--BY MADAN LAMSAL

A brand New Year is approaching and, like every year, I feel a great urge to make new resolutions. But the situation is such that the moment I think about making a new resolution, one of the dogs in my neighbourhood starts barking! Cats in all directions start screeching!! When I am really thinking about an available opportunity, the worms of resolutions in my brain start slithering. I have made resolutions all my life so far and I have hardly been able to keep any of them. But I still feel the strong urge to make new resolutions today!

Right now I am thinking that from this New Year I will wake up at five o’clock in the morning. No, no, at 4, rather! But again, it is more fun in making it 3!! Yes, that seems to be the rule as well. After leaving bed, I will first do a hands and feet exercise. I will move my hands and feet back and front, up and down and then left and right. That way, I can become a yoga guru! But this resolution of mine will be broken within 2-3 hours, the way all my New Year resolutions die a premature death every year. But again, resolutions are made to be broken so that you can make new ones! In this case, I am particularly inspired by the politicians of our country and the way they always forget their development resolutions yet never stop making new ones!

This New Year, I am going to make another resolution in that I will keep the shelves and cupboards in my office and the surroundings of the building completely clean and dump the waste, as a rule, on my neighbour’s land or on the road. In fact, rubbish was created just to be thrown either on the road or in your neighbour’s place! This is something even some countries have been practicing religiously. Haven’t you noticed how India, and more so China, has been dumping what they cannot sell elsewhere in the world – from plastic to polyester, waste in other words – in Nepal? It is a different thing altogether that we Nepalis compete with each other and are committed to buying that waste!

I really want to speak the truth, at least on the occasion of the New Year. In fact, I want to make speaking the truth another New Year resolution of mine. If I speak the truth then that will greatly console the truthful souls of King Harishchandra, Yuddhisthir and the Pandavas of the ancient era and Jay Prithvi Bahadur Singh of the modern era – people who supposedly never lied in their lives. But alas! There is a problem. No sooner do I think about making truth-speaking my New Year resolution than my wife starts laughing out loud. She says this resolution of mine will not last even for a minute! So she wants me to make at least one resolution that lasts for at least an hour!!    

My dear and valued readers! Now tell me should I put aside the resolution to speak the truth for the time being or what? Perhaps that would be alright. Because I have neither the courage nor the privilege to speak the truth. However it would be appropriate if I make a resolution to tell the truth once every month when I write this column! However, it occurs to me that perhaps telling the truth even only once a month is a very difficult and daunting task.      

However, my resolution is that in the New Year I will tell the truth at least once every month. I declare that I am making this resolution in full consciousness, without any fear or favour. If anyone has any objection to this resolution of mine, inform me in time.

I think making new resolutions whenever a New Year approaches has become a tradition of sorts. But several resolutions like ‘I will always speak the truth’, ‘I will always be honest’, I will be virtuous’, ‘I will build an equal and inclusive society’, ‘I will be hardworking’ die a tragic death every New Year.    

However, for now, let’s bid farewell to 2022 and welcome 2023. May the New Year motivate the politicians to fulfill the promises and resolutions they have made so far.  Happy New Year 2023!