There is one way to test whether a nation-state has a future, and that is by gauging its comfort level with condom ads. Flagrant unapologetic advertisements asking people (men, actually) to use condoms, as opposed to the 'coy' ones that hide their product either behind intertwined bodies (promoted by the private sector manufacturers of rubbers) or the message of government-backed red-triangled (in the case of India, two kids or one, basss) population control campaigns, usually indicate a country that has a bright future. Such as Nepal, believe you me.
What I refer to is a society's ability to stomach brazen reference in public to the use of the condom, including having the word 'condom' in common employ in mass media. This means much more than simply that the messages of family planning, child spacing and AIDS/STD prevention are being conveyed with directness. It shows that a society is flexible and healthily 'modern' in its response to changing times and mores. It indicates that prudery and middle-class morality has been kept at bay. It also reveals that such a society, despite all present-day evidence to the contrary, will surge ahead of others less inclined to shout, "Look, condom!" in public.
In Nepal these days, there is a condom advertising invasion under way; foreign-funded, and taking advantage of the total anarchy extant in the country, as a result of which the social and cultural conservatives have not been able to get their act together to utter even a word in protest of the ads, billboards and commercials.
On television, 12,000 times a day, a couple is seen prancing around in the pine forest that is often used by Kollywood (Kathmandu + 'ollywood) stars for in-the-woods numbers. This time, it is a virginal-looking hero who peeps out from behind a trunk. The lady, a petite, fresh-faced lass in hill peasant attire (which, with no dupatta or scarf to cover the blouse, is such a bonanza for film directors), comes swaying up-slope towards the hero. (The dialogue is in singsong.)