Unfortunately, their adopting parent, Mama Kathmandu, suffers from a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Mama Kathmandu is very stressed out these days. She has less and less attention to be able to give to her foster children, the Nepali Bandhars.
Mama Kathmandu is begging for the Nepal Bandhars to not demand for her attention by causing Nepal Bandhs. She wants to be able to keep some of her attention and focus for her own survival. She needs it. She is begging to be able to engage her attention and focus to look out for her own interest and that of her immediate family.
She is pleading to be able focus her attention on her career and her business. After all, who is going to give her anything? She doesn't have a rich inheritance to depend on. She has to look out for her own interest through her own cunning and hard work.
"And," says Mama Kathmandu, if there is any extra attention left over, she would like to use that little extra attention to be able to focus on the future of her whole family--including the Nepali Bandhars.
"Please be reasonable, O Bandhars, my foster children. Please don't harass us in this way and make our life so difficult. We are good people that love you. I am after all, your mother. I may not be your biological mother, but I still love you. Please be reasonable and let us keep some attention to fulfill our own needs? Don't try to grab all the attention all the time with your random Nepal Bandhs," Mama Kathmandu says.
But the Bandhars are resolute and unmoving. They have seen her shed crocodile tears one too many times. And quite frankly, it's getting a bit old.
The Nepal Bandhars sigh and with an air of resigned non-challance say, "Dear Mama Kathmandu, you have ignored our plea for too long. We tried to communicate with you many many times. And what was your response? You pretended to not understand Nepali. You faked it. You acted like a laati. All of a sudden you couldn't understand anything we were saying. That was very uncool. It is not how a loving mother should act to her child. Is it?"
"Mama Kathmandu, we have been hearing your tall stories and promises for development, aid and progress to the villages year after year after year. All you have given us are empty words. We are tired of your lies and painting pretty pictures that don't feed our hungry stomach. Now, with us being rigid in dealing with you, we are finally forcing you to see things from our perspective for a change. In the least we aren't being taken for a ride like we used to be."
"Dear Mama Kathmandu, our villages have been on Bandh for decades. And no matter how much we cried and screamed to you, over the last 60 years, you never listened to us. We don't know how you could have lived with yourselves seeing us in such misery. Did your heart not cry for us? Village life has been shutting down for decades now. Did you not notice that? Oh you didn't notice all those Bandhs that shut down the way the villages function? No, I didn't think you did. Why would you? Our problems aren't your problems, right? You have only taken notice of our words now that we are causing you pain by shutting down your way of life in Kathmandu. Now, suddenly, you understand the words coming out of our mouth."
"Dear Mama Kathmandu, perhaps in all of these years that we have been struggling trying to wave down your attention, maybe...just maybe, we also learn't a thing or two about the way the world functions. Did you think about that? Maybe we're not just the idiotic sojha-sajha Village bumpkins that you had written us off as. Did that cross your mind?"
"Dear Mama Kathmandu, we are not happy to have to shut down your way of life to make a point to you. No child enjoys having to hurt their mother in order to communicate to her. We understand it is a very harsh way of communicating to you. And we do apologize for our rudeness."
"But what can we do? It seems that this is the only kind of language, other than money, that you, Kathmanduites communicate in. Jasto desh usto bhesh. If we felt that there was any hope in trying to reach your heart in any other way, we would have given that a shot. But so far, you don't seem like you are open for any kind of serious dialogue."
Hearing all of this, Mama Kathmandu shed a tear or two and looked extremely distressed. "Why are you blaming me? Don't you realize how I am the victim through all of this also? The Shah Kings ruled all of us with an iron fist. I was a helpless victim through all of this. If the Rana Prime Minister's hadn't enslaved me, life would have been different for us. Life would have been different for you. But you and I, we both had our karmas to live out. What is done is done. Let us think about how to move forward positively."
Hearing their adopting mother speak, Nepal Bandhars laughed cynically. They had come to expect her guilt trips and her dramatic protests of innocence. It was obvious that she did not have the maturity to take responsibility for the pain she caused and the abuse she dealt out for all those years to her adopted children--the Nepali Bandhars.
Kathmandu Mama looked mournfully at the expression on the Nepal Bandhars faces. But what could she say? She knew that if she said what she felt in her heart, the Nepali Bandhars would jump all over her in anger, outrage and bitterness. She didn't dare say how she really felt.
In some ways she wished she could make up for the mistakes of the past. Yes, she was responsible for causing pain.
But her ego just couldn't allow the admission of a mistake to escape from her lips. She was way too proud of a woman to bend.
Instead she said, "Dear Nepal Bandhars, you guys are like a black hole. You have been seeking the light of my attention for more than a decade now. You have demanded it in many different ways through your Nepal Bandhs that bring Kathmandu to a halt. And I have been giving it in many occasions. But no matter how much I have given to you, you are like an empty quarreling stomach that is never satisfied. Look at you, you are still growling in hunger. Give up your negativity and be positive. Then you might have hope for happiness in the future."
"Dear Nepal Bandhars, if I, Kathmandu Mama, am suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), it is all your fault. It is from the stress that you've been causing me. Don't you have a duty towards your mother? Don't you love your mother?"
"Is your own self-interest the only thing you can think about? Haven't you caused enough pain to your parent You have been seeking and seeking my attention so much that I now have a deficit for attention. And despite that, I am still trying to give it to you. But you, you are so ungrateful. I don't have enough attention for my own self-survival. I don't have enough attention for my natural children, their education, our careers."
"My Dear Nepal Bandhars, don't you see how many people you have isolated because of making our family conflict so public? Don't you see how many Nepalese are leaving Nepal just so that they don't have to face your wrath? They want to just be able to look out for their own interest without having to feel guilty to you. They just want to have the peace of mind and space to be able to, at their own leisurely speed, focus on those things that are important to them: their priorities."
"Look at what you've done. You caused the People's War. The whole world is shaking their head in disgust at your behavior. Did you think the world would be proud of you dissing and hating your own mother? You are so misguided."
"My Dear Nepal Bandhar, unfortunately you associated with the wrong crowd while growing up. You read all those communistic revolutionary books and fed into all that nonsense a little too much. You subscribed to a foreign culture--communism. And now look how you've turned out. The whole world shuns you. People are disgusted at your behavior. What will happen to you?"
"See, I am still your mother, through it all. You have hurt me and insulted me in public. But I still love you. Give up your ways of doing these Nepal Bandhs and surrender to me. I will protect you and love you from all the forces that are trying to hurt you. Trust me, my dear foster children. Trust your mother, Kathmandu." And saying so, Mother Kathmandu fell silent and looked expectantly towards her foster children, the Nepal Bandhars.
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