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Subscriber’s copy 2 4 5 - 11 MARCH 2004 #186 Why can’t a woman be more like a man? www.nepalitimes.com #186 5 - 11 March 2004 24 pages Rs 25 lthough men are supposed to be from Mars, space robots that have been looking under rocks on the surface of the Red A Planet these past weeks have found no traces of members of Schools are the male species hiding there. Perhaps, if the staffing of the Weekly Internet Poll # 126 turning into American space program was more gender balanced and there were Q. How would you describe the status of more female scientists calling the shots, the quest for intelligent life human rights in Nepal? battlefields, in the inner planets would children are being UNDER MY HAT have centred instead on taught to fight Kunda Dixit Venus, where there would War school have been a higher probability Total votes:1,180 of finding women. (The good news is that space scientists have now Weekly Internet Poll # 127. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com found proof that there is water on Mars, although no traces of it Q. How do you gauge the prospect of the have yet been discovered in Sanepa.) Nepali Congress reuniting? As we get ready to mark another Intergalactic Women’s Day back here on Planet Earth, it is time once more to pay tribute to the longstanding struggle of women from all walks of life for equal rights with men. If men can make complete asses of themselves, it is argued, then women should also have the right to make she-asses of their good selves. This is what gender equality is all about. Over the ages, in the arena of behaving like idiots, it was the men who enjoyed a monopoly. But it is not pre-ordained which sex should have more morons, and if women too want to be as idiomatic as us men, then where is the harm? Having had a headstart, us men have always had an unfair advantage in the race to be the most-asinine sex. So women have a lot of catching up to do, but given perseverance, commitment and determinism they can be as (if not more) idiosyncratic as us. Some men may have their egos slightly dented when they see women overtaking them in the march towards mediocrity, but they A Maoist militia unit drill in the playground should take solace in the of the Pipal Secondary School in Rukum two weeks ago. fact that imitation is the AKASH CHETTRI best form of flattery. started,” says Puri, adding that the they proudly call their ‘Child large rooms and wide open What would be more AKASH CHETTRI in RUKUM delightful than to see Maoists may be training them to Militia’, the Maoists are tapping playgrounds. Some schools have women civil servants become militants. Since the other schools across the region for literally turned into battlefields mimicing men as they chool principal Birbhan children are not attending classes, students in grade 9 and 10. Earlier, when soldiers Puri of Birendra Higher fearing that they may also be the students would be taken and on patrol come Editorial p2 squeeze zits in public A guru of love while sunning themselves S Secondary School has spent abducted, Puri has closed down the teachers told they were just upon Maoists on the balcony of the Department of Women and Labour. sleepless nights waiting for 65 of the school for now. going to attend cultural programs in schools, or vice versa. Five Ever since cave men dragged cave women by the hair and his students abducted by Maoists Across the midwestern districts or political lectures. Now, there are children were killed during a chewed mastodon entrails with their mouths open, right down to to return home. of Rukum, Achham and Rolpa, no explanations, school yards are firefight in the Sharada Secondary the modern industrial age where men still haven’t learnt to stow Since they were taken away in the few schools that have managed being turned into parade grounds School at Mudbara in Doti district their toilet seats in an upright position during takeoff and landing, Bafikot on 25 February, all Puri, to stay open so far, against all odds, and classrooms into military in December, and hundreds of us boys have been rightly called the stronger sex. Speaking of which, his colleagues and the children’s are being forced to close. There are training centres. villagers fled Khimdi in Kailali in a recent survey has found that men, on average, think about sex 23 parents can do is pray. The rest of no security forces to be seen and To be sure, the security forces January when fighting broke out hours a day and the remaining one hour they spend in the students are so traumatised that the only presence of the civil service are also using schools as campsites around a school compound where extracurricular activities such as taking sun-baths on the balcony of they are afraid to go to school. or government are teachers and barracks. Usually, in these the army was camped. the Ministry of Manpower during which period they don’t think “We have no idea where they like Puri. remote hills, schools are strategically continued p8 about anything in particular. were taken, their exams had just In a bid to strengthen what located along ridgetops. They have So, if women want to play catch-up with us chaps, they will have to take up some manlike hobbies, like: z Not just complain that we have a headache, but become headaches ourselves z Let our eyes rove all over the member of the opposite sex we are talking to, taking time to closely inspect the front bumper and the boot z Use the Phau period to go on an all-out offensive against the opposite sex z Treat anyone who has the nerve to overtake you on the Rabi Bhaban uphill as a personal affront to maledom and sideswipe him z When lost in a strange city, never consult a map, never ask for directions and show we’d rather be lost than found These simple ideas will allow even the most feminine woman to be as macho as the hairiest of us testesterone-filled numbskulls who are proud to call ourselves men. CDO Regd No. 194/056/57 Lalitpur, Central Region Postal Regd. No. 04/058/59 2 EDITORIAL 5 - 11 MARCH 2004 #186 OP-ED 5 - 11 MARCH 2004 #186 3 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editors: Trishna Gurung, Jemima Sherpa equal to men? We are not sure. Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Are the Khadkis a dalit caste or Subscription: Anil Karki, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur not? That’s up for debate. What GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 is the economic status of the [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 Educating foreigners Chepangs as compared to the Chettris? It’s anyone’s guess. The Which way now? Outsiders turn to insiders for insight, they ought to also read up fact is, we are only now coming We have to A GURU OF LOVE hen an experienced going over obscure events from the past.” into definition as a country. o far this week: the US party. This is the fear that has foreign ‘Nepal hand’ decades or even centuries ago, To be fair, most Nepalis also The intellectual ferment of ambassador goes on a fact- prompted Thapa’s cabinet ur nights have never been darker. The gloom turns to know what our recently left the country, examining any number of social have a poor sense of history. The finding mission to mid- colleagues into packing the doom with each week that this nightmare of conflict and W our times is not obvious to the S he took with him his inside issues, decoding the mysteries of reason? Only in 1990 were we newcomer to Nepal. What is western Nepal in a US aircraft, government with people they destination is O confusion drags on. Warring sides gauge their success on a daily score of body counts, and the measure of victory is knowledge of all that ails us now. current politics. Of course, freed from the Panchayat era’s obvious is the day-to-day muddle King Gyanendra issues a set of personally trust. Thapa’s attempt how many more Nepalis each side has killed that day, and this Another influential foreigner who outsiders will turn to insiders for flat, propagandistic ‘Ode to the of a country undergoing immense directives to his appointed to appoint handpicked officers whole fratricidal madness takes us into an area of darkness has acquired in-depth knowledge insight: and insiders often enjoy Shahs’ version of our past. Only social and political into each ministry to look after from which, sometimes, there seems to be no escape. This sharing their wisdom. The since then have we begun to transformation. STATE OF THE STATE the welfare of the RPP cadre was week’s score in Bhojpur was 30:20. GUEST COLUMN problem is, many foreigners in discover, for real, who we have This muddle must be CK Lal also motivated by a similar Who won? Are we competing to reach a threshold of death in Manjushree Thapa Nepal’s international community been and who we are now. catching; for it is visible apprehension. The move was order to build up a momentum for peace again? If so, how many seem to rely more on cocktail hour The histories of our everywhere in Kathmandu’s government, the estranged Rana- checkmated by mainstream dead Nepalis is enough? Each death inures us, numbs us, so the will be leaving soon, and with him chatter than on in-depth study to dissidents, for example, is only diplomatic and aid sectors.