A recent THT ‘Short Takes’ snap showed a street child sniffing glue, a sobering evidence of the futility of our social system: The child can get himself a bag full of drugs through a single day of begging but an entire nation cannot get books in his hands, even after decades of begging. In many other aspects, too, the state machinery seems supportive of the evil by making goodness a difficult possession.

‘New Nepal’ has created a safe heaven for vandals, agitators and hooligans. In this country, teachers and officials are locked up in their offices. Any group of people can form a mob to voice their demands. Our future engineers too joined this clan when they locked up their principals in a room.

Moreover, the case with doctors is equally awful. A fresh practitioner in Bir Hospital recalls how a bleak case of suicide attempt through poisoning oneself mutated into that of negligence

of doctors. Immediately, flocks of agitators turned up demanding ‘compensation’ and threatening the doctors.

However, it was later learned that the mob consisted largely of outside instigators. No media

house ever turned up at the scene. The evil machinery wants us to believe that it is always the recklessness of doctors that results in death of patients.

In the world we live in, evil is glamorised. I envy the celeb status of Charles Sobhraj these days, for my fiancée could never have got so much of highlight in the media. The reason behind this is simple: I am simply a social worker while Sobhraj is an infamous international criminal. Someone who perpetuated the Holocaust now rests as a statue in the Madame Tussaud’s collection. I congratulate the guy who was irked enough to break off Hitler’s head. I would edit history and highlight Anne Frank more than the Nazis for I wish them to grow up learning that devilry is not glam and that the victims need more consideration.

Despite the evil all around, I still want to believe goodness has not lost its sanctity. Going through these lines, you might be recalling some celeb gangster or bureaucrat in detention in his own office, or perhaps the ‘irresponsible’ white coats. We deserve, and can choose to live, in a better place.