Come Asadh (June/July) and there is a sense of urgency in the air.

For good or the worst, there is always those pricked ears and the film covered eyes visible almost everywhere that you can hike. There are umpteen reasons to make this month more prominent than others in the official calendar that we have been following.

The focus is there all because

almost every Nepali can trace his/her link to the soil that is belonging to the noble clan of the farmers. And this is the time when the monsoon makes its benevolent presence felt. Of course, sometimes things go too far to wreak havoc through floods and landslides. However, no rain has greater catastrophes in store. So, it is celebration

time with the planting making headway in most parts of the country.

The fun of sloshing around in the field gives you all that charm that Mother Nature has to bless you with.

Turning to the next fork is the hurried pace of utilizing the budgetary allocations before the fiscal year comes to an end. The roads are pitched throwing away all precautions. Who cares if the patch work is sloppy and technically unsound as long as the earmarked funds are spent. The few extra bucks that trickle with the hasty venture add on to become a bounty for those who seemingly look great sloggers. So it goes for almost every sector that has to show they’re great spenders from an official point of view, and receive formal pat of appreciation.

The finance ministry or rather the concerned minister burns the midnight lamp in getting the next year’s budget in place. People from all sectors and government line agencies want a bigger piece of the pie.

This all seems a world of flying saucers which the common man on the street views. For the down-to-earth citizen, the talks of billions and

trillions is too great a mountain to dream of. S/He knows only one thing that is whether he/she will be able to make/get enough to feed, clothe

and shelter the family. More than that would be welcome but less than that would spell doom. However, somewhere along the line the ministers and bureaucrats seem to forget that they too belong to the fraternity of the underprivileged, once given a gas-guzzling chauffer-driven luxurious model of a vehicle. It’s destiny all the way, forget about the talks of equality, rights and all that.