KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 29

Time and again, a sore issue resurfaces in Nepal - the sukumbasi samasya - and it need not be an October Ten for it to resurface. It's a global irritant too, especially when the chilly winter or a monsoon is round the corner and the unhoused have to put up with a cold season, a surprise flooding, or with swarming mosquitoes during dog days. Ballpark figures scornfully stare at us: a chilling one and half billion human beings - out of eight billion now - are homeless globally.

As if brimming with compassion, we may ordinarily say 'poor homeless' in a machine-like fashion, yet the ordeals relating to homelessness are hideous. Homelessness is not solely about inadequate shelters. Apart from the sheer lack of general security, it's also about a difficult psychology that builds up among the 'homeless', with nagging thoughts perennially irking them that on the whole planet, they possess not even a tiny patch of land to sit on, to sleep on and to stand in. That's indeed a sad commentary disgracing humanity.

Homelessness deprives people of basic needs like access to clean water, proper food, clothing and washroom - among other 'home comforts' that the 'housed lot' cannot imagine being deprived of, come hell or high water. Homeless, the sick and the elderly may not get basic medical follow-up, and kids may not have access to quality education. The corollary is they may not be considered efficient candidates to compete with others in the crazy job markets, and will further lag behind in economic terms, too.

Interestingly, all living beings - millions of known as well as mysterious species inhabit the planet - have homes, and curiously, human beings are an exception: not all of them have homes. Follow a colony of ants and you will discover that their homes are ubiquitous: they live in anthills, within the soil, in the voids of the walls, inside tree trunks or under decaying vegetation.

All ants therefore have homes.

In heavy rain, a bird may seek shelter under your roof and fluff up her feathers to enrage you, but the moment the sunshine sparkles on earth, she flies back home: a cavity nest, a burrow or a tree niche. Birds have always a 'home' to rest in the day or to roost for the night. 'Urine marked' territory implies home of different animals. All species of living beings therefore have homes. How will man, the most dominant species, ensure a roof for each of its own species too, put its intelligence to the test, and also put to rest the global suspicion that the sukumbasi samasya is purely an issue created by vested interests?

A version of this article appears in the print on November 30, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.