Who won? Are we competing to reach a threshold of death in order to build up a momentum for peace again? If so, how many dead Nepalis is enough? Each death inures us, numbs us, so the next time we hear the names of those killed, it isn't as sad as the previous time. Like taking poison in small doses, we develop a resistance to pain.
There is dangerous hawktalk that we have to wage war to restore peace. Hardliners think people who are for non-violence are unrealistic dreamers, that Gandhi was mad and peaceniks are hopeless romantics. But by waging war, you don't get any nearer to peace, you just pile up more dead bodies. And, as we see in the reportage from the field in this and other papers, most of the dead in our war are not people who are fighting.
As we mourn this week's dead, the pampered Valley refuses to give up its preoccupation with day-to-day politics. Politicians wrestle each other to be on top in their petty games of intrigue and one-upmanship as they sink slowly into the quicksand.
But it is when the night is darkest that even a tiny wick appears bright. In its murky glow we catch a glimpse of the world as it should be: where words like idealism, service, compassion and faith are not clich?s, and still carry meaning. We come across someone who teaches us the inherent goodness of the human spirit and coaxes it out of those around him. Fr Eugene Watrin was a guru who taught us love, who showed how each life must help another to live, and how we must give back to society what society gave us. Even though our government never recognised this self-adopted Nepali as a citizen, many hundreds of his students regarded him as a compatriot. Students to whom he also taught the force of the written word, so that when we read these lines, we hear his voice still.
