These days he is mostly found staying at home. As far as he can manage he does not go out at all, but if he does come out he selects the shortest route if possible but if he fails to do so prefers an isolated way even if he may have to cover a longer distance. He has learnt to suppress his desires of walking or strolling, or to say it frankly, his present condition and mental state have taught him to kill his desire. That's why he mostly stays at home. SarupThe busy streets of Kathmandu are rarely without people and the possibility of meeting of acquainted people. The small town forces him to imprison him within his home. In case he came across some relatives or friends he would be surrounded with questions like where is your job nowadays, what have you been doing, why a highly capable man like you keeping yourself aloof. SarupThus he has experienced inferiority complex many times trying to answer their nosy enquiries. On several occasions he has felt low in front of his former class-friends seeing them walking proudly dressed in national dress- Daura Suruwal. It is to save himself from depression and inferiority complex arising out of such chance encounters that he does not like to go out for a walk. Sarup It's true that he does possess good intelligence. As a student at his school and college he had proved to be quite brilliant. Due to his poor financial background he could not carry on his higher studies beyond his bachelor's degree. He had, therefore, no other option but to rush to get a job. He needed a job not only for himself but to maintain his entire family. He would get a job and begin to work but it was always temporary. SarupHe studied hard, gave his tests but he was always denied a permanent job. From time to time his self-confidence and efforts deceived him and gradually he reached a state of his mind when not a single trace of self-confidence remained within him. He lost even his temporary job. As a result, his talent died with his mental spirit and now he has remained hollow like a dry log living a meaningless life. Sarup In the literary field, however, he was able to establish himself quite strongly. He naturally drew the attention of renowned critics toward his subject matter, style and innate capabilities. But nowadays he has completely withdrawn himself from that field, too. SarupHe has today doubts that what he wrote was appropriate, his style attractive and his thoughts powerful. That is why his energy to create literary works has almost dried. Whatever self-satisfaction he derived from his literary creations earlier has now changed into equal dissatisfaction. Due to this very dissatisfaction he has completely severed himself from his literary connections. Nowadays, there is not a single field where he is attached. He is limited to his own loneliness and within his own household environment.
Home! Even at home he hasn't got any desired atmosphere. The income sources of his household were unable to meet its limitless needs and to cope with its uncontrollable expenses. Therefore, he was watching his retired old father who was slowly withering away in worries at his meager amount of pension money. The unseen dream of his ageing father that his son would get a good job to help him run the family better was everyday turning into mirage. He watched his father's worry helplessly. Although it was his responsibility now to earn and take care of his father, it was his father who was running the household. Not only he, even his wife and son were depending on his father's pension.
Two years had already shipped by when he had married his wife with the thought that she was just a single person whom he could easily afford to provide for with his talent and skill and a year has gone by that his wife had given birth to their son on the same strength. But even in this he was deceived by his self-confidence. Two years had passed but he was still incapable of affording his wife and son. He feels quite depressed when he watches his wife silently eying with admiration the saris of new fashions proudly shown to her by his cousin sister. The cousin sister was married almost the same time as he was but her husband had bought so many expensive saris for her, whereas, on his part, he hadn't been able to buy a new piece of cloth for his wife after marriage. It may be because she knew the sad financial status of her husband that she has never told him that she needed anything. If by chance a question was raised about the need of something, she tried to cover up the necessity by saying that several articles of clothes and things bought during marriage were still lying unused. He knew well what articles he had bought during their marriage and he understood his wife's way of handling the issue. His joblessness and inability to afford even small necessities of the family have made him inwardly timid and chickenhearted. Therefore, he does not generally speak to his wife as well as his parents. He thus tries to remain aloof from his family too.
He is a regular subscriber of the dailies. Until a few years ago he used to make cuttings of important events and keep them in a file. He had filled four small and big diary books with possible questions on general knowledge. He was well aware of any current events of the world, but nowadays he does not read any news with interest. He is more interested in the wanted columns then in the news.
He makes himself a candidate for any post he thinks suitable for himself, but there is no on to push him up for it. Therefore, all his efforts go in rain. Nowadays he has no energy and interest left in applying for any job as he knows very well that a man is not considered suitable for a post at the present time quite because of his qualifications. And thus just for the sake of ritual he sends applications. He has to attend at two interviews with very month but he is almost certain that these interviews will be a habitual custom that he has been fulfilling.
He has gone through several interviews before these and thus he knows what these interviews are and why they are held. But like a dog kicked three hundred and sixty-five days in a year and worshipped the three hundred and sixty-sixth day and like the saying that a good day will certainly return even for a widow after the lapse of twelve years, he too has kept within him a tiny and narrow hope that a good day will come to him. It is this hope that has helped him continue to live at the present time, otherwise there is no faith on his living at all. He did desire many times to start a private business but the lack of his abilities for investing money didn't allow him a situation for starting any enterprise. On the one hand his family background and his prestigious status in the eyes of society didn't permit him to begin a business below his standard, and on the other hand he could not afford to start a business keeping up this so-called prestigious standard. Either he had to be born in an extremely high noble family or he could do something if born in a lower status. It has indeed proved him a curse to be born in a middle class family.
Had he belonged to a high noble family he would have faced no difficulty at all, but if instead he was born in a low family he would not be compelled to live a life with no confidence whatsoever in living. In that case, he could make a living by selling meat by the roadside or selling cheap things spread over a flat bamboo platter (Nanglo) or by driving a three-wheeler passenger cycle or a bullock cart. But he belongs to a class which has to protect the dignity of his forefathers and save his family background from social criticisms and ironical remarks. In such a situation as this, anger often surges within him against his own father. His father never crossed the borderline of honesty as a result of which he remained as poor as ever. He did have opportunities of making money. He knows for sure that the money that had stepped into his family threshold was kicked out by his father. His father had started his job with the strong inner faith that is he acted honestly God would feed him even by providing a lottery to him. Thus his father got his retirement because of his honesty with a monthly pension of just seven hundred rupees. He had managed to buy a very small plot of land on which he could erect an unfinished old house except which he could save nothing for the future. Now at present he has handed over to himself and his family a short story of honesty and a long history of scarcity. And the whole family is enjoying what he has been able to afford.
It is indisputable that he has to struggle for existence and he has understood too that in the modern age when one cannot survive only through struggle he is a traveler who has lost his sense of direction. He is lost in the path of life from where he can neither com out himself not there is anyone who would pull him out or push forward towards his goal. He is an exact copy of Abhimanyu in the Mahabharat who was tricked into a troop formation with no passage out. Like Abhimanyu his skills, capacity and exhibition of intelligence would definitely destroy his self-confidence of survival. Therefore, sincere work, talent and education will not be enough in this environment and in it if he has been able to accomplish anything by being born as a human being he has increased the lineage of his father, otherwise his existence even for him is almost finished and in it he has no doubt whatsoever. Therefore, in the name of living even if he is equipped with talent, he is living a life with no real existence and enjoying tireless labor and inferiority complex in this careless battlefield.
