Skip to main content

keep calm!

I work the 9 to 5 job so you would expect me to be ecstatic on the day my salary arrives. Nah. I get emotional and negative for the whole day still contemplating on why we pay taxes. Add up the salary tax, the car tax, the road tax, the home tax and the food tax. It’s appalling. With the amount I pay, I and you should have access to free education for our children and access to free quality health care. Although I kind of sucked at math in school, but when your hard earned money trickles down the drain I tend to add and subtract pretty good.


A couple of week ago Nepalese witnessed the breakdown and chaotic Non-Resident Nepali (NRN) Association convention which led to the election of the new NRN President. The sight no doubt was chaotic but it also reminded me of the fight that broke in the parliament couple of years ago. The NRN’s complain regarding the systematic failures of doing clean business in Nepal yet they brandish the same image – their status, money and their change in address apparently hasn’t changed the way they communicate which will directly translate to the way they will invest in businesses and seek return.

So after having lost my original voice for two months due to severe genetic allergy I was skeptical to visit the new hospital – Medicity. I had no choice, my doctor now was employed there. Mind you, its entrance and the structure from above looks like ‘a one of a kind’ patanjali factory but it isn’t. The hospital houses a huge patanjali store and the bathrooms all have patanjali handwashing soaps. I expected the doctor to show up in a patanjali pair of jeans but left me deeply disappointed by his choice of plain old cotton trousers.  

My appointment was confirmed for 10.25am and the receptionist assured me I wouldn’t have to wait. I reached there sharp at 10.25. They register my information and a staff leads me towards the doctor’s OPD. The staff are the same – rude and has deliberately caught the fever of Olsen twins to not smile ever in public. So yeah, the second round of dismay – the NRNs (who ever involved) have yet to export the ‘how to provide service’ from the foreign lands. Nobody knows how long I must wait to see the doctor. After pestering to reply my ONE question, one of the staff casually informed the waiting time would be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. This isn’t change. It doesn’t matter which side you live in the city getting there is one ride. I believe if I hadn’t been inside a car with AC on, the doctor would have to carry out more tests on me. But then that’s a whole different story to narrate.

I pay, I leave. Because I have a job to get back to and bills to pay. When I get back to work I am in no mood to work. Access to fast internet in the office (I don’t abuse the access often) I google what other countries pay in taxes. The information online wasn’t new but I had to check because I don’t want a smart ass commenting in a Facebook thread about the actual taxes in point percentage. The Canadians and Australians pay an average of 35% in income taxes. But their children attend public schools for free and their visits to hospitals doesn’t cost a dime. Forget the Nordics or the Danes. In Nepal, an average salaried person depending on their pay scale pay anywhere from 1 – 40% in income tax. Add to that all the other amenity’s taxes including the costly private schools and the private hospital bills. Do the math and the salary day isn’t something to be excited for.  



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A letter to my future teenage daughter

My dear daughter, you are only seven today but you will soon be seventeen. And when you become 17 I know the world will no longer be the same for you and I. We will be together in the same house but we will be distant apart in our heart and head. I was once 17 you know. And like everything else nothing is constant so before you grow up too fast I am writing a letter to you and the million other 17 year olds just like you. Love life - you are going to fall in love - hard. So hard that you are often dizzy with love. A love that is insignificant but withholds you from achieving all your dreams. Dreams that you dreamt when you were barely ten. Dreams that your parents dreamt for you when they first held you in their warm loving arms. Dreams that your mother dreamt for you when you were just a tadpole in her growing tummy. You are 17 and you have just graduated high school. At the verge of becoming an adult. You think you are big enough to make decisions and that you know the best f...
14 comments
Read more

Dreams pursued

My precious Photo: Shradha Giri Last night my nine-year-old and I held hands and cried. We then laughed and then cried again. This isn’t something we normally do – our daughter, our precious one who was quiet for a change sat still, listened to what I had to say. The thing is, I have decided to change my career at this age and it is creating a ruckus which I didn’t think of earlier. I guess no one thinks through until the day one starts working on the decision. I decided a year and a half ago that I would invest in a school. Both my husband and I danced at the idea one idle weekend. We didn’t think of the distance - 500km. A year and a half spent running to banks, local ward office and to tax departments, the deal was done. Just like that with considerable amount of loan on my shoulders, I became a part of the system where I have always wanted to make a difference. I spent the past two weeks in my new role and I was baffled by what I observed (I also spent a few nights c...
8 comments
Read more

Oh boy! women bleed

Menstruation is a taboo. No one talks about it. Women do not openly purchase sanitary napkins. We pretend we don’t menstruate. We refrain from talking about our period at homes and at work places. I have always tried to reason with the stigma vis-à-vis the biological fact a female body goes through. Like how men have beards when they hit pubescent - girls bleed. What’s the big deal I repeat? Often, families and friends laud the teenage boys for sprouting one line moustache or a goatee. The boys are identified for being macho and finally a man. On the contrary, families hide their girls when they start their first period, ashamed when their bodies provide proof that the girl is perfectly healthy and normal. These young girls go on to believe that their bodies have betrayed them. They coax their bodies because suddenly it has made them impure. They can no longer mingle with the other sex openly; they must be mindful and often face exclusion from family functions. They are forced to a...
9 comments
Read more