Parmeshwar Devkota

SOME officials are heard saying that they are not feeling cold except in the early morning and late evening this year. According to them, it is the easiest season in their life. But this is not the case in reality.
If you look at the Sankata Temple premises in Kathmandu, many people are seen huddling together in the early morning. A passer-by may feel as if they were one person. Similarly, if you pay heed to the activities of birds, you will find that almost all of them have stopped chirping even in the day time.
If one looks at a flowerpot on the balcony, s\he will find that the marigold is fading away. Similar is the fate of the leaves of other plants. It means that all the animals and plants in this part of the planet are suffering from freezing cold.
The winter season is yet to be over. Its danger, as ever, still persists as in the past. There is an axiom, ‘An old ox and an old-age person dies in the month of Magha’. Some 50 years back, the then government and the local level Panchas had not been so much responsible to the poor and senior citizens as today’s three-tier government.
Unlike the past trend, the present tendency is more responsible to the people. Though the provincial and local governments have been reeling from a budget crunch, they have been found distributing firewood to communities so as to enable them to keep themselves warm in the morning and evening. The local bodies are also distributing warm clothes such as sweaters, jackets, mufflers, woollen caps, etc. to school children, poor people and senior citizens.
These goods are mostly imported from China. The warm garments and China are becoming synonymous today. Though there are many powerful ‘democratic’ countries in the world who boasts of having deadly nuclear warheads to annihilate the whole world, they have not produced warm clothes that are affordable for the poor. It is only one ‘communist China’ which supplies the worm garment at an affordable price to the destitute, poor and senior citizens across the world.
This pen-pusher is not afraid of any nuclear war-heads from those ‘democratic countries’, rather, fears that China would increase price of garments. In a recent meeting of the Communist Party of China, it had decided to improve the quality of Chinese goods and clothes. The fear is that if China improves the quality of its products, the country may also increase their prices, affecting the poor and senior citizens of the whole world. For the sake of humanity, China should not increase the price of garments as most of the people living in low-income countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and even poor ghettos of rich countries will suffer from its decision.
On the other hand, the change in attitude of the poor is necessary to fight cold. Some people spend their money on alcoholic products to fight cold while some others consume medicines such as paracetamol and ibuprofen tablets to fight cold. Both habits are gastric-prone and harmful to health. Therefore, they should change their habit and start purchasing warm clothes blankets, quilts and jackets to fight cold.