During the past week, photographer Prabin Maharjan asked a group of Kathmandu youths what they thought about their relation with each other and the community. Some approached the question with casualness while others dealt it with a solemness. The question after all had a wider scope.
Although hyper-nationalism and jingoism has, for the most part, come to define the youth’s involvement in the affairs of the state, most participants showed an understanding of their civic duties and a disregard to compliance. Amidst the struggles for identity and respect and the expectancy of a fuller existence, and in between the patriots and the nationalists, existence is possible, these youth seemed to be saying.
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Retah Pun
I work with an organisation with the objective of strengthening the ability of small scale-producers in Nepal. We empower women and the underprivileged by providing them skill development training so that they can get better jobs.
We promote the stories of the ‘small producer’ and also give platforms for the ethically-made products to find a market.
Dikchya Shrestha
I am fully involved in moto-sports. This helps empower women of the community, I think.
Ishan
Swadesh is not merely a geographical entity. Swadesh is a feeling, an experience. The environment around you, your home, locality, society, friends and family, that is what it is. To save swadesh, in my view, it is empathy that is necessary. To save swadesh, I am practicing to be like water.
Srizu Bajracharya
I have not gone abroad. I am currently involved in a publication house here in Nepal.
Monica Jha
It is a question that I ask myself every now and then, not just to know my duties as a Nepali but also to understand the choices that make me who I am.
I ask myself how I see my country and the values that resonates in me, as a Nepali. To make our nation strong we can do whatever we can do to make a positive change from where we are placed in life. It could be big revolutions but it could also be little contributions in doing whatever in rejecting social evils.
Once we start asking ourselves this question, a lot, at a social and spiritual level, we can automatically reconcile and fall in place. Trying, here makes all the difference.
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