Recently, an exhibition at a college in Kathmandu gave us a good platform to present our knowledge and skills on social service, environment and technology. Apart from other technical exhibitions, the students there had also organised a signature campaign against bandhs in Nepal called, “Ban bandh.” To our great happiness, chief guest of the programme was none other than a very popular figure and a leader of one of the largest political parties of Nepal.

We were very excited at the thought that we could listen to him today, and, more importantly, take his signature against the bandhs. With that thought, we reached exhibition centre an hour earlier than we usually would have. Getting enthusiastic we hastened to ready our stalls. Soon the program presenter announced that the programme was going to start.

We went in front of the stage at the lawn. Followed by a welcome speech, the chief guest was felicitated and after that came a turn for his speech. We welcomed the chief guest of the day with a big round of applause. Now listening to him, we were even more excited that his speech was far different from other politicians’, as others mostly used to link politics in their speech somehow. They would not mind whether the programme was a cultural show, a football match or a parent’s day at a school. However, there was something different about this politician, that he did not utter even a single word of politics in his speech. With an enthusiastic voice he said, "I’m not like other politicians who love to give long speeches; I have come here today to see your talent and to learn from you." His encouraging speech made a positive impression on us. We then were happy by the thought that we at least had some Nepali politicians who can be practical to the situation and who know what to talk on what occasion.

After the formal programme came to its end, we returned to our respective stalls and waited for the chief guest to come and talk to us. We were busy throughout the day presenting our stuffs to the visitors. At the end of the day, a good number of visitors supported the cause by putting their signatures. However, we realized at the end that the encouraging chief guest hadn’t yet visited our stall. We got sad and went to check other stalls whether he had visited them. Unfortunately, he was found to have visited none of them. It seemed he left the venue as soon as his speech got over.

Finally the exhibition got over; we packed our stuffs, collected the certificates and returned back to our places with no such excitement we had in the morning. I don’t know how much our very encouraging leader learnt from us that day, but I certainly did learn a lot; that all politicians are the same; that they are limited to their words and are good at making innocent citizens fool with their fascinating words. Do we not deserve an explanation?