Seeing how our politics has failed us time and again, it is easy to understand why people get carried away and look for saviours in anyone with an attractive enough message, and the recent by-elections have proved the point again. What I fail to get though is why there remains a fair number of those who believe the only way forward is to go backwards. Perhaps it is a sign of a patent unwillingness to engage with the facts, for I cannot but point out once again that since 2006 and the emasculation of the monarchy, Nepal has become a society much more accommodating of all kinds of differences than could ever be imagined earlier. It is a sign of how far things have changed that this tolerance extends to sexual minorities as well, and it still amazes people from around the world that this little corner of Asia was able to shake off the entrenched conservatism without much of an ado. Kudos to our Supreme Court for leading the way with its landmark decision in 2007 which declared outright, “[W]e hold that it is an inherent right of an adult to have marital relations with another adult with her/his free consent and according to her/his will.”