VOICES : The Kathmandu Declaration on khateys

 

JUL 19 - Recently, I’d had the good fortune to attend a workshop at one of the big hotels on the meaning and implications of the word ‘khatey’. For the uninitiated, the term was coined by development workers in the early 90s, when they were not the politically correct lot they are today, to refer to homeless children living on the streets of Kathmandu.

The participants at this workshop reflected a coalition of Nepali society, including development workers, journalists and human rights activists (you can’t call it a workshop nowadays without these three groups anyway). Also in attendance were members of the international community who were only serving as observers, and surprisingly, had no pointers for the natives that day.

The level of participation was so intense that the foreigners fled midway through the workshop; it was an open mike session with more speakers from the floor than the ones onstage.

Soon, the homeless boys from Thamel stormed the rostrum and fists made contact with faces, and for a while it was chaos. The police showed up at one point, but a prominent human rights activist who is always attired in yellow managed to pacify the crowds and get things back in order.

After hours of deliberation, the yellow apparition stood before the mike and read out the Kathmandu Declaration.

The Kathmandu Declaration states that the word khatey in current Nepali parlance now refers to anyone who is morally bankrupt, is a poser, is petty with their feelings and resources, is insensitive to others less fortunate, and who does things that often verge on the dishonest.

It implies that being a khatey isn’t related to your material belongings but rather your mental state—how you perceive people and the world around you.

Here are some of the highlights that got the most applause that day:

First, a khatey could be any man or woman behind the wheels of a car or a motorbike who honks repeatedly at people who momentarily occupy Kathmandu’s rare stretches of asphalt. It singles out drivers who honk at children and the elderly, and cut them off when they try to cross the street. The ones who honk at the handicapped deserve a special prize.

It next deems that any executive/activist/worker/blogger/lover engaged in business, development, the service industry, climate change, or smart young mothers with sunglasses on their heads who drive nice cars—but who employ poor children from the countryside as servants or nannies—be classified as khateys.

The third mentions writers or people posing as such, who write daily political discourses as if they are smoking buddies within the same circle of hard-core gangsters who now run our country like an organised syndicate. These writers, with their asinine conjectures about these dons who rule us, the document notes, are like the sissies we knew in school who claimed affiliation to the neighbourhood bully, just so they wouldn’t get beaten up themselves.

The document singles out Brahmin and Madhesi writers who pretend they’re champions of federalism, but who never dare write about the plight of women in their own communities: who face some of the toughest strictures and codes for women in this country.
Next, the document lists all politicians. Particularly the younger ones who will cry with others in private about the wrong directions being taken by their party, but are too cowardly to actively seek change, and who continue to live off the spoils provided by the same political parties.

The document also singles out children of Panchayat-era politicians who enjoyed the largesse of their parents’ privilege and attended the best schools and colleges, but who now live abroad and write articles that stoke ethnic tensions here at home.

The document is surprisingly kind to land scammers and political gundas and the regular gangsters and criminals; they are only referred to as thugs and scum.

Amid much cheering, the document notes that homeless children on the streets of Kathmandu could only be classified as poor and vulnerable.

There’s a lot of other stuff too, but it’s the concluding bit that hits me the hardest.

It lists as khatey, any adult male above 30 who is not physically or mentally challenged and who lives at home with his parents. Someone who might even have a day job, but who doesn’t actually help out with cash for the rent, the utilities or the food. Someone who refers to his parents’ house as his own and smiles at the knowledge that it will be his when they die. These actors, the document notes, deserve the crown.

Are you alright bro?
God bless

तेरोबाउले विर्य झर्दा र तलाई झार्दा : तेरोबाउलाइ खाते भन्दै कराएको हुनु पर्छ किनकी तेरो दिमागमा यो सब्द बाहेक केहि छैन | जा गएर सोध तेरो जन्मदाता हरुलाई ?

 lol....he is so frustrated with his life that its time that he gets a good medication....yes god bless him...amen

 maobadi ko najayej aaulad ko dimag khuskya jasto cha. Sajha maa paiso uthayera upachar garam. Ma 5 cents dinchu.

www.healthnet.org.np/resource/mhealth/service/mhsn.PDF

बास्तबमा नै भन्ने हो भने, यो माथिको बिस्लेशन ठ्याक्कै माओबादी कै पृष्ठभूमि संग मेल खान जान्छा, जुन अशिश्मे जस्तो जनावर नै एक ज्वलन्त उदाहरण हो. प्रचंडे, बाबुराम,... सबै कस्ता खाते थिए, त्यो त सबैले देख्दै आको हो अब तिनीहरुको अन्धो भक्त यो सानो पड्के बाछो साझामा आएर, बेला बेलामा आफ्नो खातेपना ब्वा ब्वा गरिरहंछा. कसैले तपाई भनोस या नभनोस, आफै मपाई???, यो त झन् सुपर खाते पो भयो नि.