The Space Between

FROM ISSUE # 112 (April 2005) | IN THIS ISSUE
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It seems that more often than not, most of us able to read this Editorial or buy this magazine forget how privileged we are. I have seen this forgetfulness in friends I grew up with, people I have worked with, my relatives and the hundreds of urban youth I have met through my work in the media over the last seven years. I even find this forgetfulness when I catch myself staring at the mirror sometimes. But is it that we forget our privileges or that we don't recognise them?

It was only in hindsight, after studying economics through grade 8-10, that I understood what I had seen all my life: the dire disparities that exist in Nepal's population of 24 million people and within it's youth demography. I remember a heated debate last year, on a cold Mid-west American winter night, with a rich Nepali college student. It revolved around the fact that he did not understand why it is important to bridge the gap between the rich and poor of our country. Blinded by the belief that the rich were meant to be rich and the poor doomed to remain poor, he did not see the gap at all.

While a young student in Kathmandu dreams of living it up large in the US or the UK, a 15 year old in Bardiya contemplates over joining a socialist militia for its ideologies or the state army to make a living. College parking lots in Biratnagar are packed with bicycles while there are colleges in Kathmandu whose parking lots boast luxury SUVs and super saloons. Students who appeared for their School Leaving Certificates examination [SLC] this year in Palpa, Rupandehi and Argakhanchi depended on free tuition classes broadcasted over a local FM station to prepare for the exam. Leave alone their private tuitions, in Kathmandu students often bunk their college classes. While SLC candidates across Nepal had to worry about how many hours of walk away their exam centres would be and how they'd get there on time, those in Kathmandu had the luxury of only studying for it. In spring 2004, a talented 17- year- old who regularly won quiz, story and singing contests in school was running away from her home in Western Nepal to another district in the region after being threatened by the Maoists. Regularly, the young and privileged youth of the cities move away to foreign countries to avoid social obligations or in search of a 'better' life.

It is time we climb on the hills that surround the valley and see what's on the other side, where the grass isn't really all that green. We have grown up in an era where we are allowed to think and question, and yet most of us either don't understand this right or chose not to practise it. We have had the privilege to travel the world in its history and present from the comfort of our rooms. In the last few years of our adolescence we have seen the unimaginable future become the past before we knew it. Those of us who lived that life have been pampered, we have witnessed and taken part in social and cultural changes at a dizzying pace. It can be safely declared that the urban youth of the nation are today more privileged than ever. And so, we cannot afford to forget this and the social responsibilities it entails. In fact, it is crucial we recognise and respect it by making sure that we have helped bridge the gap between the underprivileged and us in one way or the other. To dream and work towards a time when we can simply say the 'Nepali Youth' instead of the 'privileged youth' or the 'underprivileged youth' of Nepal. Only when we reach the distant horizon we see in our minds now, will we be able to see another horizon.