Sambandh Bhattrai
Once, my friend and I were walking around the (Tribhuvan) university ground during the lunch break. While I was absorbed in my own thoughts, my friend seemed more concerned of the rubbish he saw on the walkway and grass paths, and also the worn-out paints on the building walls, and the grimy conditions of the outhouse. He brought my attention to all these and then to some more with the conditions of our own classrooms, many of which no longer had whiteboard. Like he said, one is sure to observe glassy-eyed projector, uncomfortable furniture and the classroom which appeared as though it had barely escaped a fire. After pointing all these out to me, he said, “Our University is like this because nobody has any ownership.”
I nodded my head at the time. His argument was reasonable. Why would one care about something they do not think they own? But now after a time, as I look back at his thesis, I believe ownership is not definite enough a requirement for the betterment of the faculty. A man may own a dog and yet be a cruel tyrant to the poor creature. He may own a guitar and never play it and let it gather dust (I am that man, unfortunately). A government does own, in a manner of speaking, its citizens, but I have yet to see it behaving in a way other than that of the animal abuser or the procrastinator. Therefore, mere ownership might not be the solution to negligence. The answer to the problem of neglect is the opposite of it: love.
A man may not own a dog but love it, feed it, and pet it, and be anxious about it when he does not see it for a number of days. A man may love a guitar on a display and when seeing it be threatened with physical harm, put himself bodily into the way of that harm. A government may grow fond of its citizens and stop feeling an ownership towards them. All things are possible with love, even the third one.
G.K. Chesterton, an English writer and philosopher, in one of his essays titled ‘The Ethics of Elfland’ states that the great lesson of the fairytale ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was that “a thing must be loved BEFORE it is loveable.” That timeless lesson has held true for the ancient past and still remains true for the present today.
The university is not going to transform itself into a thing worthy of love and respect just like the Beast could not have transformed back into a man by himself. It is not a caterpillar in the process of metamorphosis. It is a prince stuck in a curse. And that curse can be broken only through the act of love. Just like how the Beast was loved despite the terrifying appearance of his horns, his fur, his fangs, and his ugliness; the university also must be loved despite all its desolation.
But how can one love a thing so unlovable as the Tribhuvan University?
Simply by acting it out! One of the greatest falsehoods preached by the modern world is that love is a feeling. No, love is not a feeling. Love is an act. A husband may quarrel with his wife all throughout the day and still adjust the blanket on her sleeping body at night. A son may hate his father’s opinions but still call him if he is late to come home. God may die for humanity though they do not even deserve it. Feelings are a bad parameter. It is constantly in flux. If we do everything merely based on our feelings, then at 6 in the morning, we might be feeling happy to see our neighbor, but at 2 in the afternoon, plotting his destruction. And some men have lived like this, and have not lived at all, nor loved likewise.
If love is an act, then the neighbor is loved not only when he is a friend, but also when he becomes a nuisance. It is the only proper definition of love for it holds within it the beatific quality of mercy, which is to love what is unlovable. Belle had mercy on the Beast, and so loved him, and eventually the curse was broken, and the beast became a man and prince. And so it must be for the university as well. It must be loved BEFORE it is lovable.
