Let us hope all of us had a wonderful Dashain and we will have a good Tihar as well. It’s hard for most of us to manage our budget during the festive season. It seems that most of us consume more masu in a week than we do in a year. It’s about time we think about going vegetarian during Dashain not only to cut down on family expenses but to also make sure that we are eating healthy instead of gorging on masu and fatty and fried stuff!

It would be better if we just combined Dashain and Tihar and made it a week-long holiday instead of spending twice in less than a month and going broke. We are still waiting for the day when our government will finally realise that people matter most and will be more than happy to provide us at least a few kilos of meat for free to each family or some veggies if you are a vegetarian during festive season.

But for now, only our VVIPs receive a few hundred litres of petrol for their free vehicles. We will know that we have made it when we get the same perks as our VVIPs in the future. That day will come when folks like Dr KC head our government instead of the same bunch of pickpockets who have been playing politics for the past three decades.

Well, our netas and hakim sahebs don’t have to worry much because this is the time they get free raksis, free khasis and boras of cash from fake-VAT bill byaparis, shady contractors and other con artists. And, what about the rest of us? Well, we have to ask for loans from near and dear ones and even ask for credit from liquor and meat shops in one’s neighbourhood to manage the festive season!

It seems that our communist netas were busy playing politics while the Kangaroos and the other folks were busy playing cards and drinking tons of whisky this Dashain. Our United Mundrey Leaders, the Meowist and Dr Saheb and his ‘New Power’ wallahs now tell us that they plan to form an alliance to contest the provincial and federal parliamentary elections and hopefully unite and be part of a one big communist party in this country. And our Kangaroos plan to form an alliance with other Madhesi parties and the former Pancheys just to make sure that the communists don’t take over and have all the fun!

If we do have a one big communist party by next year then we will have five former Prime Monsters in the same party. Then our clowns will fight among themselves to be the Chairperson. And if our communist do manage to win the majority then our Bam Dev uncle will certainly be our Prime Monster. After all, he is the one who is running around trying to get all comrades on board.

It seems that Dr Saheb has realised that his ‘New Power’ stuff didn’t have any buyers. Our Emperor knows very well that his party will just be another third or fourth party in town and the only way to make some dough would be to join another coalition government, bag a few ministries and make a few Rupees and that’s about it. Oli knows very well that his party alone cannot win any majority and it would be better to bring the Meowist on board and not worry about our Emperor making deals left and right. But the question is how will all of our comrades get along?

We all know that our communists are not that good at staying together. Well, let us not only blame our commies. Most of our political parties have factions within and they battle it out to get tickets for the elections or have their own near and dear one as ambassadors, justices and hakim sahebs. The Kangaroos did split once and so did our UML. The Meowist could have been a lot stronger if they had stayed together but Baidya Ba had other ideas and Dr Saheb thought he could start a new party. Our Madhesi parties are good at breaking up as well. So let us not have high hopes on our comrades staying together for long either.

So the comrades will be on the left and our Kangroos and their friends will head the right. But who will be at the center and find the middle path to peace and prosperity for this land of ours? We all know that our political parties are the most corrupt in this land and our civil servants would rather offer boras of cash to the netas for promotions and lucrative postings instead of facing the corrupt clowns and telling them to take a hike. No wonder, our shady contractors can carry out shoddy works and get away with it.

Do we need two big parties in this country to take turns looting us all or do we, the people form a new political party to battle the left and the right? We have seen enough of the communists and socialists. These clowns have shown us that they do not care for the people and only want to exploit them to make some moolah.

Maybe, what Nepal needs for now is a capitalist party for a change. Yes, it’s about time Binod Chaudhary and his fellow ‘Udhyogpatis’ fund a new party that advocates free market economy, transparency and accountability not only on paper but in action as well. Yes, Mr Chaudhary, you have done pretty well selling Wai Wais. Why not start your own political party and we can say ‘Bye Byes’ to our chors? We can even come up with a new slogan, “Hami Timi Lai Wai Wai, Yee Chor haru lai Bye Bye!’….and no MSG please!

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at [email protected]