Thanks to CK Lal in "Corruption, Nepalis and the Expat" (#32) for calling a spade a spade and exposing the hypocrisy and bigotry of the powerful and privileged, donors and diplomats. Although his arguments about the democratisation of corruption after 1990 (and perhaps helping the GDP by spreading the wealth around and keeping graft money within the country) are a bit disingenuous, Mr Lal makes a strong point for self-reliance and Nepalis pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. But cursed with the calibre of rulers we have, maybe the right dose of diplomatic pesticide at the right time may not be such a bad thing to give them a wake-up call.

Binode B. Gurung
Pokhara

CK Lal deserves to be declar-ed the Sultan of Oversimpli-fication. If there are still doubts over the eligibility of the brilliant colum-nist for this singular honour, then they should be dispelled by this pearl of wisdom from his State of the State column (#32): "Capitalism is based on avarice ... ." This sweeping claim has as much merit as, say, an assertion such as "Communism is based on envy."
As to his tilt at binary oppositions, Lal stands self- condemned. As one of the earliest researchers in the field, the Swiss linguist Ferdinande de Sassure, pointed out, language itself functions through the operation of binary oppo-sitions. For example, Lal's word 'love' in the sentence "The paternalistic power elite love ..." has any significance only in its binary opposition to the word 'hate'. The cognitive process itself is a function of binary oppositions; therefore, the 'paternalistic power elite' cannot be blamed for using binary oppositions to serve their vested interests.
Without recourse to the much-maligned binary oppositions, Lal himself could not come up with his compelling ratio-cinations week after week.
PS: I remain a die hard CK Lal fan, though.

Kanden Thebe
Sinam, Taplejung


Congratulations on your excellent articles covering various aspects of Nepali Society. Mr CK Lal is the best, and others are no less. Your articles always keep me close to home while far away.

Prajwal Pradhan
Canada