Column

Weird Aspirations of Nepali Business People

By Prateek Pradhan

The basic qualities common with every businessman are their ambitions, aspirations and thirst for more money. But Nepali businessmen also have some other aspirations that they run after when they have amassed a satisfactory level of pecuniary wealth. Prateek Pradhan writes about two of the ‘weird’ aspirations:

There could be hundreds of things that a man would like to invest or spend his money on. But, there are some very weird aspirations, which come to the Nepali business people after they earn more than sufficient money. One such aspiration is the aspiration to speak in English. It seems the language is granted for those whose pockets are bulging with money. Even a person who has gone through a very rudimentary educational standard, aspires to speak fluent English. It is not negative, however, to try to learn English or any other language after becoming successful in a business. Most of the time the language a person wishes to learn is his business language. But, the problem here is that the businessman himself doesn’t have much free time after regular business, booze and babes to better his fluency in the language of his interest. I mean when he has to really put in the effort, his ego and hobbies come in the way and he begins to practice the language only when it is time to show his talent. The result is that he becomes a langhing stock before a crowd that doesn’t mind pulling the leg of the man to ridicule him.

Another interesting habit of the newly successful Nepali businessperson is to become a celebrity. Once he feels that his bank account is enough to last to feed his grand children, the idea to become an overnight celebrity suddenly strikes him. Then, all his activities are concentrated on harassing his poor staff to draft various press releases and to organize cocktails with journalists. It is sad that no journalist dares to tell him in the face that he does not right now deserve the level of publicity he is aspiring to get. After all, the ad-aspect (popularly known as marketing aspect) shuts the mouth of even the so-called "independent" and "blunt" press people.

After publication of a few interviews and one or two photos in a newspaper or magazine (even if the publication has circulation of only five hundred copies), the nouveau rich aims at acquiring leadership of various associations. He feels that it is high time he made a name for himself. Who knows, he might be selected by one of the political parties to the upper house as a Member of Parliament!

Their love to see their pictures splashed in the newspapers is quite amazing. They demand all their related organizations to publish congratulatory message for their nominal achievements and then look sheepishly pleased about it. If we started relating about who managed to get how many congratulatory messages for which meagre achievement, quite a handsome volume could be compiled.

Wouldn’t trying to beat one another in creating more employment, paying due revenues to the government treasury and defying corrupt bureaucrats be a better way of whiling time for these business people? If they would compete in raising voice against the government where demanded, invest more time in really enhancing their knowledge about the issue of their interest, they would see no point in being identified as one of the richest persons of one of the poorest countries.