Nepalese students await word from home

BANGALORE: The 10,000-plus Nepalese student community in Bangalore is an angry lot. With telephone and Internet lines snapped in several parts of Nepal and Kathmandu-bound flights cancelled over the past two days, they are not sure if their families are safe back home.
Anxious telephone calls and SMSs are doing the rounds among them here, following the political turmoil in the Himalayan kingdom."Did the king do justice in dismissing the Sher Bahadur Deuba government? What is brewing in the power game? Is all well with the families back home?..." Their tension is palpable.
Many students are quite vocal about the prevailing situation in Nepal. "The situation was inevitable, nothing new," felt many. "The government doesn''t have much powers anyway. There are frequent bandhs and the education system is not so great. But what irks us is that we are unable to contact our families back home," said Komala S. (name changed), an engineering student from BMS College.
Some students preferred studying in India, particularly Bangalore, Delhi and Pune, because of the turmoil back home. Komala said the sentiment among her friends in Delhi and Pune is the same. "If there is political tension, why should phone lines be down? Given the situation, it''s hard to concentrate on our exams."
Pusspa Lal, from Kavre in East Nepal, who is working here on a project for the past three months, had a different point of view: "Such tensions can occur elsewhere in the world. Why always single out Nepal? When the existing government is not performing, it needs to be sacked, and that''s exactly what happened with the Deuba government."
The rest of their tribe, the politically connected, simply did not want to comment. The Times of India contacted former Nepalese Prime Minister Tulsi Giri and his wife Sarah, who have been living a quiet life in the city since 1998. "We are restrained from commenting. It was a conscious decision to stay out of politics and political commentary for which we left the country," said Sarah Giri, now a sign language trainer.