A graffiti in Nepal may find resonance in India

“We are under mass hypnosis?”

That was the question painted across a wall in Bhaktapur, a heritage town near Kathmandu, which I came across on a short visit to Nepal last year.

It was so unusual, I decided to turn back through the narrow red-brick lanes to take a photograph of it.

As protests recently swept Nepal this week, this piece of graffiti popped back into my head. It seemed to have been a portent of the tumult that led to the old order being swept away – even as a new one is waiting to be born.

On the face of it, the protests were sparked by a social media ban. But it’s clear that the demonstrators, mostly from the Gen-Z generation, born between 1997 and 2010, were actually upset with the corrupt state that had failed to meet their developmental needs.

Looking back, I realise much of my trip had circled around that very predicament.

Sixteen hours after landing in Kathmandu, we met our father’s friend, a retired officer of the Nepal Forest Services.

After talking about the scenic beauty of his country, he pointed to my sister and me, both in our late 20s, and added almost casually that there was “nothing for young people to do here”.

Both his children...

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