Opinion · Lalitpur
Why I stayed
Everyone in my class moved abroad. Here is the unpolished version of why I didn't.
Why I stayed
This is not a defense of Nepal. It is a defense of staying.
When I was 22, every classmate I knew was applying for an MS abroad. Australia, Canada, the US, Germany. The reasons were good ones — pay, opportunity, escape from a politics that had become tiring before it had even become interesting. I did the GRE. I had the offers. I didn't go.
I have spent a decade since trying to articulate why.
The cleanest version is this: the things I want to be near are here. My grandmother's house is here. The trail to Champadevi is here. The friend I have known since I was 8 is here. The version of me that I like best is the version that walks home through Patan in the dusk.
It is not for everyone. The infrastructure is not what it should be. The corruption is not what it should be. The brain drain is real and it costs us. I do not pretend it doesn't.
But staying is also a choice. And someone has to stay.