I was born in a city, raised in a city; I am still living in a city and apparently I have no plans of abandoning the city life whatsoever. But my parents tend to have the opposite idea. They love villages. It is beyond my understanding how anyone can live in a place without Wi-Fi connection. We keep on having those small dinner time conversations where arguments of both sides are firmly put forward. Eventually, with the last bite of dinner the conversation comes to an end and gets shifted for other times. However, each time we have one of those debates, I feel like not having enough in support of my arguments.

Last night I was so short of ideas that it got me thinking for quite a few hours. The thing was that my father said that village life is better because it’s simple and original.

For instance, simple is comprehensible but original? Indirectly, he was implying that the entire city population is fake. The fact that I belong to the city population, and I was being called a mere phony made me feel rather itchy. Well, if it was about anyone else my judgments would come before words. But no! It was about me and self-reviewing became a bit of a pain in the brain.

I know sometimes I try to dress like my favourite actress and talk like my favourite VJ, but I don’t think it makes me unoriginal. I take that as a course of improving myself, where some people serve as examples. That positive attitude of mine however was not the way out of my quandary. There was something else—something deep that my father meant. Then, there was something I explored about myself, about me behaving like an alien in my own country.

The Nepali cuisine has lots of deliciousness, but I prefer the flavour of pizza. I have never tried putting on a gunyu cholo. I want to settle down somewhere in New Zealand and to make things worse; I don’t even watch Nepali films! Still I think, in fact, I strongly believe that I am a proud Nepali. What an irony! Now, that is what he meant by fake. I am a fake Nepali. I don’t know who the President of Nepal is or if Nepal has a president or not, but I surely know who Barak Obama is.

Consequently, I understood the provoking remark made by my father. It wasn’t about living in cities or villages or anywhere. It was about one’s identity and originality that one needs to be true to if one belongs to some place. That the villagers are original means they haven’t forgotten the Nepali essence. The city dwellers belong nowhere with sundry behaviours.