There is a deep sense of doom and gloom these days among Nepali professionals like myself.

Civil engineers, heart surgeons, investment bankers, urban planners, conservationists, sociologists-Nepalis from all walks of life who have the training, experience and vision to take this country forward feel let down by the politicians.

As world-class professionals they can get a job anywhere in the world, but they have decided to contribute to the development of Nepali society by working in Nepal.

But once more, they see those at the controls, the leaders who are supposed to steer this country to peace and development hopelessly stuck with their petty politics.

As an airline captain, I am often asked why our country has never got the leadership she deserved. And the answer is we have left our country to be governed by a fully-depreciated bunch of mediocre apartchiks. Once more, the leaders we rewarded with power are squandering the opportunity they had.

The consequences can be seen in all aspects of daily life: the fuel lines, the power outage, blocked highways, rising crime and lawlessness, extortion and a general sense of drift. If it goes on like this, the very people who poured out into the streets are going to start saying dictatorship was better. Today, we are only free to complain how wretched we are, and just survival in this so-called new Nepal has become a struggle.

The eight parties (now seven after NC unification) are not listening to us. Flying to remote corners of Nepal, I hear everyone saying about the politicians: we don't care about your quarrels just get this country back to normal. The eight all blame each other, or the king, or foreigners, but never themselves. The arrogance and loose tongue of our politicians make things worse. Forget about a new Nepal, we just want a better Nepal.

The media is equally to blame for magnifying the cynicism of the politicians and infecting the rest of the country with it. Why does the media wallow in the hollow promises of our hollow politicians? It is true when they say that the media is always at the coat-tails of those in power. During the panchayat years, it was Long Live the King, after 1990 it became Long Live Ganeshman, Kishunji and Girija, warts and all, after 2002 it was Gyanendra ki Jai, and now it is Jai Prachanda and Baburam. The media obviously can't resolve our country's problems by itself, but by being so sycophantic it certainly becomes a part of the problem.

Also to blame is our fatalistic culture that makes us accept the status quo. We were never outraged by injustice and wrongdoing all around us, hoping that things will be better in our next life. We think politicians will reform themselves. Give them time, we say, but we don't have that much time left.

Too much damage has been done to this motherland already, it is time to get ourselves out of the tangle of politics and pay attention to our ravaged economy and development that has been set back 20 years. That is how people will judge politicians, not by whether they usher in a federal democratic republic or not.

For that, the biggest need of the hour is unity. Stop saying I am Maobadi, or kangresi, royalist, UML, madhesi or janajati or whatever else. As Prashant Tamang showed us, let us be proud just to be called a Nepali. Let's bring back our Nepalipan, after all we are all children of Mother Nepal.

Captain Vijay Lama flies for Nepal Airlines.