Have we gone soft?

Are we losing the fire in our bellies? Are we slacking off and allowing lethargy and ennui to erase the gains of our revolution? The answer to both questions is: “Umm, that’s a thought.”

How else does one explain the sharp drop in the number of bunds, chukka jams and todfods in the past fiscal year? Ever since the Left Honourable Prime Minister assumed office there has been only one arson attack on a government car. We are keeping close count here at the newsroom, and have found there was an entire rush hour period on Tuesday evening when no Mandales in Mandala intersection incinerated tyres on the asphalt.

There has even been a sharp drop in sit-ins, sleep-outs, stand-ups, pen-downs, and goof-offs in government departments. The civil service strike was a lack-lustre and half-hearted affair, with not a single effigy of the prime minister set on fire. How can this country be effectively governed if there is so little interest in creating mayhem and anarchy?

Not a single royal statue was vandalised throughout this erstwhile kingdom in 2075-76 BS, but that seems to have been because there are no royal statues left to knock down. The Mahindra & Mahindra Highway was actually not blocked for six hours on Sunday after a minor traffic altercation in Lahan. No one stoned any newspaper office on Thursday. This is a scandal.

Are we going to let go of the gains of our revolutionary past so easily? Will we allow the euphoria of liberation to evaporate into thin air? Have human beings outlived their usefulness? What is the best cure for hair loss? Will someone stop me before I ask another rhetorical question? Thank you.

As we all know, there are entire sections of society that are still not using their hard-won freedoms to reignite a class war, to take up arms against feudalism, and struggle against crony Communist rulers to bring the nation’s capital to a grinding halt for the right to fast onto death over and over again.

How come no one set off a firecracker beneath the table of the Minister of Lethargy and Ennui when the government decided to cancel national holidays on all five Losars? And why are tanker drivers sitting idly by and not gheraoing the prime minister’s residence after the NOC said it would book anyone found siphoning off diesel? Have we as a nation gone soft? Have we stopped honouring the sacrifices of martyrs who defended this country against imperialism?

Fortunately, we see signs of the revolutionary spirit reasserting itself. Comrade Big Plop has stepped up his extortion racket with the slogan: ‘Make Nepal Greater Again’. The Minister of Doublespeak is pushing a draft law to punish anyone who ridicules the government on social media to be sentenced to jail for five years or pay a bribe of Rs 1 corrode, whichever comes first.

The Ass

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