Whither a new dawn?

 

Devendra Gautam

Nepal has made it her habit of rising every morning, at least in the pages of a government publication since December 16, 1965 and February 19, which happens to be Fagun 7—the 75th Democracy Day—was no exception. 

 

This year also, ritualistic best wishes have come from all those in positions of power, who are becoming increasingly irrelevant for the laity with each passing day.  

 

This sapien fondly remembers reading somewhere that a certain monarch of the 19th century would rise before the sun and sit by the window of her bedchamber, believing that it would not rise in her empire without her order.

Indeed, knowledge is a curse, ignorance is bliss, right?

 

You see, every ruler worth their name come with a bundle of their worries—and eccentricities—with or without their hangers-on. Apparently, if rulers were to not come with eccentricities galore, we as a nation would be in a far better position than we currently are.

 

About the rising habits of superpowerful rulers lodged in their palaces on the banks of the Potomac, Youngding-Chaobai, the Thames and the Moskva, this sapien has not much knowledge.

 

So much so, he does not know if any of our very very important inhabitants of Baluwatar, Sheetal Niwas, Lainchaur and Bhadrakali also sit by the window of their palatial chambers every morning, thinking that the first rays of the sun won’t dare touch the peak of the 7,134-metre Gaurishankar located in Dolakha district of this great republic of ours without their go-ahead.

 

In this day and age of fast-changing technological landscape, how about creating your own sun instead of relying on the old, ‘regressive’ sun, in the parlance of our ‘progressives’? Spread in 9.6 million square kilometers (approx) and home to around 1.4 billion people, China, the world's second-largest economy with a 2026 projected GDP of approximately $20.2 trillion and a military superpower in her own right, appears to be thinking along these lines. A Xinhua report dated January 20, 2025 goes: 

 

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), dubbed China's "artificial sun," maintained a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for a remarkable 1,066 seconds on Monday, setting a new world record and marking a breakthrough in the quest for fusion power generation.

The duration of 1,000 seconds is considered a key step in fusion research. The breakthrough, achieved by the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), greatly improved the original world record of 403 seconds, which was also set by EAST in 2023.

The ultimate goal of an artificial sun is to create nuclear fusion like the sun, providing humanity with an endless, clean energy source, and enabling space exploration beyond the solar system.

Global scientists have worked for more than 70 years on trying to achieve this feat. However, only after reaching temperatures over 100 million degrees Celsius, sustaining stable long-term operation, and ensuring controllability can a nuclear fusion device successfully generate electricity.

 

As science has already established that the sun rises and sets without any ruler’s order—the fact that the sun continues to set even on rulers considered very powerful, on the banks of the Bagmati and beyond—let’s leave the ball of fire alone and talk about another rise (artificial or otherwise) that may not exactly be music to consumers’ ears, especially to those living on a shoestring budget.

 

A piece of news from our very own Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS), published in the above-mentioned government publication on February 18, goes: Nepal Layers Association has increased the price of egg to be effective from today.

According to RSS, the price of big eggs stands (for now, of course) at Rs 425/ crate while that of the medium-sized eggs stands at Rs 375/crate.

 

As Nepal continues to oscillate vigorously from dictatorship to democracy (read plutocracy) to anarchy and vice-versa while making great sacrifices for a benevolent sun that is supposed to bring good governance, democracy, human rights, human dignity, equality, equity, peace and justice amid turbulences worldwide, what options do “ordinary Nepalis” based in Nepal and abroad have except continuing with the grind and dreaming on?