I saw a dead body today.

We,< my cousin brother and I > planned to take new paths for our morning walks. We thought it would be nice to explore new routes for a change.

Bad choice: it turned out to be a college zone. The students were making way for their morning classes and to be walking with shorts and sneakers was a bit comfortable. Incongruity !! More like we were these uninvited guest to a bash or something. So we just pretended to have lost our path.

“Aree!! hum toh kaha aa gaye”

< " Oh My !! Where are we ? ">

Despite the uneasiness, I took every chance to take in the surroundings. I mean if this was the road I was never going to venture again, why not take the most of it. The neighborhood was mostly big villas, bungalows and houses and more houses turned colleges. The size of the colleges in Nepal is really a joke. If you have like a tall building ( 5 storey being the par), then the building is eligible for college. The names for colleges seemed to have run not as well. We have Chelsea, Liverpool, Barcelona and Pentagon. Trendy right !

Ultimately, our morning talks revolved around colleges in Nepal. Besides, it helped to appear busy with something rather than becoming conscious of the varying gaze of the wave of the passing students, who appeared bored ( rather than burning with desire at the prospect of learning ) to have been forced to be roused early. I believe most of them were cursing at the sight of the two vagabonds, who looked happy- jay walking at the early hours, sacrificing the so precious early hours. I bet a few pair of the eyes even turned bloodshot .

We had black tea. “Milk tea gives you gastric”, my bro says. Thus, we avoid drinking the whites at shops. <How the people have become conscious of health within these last few years ? bahh !! > At least that is how we justify our cup of translucent black liquid in the early hours.

Though, we always end up having a milk tea at home after our walk.

Frankly speaking, I feel that the milk tea is a bit heavy for our small pockets. We even have talks as to why the price of the milk tea is not justifiable. We have strong points too. But let’s keep that for some other day. Nevertheless, I just nod in agreement with my brothers argument . Besides, a cup of tea,everyday is better than no tea at all.

Next, we start with our daily ritual of scanning the newspaper. I find reading Nepali a bit challenging. So we always stick to the classifieds – checking the jobs that we are never going to apply. The offers are mostly for Dubai, Oman, Kuwait, Malaysia, Israel and the job positions are almost the same – Security Guard, Cook, Electrical, Plumber, Sales Assistant and Laborer. It appears as if my country is the source of manual workers. The salary is more attractive. NPR(Nepal Rupees) 30,000 < on average >. The fees to apply for the job is average NPR 50,000. It demands a few years of his life just to pay off his debt and by the time he really starts to save, he will have more things to pay for or worse, more loans. Beat that.

The sad truth is, every year, more and more people apply. Just last year, around NPR 2 lakhs people went abroad for work. Gone are the days when we used to find the villages, full of people. It is deserted now. Even the women are going abroad . It is only the kids and the old lot who are left behind. I wonder what example are we leaving behind for our future generations.

The rest of the paper are all about these programs to study abroad. More ways to chase the youths away. Then, there the section always has this chubby looking models and then its either politics, accidents or some boring copy-paste articles and a page of business which always seems to be at a low < Hike in petrol prices appears in bold today >.

We took our leave. Paid NPR 16 < told you it was cheap> for the tea. Hardly, had we walked a block down when we saw a crowd of people. Crowd always means something here. When inquired, we came to know that a death had occurred. I thought it must have been a death that had occurred in a family and so the people had gathered to pay their respect. However, as we wedged deeper into the crowd, the presence of a police, among the crowd, had my interest. Then, I saw the body. A man of about 30, dead by the road side, messed up and dirty. Bare feet. No relatives around. A stranger.

Is life really so hard here?