limited daily electricity? Nepalese must pay for electricity they do not receive. 

"Not exactly," said the teacher refreshing his lost hunger for money.
"NEPAL means Never Ending Peace And Love."

"Watch out for the land mine!" yelled a Cambodian orphan in exile.

Metta.

aftermath

the wicked witch is dead
we have the body
who's body?
his body
the dark one
the knight of vengeance
a nuance

it was a targeted assault
by special forces
conditioned by the gravity
of the situation
their thrill of the kill

on a safe house in pack your bags
it wasn't safe
after all

what will you do with the body?
we will get funding to embalm it
we will construct a mauseleum
in the capital 
it will be displayed
for eternity

yelling, crying, distraught, joyful citizens
scream, We are saved!
in this Brave New World
filled with love, forgiveness, compassion

we will parade 
the body
coast to coast
then a world tour

sell tickets, fake euphoria
tourist memorabilia
cards, videos, stamps, flags, posters

death is a lonely business