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I was hyperactive during the latter half of 2002 at Sajha, actually so much so, only today I got an email from a Nepali in Dubai gushing about an article I had written then, a column piece called Where The Maoists Lose Me. My activity at Sajha brought me some fame. High school friends who had not called me before (or since) were responding to my writings, often critically, but then, hey, some bonding is better than no bonding at all. I earned some notoriety on the Madhesi question. The recently launched Kathmandu magazine Nation (by some Sajha alum) has been bugging me to write something for their publication, on what else, but the Madhesi cause. There are a few people I first met at Sajha, and then offline. Who says the internet is populated by predators and hence beware! I once almost bumped into the monarch himself: San. In Boston. Instead I spent the evening with two Boston Brahmins at Harvard Square, one a Chhetri, another a Sherpa. And, yeah, Sitara called. Don't be getting ideas. I just read some guy's poem (and what a poem) about her photograph. She called to bug me to write an article for Nation about the Madhesi issue. Her first and last call to me. Oohi Ashu helped Al Gore carry a Democratic town in New Hampshire, and Al Gore invented the Internet as a return favor for Ashu. I mean, where do you have to go online so as to not bump into this guy? Paschim moved to Vietnam, and has not been heard from since. He dropped off Sajha (read: the face of the earth). So as I meant to say, half way through 2003, I had mostly moved on. What happened? Did I run out of steam? I mean, the Madhesis are a severely aggrieved community, but there is only so much you can say even about The Cause. That is when King G sacked King Ding Dong Deuba, plus minus six months. And there was more steam. Suddenly every Sajhaite was a pundit, pundit being a casteist term. What if you were born into a Dalit family but are more informed than IF, and almost as opinionated as Ashu? Are you still a pundit? There were at least a dozen characters at Sajha who were going to undo the "coup" tapping away at their keyboards, and half as many who were going to bring King M back from the grave. Neither happened, instead Deuba happened again. Must be a treat. Koirala and Nepal agitate, and guess who reaps the benefits: Ding Dong Deuba II. It is an undeclared for this site of all sites, the Mother Of All Websites, as Saddam might have called it - where is Saddam when you need him - that neither Prachanda aka Kada, nor Babu Rama Bhatta Rai (so as to make the name inclusive for various ethnic groups in the country) have ever participated here. Do they fear getting tracked down? Like Osama stopped using his satellite phone? What really got me were all those "humor" threads where Ashu said good things about me, and I said good things about Sitara, and Sitara said good things about Makura, and, dang, Paschim and Ashu got at each other's throats. There is a saying in my homevillage: if in a flood, you get caught in a whirlpool, bring your limbs together like a baby in the womb, and stop struggling, for if you struggle, that is a sure way to not get out of the whirlpool. They would know, they get major floods every year. These self-centric threads I think first started at Gaijatra. Everyone who had ever so much as coined one comment at Sajha in the past month became a celebrity, and the status never wore off. It became offensive if you started a thread and did not get about five dozen responses within a few days. You had to get onto the Sajha "bestseller list" for threads. How many page hits? How many comments? And then there was the "baby boom." The hastis retired, or slowed down. And there was a flood of new entrants. Suddenly people would be like so and so who! Known names started to feel lost in the Sajha flood of new entries. Fame can be fleeting. Like Ganeshmanji would say: "moot ko nyano." Sometimes it can feel like people who don't get any email, not even junk mail, gather at Sajha. Some comments make no sense at all. When you attend gatherings of Nepalis anywhere in the country, watch out. That quiet person who did not utter a word but simply stared at you might be active at Sajha, gathering material at your expense! I mean, Ashu can't find a girl to marry in offline Kathmandu, so he makes fun of the few he does meet here at Sajha. No wonder he does not connect. Would you if you were a girl who met Ashu offline and then got talked about online? And all the time San is getting popular for no reason other than that . well, I guess he does host the site, doesn't he?
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