Essay of Harvard Accepted International Student (from Nepal). Got full ride at most ivy leagues.
On the morning of August 15, 2003, I awoke to the alarming sound of gun shots. A moment of sinister silence followed; my skin tightened, and in the dark corners of my mind I could already envision what had just taken place. With tears impairing my sight and fright impeding my thoughts, I speedily stumbled and staggered my way down the stairs, out of the house and onto the road. The scene I saw there that morning changed my life.
On the indifferent dirt road, in a pool of blood lay the body of my uncle, dead. Three young Maoist rebels had just taken the life of this army colonel outside his own house. Lying flat on the street, he had died in the same uniform that his father and grandfather before him had once worn for their country. Weak and still breathless, I stood there watching as the rest of the family, army-men, and pedestrians dragged his motionless corpse into the army jeep, hoping against hope that he would come back to life. The three bullets in his chest not only killed my uncle that morning, they killed the future of his children, the aspirations of his family, and his dreams of one day becoming a general like his father. The ongoing bloody rivalry between the people of Nepal and the revolutionary Maoist extremists, who have been using violence in trying to usurp democracy, had found another victim.
As I walk the rugged and cramped streets of Kathmandu, I often reminisce about a place far away, a place where I spent my childhood, New York City. The son of a Nepalese diplomat, I was raised in a world that seems very distant today. The wide streets of Manhattan, the extravagantly expensive Fifth Avenue shopping malls, the idyllic smells of Central Park in the winter, hotdogs in the summer, and the nonchalance of childhood; all just memories now of a life I used to know. It is different here in Kathmandu. Insurgency, poverty and political unrest are a part of everyday life.
The Flag waves, duty calls…
On the morning of August 15, 2003, I awoke to the alarming sound of gun shots. A moment of sinister silence followed; my skin tightened, and in the dark corners of my mind I could already envision what had just taken place. With tears impairing my sight and fright impeding my thoughts, I speedily stumbled and staggered my way down the stairs, out of the house and onto the road. The scene I saw there that morning changed my life.
On the indifferent dirt road, in a pool of blood lay the body of my uncle, dead. Three young Maoist rebels had just taken the life of this army colonel outside his own house. Lying flat on the street, he had died in the same uniform that his father and grandfather before him had once worn for their country. Weak and still breathless, I stood there watching as the rest of the family, army-men, and pedestrians dragged his motionless corpse into the army jeep, hoping against hope that he would come back to life. The three bullets in his chest not only killed my uncle that morning, they killed the future of his children, the aspirations of his family, and his dreams of one day becoming a general like his father. The ongoing bloody rivalry between the people of Nepal and the revolutionary Maoist extremists, who have been using violence in trying to usurp democracy, had found another victim.
As I walk the rugged and cramped streets of Kathmandu, I often reminisce about a place far away, a place where I spent my childhood, New York City. The son of a Nepalese diplomat, I was raised in a world that seems very distant today. The wide streets of Manhattan, the extravagantly expensive Fifth Avenue shopping malls, the idyllic smells of Central Park in the winter, hotdogs in the summer, and the nonchalance of childhood; all just memories now of a life I used to know. It is different here in Kathmandu. Insurgency, poverty and political unrest are a part of everyday life.
