It takes courage

During World War II, many people gained fame in one way or another. One man was Butch O’Hare. He was a fighter pilot assigned to an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. One time he entered squadron was assigned to fly a particular mission. 


After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank. Because of this, he would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship. His flight leader told him to leave formation and return.
 As he was returning to the mother ship, he could see a squadron Japanese Zeroes heading to attack. And with as all the fighter planes gone, the fighter was almost defenseless. His was the only opportunity to distract and divert them. Single-headedly, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes and attacked them. The American fighter planes were rigged with cameras, so that as they flew and fought, pictures were taken so pilots could learn mote about the terrain, enemy maneuvers, et cetera.
Butch dove at them and shot until all his ammunition was gone, then he would dive and try to clip off a wing or tail or anything that would make the enemy planes unfit to fly. He did anything he could to keep them from teaching the American ships. Finally, the Japanese squadron took off to another direction, and Butch O’Hare and both badly shot up, limped back to the carrier.

 He told his story, but not until camera on his plane was developed, did they realize the extent really was to, to protect his fleet. He was recognized as a hero and given one of the US highest military honors. The O’ Hare Airport was named after him.
 Prior to this time in Chicago, there was a man called Easy Eddie. He was working for Al Capone. Ai Capone wasn’t famous for anything heroic, but he was notorious for the murders he’d committed and illegal things he’d done. Easy Eddie was Al Capone’s layer and he was very good. Because of his skill, he kept Al Capone out of jail. To show his appreciation, Al Canoe paid him very well.
Easy Eddie had a son. He loved his son and gave him all the best things. But one thing he couldn’t give his son was a good name, and a good example. So, he went to the authorities in order to rectify the wrong he had done. In order to tell the truth, it meant he must testify against Al Capone, and he knew that Al Capone would do his best to have him killed. But he wanted most of all to try to be an example and to do the best he could to give back to his son, a good name. So he testified. Within the year, he was shot and killed.
These sound like two unrelated stories, but butch O’ Hare was Easy Eddie’s son.

PERSON OF THE CENTURY!

A story of kid who was not able to speak fluently upto three years, who was considered retarded and isolated; how on earth he might have brought that sort of revolution in scientific history of mankind? A child who was not seen that talented and intellectual by-birth; how he became the greatest of the scientist ever on earth?

These are the first and foremost questions about Einstein which tickles almost all of the human brain. So how can I remain away from that? Since the time I have been introduced to this name; I earned unending appetite to learn more and explore the depth of this name. Now, at least I can say, he is simply brilliant, genius, great and somewhat crazy type of personality for my own reason. Moreover, I'm now proud to say he's become ROLE-MODEL of my life. I feel like being crazy-like about him in most of the time. I wish to bring him down from that divine position and spiritual existence that he holds and make him sit beside me so that I can talk and play with him, but how's that possible………………….?

Every time I get my eyes stuck on a picture or even a word related to him in any magazine, books or newspapers, I couldn't stop myself from getting that thing at any cost; no matter how many times I gotta repeat the same story about him; I mean his birth, childhood, inventions, fame and finally NIRVANA. I am ready to repeat his story for thousand times but can't let go any clips related to him in any papers, magazines or even books that comes across my way.

It is like a kind of divine things that happens to me whenever I see any of his pictures anywhere. It is like a continuous source of inspiration to my life. Whenever my mind drains out of self-confidence, hope, determination and falls prey to deserted mentality; just a glance of his face refills my soul with energy, enlightens the candles of hope in my heart, and saves me from every kind of fall in my life. It fills me with the sense of being alive. And now I feel like we are spiritually connected, irrespective to the physical distance that we bear right now due to the damn' thing called TIME-MACHINE.

I know it cost a lot to be the one like you, but I still feel proud to say that I am the one who really appreciates you for what you are. Moreover, I do not think I gotta prove this to the rest of the world out there, because it is all about my life, my choice, and my freedom. WHAT NEXT……….? Ok then I seems to appreciate your saggy looks. So how about trying myself being saggy? However, not exactly; so what I think is I also gotta live my life for what I am; not what I ought to be…………….

 

   A monument to the man who united space and time into space time. A remembrance of a man who taught us that the universe doesn't go on from everlasting to everlasting but begins with a bang. 

A Dream Theater!

-I had a dream last night.

I was all alone in the city so silent, shining under the light of full moon knight. It was the land of mystery. I was in dilemma of what to do and what not to do. All of sudden, I saw a ray of moonlight being thicker and brighter still. I was surprised up to the limit, when I saw a mysterious girl out of that brightness, whom I always used to think about. Even the moonlight seemed fader in front of her beauty. I saw stars lining up one by one in the sky, so eager to have just a glance at her. Her countenance threw such a magical ray onto me that, I got stimulated from the depth of my heart. My conscience became numb about anything else. She got closer to me and held my hands saying," I think your heart is beating a bit faster." My stimulus overflow of emotions went out of my control. Nervously, I said, "ya…just for you." With her incredible smile she said," thank you.", And handed me something strange; incredible through which I could view the entire cosmos and she was vanished in moonlight at once.

And as I diverted my eyes towards that thing, I heard it going on" tic-tic" n "tic-tic". And when I opened my eyes to look that, I found my alarming clock in my hand saying, "Hey doggy! Wake up, it's already 5."………….. I busted into laughter. That's a kind of humorous isn't it?

And for this time, I frantically tried to collect those senses, to get self locked in that realm of dreamland.

"I want you to crawl from that dreamland to my real land and make my dream come true."

BROKE AT 19

“Can I have a few bucks for today mum?” he asked even though knowing that something’s going to come. “Oh my god! How many times do you have to keep bugging for money? You can’t always do this. You know. Find a job, will ya? For how long am I going to put like this? You are already a grown up, can’t you find a job or something? When u grow old and reach our age then you’ll know how hard it is to earn money.”


Fantasy is what we want but reality is what we should follow. Couldn’t realize how truly it stood, for me myself living in a fantasy world of my own for past few years. A fantasy world where everything goes my way. Where I can have anything I wanna have and where I am always rich and powerful. I guess I am not the only one living in this non-existing world and I hope I’m not only person to figure out the real world is harsh. But, however harsh it is, one has to keep up with reality. Its tough being broke in the real world. I find myself in a position where I’m neither a small kid nor a fully grown up, a teenage is the right word, and its tough being a teenager as well. May be it’s because of the lack of opportunity for the people of our age in our country pr it’s just that I landed in a bad place when the time simply wasn’t right. Whatever be the cause, jobs are hard to come your way here especially when you’re a teenage. And just like the prints on those T-shirts saying, NO JOB, NO MONEY, NO PROBLEM, I’d correct the words and put it as NO JOB, NO MONEY AND A HELL A LOT OF PROBLEMS. But hey, I’ve got a life inside me as well and I’ve got to live just like anybody else. And when you have got no hope, no will (and no money), who else could turn to? Just to your parents who will always be there for u. of course they love you more than any thing else, but when teenage catches up on you, You are no more the cute little baby you were before, doing cute little things that always makes them smile. You are now good- for-nothing trouble maker and a money hungry machine, which always seems to get on their nerves no matter what you do. I wonder if this is the generation gap that we talk about or is it us and our state of mind when we reach this certain age.


Compromising leads to understanding. But compromising isn’t easy to deal and understanding is hard to emerge unless you give up your rigid stance. I guess most (and not all) families lack these factors which eventually lead to misunderstanding. Not all the black sheep are bad. Parents need to realize what we go through at this age and what situations we find our self into. Sometimes there isn’t even a penny in our pocket to pay micro-bus fare and have to walk all the way to home. Or sometimes we can’t buy even a mineral water bottle to quench our thirst when we feel like walking under a hot desert sun and dusty roads of Katmandu. May be its because of the  strange situations we find our selves into when you are broke, that once we get our hand on the large amount of dough, we feel like we have so much of things to do with it. The next thing we know, it’s all spent and gone, just like that.


I’ve been wondering whether it is we who needs to understand our parents more or are it them who need to understand more about us. I guess both of us have got to have that understanding between each other but I don’t think that those walls will be easier to climb even though they are meant to be breached. Whatever the reason for us (teenagers) being, we’ve to realize that we make out of it. The situations we face are of our own doings and we have to remember that we can take control of what we face. However harsh reality is for us, we’ve got to play our part of doing things right and hope our parents will do the same. Pay heed to these words of mine and who knows you may never be broke at 19!!

COLOURLESS COLOUR

A vicious circle is drawn around you. It is enough to limit all your access to what you want to have. Now you cannot cross the line. The fear is not of death for sure. For death is like a chronic phantom dancing over your head; waiting for that very moment. The threat is something else. You cannot say no. there's no option. You cannot escape.


You yell and shout out loud for help. Everyone around hears you, looks at you, eyes full of sympathy; pours some kind words, makes you wet and go away. No one dares to step forward, for they don't want to fall prey to the circle. You are left alone to walk along.


You close your eyes, just to see the face smiling inside you. And then, you open your eyes just to get blinded by what you see. You'd rather close your eyes. It was a sweet escape. But things are not that easy as they appear to be. Your vision becomes blur. Your escape becomes narrow. Your mind becomes desert. Those tears in your eyes vaporize, before they fall onto the ground.


"Is there another life? Shall I wake up and find all these, a dream? There must be, we can't be created for this sort of suffering". But unfortunately, suffering knows no boundary. It takes away the color out of that beautiful sketch of life and makes it colorless. Life once beautiful is now weary. People once close to heart are now scary. Its then, you decide to let that colorless potion to color the walls of your dream. But how on earth can they?


Reality begins to bite you. You cry out of pain, but everything's same. You try to find out reason for all these. Perhaps, it is time. But you are the prisoner of time. You cannot escape it. You are too feeble to break down the circle around you. There's no way out…………….


As you rest your mind, sick of all these things around, you see the shadow of death in front of your eyes; smiling and perhaps waiting. Perhaps, it is not your time yet. There may be a lot in store for you. Pray it, not to be lifeless-life again!!!

"A man in the middle of the ocean is thirsty!!!"

For the love of the soil.

Paddy Field, ready to harvest

The month of Ashoj – Kartik( sep- oct and nov-dec) is the happy months for the most farmers in Nepal.) After all, the seeds they have sowed 5-6 months before has now reaped fruits for them. Yes, this is the harvesting season of paddy, for farmers. All the fields covered by green paddy have now started to turn gold. So farmer here are so eager to treasure them in their home, before they start to fall apart from the dry plant. The production of rice is a great thing specially, in the country like Nepal, where the field irrigation is totally dependent upon the monsoon rain, and so hard to manage the agricultural requirement like fertilizers manpower and lack of techno friendly equipments, where people still follow the traditional method for the cultivation and harvesting. Still the people here suffer from the inactive government policies. Irrespective to the drawbacks mentioned above, half of the populations are still dependent in agriculture for the subsistence. Somewhere people themselves have tried to overcome these weaknesses on their own effort and started to modern cultivation method. And this is actually a positive initiative in the field of agriculture in Nepal.

rice fields

So, that was just a short preview of agricultural scenario of Nepal in wholesome. Hereby I am going to discuss the way how the people in Nepal harvest their paddy fields. A one-day-photo-diary of harvesting paddy field inside Kathmandu valley , Nepal.(village: Thecho. District: Lalitpur).

people busy in cutting rice

Most people here are semi-dependent on agriculture, i.e people cannot completely rely on the agricultural products nor they can completely leave behind agriculture and choose any other alternative occupation. Even most people are trying to jump to another alternative because of poor return from agricultural products. The alternative occupation such as: government jobs, private business, IT related jobs, handicrafts production, etc and some high profile hobs like doctors, engineers, lawyers etc. are attracting the new generation of this place. The village treasures the large portion of cultivable land and the major products include wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, etc. Some people are starting commercial cultivation for their earning which includes mushrooms, tomatoes and other vegetables products.

cleaning area so that to make place for rice harvesting

As said earlier, this is the season of paddy harvesting, so all the people here are busy in their fields. Even people having their jobs takes leave from their jobs or business and gets involved in their field, with their family members. The family members themselves are not enough for the working in field, so they ought to hire extra manpower. And this demand is fulfilled by the peoples coming down from the hills of ‘lele’ .‘makwanpur‘ which is somehow 15-30kms south from the village. On the working day, the male members of family reaches field early by 7-8am in the morning, while some female sits home for preparing meals and lunch for the day time. The rice plant is cut using sickle and are collected in one place ready to be beaten upon the machine to separate seeds from the plant. Altogether minimum 6 peoples are required to be involved to get the work done swift. Then as the seeds are collected enough then it is filled in a sack and carried to home by the workers, while other involves in cutting plants and beating rice plants onto machine. Now the beaten plants without rice seeds are arranged round such that it will be easy to recollect again later and will dry well decay in natural environment.

carrying rice plant.

seperating rice seeds from plant using machine

The grains so collected are now taken to home and collected to dry them in sun for next 15 days and then stored in to granary for the consumption. The excess amount of rice is sold to market via broker for the financial purpose. The rice collect this way is now saved for the next whole year until the next harvesting season of rice. That means, if the production is high the coming year is going to be good and if less, you can say how the year is going to be. That’s why it is said, this is the season of sowing grams and reaping quintals.(mana falayera muri bhitryaune mahina).

the cleaned seeds by then, getting ready to carry home.

women busy in cleaning rice grains from husks and dusts.