Back To Village: Away From City Cacophony

Dilapidated vehicles queue up in the traffic jam on the street in the valley. They emit black fumes, leaving its wispy trail behind where lies the weary building of the royal palace turned into a museum after the country abolished the monarchy on 28 May 2008. I struggle to muffle my mouth, and question, “why did I leave my village that gave me plenty of fresh air to breathe?” When the congestion becomes not only of vehicles but also of unwanted noise, carbon monoxide, traffic rule breakers, and political imbroglio, I vent my frustration at myself, “why the heck did I leave the peace of the countryside where I spent my childhood and adolescence?”

When I wake up to a cacophony of Kathmandu, I miss those days in the village when birds chirped on bamboo trees early in the morning, giving me a wake-up call. Bagmati River, which flows as if forlorn and gutter-filled, reminds me of how much I have missed the susurration of the Ramchandre river, clean and precinct—that now has become a relic of the past, that I can relish in my imagination. I can jump, whether dressed or undressed, into the river of my fantasy and swim. Nowhere do I find the joy in the valley these days.

Lure Of Town
Why did I sell and leave our four acres of land we owned and limit myself to the area of four aana in Kathmandu? Why did I sell the freedom I had in the village? What joy would I have when I brag about my house in Kathmandu? All these questions have now started ringing in my ears like an uninterrupted bell, forcing me to sell the property in the valley, go back to the village, and reinvigorate myself and feel like a Phoenix that could rise from its ashes.

Here in Kathmandu, everything feels morbid. Life is in a rush. There is no rhythm. The river I want to jump into carries gutter life. The road I want to travel to suffers from potholes, traffic jams, or black fumes. The people seem to be mechanical or melancholic. Politics is absurd. Politicians sit in for protest, polluting the daily chores of life. They spread illusions of patriotism and bring innocent lives from the countryside to Kathmandu for protests, distributing false dreams. They don’t trust their government, nor the judiciary system. Power, pennies, and promiscuousness are what tend to be guidi ng principles of politicians’ behaviour and attitudes. It becomes suffocating. I belch all the acids Kathmandu gives me and that mingles with the dust and fume in the air in the valley.

I enter a coffee shop just for a break for myself and contemplate Kathmandu over sips of coffee. Kathmandu remained an exotic place for many visitors and foreigners for years, for example, Pico Lyer in his book “Video Night in Kathmandu” describes his impression of Kathmandu in the 1980s as “delirious.” He writes, “I felt as if I had tumbled into the jangled and kaleidoscoped subconscious of an opium freak.” His description of Kathmandu is so “cool.” In his description, he brings so many social, cultural, and religious paraphernalia into play. He portrays Kathmandu as “the land of mystic delights.” Peter J, Karthik explores then Kathmandu even more picturesquely in his recent novel “Kathmandruids: Monomyths and many myths.”

When I came to Kathmandu, I didn’t think of these. I don’t know how foreigners view Kathmandu these days, but in my heart, it always remained as a city of temples, the capital city of Nepal. When I came here, I only thought of my future and my career, my further studies, and going abroad. I only thought of Kathmandu as the biggest city of Nepal where we have big universities, big institutions, big airports, celebrities, politicians, and opportunities.

Deploring State
I never thought of the current deploring state of Kathmandu that has still failed to equally mete out the opportunities across the country even after the collapse of so many political systems and regimes that range from the Rana regime to the loss of monarchy to federal democratic republic. I never thought that the countryside joy I inherited within me would be sucked out of me by the suffocation of Kathmandu. I only chased my dreams that I thought Kathmandu would provide, but never realized how much I would miss the actual dream I would eventually vie for. Kathmandu has made many hearts that have come from villages seeking the opportunity weary. So much has happened, but that remains like “much ado about nothing.”

I come out to the road in the evening and see women in their mid-twenties and mid-thirties selling ready-made Chinese cheap clothes on the street while breastfeeding their babies while black fumes still coming from the vehicles seem to adulterate the mother’s milk. Men and women — their faces wrinkled like creases of a pair of trousers that were never ironed; they are supposed to be living a retired life now— are barbecuing corn on the wood-fire and selling them, and the customers still bargaining for the price. Some of the “Indian looking” Madheshi people selling chatpate are asking if I would want it while I see others eating and their tongues producing hot-spicy sounds that make the saliva roll down inside my mouth.

Chasing Dreams
I think all of them are chasing dreams, that could be bigger or smaller depending upon who views it in what way. There are many theories about dreams, but dreams are perceptions too, and they are matters of time, I reckon. What I once thought as my dream is not a dream anymore. Now I find my dreams in the valley becoming hazier, wandering like the smog that seems to cover the hills of the valley on the horizon. The village I left in search of my dream becomes my dream, taller and clearer.

In the village, I find peace, hard-working people on the farm, and organic life and vegetation. In the village, I will be the first to see the sun, the moon, and the stars. In the village, I can grow vegetables, fruits, and plants in the soil, can sweat and take a shower from tube water—bucket by bucket. In the village, I can dance to the rhythm of the plant leaves’ twirling, can behold the sunset on the horizon, can listen to the moo-moo, or mew, or cock-a-doodle-do. In the village, I can be the king of my own life. Living in the Kathmandu valley, I have been missing all of them.

My dream is to grow rice and lentils on my farm and consume them as my meal. Who doesn’t know about them? Whoever comes to visit Nepal does not go unaware of rice and lentils. Otherwise, ask Rory Stewart who wrote in his New York Times bestseller nonfiction “The Places in Between” – “I ate… rice and lentils, some nights adding black millet bread,” that was the only food we ate once upon a time when my parents were very poor.
Let’s make “back to the village” a reality, not just a dream!

(The author is Assistant Professor of English at South Georgia State College, USA)

(Published in the Rising Nepal dated 30 Apr, 2021)

सम्बन्धहरूको चिरफार ‘मोचन’:किन पढ्ने ?

मानवीय सम्बन्ध र खासगरी पति र पत्नीबीचको वैवाहिक सम्बन्धमा आएको दरारबाट जन्मिएको हो मोचन। जीवनको खुसी र मुक्ति खोज्ने क्रममा आत्महत्याभन्दा आध्यात्मिकताको बाटो रोजेपछि जन्मिएको हो मोचन। विभिन्न परिवेशमा बाँचेका जोडीहरूलाई बुझ्न र बुझाउन जन्मिएको हो मोचन। यो प्रेम, प्रणय र रागको मात्र कथा होइन, त्योदेखिबाहेक अरू धेरै कुरा हो भन्न जन्मिएको हो मोचन। मोचन गर्भ बस्नुअघि केही महत्त्वपूर्ण विषयसँग भएको थियो सहवास। त्यही सहवासबाट जन्मिएको हो मोचन जसले मानवीय सम्बन्धका धेरै पाटामध्ये एकलाई उजागर गरोस् भन्ने चाहनाबाट जन्मिएको थियो।

मानवीय सम्बन्धका बारेमा केही लेख तथा रचना नलेखेको भने होइन तर विपरीत लिंगीय प्रेम तथा प्रणय सम्बन्धका बारेमा भने बिरलै कलम चलाउने गर्थें। न त त्यो विषयमा कलम चलाउनेबारे कुनै सोचाइ नै बनाएको थिए। पढ्न त थुप्रै नेपाली तथा विदेशी साहित्य पढें। खासगरी आख्यानमा जसले प्रेम, प्रणय र पतिपत्नी, प्रेमीप्रेमिकाको प्रेम तथा सम्बन्धलाई उजागर गरोस् जस्तो बीपी कोइरालाको ‘सुम्निमा’, पारिजातको ‘शिरीषको फूल’, भ्लादिमिर नाभाकोभको ‘लोलिता’, डीएच लरेन्सको ‘लेडी च्याटरलिज लभर’ आदि इत्यादि।

हुन त प्रेम, प्रणय र सम्बन्धका विविध आयाम हुन्छन्। अरूले कलम चलाएका विषयमा कलम चलाइराख्नु भनेको सस्तो साहित्य उत्पादन गर्नु हो भन्ने सोचिनँ। यस्तो हल्लामा केही लेख्दै नलेख्नुले झन् सम्बन्धको अर्को पाटो छुट्न सक्छ भन्ने पनि लाग्यो। बजारमा बिक्ने भनेकै प्रेम, रोमान्स र दुःखका सामग्री भएकाले त्यसैमा लेखेछ भन्ने आरोपसँग पनि डराउनु हुँदैन भन्ने लाग्यो। तिनै विषयमा पनि फरक कोण र दृष्टिकोणबाट आख्यानहरू लेख्न सकिन्छ। पाठकलाई सूचित गर्न सकिन्छ। मानवीय सम्बन्धका फरक पाटाहरू केलाउन सकिन्छ। समाजलाई योगदान दिन सकिन्छ। नवीनतम साहित्य जन्माउन सकिन्छ।

तर मेरो रोजाइ, लेखन अभ्यास तथा अनुसन्धानको पाटो भने सीमान्तकृत वर्ग, महिला र पिछडिएका आवाजविहीनहरूको आवाज थियो। र तिनीहरू नै मेरो आख्यानका पात्रहरू हुन सक्थे। नेपाल जस्तो पितृसत्तात्मक समाजमा महिला कसरी दबिएर बसेका छन्, त्यहाँ कस्तो विभेद छ भन्ने विषयवस्तुमा अध्ययन, अनुसन्धान गर्न बानी परेकाले मेरो आख्यानको विषय पनि त्यही नै हुनुपर्ने हो। तर ठीकविपरीत हाम्रो समाजमा पुरुषहरू पनि कसरी र कस्तो अवस्थामा पीडित हुन सक्छन् भन्ने विषयलाई, पुरुष मनोविज्ञानलाई उठान गर्नुपर्ने आवश्यकताको महसुस हुन पुग्यो। त्यो महसुस देखे, भोगे, सुने र अनुभव गरेको समाज, परिवेश र पात्रहरूको कारण थियो।

नेपाली समाजमा हुर्केर पितृसत्ताको संस्कारमा अभ्यस्त भए पनि उच्च शिक्षा हासिल गर्न अमेरिका पुगेपछि नेपाली समाजका नारी र पुरुषपात्र, उनीहरूका जीवन, समाज र सम्बन्ध बुझाइ अनि तिनै पात्रहरू रोेजें। जो अमेरिकी समाजमा भिजिसकेपछि तिनमा आएको परिवर्तन, स्वतन्त्रता र सम्बन्धको बुझाइ र त्यसले ल्याएका परिणतिहरूलाई नजिकबाट नियाल्ने अवसर पाएँ। आफ्ना कमजोरी पनि थाहा पाएँ। यस उपन्यास ‘मोचन’का लागि तीनवटा सन्दर्भ छन्। पहिलो आफ्नै वैवाहिक सम्बन्धले सिकाएका कुरा, दोस्रो समाजका लागि बाहिर हाँसेर र भित्र पीडामा रही सम्बन्धलाई टिकाइराख्ने पात्रहरूसँगको भेट र तेस्रो नेपाली पात्रहरूमा परेको अमेरिकी समाज र संस्कृतिको प्रभाव।

यी सबै कुराको समागमपछि बसेको मोचनको गर्भलाई म तुहाउन पनि सक्थें। तर त्यो भ्रूण मभित्र यसरी बस्यो कि लाग्यो यदि त्यो तुहियो भने एउटा सुन्दर बच्चाको हत्या हुनेछ। यो समाजले त्यसलाई हेर्न, सुन्न, देख्न र पढ्न पाउने छैन। न त त्यो आख्यानात्मक बच्चाले यो समाज देख्न पाउनेछ। यद्यपि जन्माउनु अघिसम्म भयानक प्रसव पीडा हुनेछ। ती पात्रहरू यसरी आइरहे, यसरी मलाई हल्लाइरहे र पटक पटक ‘वार्निङ’ दिइरहे कि गर्भ तुहाउने कल्पनै गर्न सकिनँ। त्यसपछि मोचन आख्यानलाई मानसिक गर्भमा हुर्काउन थाले।

जसरी एउटी महिला गर्भवती भएपछि ऊ डाक्टरकोमा जान्छे। हरेक महिना शरीर चेकअप गराउँछे। डाक्टरको सल्लाहबमोजिम विभिन्न भिटामिनका तत्त्वहरू सेवन गर्छे। सुन्न थालें उनीहरूको जीवन भोगाइ, महसुस गर्न थालें आफैंले भोगेको समाज र परिवेशलाई। घण्टौं इन्टरनेटमा बसेर अध्ययन तथा अनुसन्धान गर्न थाले र बुझ्न थाले प्रेम, प्रणय र सम्बन्धका पाटाहरूलाई। ती मेरा लागि ‘फोलिक एसिड’ भए। विभिन्न विश्वविद्यालयले गरेका अनुसन्धान, अमेरिकन रंगीन समाज, काठमाडौंको तपोवन यात्रादेखि महान् विचारकहरूको महान्वाणी, पात्रहरूका भोगाइसम्मका कथा पढें। बल्ल मोचनका औपन्यासिक अंगहरूको निर्माण हुँदै गयो। तर त्यतिबेला जुन गर्भमा थियो, मेरो औपन्यासिक बच्चाको पोजिसन ‘ब्रिच’ अर्थात् उल्टो थियो- टाउको माथि, खुट्टा तल।

फेरि सकस भइरह्यो, जन्माउने कि नजन्माउने भनेर। जन्मिएपछि यसले दिन सक्ने योगदानहरू असरल्ल आइरहे आँखाभरी। लाग्यो मोचनलाई समाउनेहरूले बुझ्नेछन्, पढ्ने छन्, देख्नेछन् र सुन्नेछन् भौतिकवादी दुनियाँदेखि आध्यात्मिक दुनियाँसम्मको कथा। पतिपत्नीबीचको सम्बन्धमा आएको दरारले ल्याएको दुःखान्त र डरलाग्दा परणीतिदेखि प्रेम र प्रणयको रोमान्टिक र जीवनखुसी र स्वतन्त्रताका रहरलाग्दा जीवनमुक्ति। र समग्रमा खुसी के हो ? सम्बन्ध के हो ? पतिपत्नी र उनीहरूबीचको सम्बन्ध के हो ? समाज के हो ? प्रेम विश्वास के हो ? आदि प्रश्नका उत्तरहरू पनि थाहा पाउनेछन् भन्ने लाग्यो। त्यही बीचमा मैले यति धेरै आलंकारिक पानी पिएँ कि खुट्टा तल पारेर गर्भमा बसेको मेरो मोचन बच्चाले अघि कतिखेर टाउको तल पारेर बसिसकेको रहेछ। र, जन्मियो अस्पतालरूपी फिनिक्स बुक्समा मोचन।

साभार: अन्नपूर्ण पोस्ट १३ कार्तिक २०७८

यो पुस्तक नेपालका प्राय सबै प्रमुख पुस्तक पसलहरूमा पाईन्छ। सम्पर्क: फिनिक्स बुक्स, सम्पर्क Address: Mid Baneshwor Puja Pratisthan Marga Opposite to Bigmart: Phone: 01-4487782

When American Dreams Shrug off Reviewed by Mahesh Paudyal

When the Rambo films started hitting the box office way back in the early eighties, liberal critics considered it a ‘jerk’ and almost a regression, while for the nationalists, it was a respite. America was tired of being exposed, first by writers and creators, especially the absurdists, surrealists and the queers, and second by critics and frank journalists, say for example, Frederick Jameson, Noam Chomsky and Samuel P. Huntington. When it lost to Vietnam in a humiliating way,  America had no screen to defend its failure. The old grand narrative of being a Super Power wouldn’t do. So America invented a mask, called Rambo, which tried in vain to rescue the lost American nationalism. 

American dream lingered, in spite of innumerable punctures from within. Withstanding blows right from the days of hard realists like Arthur Miller, through a band of Jazz and Blues artists in the middle, way down to the days of naturalist fiction writers like John Steinbeck, American lingered. This is because the world elsewhere could not develop itself as the best location for dreamers, so obviously, America continued to be the promised land. The EDV culture, and magnetic student-attraction strategies from all over the world continued to make America a Venus flytrap, and the same is true to our own days. The Venus flytrap continues to suck life-sap from emigrants, and to throws the chaff of their beings back to their abandoned homelands ultimately. 

These feelings rose in my mind, as I flipped through the pages of Running from Dreamland, a deeply engaging fiction by young Nepali novelist Tulasi Acharya. Almost in every page of the novel, I could figure novelist Acharya himself, though I constantly reminded my critical self that I should not, at any rate, be a victim of fallacies, whatsoever. But then, the moment novelist Acharya appears as an aspirant academic flying all the way to the US from home and molding an identity there, there is every possibility that the fault-line between his novel’s fictional reality, and the author’s own lived reality, get blurred. When a work of fiction permeates through reality and evokes virtual belief, the work attains extraordinary success. I rate Running from Dreamland as a work of such success, at least for its storyline. 

The story centers on a Nepali migrant character Deepak, who flies to America, living his old and poor parents back in Nepal. A lecturer of English at home and a man of high repute, his craze for an American degree whirls him hard, until he ends up flying. He has other dreams: “…of building his own home in America, a sprawling house like the ones he had seen in films, and owning a brand new Mercedes.” Dreams multiply. He also wants to “…marry Melissa, and start living in the US.” Readers to not approve of these groundless dreams for Deepak who still drags an ambition to take care for his ailing and old parents back home. Yet these high dreams serve as a tragic flaw for Deepak, and he qualifies to the rank of an average emigrant in America, following lucrative but fatal dreams. 

Deepak is on loan at home. On top of that, he has made fake financial documents to earn an I20 from the university he is enrolled in. Upon landing there, the apartment rent, the living cost and the tuition fee he has to pay sum up to an impossible amount. The university denies him a scholarship; the International Student Affair department shrugs off, either. Being someone on student visa and having no social security number, he cannot work off the campus. Reality punctures his soul. 

Thank God, Lucas and Vanessa, students who receive him at the airport, share their apartment with him at 300 dollars a month. Ganesh, a Nepali migrant student who has hybridized himself with American ways beyond repair, finds him a job at Sunny Bagel, owned by one Vikas from Bangladesh. Deepak has to sweep, mop, wash dishes, serve customers, make bagels and what not! Back home, he used to be a lecturer and lived a life of repute. The new job falls like a chisel on his pride, and he cries, considering the hellish nature of his work in the US. Since income from Sunny Bagel falls short of his needs, he also joins Succulent Sandwiches, another firm earned by the same man. In both the locations, same is the work, and similarly bruised is his sentiment. 

With no car of his own, no scholarship, no close mate to share his mind, no job of honor and no enough money in hand, Deepak spends the hardest days of his life. His roommates, Lucas and Vanessa, are impertinent love birds, kissing licentiously at any place they like, and living lives of utter indifference. At his work place, the boss Vikas is professionally a perfectionist, who neither sympathizes with Deepak—even when he has a fever, or his mother is sick at home—nor ever tries to ease his work. Rita, a Nepali at Succulent Sandwiches, and Melissa, a migrant student at his university are the only people who show some lineation towards him. Rita reminds him how America sucks, how Nepali degrees fail, and how one should work like a donkey, forgetting honor and prestige back in Nepal. Melissa helps him with his language, shares moments in the college, drops him to his apartment in her cars, listens to his romantic poems, locks hands with him on their bench, and oftentimes kisses him. In other word, Melissa is his lucky charm; his crush in the US. 

Deepak’s life so far represents the jeopardy of a typical emigrant student, who both faces alien atmosphere and endures inhospitable people. But Deepak has his determinations: to earn a degree at all cost, and fulfill the aforementioned dreams. One of the worst contingencies he faces is the unreliable nature of American friends, and the rough way of their dream. The sudden break-up of Lucas and Vanessa not only leaves him dumbfounded, but also deprives him of the shared apartment, and he has to move to Ganesh’s room, in spite of his aversion for Ganesh’s uncivil nature. Before long, Ganesh’s abusive manners fall hard on his self-respect and he leaves him too, finally taking refuge at the apartment of David, another emigrant student, who is sharing his room with Hee, a lanky student doing his study in the same University. 

One of the subtle aspects of the novel is the way it brews translucent cultural and personal conflicts, and launches it as a sudden blast. There are at least three other serious cases in point. First, David makes a sudden decision to quit America and go back home in Europe to serve his ailing mother. This puts Deepak’s anchor in jeopardy, as the apartment he lives in has been leased by David. David’s quitting means Deepak has lost his grounds. Second, on his way home from his workplace, two boys attack him with a knife one night, trying to rob him of the little cash he potentially has in hand. Thanks to his potent retaliation, they can do nothing, but this slices Deepak’s hope in America and he grows disoriented to the extent of calling names with David, the man who gave him grounds to stand after he broke his terms with Ganesh. Third, though he has shared many intimated moments together, Melissa gives him a cold response when he proposes for marriage. About the time he has graduated from his college, Deepak makes up his mind to move for Florida where his cousin Biplav lives, he offers to take Melissa along. But Melissa writes him an email, not only rejecting his proposals but also alleging him of being self-centered, inconsiderate to her choices, and religiously alien to her Irish Catholic stock. This blow is enough to shatter almost all of Deepak’s shaky American dreams. He pleads her to reconsider her decisions, but to no avail. Though he has a hard-won degree in hand, he had no anchor, no ground, no love, no hope, and no confidence left in him. Though America has at times offered him consolatory hopes, including better skills at Succulent Sandwiches, improved job conditions and better payment at a gas station, a state tuition waiver at the college and a prospect of getting settled in Florida, all these things amount to nothing. Like a child, he cries, cursing his fate. Like a loser, he decides to return to Nepal.

The novel is deeply engaging for a few nascent issues its picks. Though many things are ritualistic and predictable, including the plight of an average Nepali laity flying to America, his suffering, and the mundane airport details, there are other subtle agendas that grip. The narrative forces readers to consider cultural fault-lines, different non-verbal communication systems, conflicts of expectations and values, and romantic nature of unwarranted dreams that often fall hard on the thorns of life and bleed. To take an example, we may consider Deepak’s insensitivity to hug Ganesh in  the public and wearing a pink, typical of gays in the US. His inability to correctly read Vikas’ ground-to-earth demeanors, Rita’s emotionless attitude to life and work and her agentic ways of teaching him things, and Ganesh’s flat and straight rejoinders, is an outcome of self-pity and the fallacy of static viewpoint, namely the expectation of domestic sensitivity in an alien land. Once prepared to face the worst, it does not justify for Deepak to shed tears off and on, including on Tihar days, when thousands of Nepali people are struggling, perking up, and booming not only in Ameica, but at many other locations of the world.

Deepak, at any rate, is an inconsistent and weak character, much pampered by love at home and false sense of pride, when his real capacity of endurance and adjustment is almost zero. He is a victim of exceptional degree of self-pity and is a dreamer without a strong base. He is irresolute. A man who struggled day and night to get settled in America, he forgets all his determinations and decides to return home, when two goons try to rob him of his pocket. He forgets that such goons are aplenty in Nepal as well. Second, rejection of his marriage proposal by Melissa does not sound a justifiable reason for him to quit the whole of America and return to Nepal. He, a graduate now, should be aware of the vulnerability of relations across religions, cultures and geographies. If he were a strong character, he would leave Melissa in peace and find another soul-mate, instead of  crying and lamenting.

When grandmother’s demise and his mother’s illness back home, the family’s financial crunch, the forlorn festivals and his sisters’ love could not force him back, it leaves readers dumfounded to think, two trivial whimpers kicked his soul out of his ‘dreamland’. Some goons’ attack, and an alien girl’s rebuttal fling him back to his country as a staunch ‘nationalist’ , who says, “If we all leave our motherland for developed countries, who will care for her?” A pathetic character out and out. 

But this is a bitter reality. The author catches the nerve of our time, when anchorless dreamers with false sense of pride, exceptional degree of self-pity, and dismal preparation for cultural encounters and failure at large, tend to wear false sense of nationalism to screen their failure. The novel also exposes the internal contradictions of America—the way it grills, the way international students suffer, the way love and marriage are broken in a fit of anger, the way man and machines differ only sparingly, and the way even copper glitters like gold. 

The flow of the narrative is excellent and mature. The characterization is vivid, and the mental conflict excellently engaging. In a novel of 250 pages, it is congratulatory to have less than a dozen characters, the major ones being hardly a dozen. This makes it very comfortable for readers to identify each of the character, and share an empathetic engagement. Deepak, the protagonist is able to sustain the conflict throughout the novel. The slangs and informal expressions used occasionally fitted perfectly into the scheme of the colloquial talks in the American atmosphere. The author deserves a kudos. 

The biggest weakness of the novel, however, is its shaky editing. Linguistic choice is not consistent. There is no uniformity in capitalization and italicization of words and phrases. Words borrowed from non-English lexicons are clumsily forced into the schema of English sentences and the incongruity stands out very conspicuously. At times, punctuations do not fit well. The layout design of the book is, frankly, repelling. Spacing and text justification are not only inconsistent but also crazy. But these are technical issues, and the publisher is more answerable for them. They do not drop any acid on the creation as such.  (Copied from The Gorkha Times)