We like to make fun of our national culture of taking things as they come. In fact, we use the Hindi phrase 'dekha jayega' (we'll see) to poke fun at our own habit of never doing today what can be done tomorrow.

Among the many traits of our political leadership that keep Nepal backward (selfishness, greed, elastic morals, laziness, incompetence) one of the most harmful is the fatalistic belief that somehow things will sort themselves out. This is probably the reason for the utter lack of urgency among the political parties and their CA members in seeing the peace process through, making progress on integration of armies and writing of the constitution by 28 May.

This deterministic cultural explanation for inaction, however, should not be an excuse to continue with this do-nothing deadlock. The aim should be to get out of the habit of letting fate determine our future, of leaving the nation's destiny to chance.

On the day of the annular solar eclipse last week, Nepali tv channels vied with each other to broadcast astrological prognoses in their regular new programs on what the celestial event meant to Capricorns and Leos. When the media mixes up myth and superstition with news and current affairs, it shows the malaise runs much deeper than we think.

Or, a national daily that on Wednesday printed the picture of the sunset illuminating contrails of an airliner flying the new Kathmandu-Delhi air route over western Nepal and said it was a "rocket" on a "spy mission" to Mustang. This is worse than superstition, it is disinformation.

Leaving things to fate is also seen in earthquake preparedness, or shall we say, unpreparedness. If there is one country in the world where earthquakes are a certainty, and where awareness and safeguards should be mandatory, it is Nepal. For us, it is not 'if' there will be a major quake, but 'when'. It could be tonight, or it could be five years from now, but it is 100 per cent certain that it will happen.

Yet, looking at the haphazard urban sprawl and dangerous construction in Nepal's metros, it is clear hardly anyone is looking at prevention and readiness. This should be the government's job, but how do you expect a leadership with such a short time horizon that it can't even resolve the current political deadlock, to prepare for a disaster that may or may not happen from one year to the next?

But it must. And Haiti has focused our minds on what can happen. An 8 magnitude earthquake in Kathmandu would actually be ten times worse than Haiti, which was 7 on the Richter scale.

Historically, we know great earthquakes have hit central Nepal every 75 years. The last one was 1934. The Big One is due any day now.

READ ALSO:
All for one - FROM ISSUE #486 (22 JAN 2010 - 28 JAN 2010)
"I feel the earth move" - FROM ISSUE #486 (22 JAN 2010 - 28 JAN 2010)