My Doc's view of Nepal

I had to go and see a doctor last evening.
I had crushed a toe on my right foot when I accidentally
bumped upon the edge of my bed. The pain and severity
of the unwanted kick was excruciating, the flesh teared up
and it hurt like hell. Fortunately the doctor said it wasn't
serious and I have not cracked any toe bone. Dr Chan is a
very sought after one in this particular Ashfield Medical
centre because of his dedication and thorough examinations.
He put some betadine on the little wound and bandaged it up.
I should be on my sandals or slipper tomorrow at office.

During the chit chat while he was treating me, I told him
that I will be on my leave and will be going to see my brother
in Japan. He asked if I would be going to China. He was astounded
when I told him that I had lived there for five years, and I can
speak fluent Mandarin. I told him about my study there and
how I ended up studying in China in a Chinese government scholarship.

But we came short of talking to each other in Chinese,
not even a word. I feel the Chinese here normally don't like
to speak in Mandarin with non Chinese people,
its Australia, English please, Nepalese don't bother though,
you will not fail to hear at least one pair talking in trains,
dept stores or even the street, anywhere in Sydney. We might
number few thousand here, but we are omni present.
These days you will find Nepalese everywhere, biggest dept stores,
shops, taxis, basically any trade.

When our conversation turned on to where I came
from, he immediately recognized the bravery of the Nepalese
soldiers, he said even the Japanese feared them.
Now this caught me for may be tenth time in Sydney alone.
I feel there must be this particular piece of information somewhere
in Australian information on Nepal, nearly everybody who knows
Nepal seems to know of Gurkhas in combination with the fact that
the Japanese feared them, two related things together, but never in
isolation. I told him that I am from a different ethnic group in Nepal,
and not one of the fighters that he heard about. Even I have only
heard about the Gurkha bravery and the Japanese encounter few
times in Nepal, but dunno much about it in details. Was it in Burma??
I know about the Gurkhas in Falkland though, poor Argentinians..
we do have some legacy, though a brutal one, something that
people still remember other than the other eminent topic that
I am going to discuss later in this blog.

After a while while putting the tapes on my wound, he brought up the
subject of the royal massacre. He inevitably asked me if I believed the
crown prince killed everyone. I said lots of people don't believe it. He
even knew about the cause that was said to be behind the motive
for the prince to carry out the murders.

We then discussed about poor conditions in Nepal and the present
policital problems.He asked if the Maoists were backed by China, I
said it was probably the southern neighbor rather than China. He
was really surprised, but immediately recognized that India has
lot to gain from the instability in the country. Well, I thought Nepal
would not be a well known country here. I was wrong. I have met
lots of people who are pretty familar with the recent happenings and
current scenario there. In a world of information overload,
it should not a big surprise anyway.

He did have a somehow cliched, distorted view about youths leaving
the country because of economic hardships. I told him that the issue
is much more complicated than that, people do migrate around even
among the wealthiest nations, like thousands of British coming to
Australia to work each year, another the other way round of Australians
moving overseas. Nepalese in Australia number a mere few thousands
at most, though we started coming here almost twenty years ago.