Is it a matter of pride for a ruler to sell people's feet to buy shoes? Is this a sign that the country is prosperous? Every house has shoes, but there are no feet inside those shoes. Most of them are empty, empty.
What you should know
The fastest animal in the world is the ant. It can take 50 steps in a second. And the farthest animal that can travel in one step is the leopard. It can cover a distance of about 30 feet in a single step. Humans do not come close to either of these species. Yet humans can reach even further and higher than birds. No matter how far a bird reaches, no matter how high it flies, it returns to its nest, returns to the soil, returns to its home. Because all of these have destinations.
But after a person flies? Where have your feet gone so far? How far have they traveled so far? Do you remember the first time you lifted your foot to the left? Who held your hand when you lifted your foot? Do you know what the ground was like under that lifted foot? Do you know what the hand that held you was like when you first stood up? Whose was it? How hard was it? Was it cold or warm? How far was the first time you stood on your own feet and looked? How far did you see when you stood on your own feet for the first time? How far did you see on your first day? How many steps did you walk? Do you remember the tears of joy of your mother and father when you first lifted your foot? Do you remember the faces of the young parents, their cheeks flushed with joy as they laughed? Where is that hand that held you now? Remember? Now, when you stand on your own feet and look at those parents from afar, what is the difference between the tears falling from your parents and the tears you had before? What is the difference between that face that stretched and wrinkled when you laughed with joy and this face that is now wrinkled with sadness as you grow old?
Millions of years ago, people walked on four legs. When two of the four legs of a person were lost and replaced with two, and the days of suffering for people began. Those hands became a curse not only for themselves, but for the entire existence. Because the two hands suddenly became empty, which were not there before. Being empty is an opportunity to fill, but being empty after being full is to perish. Being empty and perishing are different things. A person became so empty in the race to fill that empty hand that he had nothing left. He became empty, naked, hoarse, ugly and cruel. In search of opportunity, satisfaction and sorrow, people started traveling more with two legs than with four legs, started running, started jumping, started flying in the air. And people's feet were disappearing from the soil. And people were disappearing from the country, consciousness was disappearing from society.
After reaching a prosperous country, people lose their youth, lose their life, lose their family, lose their culture, lose their civilization, lose their relationships, the soil gradually disappears from their feet, their dreams are lost, their country is lost, their soul is lost from their body, and a little bit of their own and their country's debt is also lost. But people's feet are lost from poor countries.
Every Nepali leaves the soil to overcome the defeats they have lost and to win the victories they have not lost. And some are lost in time, some are lost in geography, some are lost in consciousness, some in the subconscious. Some are lost within the country without being found. Some in banknotes, some in the coat of power, some in the harsh speeches of leaders, some have disappeared with their bodies while searching for their own feet.
Is it a matter of pride for a country to sell people's feet to buy shoes? Is it a sign that this country is prosperous? There are shoes in every house, but there are no feet inside those shoes. Those lost feet are lost like a sudden heavy rain in a drought and rushes away. The water that falls slowly soaks the ground and stays there, but the big water that falls suddenly flows away in an instant, does not stay in the ground. It does not know the ground under its feet. It is always dry beneath it. The dry consciousness of our country has forced the soft feet to disappear into the soil. Now they will not be found in that soil again, because that water has mixed with the river, flowed away, and become a river—looking for its own undiscovered existence.
It is said that relationships can be erased by shaking them, but the touch and memory of that relationship can never be erased. It keeps on whispering in your conscience, as long as you live. But these feet are also washing away memories and touch. Some are going to the mountains and soaking themselves in the hot sun, some are washing themselves in the cold water of the river.
A leader in the capital is giving a ‘Power Point presentation’ in a loud, hoarse voice—so that the sound of his mother’s old shoes on the mountain is drowned out, the sound of his father’s old shoes stuck in the mud of the uncultivated field is drowned out, and the sound of a newly calved cow’s calf screaming for its mother is drowned out—without any logic or power of point, he is sitting on the fifth floor and shouting, “How prosperous we have made the country.” Hundreds of miles away, he is shouting, drowning out the sound of his feet (Muslim prayers) drowning out the sound of his feet drowning in the hot sands of Arabia, ‘Nepal and Nepalis have become very prosperous, villages have become cities, but look—is anyone’s foot bare? Is anyone walking barefoot? Everyone has shoes on their feet, a bag carrying tons of stuff on their back.’ He looked around and vomited even louder, ‘Look, today all the children carry bags when they go to school, was this the case before?’
But his ‘Power Point Presentation’, which he shouted with power, has neither a point, nor a present, nor the future of Nepalis. There is only a very annoying, hoarse voice, and a series of questions like the deserts of Arabia. Are there feet inside those shoes that he saw? Is it a matter of pride for a country to sell people's feet to buy shoes? Is this a standard for a prosperous country? Every house has shoes, but there are no feet inside those shoes. Most of them are empty, empty.
There are fields in the village, but they are empty. There are houses, but they are empty. There are barns, but they are empty. There are eyes of parents, but their dreams are empty. There are lips, but their voices are empty. There is breath, but their hopes are empty. There are arms, but they are empty. There are wombs, but they are empty. And inside the big bag that every prosperous Nepali in that city carries, there is not prosperity, wealth, and money—there is debt. A little of his own debt, and a little of the nation's debt. Both debts make that bag big and heavy. And his flying feet are sinking lower and lower. There is no book in the big, dry bag that every student carries, there is a passport.
After the Corona pandemic, the world moved more aggressively into the virtual and digital era. And for a while, it covered up extreme nationalism, archaic thinking, corruption and anarchy. But the marginalized and lower classes fell further and the capitalists rose further. The era that followed transformed into a virtual era of increasingly misleading, aggressive social media and (mis)information. The difference between the pre- and post-Corona eras is as great as drinking water from a small well and drinking water from a large waterfall. Just as we drink water from a well with our fingers—even if we draw a little water from the well, a lot of water reaches our stomach through our fingers. Current knowledge is like drinking water from a large waterfall falling from above. The flow of water is so great that the water does not stagnate in the fingers, it flows into the waterfall before reaching the mouth. The body gets completely wet but the throat does not get wet. The current consciousness is like drinking water from a fountain . From the outside, people seem to be soaked with knowledge, but inside, the bowels of consciousness are clearly drying up .
Meanwhile, wild animals, birds, nature and plants returned home . The ozone layer returned home . Rivers and streams returned home . Shoes without feet walked in the deserted city and nature also returned home breathing . For the first time, we could hear it . At that time, our ears also returned home . But even when everyone returned home, they still did not return—feet separated from shoes . Feet lost in the mud . Feet that left home in the people's war . Feet that went to buy citalopram . Feet that flew from the airport . And those unturned legs, hoping to return, turned into empty fields filled with food. The cows that had been abandoned became barren. My country became a city like this—a noisy city.
The socio-political noise in society today is so terrible that no one hears even when you scream. The noise of populism, the noise of corruption, the noise of speech, the noise of impunity, the noise of anarchy, the noise of insensitivity, the noise of intolerance, the noise of humanization, the noise of demonization. Freedom without consciousness and honesty, politics without compassion, chaotic development without culture and only destruction. The statements of today's social media and politicians are so insensitive, so cheap and chaotic that the style of propaganda by those selling goods on the side of the road, shouting, jumping and raising their feet, seems civilized. It seems that people are now going from four legs to two legs. It is said that to be a
, one must raise their feet to know what is under their feet. Otherwise, a person cannot be a seer, a witness and a scene themselves. He cannot see what is under his feet. But as easy as it is to raise a foot from the ground, it is difficult to put it down. Just as it is difficult to put down a war even by putting down weapons. Even by putting down a legacy, it is difficult to put down ego. Many feet that were raised repeatedly to change society have been buried in the soil of the country. Those who sold them shoes ruled the government, ran industries, ran corruption, and waged chaos and chaos. But those feet that rose to change the future of the country were lost in some local and some foreign soil. The contractors who sold shoes that said they would change the country and the people's feet were lost in speeches and corruption. A young man who was searching for these lost and missing feet lost his own foot again. In the capital of the country, a shoe waited for many days at the crossroads, hoping for its feet to return, but that foot never returned home. In this way, more feet were lost than found on the journey of losing and collecting.
One day, all these lost feet will ring out together and will be heard so loudly that even the ears that returned home in Corona at that time will not hear. It will also speak. Everything that comes into this universe questions its existence and justice—sooner or later—and no one will be able to escape the circle of that question.
Today, shoes leave their homes with a faint hope to find their feet. A mother, with her four legs already wet in the scorching midday sun, goes to the edge of the courtyard and screams. An old man, on all fours, goes down to the edge of the river and dips his completely burnt feet in the cold water and screams. Neither the mother sitting on the hill above hears the father's voice, nor the father's voice. Neither do the feet of their children melting in the sand hear the sound of their screams. A full-grown calf of a four-legged cow cries in the barn, but no milk comes from the cow's udder—its womb has already been emptied by the gurgling. The country does not hear the voice of that calf crying out of hunger. The country has already become a city. Now in this noisy and prosperous city, no one can hear anyone else's voice.
The hoarseness of society is so great that the hoarseness of power-lust, the hoarseness of populism, the hoarseness of corruption, the hoarseness of impunity, the hoarseness of zero consciousness have merged into the hoarseness of civilization, the voice of justice, the voice of human culture, the voice of decency, the voice of expertise and intelligence. Now there is no voice left to shout. And there is a situation where no one can make themselves heard by breaking through that scream. Now small voices are not heard, small people are not seen. Because man has now started to stick out a tongue longer than himself to make himself heard. Stretching his neck to make himself visible, he has started to look like a giraffe. Due to the fear of his hoarseness, the remaining legs also started to disappear and the legs that were about to return home got lost on the way.
Someday all these lost and scattered legs will return. Can the sound of all those footsteps be drowned out by the hoarseness of speech and noise today? Back home in Corona, would the ears hear or speak? When the bells rang in mosques, churches, and monasteries at that time—would the bells ring with only kindness and compassion or with hatred? Those old parents who had been waiting for years, who taught their children to stand on two legs from four legs—are now standing on four legs and asking questions. The courtyard, which was first walked on two legs, the barren soil of the uncultivated field, the calf of a cow, the uncultivated field with a hole, and the innocent eyes of those shoes that had been waiting in the corner of the house for years, are looking into the eyes of the country's ruler and asking questions.
