Where was Buddha Born??

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I was on a client meet the other day. There I met a guy, from Biratnagar, who worked at the office that I visited. During the meet, the ED called him to his cabin and addressed him as “Bahadur”. Should I have been offended by it?? When I thought about it, I was not. The ED was addressing my fellow Nepali by a respectful name- “Bahadur”. It means brave/ courageous in Nepali language. Rather than calling someone who works in a pantry as “Abe” , he chose a name; a proper one!! Should I see any wrong in that?? Time to introspect now; what about us calling people “Dhoti”?? What does that word even mean?? Aren’t we ourselves judgemental on the basis of nationality?? Isn’t calling someone “Dhoti” offensive??
No one can beat us, on being overly sensitive coz our “pride” is like an open wound. It gets infected; too fast too easy. Some hot chick in a TV serial makes a random statement about “Buddha being born in India”; and what do we do?? Start a big demonstration in the streets; send some hate message via posters or social networking site; burn tyres/vehicles in the road; all leading to “Nepal Bandha”.  Wow!! If all the people in the world were as sensitive as us, there would already have been world war 3; reasons being- PSY new song titled “Washington is a part of S. Korea” or Beena Mallik saying in an interview that “Jesus was born in Pakistan”

Buddha is a symbol of Peace and non-violence. If we really want to show the world that we belong to a country where Buddha was born; why not preach for peace? Why not do deeds that would speak volumes about the country and the people. Imagine Buddha alive; I bet he would have laughed at the whole fiasco about nationality and say something like “I am not bound by religion or nationality; coz I am first, a human”
 “Truth always prevails”; the truth that Buddha was born in Nepal cannot be falsified by anyone. We should be pro-active and not impulsive. We should definitely speak our mind when truth is denied. If information sources like BBC, Encyclopedia or Guinness Book of world records is giving some wrong info; we should address the issue and fix it as soon as possible. However, if an actor in a filmy gossip show makes a stupid remark; the reason is his low GK; the same need not be taken too seriously. It annoys me how people are spreading hate messages in facebook these days; the worst being a picture of blood splattered everywhere with a message “Behead all the people who say that Buddha was born in India”; this was shared in fb even by kids my brother’s age- 13. Is this how we send a message of peace from a country where Sidhartha Gautam was born?? “Hate” is a strong word. It’s hate that has divided world into pieces; may it be hatred towards the Jews or hatred between Syria and Lebanon. Do we want to handover a country with so much hate to our children?? Shouldn’t we leave a nation which follows the imprints of peace and humanity that Buddha has left for his countrymen??


The choice is ours.

Comments

  1. Unknown24 September 2013 at 10:55

    Truly appreciable :):)

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  2. Unknown24 September 2013 at 10:55

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Unknown24 September 2013 at 18:05

    Whether I get offended if someone calls me 'bahadur' will depend mostly on the context. Often this word is used to offend Nepalese. I wonder if your ED would be able to call 'bahadur' to one of the other high ranking Nepali? I seriously doubt it. If someone really likes to makes us happy they can respectfully call us 'gorkhali'. Most Nepali's love this word.

    I think humans are racist by nature. For example I prefer myself over others and then my friends and family members over others, and then my community and nationality over others. However over the time humans have tried to cultivate culture of anti-racism to control this vice. The success widely varies society by society and country by country. I am sure in our society & country we have a lot of work to do.

    Nepali's pretend to not know the fact that when Buddha was born there was no Nepal or India. We have to admit, the correct statement is - Buddha was born in current day Nepal. Since it was a long time ago in history we need evidence. The most reliable evidence we have is Ashok Piller, which wider world has accepted as proof that Buddha 'should have been born' in Nepal. We need to understand that few people can have alternate views and other opinions regarding Buddha's birthplace.

    The current Buddha birthplace campaign is less about Buddha and more about how Nepali's in general think about India & Indians. We have been constantly coached that hating India is being patriotic. In our schools we have been teaching our children about our glorious history and how brave we are as if we are the only brave people and our bravery is built in our DNA. We have never been taught the reality that we are a small nation with a small population so we can't survive by hostility and flight. We have never been taught that key to our survival among the big neighbours is us being smart not brave. We have always been pointed by our leaders how much we have lost to India and never ever what we gained from India. No one has made it very clear that though we like or not India is the most important country for us.

    Unfortunately our nationality has been built on weeaker foundations like our war history and hating India. Bhupi Serchan has correctly said - "hami buddu chai tesaile ta bir chau" I am looking forward to the day when our leaders understand we need to be smart and diplomatic rather than brave.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Subhekshya16 January 2014 at 01:31

      Sudeep Dai, thank u so much for the comment. I agree with what u wrote. Yes, one shud be and act smart. We rely on India not only for basic things like food and petrol but day to day necessities. There are thousand of people who are working in India. We can not choose to ignore this fact. Yes,We shud definitely be pro-active in terms of preserving our dignity, our self respect and th truth. If needed, we need to sacrifice our life for it. But, having said that, we should not drain our time and energy on petty and insignificant issues. Every other thing in th world had its pros and cons. A wise person is the one who maximizes th pros after considering the effect of th cons. I just wish that, with time, we are able to be more wiser and not lose whatever wisdom we possess now.

      Delete
  4. Unknown25 September 2013 at 04:07

    Really a gr8 one... fact and true...

    ReplyDelete

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