Kuenza's Diary

Being a farmer, my mother has the obsession of staying occupied – all the time. And as a farmer, her concept of land is that it has to be cultivated or else it is wasted. So every year, we fuss over her plan of cultivating potatoes because while she considers it important, we don’t see it that way. And more so because the yield is less than the amount of seed used. But this time, last Saturday when she was making plan of going out in the field to work again, I told her that I would accompany her. This I must say is the result of my being in RIGSS (Royal Institute for Governance and Strategic Studies for one month). We have always tried to reason: we used to tell her that our main occupation isn’t this; that it is a waste of time; we even cited the bad road, the fuel consumption etc. But once she has put her mind into something, she will never give up. We have known her stubbornness and determination all this time, but still, every year, we would oblige to her only after...

--> Disclaimer: I would like the readers to read this story without judgment. The story is triggered by a real incident but is more imaginary than real and the thoughts are my own. A second sequel of the story will follow soon, which will be even more imaginary than this post. There are times when your body cries for a touch that you are not entitled for. There are times when your heart yearns for things that is beyond your boundary. There are times when you want to live in your thoughts forgetting the reality. I happened to be in a gathering of people of different backgrounds, all of them senior to me. And I would like to believe that it is our karmic connection that brought us together and it was not a mere coincidence. I am a person who believes that nothing happens by chance. A week wore on, rather slowly. The first day seemed to be the longest. But second week started and I felt like it had not been two weeks since I was with the group. Sense of time seems ...

I am attending a talk. The speaker asks the audience, ‘how many of you are the first generation educated lot’? More than 70% of the audience’s hands go up. He remarks, ‘I am the first generation too’. The next question is, ‘who are the elites?’ A few answer that it is the politicians. He adds his opinion and then says, ‘we are the elite!’ Should I be happy? A mixture of thoughts run through my mind but it is definitely not happiness. He further adds that we come from farming background, and then, from nothing, we have become the elites – and in no other countries is there such opportunity. I am grateful for the opportunity I received as a result of the farsighted policies of free education. But a feeling of smirk sinks in me when our farmers, our forefathers who have been farmers, and my parents who have been farmers are called nothing. They might not have had access to western education and formal schooling but in no way were they uneducated. As I write this, ...