With its abundant cultural and environmental <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/decoding-diversity?fbclid=IwAR3P0GygTCQ7HE-LaaVOhmKSyUDLlIrR2l9VzXKwCFJ8Em7YFHSAOiiXqQE">diversity</a>, the ripples of Nepal’s aesthetic influence are being felt within the country and across the world. Creatives are constantly finding fresh ways to mix traditional elements into their personal inspirations. Be it their grandmother’s Bulaki or ethnic textiles reimagined in global silhouettes, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/hurdles-come-with-the-terrain-in-nepal-s-fashion-industry">Nepali designers</a>, artists, and musicians are breathing new life into historic styles. Nepal has a wealth of traditional textiles, from handloom Dhaka to Haku Patasi. With their distinctive colour schemes and wide variety of patterns, these textiles lend themselves to being reworked as fusion style garments. Nepali brands and local tailors alike are increasingly using these weaves. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-designer-by-design?fbclid=IwAR0ZheOVHUu4V8Uu1n46FOxQfcwd_Zw-zpBThCPWnc60KrzVgrwmupANMlU">A designer by design</a>, Sahina Shrestha Kathmandu-based tailor Riddhi Bajracharya has begun creating tailored overcoats and blazers in Haku Patasi while Nepal-Scotland based brand Clove and Moon reimagines the weave in Japanese Jinbei, waistcoats, and accessories. Other brands are adding elements of the textile to their accessories as the popularity of traditional Newar dress is visibly increasing, even beyond jatra and feasts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211010_4b5dababe84879db728eb855df8b5872e862aa93c51dfffba25eed8f85c7207c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025010211010_4b5dababe84879db728eb855df8b5872e862aa93c51dfffba25eed8f85c7207c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1790" height="2354" loading="lazy" alt="fusion1"> </figure>  “We are seeing huge increases in demand for Haku Patasi clothing,” says Manjushree Tailors owner Riddhi Bajracharya. “We see many more people going out wearing Newari dress in the streets, wearing both traditional and fusion styles like tailored coats and gowns. Some people find wearing sari uncomfortable for events, so they order Haku Patasi gowns in different styles to mix heritage with comfort.” Nepal’s contemporary musicians blend local with global in their songs, and they also often experiment with innovative fusionwear looks both on- and off-stage.&nbsp; “I enjoy mixing traditional Nepali and western style because it looks cool,” says Samrat Manandhar, drummer for Shree 3 and Tumbleweed Inc. “It’s comfortable as well, and mixed styles look unique.” Perhaps one of the most recognisable Nepali women’s garments is the Chaubandi Cholo. Whether in jewel toned velvets or patterned Cauterize (needlecord), the eclectically inclined are pairing these traditional blouses with everything from miniskirts to maxi dresses. They are using fabrics often reserved for the blouse to make waistcoats or vintage style separates.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211014_7cc547bb58f462236aa3de1598abfa48d5154e4662451f44c821651a2f77885c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025010211014_7cc547bb58f462236aa3de1598abfa48d5154e4662451f44c821651a2f77885c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1856" height="1856" loading="lazy" alt="fusion5"> </figure>  As thrifting continues to gain popularity in Nepal, vintage and secondhand clothing is increasingly seen mixed with Nepalese garments by all ages to create unique looks. Nepali Dago, arguably the original hair extensions, are another part of Nepal’s rich aesthetic heritage making a comeback in recent years. Paired equally well with jeans and a t-shirt as with a ruby red sari, this accessory is increasingly brightening up streetwear from Kathmandu to New York. Many countries associate nose piercings with subcultures, especially the septum piercing. In Nepal, the Fuli and Bulaki have been worn by multiple ethnic groups for generations, sometimes measuring over an inch long. Having a unique ability to signal an alternative leaning and a nod to tradition, some find the piercing a beautiful way to showcase facets of their identity, in Nepal and abroad.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211014_484d36a29326455c01b4c279f4dac5de72874714ff135732a0e353278652b385.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025010211014_484d36a29326455c01b4c279f4dac5de72874714ff135732a0e353278652b385" data-rendition-name="original" width="1898" height="1898" loading="lazy" alt="fusion6"> </figure>  “Growing up, I never really understood the significance of fusion wear,” says e-commerce account manager Krisha Bhattarai. “My mom would always incorporate tika, potey, and other Nepali bits and pieces into her everyday outfits, but it wasn’t until I started to decolonise my mindset that I began to see why she did it.” She adds, “Now, I see it as a way of staying in touch with my background. I wear a Bulaki and Chaubandi Cholo because they were the fashion of my paternal grandmother and the women before her… explaining the significance of the Bulaki or the history of the Ashrafi to people in the UK helps me express myself and share parts of my culture.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/dauraa-suvaal">दौरा सुरुवाल</a>, Pinki Sris Rana&nbsp; Nepali jewellery has communicated everything from marital status to profession over the centuries. Traditional statement ornaments are equally at home styled with streetwear as they are worn at weddings.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211010_ee6ece93c531a86acd65686d227abbe6e62fcc2722e283a2d36f8db38558e6b0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025010211010_ee6ece93c531a86acd65686d227abbe6e62fcc2722e283a2d36f8db38558e6b0" data-rendition-name="original" width="3273" height="3275" loading="lazy" alt="fusion2"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211014_a970e4ec9ba6195bb8be2d0f9b27af362361f75bb032918e088e5f7163cfeb4e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025010211014_a970e4ec9ba6195bb8be2d0f9b27af362361f75bb032918e088e5f7163cfeb4e" data-rendition-name="original" width="3650" height="3645" loading="lazy" alt="fusion4"> </figure>  Numerous young designers and entrepreneurs are choosing traditional jewellery designs and techniques to express themselves, responding to increasing consumer demand for accessible ways to wear ethnic styles. Says Pragati Shrestha, founder of Euphoria Nepal: “We create a harmonious fusion between our traditional jewellery and modern everyday wear… It’s a great learning experience. I get to learn more about our culture, art and most importantly the significance of every intricate detail of the different symbols, statues, and artefacts of our history.” Euphoria Nepal incorporates the essence of Nepali art and craft in modern fashion and has now expanded its business internationally, with a sister brand in Canada.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211014_f1b82a798cd9c2101b046f777b7d5eb64705c7d5a671da6ae669ee81106c7e98.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2025010211014_f1b82a798cd9c2101b046f777b7d5eb64705c7d5a671da6ae669ee81106c7e98" data-rendition-name="original" width="3624" height="4984" loading="lazy" alt="fusion5"> </figure>  A more permanent fashion element is tattoo, and here too artists and enthusiasts have flocked to Nepal to ink traditional designs on their skin or get inspired for their own work. Many of Nepal’s tattoo artists are not only mixing different art styles in their work, they are also using these designs on clothing. Thamel-based studio Tattoo Junction’s Anitya Chakra makes Japanese inspired cotton sets and graphic t-shirts, collaborating with a range of tattoo artists to print their unique creations in wearable form. UK and Nepal based tattooer Tatt Art Nepal makes organic cotton tote bags featuring his Himalayan inspired fusion designs, blurring the boundaries between art and fashion. Those who choose to cover themselves in tattoos add yet another aesthetic layer to traditional ensembles, showing the ever evolving nature of culture. Many of Nepal’s ethnic groups have traditional tattoo practices. Heritage art often lends itself to creating striking tattoo designs, offering a wealth of possibilities for self-expression through ink.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010211014_e4f6faf5c3c48f8c34ee67ab97d479b9ecdde9e12ba61fab96d3c8172355887a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025010211014_e4f6faf5c3c48f8c34ee67ab97d479b9ecdde9e12ba61fab96d3c8172355887a" data-rendition-name="original" width="3327" height="3327" loading="lazy" alt="fusion3"> </figure>  “I am always fond of wearing traditional clothes. Mostly my grandmom and granddad’s vintage stuff,” says Kathmandu-based stylist StyledbyShreya. “I feel like tattoos are ornaments on me and so is traditional clothing: I love all the variations of different cultures.” Nepal’s creatives are exploring fresh ways of interacting with culture, adding yet another level of meaning to classical textiles, jewellery, fashion, and art. This interactive and energetic approach to Nepal’s design heritage is equally important as a traditional or academic one in promoting the country’s rich and diverse cultures across the world. By harmoniously blending personal and community identities, Nepal’s designers, tattooers, stylists, and consumers are contributing to keeping valuable skills and knowledge alive ­­­-- and having fun while doing it. Isabelle Shrestha is a writer and creative based between Scotland and Nepal, and holds a degree in Japanese and Tibetan from the University of Oxford.

Fusion Fashion

Bottom

Turkish Airlines has introduced ‘UNESCO Türkiye Series’ amenity kits for its business class passengers that are inspired by six UNESCO World Heritage sites in Türkiye: Nemrut, Göbeklitepe, Cappadocia, Ephesus, Ani, and Troy. They carry Turkish marbling designs and traditional rug motifs. Each kit, designed sustainably by fragrance brand Ex Nihilo, consists of hand and body lotions and lip balms.“We are showcasing Türkiye’s rich cultural heritage to the world,” said Turkish Airlines COO M. Akif Konar.

Turkish Amenity Kit

The German government has pledged aid for health services to communities affected by the September 2024 flood in Sarlahi, Rautahat and Kavre with One Heart Worldwide to ensure access to basic health services, winter materials, and emergency supplies, especially to pregnant women. Rautahat, which is vulnerable to cold weather and fires, has a significant Muslim and Dalit population who will benefit from the funds. &nbsp;&nbsp;

German hilfe

Chinese EV company Dongfeng Nammi opened a showroom in Nagpokhari. It also introduced a silver color for the ’01’ hatchback, and held a test drive camp 11-16 January during which bookings include discounts, a 7kW wall charger, and one night at Hotel Country Villa in Nagarkot.

Dongfeng showroom

The past, the present, and the future are really one: they are today. -Harriet Beecher Stowe  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="2700" loading="lazy" alt="Miss Moti #1241"> </figure>

The past, the present, and the future are really one

Despite countries amassing huge atomic arsenals, one reason deterrence has worked since the end of World War II, according to proponents, is that all-out nuclear war is so unthinkable.&nbsp; Yet, with no end in sight to fighting in Ukraine and West Asia, a new Cold War that pits US vs Russia and China, and the second coming of an erratic American president, have all made nuclear conflict thinkable in 2025 and beyond. Russia has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and last month fired a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Dnipro. And it has put into orbit a new <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/05/opinion/nuclear-weapons-space.html" target="_blank">prototype satellite</a> that can knock out other satellites with a nuclear explosion in space.&nbsp; Donald Trump and Benjamin Netyanyahu have reportedly spoken about a joint strike on Iranian nuclear installations. North Korea has been testing long range missiles for its nuclear warheads. Tensions remain high between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. These dangers come on top of signs of accelerated climate breakdown with weather extremes, record-breaking heat, and rapid melting of polar icecaps and Himalayan glaciers. ‘The world-ending potential of nuclear weapons looms over populations around the world,’ writes Cameron Vega in <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/the-climate-blind-spot-in-nuclear-weapons-policy/" target="_blank">Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a>. ‘Climate change is a slower-moving catastrophe, but it openly threatens every community.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241226081236_8ebdd11d4d252d449b0347548372e1649de3637e1947f75609909bbf26d00555.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241226081236_8ebdd11d4d252d449b0347548372e1649de3637e1947f75609909bbf26d00555" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="533" loading="lazy" alt="Thinking the thinkable NT"> </figure>  The Bulletin’s <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/" target="_blank">Doomsday Clock</a> was reset to 90 seconds before midnight (from 100 seconds) in January this year due to ‘ominous trends that continue to point the world toward global catastrophe’. The minute hand on the Doomsday Clock has been reset 25 times since 1947, and it is most likely be brought forward to less than a minute in 2025. &nbsp; Both climate breakdown and nuclear war are human induced, but while one is heating up the planet the smoke and dust from explosions of the other will cool it. Either way, both threats are inextricably linked.&nbsp; Even the tactical use of battlefield nuclear weapons would have a climate impact. And climate-induced disasters, crop failures, water shortage, mass migration and ensuing socio-political unrest could spark wars that go nuclear. This is without even considering the long term effect of radioactive fallout on land, water and sea. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0" target="_blank">Research at Rutgers University</a> recently projected that even a one-week nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would cause the collapse of food systems worldwide, killing 2 billion people from starvation. Prevailing winds would carry the fallout to the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, irradiating glaciers that feed into all of Asia’s main rivers. An all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia would cause a nuclear winter lasting more than 15 years, the study showed, unleashing a global famine that would kill 5 billion people.&nbsp; Anti-nuclear activists now challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence, and have instead pushed for a ban on nuclear weapons. At a meeting on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations in New York last December, members declared that the doctrine of deterrence used by nuclear-armed states and their allies was a threat to human security and an obstacle to nuclear disarmament.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241226081236_407d70a5620963d36f53e2c5718e0e12aad446374f358fb4b574701ee1f03e14.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241226081236_407d70a5620963d36f53e2c5718e0e12aad446374f358fb4b574701ee1f03e14" data-rendition-name="original" width="667" height="726" loading="lazy" alt="Thinking the thinkable NT"> </figure>  The meeting heard that deterrence is an unproven gamble and based on the implicit threat to use nuclear weapons which itself is playing brinkmanship with nuclear annihilation. “Deterrence is unacceptable,” stated Melissa Parke of <a href="https://www.icanw.org/people_and_structure" target="_blank">ICAN ((International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons)</a>. “It is based on the threat to wage nuclear war which would kill millions outright and lead to a nuclear winter and mass starvation that would kill billions of people.”&nbsp; ICAN was awarded the <a href="https://www.icanw.org/nobel_prize" target="_blank">Nobel Peace Prize in 2017</a> for its activism against the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of atomic weapons, and its work to push the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.&nbsp; It has been 50 years since the discussions on a draft of the <a href="http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/NPTtext.shtml" target="_blank">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)</a> was first held in Geneva. The NPT entered into force in 1970, and has the membership of <a href="http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/npt" target="_blank">191 States</a>, with mandatory obligations on disarmament and non-proliferation.&nbsp; However, these commitments are now threatened by a new Cold War and increased global tensions. Nine nuclear weapon states have total stockpiles of 14,500 warheads, many of them on missiles ready to be launched. Three countries in Nepal’s immediate neighbourhood (China, India, Pakistan) have nuclear weapons, and they do not share good relations.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241226081236_cb12ff19e7ad0691773a0cc4a74b4f2b699832495aa90e5dc21462a287f11dcb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20241226081236_cb12ff19e7ad0691773a0cc4a74b4f2b699832495aa90e5dc21462a287f11dcb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1232" height="513" loading="lazy" alt="Doomsday clock"> </figure>  Of the five regions around the world that have declared themselves nuclear weapons free, three are in Asia: Central Asia, Mongolia and the South Pacific. The <a href="https://www.unrcpd.org/about/" target="_blank">United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific (UNRCPD)</a> is located in Kathmandu and helps countries to meet disarmament goals. A report titled <a href="https://www.ippnw.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ENGLISH-Nuclear-Famine-Report-Final-bleed-marks.pdf" target="_blank">Nuclear Famine</a> by the group <a href="https://www.ippnw.org/programs/nuclear-weapons-abolition/nuclear-famine-climate-effects-of-regional-nuclear-war" target="_blank">International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War</a> sounds a sobering alarm: even a limited nuclear war using only 100 weapons anywhere in the world would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89_d9AFmk9Y&amp;t=83s" target="_blank">put 2 billion people at risk of starvation</a>. Coincidentally, 2 billion is also the number of people who would be affected by the melting of glaciers in the mountains of High Asia, according to the <a href="https://hkh.icimod.org/hi-wise/" target="_blank">International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)</a>. Given the twin global threats, climate activism now has to go hand-in-hand with the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.&nbsp; Kunda Dixit This Editorial is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

Thinking the thinkable

“यहाँ वाग्नर कोदाली खनिरहेछन्, शेक्सपियर हलो जोत्ता हुन्, टिसियन र टर्नर भेडा चराउँदा हुन्, सोक्रेटिज गुफामा घोत्लिरहेका होलान्... यहाँ कति साहित्य छ, जो लेखिएकै छैन, न लेखिनेछ।” Wagners and Shakespeares could be ploughing fields here, Tissiens and Turners may be shepherds, Socrates must be living in a desolate cave ... there is so much literature here that is not written and will never be written. This excerpt from the essay के नेपाल सानो छ? (Is Nepal Small?) by poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota that most Nepali students have to learn in school, alludes to treasures of Nepali literature that remain hidden because people are too busy trying to survive.&nbsp; While Devkota’s dialectic may still be true, Nepali writers like Samyak Shertok are taking their literature to international platforms and giving it global recognition. Samyak Shertok is the recent recipient of the 2024 <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fawpwriter.org%2FAWP%2FAWP%2FContests%2FAWP-Award-Series%2FDonald-Hall-Prize%2FOverview.aspx%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2rtN6pn1xy9O42GhznnQekY96bavYGwHz6pDtNaSGh4qaKXsZKSyvCKDU_aem_bsY7bnUoJoSxEpfxw1UdVQ&amp;h=AT0QnfORyOboQ6xeVZYe-r4CLjYIjtZwIcEsR3r54yeHGbMqiMHTjcoT3CP2CD7VXUn9jytxX4FtFmLhINdF8UwGvLy9urNtzxIeUNLOuwLVhSH6hmbVx3oA8rZIY3WNkMani8g6I1c">Donald Hall Prize for Poetry</a>. His poem collection ‘No Rhododendron’ is being published next year by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Pitt Poetry Series. His poems have also appeared in top literary journals and publications in the US, such as Best of New Poets, Iowa Review amd Kenyon Review.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241013131056_630058ef31163af4def47cbcc247089ee3df925ff6c1bd2014f1008db515f9c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241013131056_630058ef31163af4def47cbcc247089ee3df925ff6c1bd2014f1008db515f9c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Samyak Shertok"> <figcaption>Photo: CHANDRA S MAGAR</figcaption> </figure>  ‘If poetry is, as has been defined, a species of magic, Samyak Shertok has conjured an elegant and sophisticated collection that is full of hybridity in form and subject…’ writes Donald Hall Prize 2024 jury member Kimiko Hahn, an American poet. ‘We are given a view into the conjuring, his view on how language expresses and depresses, how language as noise can mix into cacophony or clarify home.’ Hahn goes on to add, ‘There is abiding grief and, in that, surviving to tell and retell stories. This debut collection is an absolute marvel.’ Shertok’s poems immerse themselves in the idea of a mother language, of motherhood, home, ongoingness and his relationship with them, leaving behind a part of himself in each poem. His poems have a haunting grief and memories, and leave food for the soul to dwell upon. “Poems are a permanent home that I can always return to,” Shertok told us in a zoom call. He moved to the United States to pursue a psychology major as an undergraduate which he completed in 2011 from Brigham Young University, and has been there since. Samyak was born Shertok Lama, the youngest child in a Tamang family from Yurung village of Sindhupalchok district. He had always thought a poet had to be someone senior with a PhD, or a long white beard like Nepali poet Lekhnath Paudyal or the Bengali Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. ‘Samyak’ means the Buddha’s middle way and ‘Shertok’ is the Tamang word for a golden steeple. Nepaliness is a recurring theme in Samyak’s verse, but he has a fraught relationship with his motherland. As someone from an indigenous community, Shertok grew up feeling stereotyped and judged which is why he opted for a surname that would not denote his ethnicity. He was eight when his older brother recited the poem he had written himself while walking to their school, an hour across mountain paths from his home. “The poem my older brother wrote was about love and destiny. I don’t remember the lines now, but the seed was planted sometime there,” Shertok recalls.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241013141012_e562220a7461f09924480bb991319bfc420ba275b672885815382bb526833301.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241013141012_e562220a7461f09924480bb991319bfc420ba275b672885815382bb526833301" data-rendition-name="original" width="1100" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Samyak Shertok"> </figure>  Shertok has frequent references to his mother who played a part in shaping his career as a poet. He explains: “I believe my Ama is a lived poet. She doesn't know about poets, or how to write poems, but she naturally comes up with her own phrases that are poetic and deeply meaningful.” By Grade 11, Shertok was writing poems mostly in Nepali, but also English. He was prolific, penning short stories, essays, ghazals and managed to impress another <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/writing-about-nepal-from-afar">US-based Nepali writer Samrat Upadhyay</a> and publisher <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/a-novelist-talks-to-his-translator">Ajit Baral of Fineprint</a> when he won the Writing Nepal competition organised by Lalit. "Samyak Shertok is a poet of great nuance and emotional depth," says Upadhyay who was the judge of the Lalit contest. "Even then I had been wowed by the poetry in Samyak’s prose, and it’s no wonder he’s emerged as a poet of considerable power now." He adds: "The fact that Samyak’s poetry is speaking to a diverse and international audience is evident in his numerous publications and awards. The Donald Hall Prize is a big deal. It boasts of many illustrious poets as its previous winners, such as Angela Ball and Reginald Shepherd. Samyak’s win is a win for Nepalis all over the world." Shertok struggled to adjust to a new culture and milieu. He did not feel like he belonged, and strived to feel appreciated. He finally had a MFA in poetry, but no job. “Poetry as a career is never fully secure, there is a compulsion to financially depend on something else,” says Shertok who now teaches poetry to students in Hendrix College in Arkansas. While he has been reading and writing poetry for most of his life, writing still does not get any easier for Shertok. “With practice, devotion and dedication, one might get better at techniques but writing a poem means starting from nothing,” adds Shertok, who is now working on his second book collection. “Something more challenging is to not repeat what I’ve already done in my previous poem.” While he still likes to explore different literary forms, poetry provides him ample room to explore life, living and longing. Even Shertok’s spoken words, carried over from the other side of the planet over Zoom is versified: “Each poem is a being. A poem begins with a haunting, and ends when you are able to release the haunt.”&nbsp;

Finding a permanent home in poetry

Shyam Lama had just fallen asleep on the early morning of 28 September when he heard a loud bang outside his shop on the side of the highway in Dhading, 15km from Kathmandu. It had been r<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">aining incessantly for two days</a>, landslips and fallen trees had blocked the Kathmandu-Mugling highway. Many buses were stranded, and some of them were parked at a bend on the road in Jhyaple Khola, waiting for the debris to be cleared. The bang that Lama heard was another landslide from the mountain above falling near his shop and covering the highway with 4m of mud and stones. Some of the buses were damaged, and injured passengers were running for safety in the darkness and pouring rain. In the light of dawn, they could see the damaged buses heading to Kathmandu from the west. But it was not till later in the day that Lama and some of the other rescuers saw the top of another bus sticking out of the mud.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_a0b528829a4230da6b7b26102a42f0a061de6c26a4fb1d1e201dabfcfc647519.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241008141044_a0b528829a4230da6b7b26102a42f0a061de6c26a4fb1d1e201dabfcfc647519" data-rendition-name="original" width="5726" height="3817" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>Photos: SUMAN NEPALI(Photo: suman)</figcaption> </figure>  They dug through the slush to find 11 bodies. But then they spotted the tyre of another vehicle, then a van. Altogether 35 passengers perished that night in the three buses heading to Kathmandu from Chitwan, Butwal and Gorkha.&nbsp; “The buses were all stuck because the highway was blocked, and the landslide fell and buried them with the passengers sleeping inside,” Lama says. “If the debris up the road had been cleared in time, the buses would have been able to continue on to Kathmandu.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-flood-of-tears-on-the-rosi">A flood of tears on the Rosi</a>, Archana Darji Archana Koirala runs a convenience store nearby, and was also awoken by muffled shouts for help almost drowned out by the sound of the rain on the tin roof. “In the darkness, I saw people escaping from two buses, some of them injured and covered in blood,” recalls Koirala. “I gathered up my little girls and ran for my life.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_ec79cc7198b54bad77c3f03bc1420ea64cb6776eaaec29581209614194b862fa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241008141044_ec79cc7198b54bad77c3f03bc1420ea64cb6776eaaec29581209614194b862fa" data-rendition-name="original" width="5680" height="3787" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> </figure>  Another shop owner Ajita Tamang, heard the landslide coming down and nearly burying her house. She ran with her mother to the nearby woods. Her shop did not survive. Krishna Tamang heard the sound of a bus windshield shattering, and went outside to check. &nbsp;He saw one of the buses half-buried in debris before it disappeared before his eyes, swallowed up by a fresh wave of mud. Unable to do anything to help, he ran up the mountain to save his own life.&nbsp; Shop owners and residents in Jhyaple Khola say that the landslide was so massive and came down so suddenly that the passengers in the vehicles probably did not even know what hit them. A week later, the mangled mass of the three buses are all that remain on the roadside, and excavators were trying to open the road for the expected heavy Dasain traffic on the arterial highway that connects Kathmandu to western Nepal. A visit to the site shows the mountain above scarred by open red wounds of landslides. The biggest slope failure originates in a local road about 100m above the highway and has brought down debris that was just dumped over the edge by bulldozers. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/flood-of-despair">When the record-breaking rain came</a>, the mud turned into paste and raced down the mountain carrying tree trunks and large stones. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_64f6af7e300ed517f6bd161491a69d85706caed35839cfeee7c87e6671a8fdc3.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241008141044_64f6af7e300ed517f6bd161491a69d85706caed35839cfeee7c87e6671a8fdc3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1320" height="1346" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>The bend on the highway where the landslide, triggered by a sub-standard road up the mountain buried three buses, killing 35 people on the night of 28 September. Other buses also blocked by another landslide further up the road were also damaged. Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA(Photo: Sonia Awale)</figcaption> </figure>  Typically, Dasain is the busiest time of year for businesses along the highway in Jhyaple Khola as people leave Kathmandu by busloads to get home for the festival. “We do not stay here for long anymore, we are already home before the sun sets,” says Krishna Tamang. “We fear another landslide will hit us at any time.” In July, a debris flow <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/100-101-102-hh5uvzf9">swept two intercity buses into the Trisuli River</a> along the Mugling-Narayangad Highway 60km west of here. Of the 62 passengers on the two buses, only three were able to swim to safety. Search and rescue teams recovered 27 passengers from the river in the aftermath of the landslide, but neither the buses nor the rest of the passengers have been found.&nbsp; A committee formed by the government to investigate the Simaltal disaster concluded that a new local road constructed farther up the mountain was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon">mainly responsible for the debris flow</a>. The Jhyaple Khola mudslide was a repeat of the July disaster. Locals in Dhading say that the Department of Roads had just completed the retaining wall, and the debris from the excavation done to construct the road had piled up, which the rain swept down to the highway below.&nbsp; Similar unplanned roads constructed further above in Nagdhunga have also clogged up the culverts, which remain uncleared.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_d46e7f612ce53b0c3133219a36ab81c5ef8f7494dc002452580c086d70028652.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241008141044_d46e7f612ce53b0c3133219a36ab81c5ef8f7494dc002452580c086d70028652" data-rendition-name="original" width="2340" height="1560" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>Photo: SUMAN NEPALI(Photo: Sonia Awale)</figcaption> </figure>  “This disaster occurred because of the locally elected representatives, the Road Department and the contractors,” says local business owner Shyam Kumar Lama. “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">You cannot blame it on a natural disaster</a>." “They keep tearing down the retaining walls to build haphazard roads, and replace them with brick walls,” adds Lama. “How is a barely one-foot-thick wall going to stop a landslide?” Geologist Sri Kamal Dwivedi says that the Department of Roads has not heeded the geological risks in excavations for road expansion across the country. “The soil above Jhyaple Khola was loosened by torrential rain, causing a high-speed debris flow onto the highway below,” &nbsp;explains Dwivedi. “Additionally, the possibility of disasters like landslides increases when slopes are cut to make way for road expansion.” Transport expert Kamal Pandey says that disasters like the ones in Simaltal and Jhyaple Khola happen frequently because environmental risks are ignored during investments in road expansion. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-revenge-of-the-rivers">The revenge of the rivers</a>, Shamshad Ahmad “New roads are dug up like it is some kind of competition,” says Pandey. “But as long as unmanaged excavation continues without plans in place to mitigate landslides, disasters like the one at Jhyaple Khola will continue to happen.” Indeed, this is not the first time a disaster of this scale has struck in Jhyaple Khola. In 2001, a similar debris flow from higher up the hill buried a vehicle on the highway below, killing nine people.&nbsp; Landslides of smaller scales occur in the area every monsoon, but they do not make it to the news. But even as they are used to the frequent landslides, there is now a new kind of fear among residents.&nbsp; “I am overcome with terror every time I look up to the overcast sky,” says Shyam Lama. “We will never be safe in this place as long as the mountains keep falling on top of us.” &nbsp;

"The mountain fell on top of us"

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Those who stay

Nepal now generates a surplus of electricity and it is all from renewable hydropower. Nearly half the country is under forest cover. Despite meeting these decarbonisation goals, Nepal’s hydropower plants are threatened by increased risk due to climate impact.&nbsp; Till <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">28 September</a>, Nepal was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/india-nepal-sign-power-exchange-deal">exporting just over 1,000MW</a> of electricity to power-hungry India, when flash floods and landslides unleashed by historically heavy rains damaged over 30 hydropower plants across the country, temporarily <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/power-to-the-people">slashing nearly half the power generation.</a> The 456MW Upper Tamakosi in Dolakha was the hardest hit and it will take six months and Rs2 billion to repair. This has significantly reduced exports as well as domestic generation. Two months later, Nepal has still not been unable to fully keep its export commitment, and is actually paying Rs100 million in fines to India. Thirty-seven existing and under construction projects under the Independent Power Producers' Association Nepal (IPPAN) suffered Rs2.5 billion in damage. One of them is the 22MW Bagmati project in Makwanpur which was almost completely buried in flood debris. Even before <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">record-breaking rain in September</a>, 15 other hydropower projects had been damaged by floods. Last year, floods caused by heavy localised rain damaged 28 hydropower plants. World governments met in Baku for COP29 to discuss the Loss &amp; Damage Fund and the Adaptation Fund, but for countries like Nepal the commas and brackets are meaningless until they are turned into $ and €. And likelihood of adequate compensation for climate-related damage is a long way off, if ever. Nepal’s national strategy is to use its vast hydropower resource as clean energy to spur economic growth, job creation, and boost export revenue. But the plants are located in narrow Himalayan valleys prone to landslides and floods even at the best of times. Now, those <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/changing-climate-for-investment-in-nepal">risks have been heightened by weather extremes</a> due to climate breakdown. At present, Nepal generates over 3,300MW of clean hydropower, and the target is to reach 12,700MW in the next five years. Projects equivalent to 6,000MW are under construction or ready to start. The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has an Energy Development Roadmap and Action Plan with the target of producing 28,500MW by 2035 by when more than half of it will be exported.&nbsp; “The climate crisis will further change the rainfall patterns making hydropower generation a big question mark in the future,” Manjeet Dhakal in Baku, who is also the Nepali adviser to the LDC Chair at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “We are building hydropower projects on rivers without evaluating risk. This whole process needs to be reviewed and reconsidered.” The report of the National Adaptation Plan published by the Ministry of Forest and Environment last year mentions that hydropower production, transmission and distribution will be at risk from flash floods, debris flows, glacial lake outbursts and rising temperatures.&nbsp; This risk is not confined to Nepal. Average global temperatures have increased by 1.3°C compared to the pre-industrial era. Worse, the Himalayan mountains are warming faster than the global average by 0.7°C because of elevation-dependent warming. A study conducted by our own Department of Hydrology and Meteorology in 2017 showed that the average temperature in Nepal has increased in the last four decades. Scientists say this is leading to extreme weather unleashing floods and landslides on slopes already destabilized by seismicity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241124071128_d22901a360e8958f606d80ffa21defba05a671f65afec65539dc21a6885d8345.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241124071128_d22901a360e8958f606d80ffa21defba05a671f65afec65539dc21a6885d8345" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Right climate for Nepal’s energy transition NT"> <figcaption>BIBLICAL RAIN: Photo taken during catastrophic rain on 27-28 September at the Upper Tamakosi project site that destroyed the control room, killing four staff and burying the sedimentation tanks. Photo: RSS</figcaption> </figure>  Increased atmospheric temperatures has made the monsoon rains more erratic. It does not rain when it is supposed to, and it comes down in torrents when it is not supposed to. The September floods happened two weeks after the monsoon was supposed to retreat from central Nepal. Kathmandu Valley received half its annual precipitation in just over a day. &nbsp; Winter precipitation has also failed, especially in the high mountains and trans-Himalayan valleys. Thirteen of the past 19 years experienced winter drought. This impacts on dry season flows of the rivers, reducing hydropower generation. Nepal’s power capacity normally goes down by one-fourth during winter, but the gap is widening. The Kabeli corridor could only generate 20MW November-March even though plants there have an installed capacity of 200MW. Similarly, Upper Tamakosi only produced 65MW at most against its 456MW capacity last winter. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) pays producers double the price for winter electricity, Rs8.40 per unit. Even though winter operation is highly profitable the rivers run low and NEA has to import from India to meet the winter demand. “This is not just a weather problem but a serious challenge also for the country's energy future, good climate-friendly design should be combined with policy and effective implementation,” says Subarna Das Shrestha, a hydropower investor and CEO of Sanima Mai Hydropower. “Insurance premiums have gone up as well, and settlement for damage is not timely.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/climate-risk-to-hydropower-investment">Hydropower investment</a> at one time was regarded as having a high rate of return. Now, some investors have become <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-smarter-himalayan-infrastructure">wary of the risks involved</a>. Says IPPAN’s Uttam Blon Lama: “Hydropower projects expected to give stable returns are now looking risky. Not only is climate adaptation design and planning expensive, but future repair and maintenance costs will also skyrocket.” Nepal has only one storage type dam <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/rivers-be-dammed">in Kulekhani</a> and another one is being built in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/missing-pieces-of-the-hydropower-jigsaw">Tanahu</a>, but they are also at risk. In September, the sluice gates of Kulekhani Dam had to be opened causing loss of life and destruction downstream. Nepal has to learn lessons from the deadly collapse of the $1 billion <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">Chungthang Dam in Sikkim</a> in October 2023 cause by a glacial lake burst. Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) in Nepal pose potentially catastrophic risk to infrastructure. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">Thame flood in August</a> was a relatively minor debris flow that damaged half of this village in the Everest region when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood">two glacial lakes at 4,760m burst</a>. Luckily there was no loss of life. Of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">47 high-risk glacial lakes</a> in the eastern Nepal Himalaya, 21 are in Nepal and the rest are in rivers in China that are tributaries of the Arun and Bhote Kosi where Nepal has major hydropower plants under construction, or planned.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241123021128_b596cd8520c57a6c5476031e7a3ea6510f26b464c4d5351d2bc10f6f7d6b70d8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241123021128_b596cd8520c57a6c5476031e7a3ea6510f26b464c4d5351d2bc10f6f7d6b70d8" data-rendition-name="original" width="871" height="648" loading="lazy" alt="Page 10-11 map #1236 NT"> </figure>  Global temperature rise is accelerating the melting of Himalayan snow and ice, increasing the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/living-below-nepal-s-melting-mountains">number and size of glacial lakes</a> so that we do not even have names for them. Imja Tso did not even exist in the old trekking maps until 25 years ago, but is now a 2km long lake. “Natural moraine dams in the mountains are weak, and the projects downstream can face major destruction if they burst, and the risk will only increase in future,” warns climatologist Arun Bhakta Shrestha at the <a href="https://www.icimod.org/">International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)</a>. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/terrifying-assessment-of-a-himalayan-melting">An ICIMOD assessment in 2019</a> projected that if present heating trends continue, as they probably will, the Himalaya will lose two-thirds of our glaciers by the end of this century. “Generally speaking, hydropower developers hand over the project to the government after 30 years but by that time given the climate risks, they may not be an asset anymore,” says Manjeet Dhakal. Indeed, the cascade of expensive projects India is building on the Arun River are supposed to be handed back to Nepal in 25 years, but there is a big ‘if’ about whether they will survive that long. &nbsp;&nbsp; Planning of hydropower projects is still based on historical hydrological data, and does not take into account future temperature rise and its consequences. Investors, on the other hand, say that planning hydropower projects with climate components would make them even more expensive.&nbsp; “It’s not that we aren’t preparing for climate risk, we design keeping in mind the once-in-100-year flood,” says Blon of IPPAN. “But if we start designing based on once in 1,000 years flood, the cost would be so high that we won’t be able to build them at all.” Nonetheless, Subarna Das Shrestha of Sanima Mai Hydropower says that there is no option but to go for climate smart infrastructure despite the higher cost. Sanima Mai's powerhouse, for example, is completely underground. The strategy could also be to spread the risk by building less expensive plants located on rivers all over the country. Nepal is also diversifying away from its sole reliance on hydroelectricity, which at present supplies 92% of the power in the grid. Most of the rest comes from solar plants, where the total potential has not even been scratched. &nbsp; This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Right climate for Nepal’s energy transition

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If you grew up under the influence of Bollywood films, it is likely they shaped your idea of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hop-over-the-gender-gap">masculinity</a>. One, fuelled by the portrayal of the man as the protector, the creator and the embodiment of strength, and fury.&nbsp;
Growing up in a middle-class South Asian family, the media access I was given was chosen by the men in the family--they were the ones in charge of the VCR and the remote control. Men had more knowledge of technology than women did because of their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-wealth-out-of-health">access to wealth</a>, education, public spaces and thereby, technology itself!
The selection of films that were brought home were mostly masculine. (Visiting cinemas was not really a thing for the middle-class in those days.) There were many <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Lights-camera-copy-paste,1146">mainstream Bollywood films</a>, but there were also Hollywood entries about boxing rings, war planes and gadgets, and some love. And they were films primarily produced and directed by men.
Looking back, there is a pattern that stands out. Men were mostly angry even when in love and eager to break or to be broken in order to protect who they loved. Women were either vamps and villains, or they were coy, demure beings, subject to rape more often than not. Such scenes of sexual violence were not censored for children. And there were suggestive bedroom scenes, where hands came together in a clasp and you wondered as a child what it meant when a man and a woman strung their fingers together against the bedside table or the headboard. There was no sanitised version of the world for five-year-olds in the 1980s South Asia.
The impressions one collected from the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-qfx-cinema-needs-a-happy-ending">cinema</a> was that women need protection and men are either rapists and killers, or breadwinners and protectors. This impression was partly derived from the society around us, but also fed back to it so that the men in the audience learned to emulate those traits. A full circle.
Even when in love, it was expected of men to pursue women they liked in the most unbecoming ways. Public confrontations and suggestive remarks bordering on harassment were acceptable. If a man wanted a woman, he would follow and corner her, and the woman would be forced to cave in. This would end in marriage. Essentially, it legitimised marrying the stalker/rapist.
From that terribly long lead, spanning across several paragraphs, I will briefly make a case for the men in my family, who tried to change what we saw on screen. My grandfather passed away last year, but all the years of his active life, here’s what I witnessed: He would make tea and toast for my grandmother and himself in the morning, then brunch (usually daal-bhat) and then walk several miles to his office at a hydropower station, while my grandmother attended her hospital duties as a nurse. Back home in the evening, he would play his sitar and then they would cook dinner together, eat together, drink together. Looking back, I marvel at the simplicity of it all.
My father, probably inspired by my grandfather, wakes the house up gently every morning with the sound of the kettle coming to boil and omelettes sizzling in the pan. My mother cooks lunch, and we all take turns cooking dinner. On many occasions, my friends have been surprised at seeing my father in the kitchen. This is not the norm <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-should-be-open-for-south-asia">in South Asia</a>. The message my father sends out, especially to my male friends who frequent our home, is a clear one-- household work is shared among the family, even the men.
Recently, a family friend invited me over for lunch. That day, he was the cook and the cleaner and he set before me a perfectly-delectable meal. He is one of the friends who grew up watching my father cook for the family.
With what was a scattered nut graph, I shall now return to the matter at hand-- the media. There were gods on TV when I was growing up, and the endless family drama that represented life in South Asia in glamourised versions. Women were told to be good, and men were told to take control. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/tv-or-not-tv">TV</a> was an apparatus to impose a certain kind of understanding of nationalism, society and culture.
By the time we moved past the Civil War, Nepal had opened up to the world of films beyond Hollywood and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16996">Bollywood</a> and the Pakistani and Japanese TV serials donated by their governments. We had gained Korean films.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/min-bahadur-bham-s-cinematic-quest">Min Bahadur Bham’s cinematic quest</a>, Abishek Budhathoki
Right now, there’s a world open before us through cinemas from across the globe. And interestingly, Korean drama is one of the most popularly streamed genres. The youth take cues from them for fashion and lifestyle as well as relationships. While men who protect women are a vital part of Korean drama, the women portrayed are also more visible and vocal. They are often seen standing up to men, even getting physical with them on occasion and often rising above their male peers in the workplace.
But what also catches one’s eye is the metrosexual look that men now carry with such ease in Korean shows. It has made aesthetic more appealing for many Asian men, who feel represented on screen. It has become possible for men to be pretty and feminine, to reject the hyper-masculine ethos.
I’m fascinated by the portrayal of men who cry unabashedly, who express love and sadness, who breakdown, but also care for the women in their lives. In all of this, the line between genders blur in a surprisingly seamless way. And that’s the kind of men, we want to love. Men, who push against the idea of masculinity that has been thrust upon us for generations. Men who break free of the mould of expected appearance and behaviour needed to validate their gender.
The scene of seduction of Ser Criston Cole by Rhaenyra in the HBO series, House of the Dragon comes to mind. In the episode written by Ira Parker and directed by Clare Kilner, the portrayal of Cole is one of a man of honour and strength, but there is no dearth of tenderness. In the scene of seduction, there is no sexualisation or objectification of the woman, which points to the difference in gaze. The female gaze views the man, not as being a representation of aggression or purely a sex object, but as someone who has compassion and kindness and is therefore, desirable. This is in stark contrast to the male-directed films discussed above, where male gaze highlighted violence as the height of masculinity.
Characters we meet on screen go a long way in shaping our ideals and perspectives. The representations of men who dash the traditional idea of masculinity, and are comfortable in who they are and can be, go a long way in shaping a better world.
There need not be categories to slot men into, as long as we move forward from aggression as a sign of masculinity and cease to perceive softness and kindness as a sign of being ‘unmanly’. Let men endorse that love is fluid and is not bound by the expectations of gender. Let men live free of the burden to carry themselves a certain way, except with the tenderness each one of them brings forth into this world.
Republished from the original in the Articulate, a Konrad Adanaeur Stiftung (KAS) with permission.&nbsp;
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

The tenderness in men

One of the government’s first priorities after <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/feudal-federalism">federalism</a> was to bring development to the grassroots. The political leadership concluded that the way to do that was to build a road network. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/bri-and-trans-himalayan-connectivity">Road connectivity </a>would encourage Nepalis to stay in their villages, connect farmers to market, and stimulate local economies. so they thought. As the roads snaked north into the mountains, Nepalis moved south to the plains along them. Nepal's new roads have become conduits for better opportunities in the cities, the Tarai and abroad. Since 2016, every road that has reached villages in the hinterland has helped empty them. Billions of rupees were spent on roads to improve the lives of people who do not live there anymore. According to the 2021 census, 34 of Nepal’s 77 districts have witnessed a sharp decline in population. More worryingly, there is depopulation in 329 out of Nepal’s 753 municipalities, which is 43% of the country’s geography.&nbsp; It seems there is an inverse relationship between roads and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-migration-is-already-happening">migration</a>. This is evident in districts like Ramechhap and Khotang, with the highest <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrating-males-and-population-decline">population decline</a> as road connectivity spread.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250117050148_18c4f94ff08ab3654d29548d6e87974796ab42b985c64062d04c555f125f051d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250117050148_18c4f94ff08ab3654d29548d6e87974796ab42b985c64062d04c555f125f051d" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="384" loading="lazy" alt="Khotang"> </figure>  Despite its proximity to Kathmandu, the first motorised vehicle only arrived in Ramechhap in 1998. The district was cut off from the road network until a little over three decades ago, and its population was 188,064 during the 1991 census.&nbsp; By the time unpaved roads were built-district wide in 2001, the population had increased by 1.2%. But in the 20 years since, as paved roads and a bridge across the Sunkosi connected rural Ramechhap to Kathmandu and the Tarai, people began to leave in droves, and the district witnessed a -0.47% decline in population by 2011.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepalis-moving-from-mountains-to-plains">Nepalis moving from mountains to plains</a>, Shristi Karki The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lessons-not-learned-from-2015-o2etq6zu">2015 earthquake</a> caused extensive damage in Ramechhap, and additional roads were built to facilitate reconstruction. Most rebuilt houses now lie empty.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250117050144_061f4befbeb60790e4139bff187e2d5a4f8097be982409c2212a7102ac31fd98.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250117050144_061f4befbeb60790e4139bff187e2d5a4f8097be982409c2212a7102ac31fd98" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="554" loading="lazy" alt="Closed door"> </figure>  By 2021, major road networks connected all the municipalities in the district, and Ramechhap had a population growth rate of -1.67%. Ramechhap currently has more than 4,000km of roads.&nbsp; But while the roads reached Ramechhap, the village did not have enough jobs or indigenous products that they could trade in the newly accessible market. “The road network brought the market to the community, but took our people in exchange,” says Dilli Raj Adhikari of the Manthali municipality. In remote districts like Humla, which are not connected to the highway grid, &nbsp;connectivity within the district has meant that people have begun to move to Simkot,&nbsp; The population growth rate in realatively underdeveloped districts like Kalikot, Jumla, Mugu, and Dolpa is relatively high. On the other hand, Dailekh and Salyan which have more roads, have seen a decline in population as people move to cities.&nbsp; The government conceived of the 1,700km Mid-Hill Highway in 2007 to keep people in the mountains. One of the objectives of this 'national pride project' was to connect 5 million people across the mountains to better facilities. However, the government and politicians did not care how this new road would affect migration. As it stands, the population of all 26 districts connected to this highway has &nbsp;declined steadily for the past two decades. The fast track, which was promised to be the ‘highway of prosperity’ has instead become a highway of relocation.&nbsp; The 1952 census found that 65% of Nepalis <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/those-who-stay">lived in the mountains</a> and hills, while 35.2% were in the Tarai. By 2021, 53.6% were living in the Tarai, while only 40.3% remained in the hills.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/from-nowhere-to-nowhere">From nowhere to nowhere</a>, Basanta Pratap Singh It is not enough for road infrastructure to reach the remotest corners of the country if there are no livelihood opportunities. Development is not just about roads and bridges unless it enables people to fulfill their basic needs and connects them to better health, education, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/few-jobs-created-by-nepal-employment-drive">employment opportunities</a>. Otherwise, people will continue to leave for cities which are struggling to manage increased pressure on their limited resources, lowering overall quality of life for all. Chetan Adhikari is a demographic analystic who is pursuing MPhil-PhD on population studies from Tribhuvan University.

The road out of Nepal

The pronunciation of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/angrezi/english-is-not-the-be-all-and-end-all">English</a> words can be quite difficult for those of us who attended government schools where phonetics were not part of the curriculum. English pronunciation has no rules anyway, and way too many exceptions.
While we may understand the meanings and proper contexts of words, we often struggle with their correct pronunciation. However, this is not my primary concern. Admittedly, my pronunciation can also be odd, incorrect, and even amusing at times, but I have something else that is serious to discuss.
I often feel a sense of discomfort in my mouth when I come across words that contain many letters. There seems to be a disconnect between what my mind intends to say and what actually comes out. My thoughts may be clear, but when I try to speak, the sound that comes out is different from what I intended.
At times, my nerves get the better of me, making it difficult to even say the word at all. I understand that these situations are normal but they still can affect my self-esteem. It makes my learning process tough. The only relief for me is that I have acknowledged the issue.
The first time I truly recognised my struggle with the word ‘acknowledgement’ was while reading a book to my daughter. I noticed the author’s acknowledgment section and thought it would be a great opportunity to show her how many people contribute to getting a book published.&nbsp;
However, when I attempted to read it aloud, I found myself unable to do so. I tried to mentally dissect the word and speak it, but nothing worked.
Despite preparing myself repeatedly, the moment I tried to say it, my tongue felt paralysed. That day, my daughter stepped in to help me pronounce it, but it took nearly a year before I could say it without feeling anxious. Generally, I rely on those around me or an online dictionary for assistance. I break the word down, write it in Nepali, and practice it multiple times, which helps me pronounce it correctly.&nbsp;
Yet, the very next day, when I need to use it again, my nerves kick in, and I find myself questioning whether I should just choose a different word. I stay committed to improving, and while I do make mistakes, I continue to learn. But sometimes, I feel like giving up and search for an easier word instead. Yet, when I’m speaking, that challenging word often resurfaces in my mind and slips out. Others may not notice, but I certainly do, and it disrupts the flow of my conversation, leading to more mistakes.
I know, over the time, I have improved a lot. However, there are thousands of such words and they come my way in different circumstances. I worked in the &nbsp;subscription department of a magazine for a short time. There I learned the meaning of ‘subscription’ but it took many years for me to pronounce it correctly.&nbsp;
After leaving the job, I encountered with the word when I switched myself from TV to YouTube in 2014. &nbsp;
Every this and that YouTuber was asking their audience to subscribe their channel. I used to utter the word every time the Nepali YouTuber said ‘subscribe my channel’ (without the ‘to’). I would laugh thinking until and unless I can pronounce the word correctly, who would ‘subscribe my channel’ if I had one. I could not say “Grahak Bannus” for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/mobile-nepal-is-hooked-on-youtube">YouTube </a>as I used to request while working for the magazine subscription.
I have been exploring a new approach lately. When I anticipate discussing a specific topic, I create a list of key words that I know I need to include. If there are words I find challenging to pronounce, I take the time to practice them. Although this method has not produced immediate results, I remain committed to reducing my mistakes. How long will it take? I am not sure, but I continue to practice diligently.&nbsp;
Recently, I delivered a presentation at a conference in Sri Lanka on how the Constitution and laws have protected <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/can-nepal-elections-change-its-male-stream-politics">women’s roles in Nepal’s politics</a> over the past decade. I had mentally prepared myself to avoid the term ‘constitutionalised’ but my ingrained habits took over.&nbsp;
As I spoke, that word slipped out, and I found myself struggling. However, surprisingly, I did not feel nervous. I maintained my flow and continued speaking. The word came up again, and while I felt uncomfortable, I did not let it derail me. I focused on sharing other points confidently and remained composed throughout.
A few weeks ago during a meeting, I found myself struggling with the word ‘accompanied’. I had gone over it the night before, hoping it would come to me easily.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/angrezi/lionel-messi-the-goat">Lionel Messi the goat</a>, Anbika Giri
Unfortunately, it popped into my mind at the wrong moment. It was the first time I openly acknowledged that certain words can trip me up. Thankfully, my colleagues stepped in to help me finish my accompan…ied.
Since that day, I have been diligently practicing it, hoping that next time it will flow smoothly and not trip up my tongue. I will not deny that I felt a wave of nervousness and shyness, but I also managed to laugh at myself, which helped me relax and keep the conversation going.
Lately, I have been working on getting comfortable with the term ‘statistician’. I know I will be using it a lot soon. I am just hoping that by the time I need to say that ‘the data I am discussing has been analysed by a skilled statistician’, my brain and tongue are in sync.

Keeping brain and tongue in sync

2025 marks ten years since the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/why-has-zero-cost-migration-not-happened" target="_blank">free-visa-free-ticket policy</a> was introduced that caps worker paid fees at Rs10,000 if employers do not cover it. But there is not much to celebrate since workers continue to pay excessive recruitment fees.
Many reports have covered the implementation failure of this policy: workers pay, they receive receipts stating Rs10,000 even when they have paid significantly higher, and recruiters pay taxes on just this amount as the rest is, pick your label: black money, bribe, commission. The legally stipulated amount sometimes might not even cover the ‘cut’ often offered to those in power as part of the ‘setting’ to facilitate migration. All this is an open secret.
The recruiters association, NAFEA, demands that the legally allowed service fees of Rs10,000 under the free-visa-free-ticket scheme be revised to a month’s wage. In the current climate, this is a reasonable demand. The Philippines has a cap of one month, while India has set the limit of INR20,000, or 45 days’ worth of wages. In the case of outgoing workers from Nepal to Korea under the Employment Permit Scheme (EPS), the fees are over $1,000 -- but all workers are charged the same, there is a transparent breakdown of costs that apply equally to all, and workers are able to recoup this cost within a month.
All these features of transparency and predictability are missing for workers headed to the Gulf and Malaysia where the free-visa-free-ticket policy applies, but rarely implemented. Workers are arbitrarily charged as per the recruiter’s or individual broker’s demand. There is no certainty when they can recoup costs, usually it takes many months. In this context, the debate around around Rs10,000 versus 1 month in service fees is moot, since workers are paying significantly higher.
The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/zero-sum-game-in-zero-cost-migration" target="_blank">free-visa-free-ticket scheme</a> also does not allow for other policy alternatives. Even though workers are paying heavily by borrowing informally, policies to lower costs such as via no-collateral interest rate loan schemes are not prioritised. If a worker is paying the recruiter a reasonable fee-- all things considered-- as a month’s salary with transparent and favorable job terms, they would still be treating it as a shady under-the-table deal.
The Nepal government can do a lot more to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/labour-recruiter-netted-in-sting-raid" target="_blank">clamp down</a> on fraudulent recruiters, empower migrant workers with correct information and have proper monitoring systems to bring costs down, because there is no limit to how much workers are being charged currently.
But we have to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-theory-and-practice-of-zero-cost-migration" target="_blank">consider</a> the transnational drivers of recruitment costs in the international labor market and the limitations of a unilateral policy like the free-visa-free-ticket scheme.
The free-visa-free-ticket policy is based on the employer-pays model. The name itself is a give-away: the employer pays. But in the current reality, the employer does not always pay. In some cases, the employer may cover the costs, but HR representatives and other intermediaries might still engage in shady dealings.
Of course, this is not meant to give recruiters a pass. Through unhealthy competition to secure contracts, recruiters have allowed employers or their representatives to avoid paying for various or all aspects of the recruitment fees or costs. Even when recruiters do receive payment from the employer, they often charge workers as well, profiting from both sides simply because they can. Individual informal brokers, too, continue to prey on workers.
But in this mess, why do some workers still migrate at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/migration-is-development" target="_blank">zero cost</a> then? Surely the free-visa-free- ticket policy is working in some instances? Not really. It has more to do with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2279741" target="_blank">policies and actors</a> outside our borders.
For example, many recent recruitment drives <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-few-good-agents" target="_blank">offering zero-cost placements</a> have originated in Malaysia. This is not a result of the free-visa-free-ticket policy, but rather a consequence of some Malaysia-based companies becoming <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/fee-free-migration-is-possible" target="_blank">stricter with their recruitment practices</a> and due diligence after facing export bans from countries like the US.
In fact, workers ethically deployed in many recruitment drives for Malaysia have benefited more than what the free-visa, free-ticket policy typically requires. Not only did they avoid paying fees, but their domestic transportation and lodging costs were also covered.
When Malaysia closed its doors to foreign workers indefinitely earlier this year, ethical recruitment from Nepal has been adversely impacted. Aakarshan International that sent 2,716 workers last fiscal year has not deployed a single worker since June 2024 when Malaysia closed doors.
Another company, International Manpower Recruitment that used to send over 5,000 workers ethically in 2023 has seen its numbers drop this year to less than 100. While overreliance on a single destination country has its risks, responsible recruiters face additional challenges in diversifying, as the number of ethical drives is limited in the international market.
The good news is that ethical recruitment is still possible, and is being done when there is the will from all actors involved. There is scope for due diligence laws in global supply chains that hold parent companies liable for activities of subcontractors and suppliers, regardless of where they operate. These include the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, UK Modern Slavery Act and Australian Modern Slavery Act.
There is <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/low-hanging-fruit-in-uk-farms" target="_blank">potential</a> for better information sharing and matchmaking between responsible actors, allowing a responsible employer overseas to easily identify a trustworthy recruiter in our region, and vice versa. Thousands of workers, including from marginalised communities <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/quake-survivors-migrate-for-work" target="_blank">have migrated</a> without being debt-trapped.
The worrying news is that a lot more work is needed to make responsible recruitment a sustainable and less risky business. The more rigid recruiters are about sticking to responsible practices, the more choked they are to obtain new business.
The appetite for ethical recruitment needs to be whetted in the international labour market, and this requires all stakeholders to step up. The role of employers in driving good practices is evident in how many recruiters operate in a hybrid model in Nepal depending on whether the employer hires under the employer pays model and conducts monitoring or not.
The Nepal government needs to use its leverage via bilateral agreements and discussions, &nbsp;multilateral platforms like the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and Colombo Process, to ensure that host country governments also take ownership of the role of employers in influencing worker-paid costs and to ensure the employers are covering the costs associated with worker recruitment even if workers are paying recruiters outside their territory. Efforts to attract responsible employers to Nepal need to be prioritized alongside strengthening our own labor mobility industry.
Surely, 10 years of consistent failure warrants a shake up? An honest evaluation of the policy is essential for all of us who champion migrant welfare. This requires understanding the broader context in which the scheme operates (or fails to) beyond the evident lapses in Nepal Government’s enforcement and monitoring and the recruiters’ and individual agents’ unperturbed preying on workers:
1. Employers do not always cover recruitment costs or conduct proper due diligence and monitoring of recruiters.
2. Host country governments are not doing enough to regulate companies hiring overseas workers even when their laws prohibit workers from getting charged.
3. Migrant-sending countries like Nepal, Philippines and India have varying regulations regarding recruitment costs.
4. Nepali youth are desperate for overseas jobs, often borrowing at prohibitively high informal interest rates.
5. Even attractive, low-cost job offers with high returns that do not meet the free-visa-free-ticket requirement by the letter are often handled as ‘under the table’ deals.
6. Responsible recruiters are struggling to secure job orders that align with the employer-pays model.&nbsp;
7. Recruitment costs are not the only determinant of migration outcomes and should be considered in the context of other terms of employment including both pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits.
Only when all these aspects are considered can a fair evaluation of the implementation failures of the unilateral, populist free-visa-free-ticket policy be possible.
Upasana Khadka heads<a href="https://www.migration-lab.com/"> Migration Lab</a>, a social enterprise aimed at making migration outcomes better for workers and their families. Labour Mobility is a fortnightly column in Nepali Times.

Free-visa-free-ticket policy in limbo

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) likes to pick fights and has been at odds with Sagarmatha National Park after it, the Namche local government and Lukla businesses banned commercial helicopter flights to the base of Everest from 1 January. 
The restriction has a lot to do with local political and business rivalries, and was hastily announced before the tourism and mountaineering industry could find alternatives. But there is no denying that the constant throb of choppers over the national park’s wilderness was also starting to put visitors off.
The park had issued a letter in December to only allow rescue and emergency flights above Lukla from the new year, but reversed this decision earlier this week, allowing commercial flights to land with its permission. 
The dispute, however is far from over. The park's reversal angered Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality, with locals staging protests at helipads and landing zones. 

CAAN had challenged the national park’s decision in a strongly-worded statement, citing its exclusive authority over aviation-related issues. It egged on helicopter operators to keep flying. 
Flying above Lukla has pitted businesses in Lukla and Namche against each other since the 1970s, when helicopters started ferrying trekkers and cargo, depriving Lukla operators of their trade. 
Flying large, noisy aircraft to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patar just for sightseeing was getting out of hand. It does not just ruin the tranquility of the region below the world’s highest mountain, but disturbs wildlife and deprives local communities who depend on portering of their jobs.
Mountain regions across the world have strict guidelines on commercial aviation over protected areas. There have also been studies into the risks posed by aircraft on wildlife behaviour in Alaska, Norway, and Canada.
A <a href="https://catalog.northslopescience.org/dataset/766359ff-18ff-4ccf-aef3-8af228158d5f/resource/079ee112-cd69-4ca8-8963-1ffd9f684fcb/download/anderson_2007_abr.helicopter.disturbance.biblio.pdf" target="_blank">2007 study</a> by Alaska-based environmental consulting firm ABR Inc for the US Army found that polar bears fled up to 64km away when a helicopter flew 100m above ground level, abandoning cubs and returning to search for their young only after three days had passed. 
Caribou reindeers and moose showed similar behaviour. A study conducted on snow geese saw the birds diverting their flight path 1.2km away when a helicopter flew nearby. 
There are no studies yet on the sky and endangered musk deer, snow leopards, red pandas, and bears, which inhabit the Sagarmatha National Park. The Khumbu is also the migratory route of bar-headed geese and other birds which have adapted their lungs to fly over the Himalaya.
It is therefore well within the purview of national park authorities to control activities that contribute to biodiversity loss. The unrestricted flights have also reportedly contributed to wildlife poaching, especially for the musk deer prized for their pouches. 
There is no military or park oversight of helicopters landing or overflying the region. Air traffic control also does not exist, and pilots are required to keep a visual lookout for other choppers.
Vibrations from helicopter rotors can also trigger avalanches on mountain slopes already unstable due to permafrost loss, warming and climate breakdown. 
To be sure, Nepali helicopter pilots are world renowned for their daring rescues at high altitudes. But operators have become just as infamous for fake rescue operations in which they collude with guides and hospitals in the city to scam insurance companies. 
There is debate about exactly how beneficial sightseeing ‘heli-tourism’ is to Nepal’s mountain communities whose livelihood depends upon visitors to the Everest region. Trekkers can now cut short their stay and get choppers to ferry loads, impacting local businesses. 
A survey showed that if an Airbus H123 helicopter flown by a Nepali pilot over Khumbu charges Rs145,000 per hour, only 19.5% of that amount goes to the national economy, the rest pocketed by select travel agencies, helicopter operators and the manufacturers.
Trekking-based adventure tourism has more and multi-faceted benefits than heli-tourism in the Himalaya because it pumps money directly into the local economy.
All this is not to say that helicopter flights must be completely stopped. There should have been negotiations between those for and against helicopters, and a compromise could have been easily found to allow commercial chopper operators at least up to Syangboche. 
Also, rescue flights are of vital importance to residents of mountain communities as well as mountaineers and trekkers. Events of international significance, like the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres flying to Kala Patar can be important.
This comes to the key question of how to balance tourism income with the concern for the protection of natural and cultural heritage. We should follow accepted practice of flights over national parks elsehwer ein the world. 
CAAN has an authority over the sky, but Sagarmatha National Park has the final say over the protected natural habitat. 
Arjun Dhakal is the Managing Director of Social Economic, Environmental Institute (SEEPORT) and is an expert on natural resource and climate change policy issues.

Nepal chops chopper flights to Everest

<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepalis-picking-berries-in-scotland">Manoj</a> was an agricultural seasonal worker in the UK. He is back in Nepal, having saved £8,000 in just five months picking berries (pictured above). An estimated <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-worker-visa-review/review-of-the-seasonal-worker-visa-accessible">3,365 Nepalis</a> worked under seasonal work visas in Britain in 2021-22, but last year that number dropped to zero. UK-based farm operators <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-worker-visa-review/review-of-the-seasonal-worker-visa-accessible">stopped hiring from Nepal</a> after media exposed<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c3f5da9f-ca77-4f78-b37c-16bcbcfd9da6"> Nepali workers being charged exorbitant recruitment fees</a>. It is critical to expose stories about fraudulent recruitment and employment conditions that often trap workers. However, employers pulling out from the Nepal labour market in response is not a desired outcome -- especially not for migrant workers and their families. It deprives them of income, since seasonal jobs offer wages that are many times higher than what Nepalis can earn in Nepal, or in the Gulf and Malaysia where workers also have to pay recruitment costs. Such decisions also overlook the good actors in Nepal’s labour mobility industry. As elsewhere, good and bad entities coexist in Nepal's recruitment sector, a distinction that needs to be made before the whole labour market is tarred with the same brush. Nepal’s recruitment industry actually has innovative <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/fee-free-migration-is-possible">home-grown</a> responsible practices that offer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAOkqHoa7A">practical insights</a> relevant for the industry globally. But why should employers care? Closing the door to Nepali workers does not save scheme operators from similar reputation risks and penalties like getting their <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/07/agency-that-brought-heavily-indebted-indonesian-workers-to-uk-loses-licence">&nbsp;licenses revoked</a>, because workers elsewhere are also vulnerable to abuses including high recruitment fees.&nbsp; Media exposés showed similar abuses of workers from Indonesia and Bangladesh. <a href="https://labourexploitation.org/app/uploads/2024/04/Flex-Report-Final.pdf">Research</a> by Focus on Labor Exploitation (FLEX), showed 72% of the 396 workers interviewed including from Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Uzbekistan also had to borrow money to pay for the costs of coming to the UK. A better solution for hiring companies would be to instead be more selective about the recruiters they partner with regardless of the migrant origin country. Nepal has examples of good recruitment actors and innovative practices which have not got global attention, and which are worth showcasing. &nbsp; Ensuring <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/fee-free-migration-is-possible">responsible recruitment</a> in practice requires <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAOkqHoa7A">innovations</a> that go above and beyond those prescribed in documents, but are products of trial-and-error and multiple iterations to win the confidence of aspirants. Recruiters travel to villages to bypass fraudulent <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular/nation/60">middlemen</a>. They conduct one-on-one counseling and investigation at various stages of the recruitment process to ensure that workers have, in fact, not paid any fees. The goal of these safeguards is to collectively help workers understand that refusing to pay for jobs will not cost them their job. It is not surprising that seasonal workers in the UK from Nepal, Indonesia or Bangladesh paid high <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a2317711-29a7-463c-be18-bdce1e453a29">fees</a> for jobs in an attractive destination &nbsp;which makes it easier for unauthorised <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/labour-mobility/brokers-going-for-broke">intermediaries</a> to manipulate and cheat them. Employers also play a critical role in influencing the behaviour of recruiters. Due diligence and monitoring before and during the recruitment process, and a credible threat to recruiters of losing future business in case of non-compliance are part of a responsible recruitment arrangement. Then there are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-worker-visa-review/review-of-the-seasonal-worker-visa-accessible">concerns</a> about employment conditions in some of the farms, including worker safety, accommodation, pay and unrealistic daily targets.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241226091228_cf9f1f1b6cdb2df143006ff4edd3310c92cf86506c65babf4aca791142f16fb6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241226091228_cf9f1f1b6cdb2df143006ff4edd3310c92cf86506c65babf4aca791142f16fb6" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Low-hanging fruit in UK farms NT"> </figure>  Good migration can be transformational when it is transparent and responsible with the right players involved. <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.83">Research</a> has shown the potential gains of reducing migration barriers are in the trillions of dollars. <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/archive/doc/events/RSEImpactPaperv5.pdf">Evaluation</a> of New Zealand’s Recognized Seasonal Employer (RSE) has shown how migrants from the Pacific Islands benefited from higher incomes, asset accumulation, and improved children’s school attendance after working in New Zealand’s horticulture and viticulture industries.&nbsp; We have witnessed the remarkable journeys of returnee migrant workers now running factories, bakeries or restaurants who attribute their success to foreign employment. The Nepali Times <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uR6pzwfR91KAezRODgDIz2FWI6m2xjPL/view?usp=sharing">series</a> ‘Diaspora Diaries’ showcase many of these stories. Of course, not everyone becomes a successful entrepreneur, but the more common stories are that of incremental progress including better investment in children’s education, concrete houses, healthcare, and repaid loans. The larger the wage differentials, such as between the UK and Nepal, without hefty recruitment costs or other contractual violations to dampen it, the higher the benefits. &nbsp; Conducting ethical recruitment <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAOkqHoa7A">drives</a> is a Nepali story. Being intentional about using good migration to help families <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/migration-is-development">move out</a> of poverty, discrimination or to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/quake-survivors-migrate-for-work">recover</a> from disaster are Nepali stories. Well managed bilateral migration programs such as to Korea under the <a href="https://www.korea.net/Government/Briefing-Room/Press-Releases/view?articleId=123&amp;type=O">EPS</a> is a Nepali story. <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2023/01/26/cut-from-a-different-cloth-former-nepali-migrant-worker-is-now-an-entrepreneur/">Cases</a> of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrant-worker-teaches-others-the-ropes">positive</a> <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/money-is-not-everything-but-you-need-money-for-everything">transformations</a> owed to migration are all Nepali stories. These, too, are stories that need to be told, lessons of which can inform the UK seasonal worker scheme. To be sure, malpractices in the recruitment and employment of migrant workers should be exposed and often are the impetus for concrete actions against the perpetrators. But when there are good actors in the Nepali labour mobility ecosystem that could conduct the same recruitment drives responsibly and transparently it is a pity to lose opportunities. This alternative as opposed to doors getting closed for our workers would be a win-win for all including the workers who are hired without false promises, for employers who get better matched workers and be spared of damaging reputational risks and for good recruiters who will get to compete fairly. The UK returnee <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepalis-picking-berries-in-scotland">Manoj</a> says, “The seasonal agriculture experience I got could be even more transformational for the poorest farmers of rural Nepal if there was a farm-to-farm transfer mechanism. They would be even more physically and mentally suited for the job. Furthermore, they would return with experience and exposure to new ideas they could apply back home.” Economically, geographically or socially marginalised Nepali farmers can gain even more from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/migration-is-development">access</a> to ethical recruitment drives. Such a strategic design of labour mobility is possible to achieve larger developmental goals for which there is a role for donor organisations like UKAid, and social enterprises, including those engaged in inclusive finance.&nbsp; If the onus is only on UK-based employers hiring workers, they may look to hire from closer destinations that are cheaper or from countries where the visa process is less onerous. &nbsp;A 2022 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-workers-pilot-review/seasonal-workers-survey-results-2022">survey</a> of seasonal workers in the UK, shows a greater proportion of Indonesians and Nepalis compared to other nationalities had paid higher recruitment and job finding fees before arrival. A <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-worker-visa-review/review-of-the-seasonal-worker-visa-accessible#:~:text=Give%20consideration%20to%20the%20Employer,the%20risk%20of%20debt%20bondage.">Review</a> of the Seasonal Worker Visa has recommended among others has called for ‘consideration of the employer pays principle’ and ‘investigations into how these costs might be more equitably shared along supply chains’. There is resistance to it from businesses including how it would drive up consumer prices. It is a topic currently under review in the UK. In 2023 and 2024, another 3,500 plus Nepalis could have benefited as previously from the UK seasonal program had we not lost access to this corridor, and if the right players had been involved from the onset. We would be remiss not to see this as a wasted opportunity with tractable solutions. Upasana Khadka heads<a href="https://www.migration-lab.com/"> Migration Lab</a>, a social enterprise aimed at making migration outcomes better for workers and their families. Labour Mobility is a fortnightly column in Nepali Times. &nbsp;

Low-hanging fruit in UK farms

Nepali Times #1244 (17-23 January 2025)

As a struggling photographer in Bhaktapur 30 years ago, Kishor Kayastha could not even afford furniture. Buying a new lens was out of the question. Later, as one of Nepal’s <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1520">top fashion and travel photographers</a>, Kayastha toured the world, doing shoots in exotic places for famous brands. Money was not as much a limiting factor anymore. Then came the accident. The shoot team was caught in a blizzard in Mustang in 2019, when Kayastha and the horse he was riding tumbled down a steep slope in whiteout conditions.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025010810014_4df10f4086c81192b5e9fdda030c3d2b2b186b549c9b0683a6922dc4b4699ce6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025010810014_4df10f4086c81192b5e9fdda030c3d2b2b186b549c9b0683a6922dc4b4699ce6" data-rendition-name="original" width="3714" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_fe7e94e613c7c6de648043252095475c789260a9a66f88d5d7e349bab9f21c98.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250108050116_fe7e94e613c7c6de648043252095475c789260a9a66f88d5d7e349bab9f21c98" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="911" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>  “My whole life flashed before me,” he recalls, “I was filled with regret for all work I had not done. I suddenly realised all the money in the world cannot buy you life. Miraculously, Kayastha survived and the near-death experience was an epiphany that changed the trajectory of his life. Since then, his photographs have a more dreamlike tone, the visuals documenting an observed reality but transcending it. Which is why a visit to Kishor Kayastha’s ongoing exhibition of 30 ultra-wide panoramas at Nepal Art Council, MUSTANG: A Two-Decade Odyssey, feels like a pilgrimage to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/hibernating-students-of-the-himalaya">Mustang</a>: it is the next best thing to being there oneself. The high resolution prints are vast, some of them 6m wide, and do justice to Mustang’s big sky and the wrinkled, ochre terrain of this arid trans-Himalayan district. Kayastha has been going to Mustang at least four times a year for the past two decades, and the exhibition spans the time in which much has changed with the arrival of the highway, outmigration and climate breakdown. But a lot remains the same. “I first went in 2004 mainly because I could not go to Tibet,” Kayastha relates. “And I found there is a Tibet in Nepal, too. Mustang has always been a refuge, a beyul, to escape the materialistic world of Kathmandu.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_41d004484b0a3471cc441b23360fe187eda813c19ca26314795215f428ddcbaf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250108050116_41d004484b0a3471cc441b23360fe187eda813c19ca26314795215f428ddcbaf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="911" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> <figcaption>Photos: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_131a471fb81aa7d0d314bf08bd5912951bb20d0d3b6977e1c1ff523da6456500.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250108050116_131a471fb81aa7d0d314bf08bd5912951bb20d0d3b6977e1c1ff523da6456500" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="912" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>  Kayastha, now 47, was born into photography. His <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14249">parents owned a studio</a> in Bhaktapur, and as a boy he helped his mother in the darkroom, dipping black and white prints into developers and fixers under a dim red light. Today, everyone with a mobile device is taking pictures, but Kayastha believes photography is more relevant than ever: “Selfies have become selfish. Like they said that the invention of the camera would make paintings obsolete, photography is not going away either.” &nbsp; Anyone who has travelled north of Kagbeni, especially <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/mustang-in-shadows-and-light">in the old days</a> before Sumo jeeps replaced mule trains, will appreciate the tranquility of this windswept plateau where time stood still.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_d478c15cb66377326d0ef88b70f38eaeb9f20b97bd06d7753f04671550881545.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250108050116_d478c15cb66377326d0ef88b70f38eaeb9f20b97bd06d7753f04671550881545" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="911" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>  “The horizon is so wide, the sky so immense, the land so unending that Mustang makes you feel small in the scheme of things. It brings you down to size, both physically and spiritually,” Kayastha says. The extra-wide prints were so big, even the Nepal Art Council’s walls could not accommodate all of them, so Kayastha had to scale some of the photographs down. The sheer size of the images evoke in visitors the finiteness of human existence in time and space.&nbsp; Kayastha speaks to us as he unrolls a stitched panorama of Kagbeni he took in 2004. That image and another one taken from the same spot in 2024 serve as bookends at the exhibition, revealing through repeat photography the passage of time. Kagbeni’s monastery complex is now much bigger, there are new concrete buildings, and scars from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-is-lost-cannot-be-repaid">the great flood last year</a> that tore through town.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_063acabfe6e991f69e1d5eaace3620b4136f2212135f899a5ac0c4e5011e31e6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250108050116_063acabfe6e991f69e1d5eaace3620b4136f2212135f899a5ac0c4e5011e31e6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250108050116_cb401c5d83a34e999f96ab24a69dae2cbe525d575a3a798182ab09bab2490628.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250108050116_cb401c5d83a34e999f96ab24a69dae2cbe525d575a3a798182ab09bab2490628" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="Eyes wide open in Mustang NT"> </figure>  Yet, beyond and above the Kali Gandaki’s fossil-strewn banks, the russet brown folds in the rock strata remind us that in geological timescale human beings have been here for less than a millisecond of a camera’s shutter speed. Kishor Kayastha’s exhibition forces us to think that Mustang’s fierce afternoon winds will keep sculpting its dyed organ pipe cliffs long after we are not here to see them.&nbsp; MUSTANG: A Two Decade Odyssey by Kishor Kayastha Till 14 January, 11AM-4PM Nepal Art Council

Eyes wide open in Mustang

For the last thirty years, Kapil Mani Dixit has been obsessed with the naked human figure. All he has painted are female and male nudes.&nbsp; He has drawn the human body so often that he can paint them from memory. The intention is not to draw perfect bodies like Greek statues, but evoke emotions about human force, frailty or beauty among viewers. “I don’t need models anymore,” says Dixit, who has a solo exhibition Lines of Emotions: Nude Expressions at Takpa Gallery this month. The works break the rules to convey human emotions in a raw, unprocessed style. Fingers can look like toes, and eyes can take the place of heads.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/south-asia-in-the-abstract">South Asia in the abstract</a>, Vishad Raj Onta Only seeing it as nude art would not do justice to Dixit’s pieces. In one painting, a warped female figure is lying on her side, her body spilling onto the ground. “The inspiration for this one was when I saw a woman reclining comfortably in a park,” explains Dixit, moving on to another painting also inspired by a park spectacle: a couple embracing, one figure behind the other making the body look double-headed, multi-armed and hugging itself.&nbsp; Dixit keeps the colours simple and does not hide the underpainting on the canvas. The bodies are jarring but fascinating to look at, they are deliberately imperfect as the artist lets his intuition guide the process.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250103130144_402251ccfa231c45e24caa509dda3b111c3de2c119605db8473cf02fa03fe5d0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250103130144_402251ccfa231c45e24caa509dda3b111c3de2c119605db8473cf02fa03fe5d0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="ART"> </figure>  “I don’t paint over mistakes. They don’t matter to me. Sometimes there are six fingers instead of five,” he says. “I work every day, all the time, fast, in flow. I don’t know what’s going to come out when I sit down to paint.” &nbsp; In many of the paintings at his show, Dixit has abandoned the brush and painted with his fingers, likening this to the feeling of sculpting with clay. The spontaneity and improvisation is different from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">traditional Nepali art forms</a>.&nbsp; But Dixit has faced criticism throughout his career for the nudity he portrays, with some saying it is ‘un-Nepali’. When asked, he replies with the air of someone who is tired of answering this question: “That does not make a lot of sense to me, since I am a Nepali and this is my work. Just look at the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-temple-restoration-after-1934-quake">temples in Kathmandu</a>, you see nudity everywhere.” &nbsp;&nbsp; And yet Nepal deserves a lot of credit: it is a lot more tolerant than many other places in the world today. Even in the US, one of Dixit’s exhibitions was deemed suitable only for people 18 and over. There is no such label at Takpa.&nbsp; “Actually, the art audience in Nepal is quite open-minded to new ideas,” he says. “But I still wish my work would start to be seen more as a form of self-expression, rather than just focusing on the nude aspect. My children have no problem saying in school that their Dad is a nude painter.”&nbsp; Indeed, Dixit thinks he was inspired by his father who used to sketch the human body. He shifted later from drawing landscapes to painting the humanscape.&nbsp; Dixit always knew he was going to be an artist, but it was while pursuing fine art at the University of Texas in Austin that he began drawing nudes. “It was pretty unheard of, for a Nepali, to study art. People were always pushing me towards more sensible fields, like tech,” recalls Dixit, who worked fast food, pizza delivery, and gas station jobs to pay his way. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/Manandhar-fourth-exhibit-Nepal,2641">Empowering expressionism</a> Dixit says he has gone through phases as an artist, and currently he is fascinated by eyes. Large, complex eyes are present in almost all of the pieces at the Takpa exhibition.“The human eye reveals a person’s naked emotion,” he says. “I started painting eyes during the pandemic after noticing how people’s eyes were full of fear and confusion. And with everyone having masks on, the eyes were much more prominent.”&nbsp; Given the modern taboos about nudity and the lack of understanding of post-impressionist art in Nepal, Kapil Mani Dixit’s exhibition is courageous and contemporary. &nbsp; Lines of Emotions: Nude Expressions by Kapil Mani Dixit Takpa Gallery &nbsp;(4 January - 1 February)

Visible to the naked eye

Four Nepali and four Dutch artists will feature in a project to draw attention to what has been lost as Kathmandu Valley is transformed from an integrated rural-urban society to a metropolis of 4 million people. The transition has happened just in the last 30 years with the growth accelerating after the start of the 10-year conflict in 1996. What was once an emerald valley has turned into a concrete jungle. The NEDNEP3 2024/2026 art project of the eight artists will unfold in two phases with a current show till 5 January in the Netherlands, and during the Kathmandu Triennale in February 2026. The ongoing exhibition is in the northern Dutch city of Haarlem at <a href="https://www.devishal.nl/kunst/from-burning-rice-fields-to-urban-growth/" target="_blank">De Vishal</a>, a popular hub of contemporary art.&nbsp; The exhibition is curated by Dutch artists Erna Anema and Renate Schwarz, who have been frequent visitors to Nepal and they have selected the works of four Nepali artists (Sujan Dangol, Kripa Tuladhar, Sunita Maharjan and Sagar Chhetri) along with artists Maartje Smits and Liesbet Bussche and themselves from The Netherlands. Anema and Schwarz spent five weeks at the ceramics workshop of Dil Bahadur Prajapati in Thimi, making their ceramic sculptures for this project and meeting Nepali artists and planning their collaboration. Sujan Dangol was in The Netherlands during the preparations and the grand opening of the exhibition at De Vishal in Haarlem. He also conducted workshops there and at the renowned Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.&nbsp; Erna Anema’s work is titled Moraines to Clay and uses clay, oil on canvas in a large installation. She says, “I want to take you on a journey from the pressed clay circles of the Kathmandu Valley supported by sculptures representing the moraines to the towering ice giants of the Himalayas, which are represented on the left wall in sculptural forms.” Anema’s installation includes two clay tiles sourced from one of the valley’s remaining fertile rice fields.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122804128_04e9ed612274775036fc408a7d957e446b84402926b535c7b740ccd0b4a84442.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024122804128_04e9ed612274775036fc408a7d957e446b84402926b535c7b740ccd0b4a84442" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="From Burning Rice Fields to Urban Growth"> <figcaption>Erna Anema's Moraines to Clay</figcaption> </figure>  Liesbet Bussche’s Building Rings are grinded and sanded out of clay blocks, a light building material often used in quick expanding areas of the city. The installation of the carved rings is combined with brick dust and explores urban materiality from a makers perspective. Liesbet’s first project with clay was realised with Pukar Risal in 2008 in the streets of Kathmandu during NEDNEP 1. Kripa Tuladhar’s Remembrance of Shadows is made of traditional lokta paper and thread and evokes the Asan neighbourhood, which she says becomes a canvas of its people, marked by those who have passed through it. “Layers of movement from the footsteps of our ancestors, crumbling bricks and windows, and the future pushing its way against the old reshaping it,” she adds, “cutting out these traces in paper, layering them, like the city’s layers of history, memories of the city are encapsulated in fleeting shadows.” Renate Schwarz has sculptures titled Jars of Then and Now with clay and plastic taps that draw attention to water. The abundance of it in the lake that was once Kathmandu Valley, torrential rain, the glacial streams in the mountains. Water irrigated the Valley’s soil, making it fertile. Says Schwarz: “The transformation of the Kathmandu Valley has struck me ever since my first visit in 1984. What a mega tsunami of change has come over this valley … with my sculptures I express the delicate balance between water, clay and craftsmanship.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122804124_92e1b1a2b10f9fc3e91691989bf44302d9b1ce81c77b0187db2c9f0e3579667d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024122804124_92e1b1a2b10f9fc3e91691989bf44302d9b1ce81c77b0187db2c9f0e3579667d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="From Burning Rice Fields to Urban Growth"> <figcaption>Renate Schwarz's Jars of Then and Now</figcaption> </figure>  Nepali photographer Sagar Chhetri’s Brutality of Geometry explores the definition of land and how earth, soil, vegetation all become monetised commodities. The photographs depict the greed that drives the ecocide of hillsides by real estate ‘plotting’ on the Valley’s rim. The photos show maps of property, and Chhetri explains: “As an artist, I wish to respond to and investigate this geometry of brutality on the land in depth.” Sujan Dangol’s Mandala is a mixed media tribute to the original fertility of Kathmandu Valley with a collection of 54 types of grain, beans, and spices that used to grow here. He also collected bamboo, copper, glass, plastic, and steel utensils to represent the shift from an agricultural era to an industrial one. “The place which we call home—the Earth—is not only ours. Coexistence with animals, birds, plants, insects, water, and soil is essential for the well-being of our Ecosystem,” Dangol says.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122804124_058b88c5a00c1a8ab178b37a734cfb900eeb090d8e5602eb6469049e28300a98.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024122804124_058b88c5a00c1a8ab178b37a734cfb900eeb090d8e5602eb6469049e28300a98" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="From Burning Rice Fields to Urban Growth"> <figcaption>Sujan Dangol's Mandala</figcaption> </figure>  Sunita Maharjan’s Curtain of Change is stencil print on handmade cotton and depicts her hometown of Kirtipur, where the ancestral lands of her ancestors are now occupied by Tribhuvan University. “The continuous influx of students has altered the fabric of Kirtipur - both figuratively and literally,” Maharjan says. “In Curtain of Change I want to document and comment on the evolving identity of my hometown, where urbanisation, industrialisation, and educational migration intersect, leaving both visible and invisible marks on the community.” In Wild Bees in the Netherlands Maartje Smits uses letterpress prints on paper to show the &nbsp;sudden disappearance of honeybees in Europe, and how the artist decided to become a beekeeper, hoping it would help. But honeybees are competing for survival with wild bee species. “Just as with the Kathmandu Valley, the Dutch landscape has been hollowed out and built up.” She says. “Food and nesting places for flying pollinators are scarce, so trying to save one species can mean the demise of another.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122804124_16461120522a119da0966d714da5e20f67c123fccc8a029419dc344e5d6b35ea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2024122804124_16461120522a119da0966d714da5e20f67c123fccc8a029419dc344e5d6b35ea" data-rendition-name="original" width="1658" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="From Burning Rice Fields to Urban Growth"> </figure>  NEDNEP3 2024/2026 From Burning Rice Fields to Urban Growth De Vishal, Haarlem (29 November-5 January) Kathmandu Triennale in Nepal (February 2026)

Rice fields to concrete terraces

South of Janakpur near the Indian border is the village of Phulgama. Out of its population of 4,500, nearly every household here has at least one son who is a migrant worker abroad.&nbsp; Some 40% of Nepali men between the ages of 20-35 are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/die-first-get-paid-later">migrant workers abroad</a>, mainly in India, the Gulf states or Malaysia. In the last nine months alone, 741,297 people travelled overseas: mostly to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia and Kuwait. This does not include those who left on student visas, and there are no records of how many went to India. Most end up working in ‘3D jobs’ — &nbsp;dirty, dangerous and difficult. There is also a fourth D: dehydrating work.&nbsp; Risky outdoor as manual workers, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/too-hot-to-work">excessive heat of the desert in the Gulf</a> or humidity of the tropical jungles of Malaysia, poor diet, dehydration and unhealthy lifestyles all contribute to a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/A-mysterious-rash-of-kidney-failures,3639">higher risk of kidney failure among Nepali migrant workers</a>. Dhanusha district has one of the highest proportions of workers migrating for work to India and abroad. Nephrologists call kidney disease ‘the silent killer’ because patients do not show symptoms until it is too late, and migrant workers are especially susceptible to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) or End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).&nbsp; Increasing demand for cheap labour and minimum pre-departure health awareness training makes migration more risky than it should be. From a survey of hospitals and dialysis centres in Dhanusha and Kathmandu, the risk of kidney failure<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/saving-kidneys-to-save-nepal"> appears higher among male migrant workers</a> than in Nepali men of the same age group.&nbsp; “This disease is idiopathic, meaning it is not caused by one specific factor,” explains Rishi Kafle of the National Kidney Center Nepal. “But after screening migrant workers going to the Gulf and developing End-Stage Renal Disease in 3-4 years, we can say that migration increases the likelihood of kidney failure.” Kafle adds: “Because of the need to maximise earnings, working in extreme heat for long hours dehydrates them. And many opt for Coca-Cola and meat instead of healthier water and vegetables.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118070128_b86cd132e88fecad9cde6d6faa648f76b40979660e6d28e846b25469668df9d8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250118070128_b86cd132e88fecad9cde6d6faa648f76b40979660e6d28e846b25469668df9d8" data-rendition-name="original" width="4032" height="3024" loading="lazy" alt="Dirty, dangerous, difficult, and dehydrating NT"> <figcaption>All photos: PINKI SRIS RANA</figcaption> </figure>  While the risk of kidney failure is higher in returnee migrant workers in Nepal, the disease is on the rise globally due to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sick-of-it">lifestyle changes,</a> diabetes or undiagnosed hypertension. Currently, there are 28,266 kidney patients enrolled in the <a href="https://dohs.gov.np/">Department of Health Services</a> for free treatment under the government’s <a href="https://mohp.gov.np/program/medical-treatment-of-deprived-citizens/np">Bipanna Nagarik Kosh</a>, of which 17,044 are male and 11,222 female. Just in the past year, 9,176 more patients were added to the fund. Most hospitalised kidney patients are from age 15-65. In a healthy person, toxins and waste in the blood are filtered by the kidneys. But patients with kidney failure need to circulate their blood regularly through a haemodialysis machine. The whole process takes about 3-4 hours and causes blood vessels in the arms to swell over time. Nearly 2 million Nepalis suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is about 8% of the population. The rise in diabetes and hypertension is contributing to an increase in the disease. Everyone from migrant workers to many of Nepal’s top politicians suffer from kidney failure. Prime Minister Oli himself has had two kidney transplants. Even with dialysis twice a week, some patients develop nausea, swelling and other problems when they eat or drink. The extra dialysis sessions cost money, and the livelihood allowance given to patients is never enough or timely. Not every migrant working in hot climates returns with kidney disease, but a recent yet-to-be-published study led by nephrologist Sailendra Sharma states that one-fourth of all kidney patients in Nepal are migrant returnees. It points to recurrent heat stress as a primary risk factor. The<a href="https://mihs.edu.np/"> Madhesh Institution of Health Sciences</a> in Janakpur has 103 regular patients who come for dialysis. Of them, 30 are returnee migrants not just from Dhanusha, but also Sarlahi, Siraha, Mahottari and Sindhuli. “Not by the nature of the disease, but the way kidney disease is growing, I would call it an epidemic,” adds Kafle. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118070128_43731248e116cfdc42bfc08b8f7d71e5ff3d44b938065a5ad9e9a337e666b9c7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250118070128_43731248e116cfdc42bfc08b8f7d71e5ff3d44b938065a5ad9e9a337e666b9c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1463" height="798" loading="lazy" alt="Dirty, dangerous, difficult, and dehydrating NT"> <figcaption>HARD LABOUR: Jagdish Sah shows a picture from his time in Malaysia.</figcaption> </figure>  Jagdish Sah left for Malaysia ten years ago. He had taken a loan for his sister’s marriage and he had to pay it back. As the eldest son, he was also expected to get married next, but he faced multiple rejections. “Women have expectations too. They want to get married to well-to-do families. They didn’t want to get married to a family that lived in a mud house like ours,” says Sah, now 35. Foreign employment was a one-stop solution to his problems. Or so he thought. Sah was 24 when he left for a tailoring job at a garment factory in Malaysia. He often worked overtime, sometimes up to 12 hours a day in the hopes of earning extra ringgits. Even so, his highest monthly income would only be Rs35,000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118070128_7dd5030951c805302adec46afdef623bbdbb6fe1c0f12b7a77fd612531865af1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250118070128_7dd5030951c805302adec46afdef623bbdbb6fe1c0f12b7a77fd612531865af1" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1536" loading="lazy" alt="Dirty, dangerous, difficult, and dehydrating NT"> <figcaption>Sah at a garment factory in Malaysia where he worked, often dehydrated, and not taking toilet breaks to earn more.</figcaption> </figure>  Workers got a 30-minute break for lunch, and there were limited toilet breaks. So, Sah just worked straight out. Back in Nepal for a break in 2017, Sah had blurred vision and fainted. He thought it was high blood pressure, but a few months later at age 28, he was diagnosed with double kidney failure. “Whatever he saved in Malaysia went for his treatment in Kathmandu. We even sold a plot of our land,” recalled Sah’s mother, Mantoriya Devi.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118070128_dc353dd6ce449c05bda6d562907dd961d8900c1b747dc4afec1680bb65b805b7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250118070128_dc353dd6ce449c05bda6d562907dd961d8900c1b747dc4afec1680bb65b805b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="3995" height="2871" loading="lazy" alt="Dirty, dangerous, difficult, and dehydrating NT"> <figcaption>Sah is now gaunt and frail in this picture taken duing his biweekly dialysis at Madhesh Institute of Health Sciences in Janakpur recently.</figcaption> </figure>  Sah drives his motorcycle twice a week from his village to the Madhesh Institute of Health Sciences in Janakpur for free dialysis. His family says it is as if the Jagdish who went to Malaysia and the one who came back are two different people. &nbsp; “This disease has already doomed my life. Why ruin someone else’s?” says Sah of his lack of marriage prospects. “It is because of dialysis that I have survived so far.” His parents are too old and occupied with their chores to accompany him. Since Jagdish cannot work, his father, Ram Dev sells popcorn by the sidewalk from a wheeled cart. Mithu Kumar went to Saudi Arabia to work as an electrical supervisor two years ago. He was 25. Recently when he started vomiting, he was taken to a local hospital. He was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and was sent back to Nepal. As Kumar lays down for his dialysis treatment at Save Lives Hospital in Janakpur, he says, “My only wish is that I am healthy enough to work again.”&nbsp; Umesh Kumar Yadav also worked in Saudi Arabia as a guard. He returned with chronic kidney disease, but he says he is the only one to contract the ailment among all the returnees from his village. “Only the ill-fated people have this disease,” says Yadav. “Otherwise, it would have been the same for every other person from the village who is abroad working.” Ambar Bahadur Sarki, 46, travels from Sindhuli for three hours every Monday and Thursday to Janakpur for his free dialysis at the Madesh Institute of Health Sciences. Sarki worked in a palm oil plantation in Malaysia, where heat stress often exceeded the wet-bulb threshold for heat and humidity. “It was extremely hot at all times,” he remembers. He first got hypertension, which made both his kidneys fail. Ram Udgar Mandal from Dhanusha started working in Saudi Arabia in his late twenties. He spent the next 17 years in the desert working as a driver. Now in his late forties, he was diagnosed with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) four years ago.&nbsp; But this is an intergenerational cycle. Mandal’s son has now also gone to Malaysia to supplement the family income. He fears his son will meet the same fate as him. “We do not have a choice, do we?” he says. Lalit Balampaki, 28, from Dhanusa was diagnosed with ESRD a year earlier in Dubai. He stays in Kathmandu along with his older brother’s family on a rented floor. Balampaki worked in extreme heat conditions in a smelting factory in Dubai. He had to work night shifts twice or thrice a week. Sleep deprivation and extended periods without food were part of his daily routine. The pay was good, but his savings have all gone now towards hospital fees. “More than the money, I earned the disease,” says Balampaki. &nbsp; Suraj Thapa Magar, 30, was the sole breadwinner of his family. He installed aluminum windows and doors in Kuwait “It was the hottest in summer and coldest in winter,” says Magar, who worked for 10 hours a day even in 50°C. He also often neglected hydration, and one night he vomited blood. At 26, he was diagnosed with ESRD and has been in Nepal ever since. Thapa has no other choice than to rely on the Rs5,000 allowance, but even that is not timely and not enough. He has to take loans to travel for his dialysis. The government hospitals are supposed to provide some medicines for free, but they are often out of stock. Thapa has looked for jobs, but kidney disease is a stigma and no one wants to hire him. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*** In 2016, Nepal started providing free hemodialysis treatment for the poorest patients. Two years later, a monthly livelihood allowance of Rs5,000 was to be distributed to patients suffering from chronic diseases like dual-kidney failure and cancer. Free dialysis is provided in 107 hospitals across the country, but that is only in theory. Many facilities do not have nephrologists because the government does not provide salaries. The machines also often are not working because they need constant maintenance. Among the 11 hospitals that provide free dialysis in Madhes Province, three are in Janakpur. Nepali Times visited the enlisted hospitals but there were no nephrologists to supervise the treatment, and they were run by general physicians or senior nurses.&nbsp; “The government does not provide adequate salaries for the nephrologists,” says Kafle. “That is why nephrologists are mainly affiliated with the private hospitals.” Bagmati Province has 44 hospitals with free dialysis, which is why many dual-kidney failure patients have opted to live in Kathmandu. The hospitals service over 8,000 kidney patients.&nbsp; Since most of them are migrant workers, the end result is that Nepal’s poorly-resourced health system ends up bearing the cost of treating kidneys that failed while working as labourers in hot, rich countries. &nbsp;

Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult ... and Dehydrating

Many indigenous peoples throughout the world have inked tattoos for aesthetic and therapeutic reasons which respect their culture and traditions.&nbsp; That includes Tharu women in Nepal who have tattooed themselves with traditional motifs that tell stories about their ancestry and the natural world. The Nat are a nomadic ethnic group that pitch tents near villages to do odd jobs. While the men hunt birds and small mammals, or fish, the women tattoo other women.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140112_c5ac4bfb3ec021aafc3e9d423677531effe51dd1c3ad2dcfc45f936a427eb4e4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250118140112_c5ac4bfb3ec021aafc3e9d423677531effe51dd1c3ad2dcfc45f936a427eb4e4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2220" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>BODY OF ART: Garbhi Dasin Tharuni shows elephants and warriors tattoed on her arm.</figcaption> </figure>  Ghurni Chaudhary, 70, from Saptari remembers getting one of her tattoos from a Nat woman in return for cooking for them. Elders told Ghurni that her in-laws would not accept food from her hand if she did not get tattooed. “Although I don’t know the meaning of floral patterns on my arms, I got inked the pokhair tattoo with a small boat and oarsman,” she adds. The pokhair is a pond in the Tharu language and the tattoo consists of four corners of a pond – a floral pattern at each corner. The boat symbolises the crossing of the river of life to the other side.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140112_325a509d3481e03837df90154667d94efe823adb245adeb24c560f5877dd00fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250118140112_325a509d3481e03837df90154667d94efe823adb245adeb24c560f5877dd00fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>A woman from Kailali with peacock tattoos on her legs.</figcaption> </figure>  Interestingly, the Tharu epic Gurbabak Jalmauti talks about Gurbaba, the creator of the earth, going to a safer place with his disciples on a boat during the apocalypse. Most Tharu women also get inked with floral patterns to get freedom from the endless cycle of life and death and a symbol of nirvana.&nbsp; Ahilya Devi, 80, proudly shows a simple thopa-thopi tattoo on her left arm made with rosette motifs that are supposed to ward off the evil eye. &nbsp; “It is one of the simplest tattoos – it’s easy to make for the tattoo artist and looks great on the arm,” she says. “I just have that one, and didn’t want any more.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140112_354240247ef70bd3f42ecca3f405014ac2aee2b6b7496d945ffaf545c9696d34.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250118140112_354240247ef70bd3f42ecca3f405014ac2aee2b6b7496d945ffaf545c9696d34" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2220" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>Kashia Chaudhary with a sago palm and marigold on the back of her lower arms.</figcaption> </figure>  The Tharu are forest-dwellers and grow trees in their backyard. Which is why Tharu women from eastern Nepal have a tattoo of the garden of the god Salahesh with flowers and an Ashoka tree. Kashia Chaudhary shows off her tattoos of sago palm and marigold flower, inked on the back of her lower arm. Another tattoo that covers the whole of the upper or lower arm represents an areca nut palm. Many women in the village of Ramdhuni in Sunsari wear tattoos of the god Ram and his brother Laxman. Ramdhuni has an eternal flame which is believed to have kept burning from the days of the Ramayana. Lord Ram is supposed to have spent a night here before his exile.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140116_3b072bd43cbafa4dc3ae12b4c7f55b2643e8f92ce3a23a5cfc9699a70f3128f4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250118140116_3b072bd43cbafa4dc3ae12b4c7f55b2643e8f92ce3a23a5cfc9699a70f3128f4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2220" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>Ghurni Chaudhary's parents told her that her in-laws would only accept food from her if she got a tattoo.</figcaption> </figure>  Garbhi Dasin, an ascetic in her 70s, wears Ram Laxman tattoos on her calf and wheels of a chariot on her shin. Ashia Tharuni from the neighbouring village also wears a Ram Laxman tattoo on her legs. Interestingly, the sacred tattoos find a place on women’s legs, and that too on the rear side. &nbsp; Other Tharu women simply got these tattoos as a sign of beauty, and inking is regarded as permanent jewellery. The block tattoos of peacocks on the legs add to the aesthetic. “We got tattoos to look beautiful,” says Bhuti Devi from Hasanpur village. “These tattoos will accompany us when we die. They will go together with us.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140116_62cc2c0cbd36f64d40aaee8900bbd851d5d009df10689fb27ed39c4059a3c484.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250118140116_62cc2c0cbd36f64d40aaee8900bbd851d5d009df10689fb27ed39c4059a3c484" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2220" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>Peacock and tiger tattoos on Chanabati Tharu's legs.</figcaption> </figure>  Bhuti Devi has a lot of tattoos. The most outstanding one perhaps is that of a peacock because Tharus believe they are descendants of Mauryas, the dynasty of Emperor Ashoka who spread Buddhism across the Subcontinent. Tharus have an important relationship with fish, regarding them and earthworms as the first life on the planet. Fish tattoos are therefore popular.&nbsp; Tharus have been credited for their role in nature conservation in their homeland where Chitwan and Bardia national parks are now situated. They used to be elephant handlers for royalty. The elephant tattoo with a mahout is common in tattoos worn by Tharu women.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140116_8a2f434c0f525cc8eb29e4f4032154d8adb9fa07593e3523dd4585836b6aee02.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250118140116_8a2f434c0f525cc8eb29e4f4032154d8adb9fa07593e3523dd4585836b6aee02" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>Kailali woman with tattoos on her legs.</figcaption> </figure>  One woman in Sunsari even has a tattoo called German ke larai (German war) which is a complex tattoo design that includes armies on foot with spears, on elephants, and on horses doing battle. Tigers are another tattoo that adorn the chest or the upper arm of women, inked on top of other motifs, because they are regarded as goddesses.&nbsp; On Nepali New Year, Tharus worship the goddess and other jungle gods, sacrificing goats and pigeons to appease them, so that they and their cattle are not attacked by wild animals and evil spirits. In western Nepal, Tharus get tattoos of horses, animals they revere.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118140116_6eb8b5b2129dd3ed687e2d77eeed7f11107aa7b4320eac00396c64130c7dbe17.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250118140116_6eb8b5b2129dd3ed687e2d77eeed7f11107aa7b4320eac00396c64130c7dbe17" data-rendition-name="original" width="2220" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> <figcaption>Bhuti Devi shows her fish tattoo. The Tharu believe fish and earthworms were the first life on the planet</figcaption> </figure>  Some of the tattoos that the artists inked for free were simple human patterns. If somebody got many tattoos made, the artists would also ink them for free, particularly on fingers or the arm. The most prominent tattoo on their hands can be the rays of the sun. The tattoo artist usually stuck seven needles together, collected soot from oil lamps and started piercing the skin. Once done, they applied turmeric powder and mustard oil, as well as chanted a mantra to alleviate the pain. Tharu elders banned child marriages and tattooing went into decline. Now, the younger generation of Tharus are less interested in getting traditional tattoos, and the Nat no longer wander around the villages offering the service. But a few Tharu tattoo artists still remain in Kanchanpur and elsewhere.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118030124_92e13f2c7a12c6fc1883658acdb8697953ef8f03b73934a845cb1c38056d63ba.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250118030124_92e13f2c7a12c6fc1883658acdb8697953ef8f03b73934a845cb1c38056d63ba" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Inking an identity NT"> </figure>  There is now an increasing awareness and activism about these cultural practices, and a revival of interest.&nbsp; “Traditional tattoos are a powerful symbol of our cultural identity,” says Tharu activist Indu Tharu. “For us, this is not just body art but a connection to our ancestral roots, beliefs, and history, and a form of reclaiming unique cultural practices that have been marginalised and suppressed. Wearing a tattoo is a visible declaration of pride in who I am and where I come from.” KalaKulo, an art initiative, together with artist collective ArTree Nepal, organised Tika Chhedana Angana, a convention on Tharu tattooing in Bardia last year.&nbsp; Many young tattoo artists are now learning the art to keep their culture alive. It was not only a celebration of the legacy of Tharu women who have carried a universe of images on their skin, but a beginning for new tattoo artists in the very land that shaped and nurtured this ancestral tradition. &nbsp;&nbsp; <h2>Skin art for the journey into afterlife</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118030144_e7f13fa6dab5de6f9feb051175065d59a610eebe41d5306148d9695efb347047.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250118030144_e7f13fa6dab5de6f9feb051175065d59a610eebe41d5306148d9695efb347047" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="911" loading="lazy" alt="Skin art for journey into afterlife NT"> <figcaption>Photos: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>  As the art and craft of traditional tattoo fades, so does this rich heritage Lha-Chyogu is the term for tattooing in the Newa community of Kathmandu Valley. It literally means 'writing on the skin'. The tattoos are traditionally made using cactus needles and herbal ink, and although a more common adornment in women, men and children also got inked, not just for aesthetics but also for therapeutic reasons or to protect them from evil spirits. Tattoos on the legs symbolise strength while one on the right arm stands for energy. The concept of reincarnation of the human soul is also linked with inking on the skin and reflects a deep belief system.&nbsp; Elders also believe that when a person dies, they take nothing but their tattoos with them. On their way to heaven or hell, it is the markings on the skin that is believed to be the travel 'pocket money' into the next realm. They pay their way through for an easier journey, wherever that may lead.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250118030144_4db8f43552a7872f5d05b5d5b48ce43268ad5adc7c3c00c8dacbdacbd9167fca.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250118030144_4db8f43552a7872f5d05b5d5b48ce43268ad5adc7c3c00c8dacbdacbd9167fca" data-rendition-name="original" width="1366" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="Skin art for the journey to afterlife NT"> </figure>  Then there is the widespread belief that tattoos drive away misfortune, possibly tied to frequent cholera epidemics, earthquakes and other diseases that took young lives.&nbsp; Some of the more famous designs are those of the half-moons, Tikijhya lattice windows, animals and deities. Some even get tattoos of gods and goddesses they were named after.&nbsp; For example, Laxmidevi would have a tattoo of the god of wealth whereas someone called Ram might have chosen to have his image on their body. &nbsp; Chini Dangol, 74, of Lagan Tole in Kathmandu has a tattoo of Krishna playing flute on her right arm and a half-moon on her hand. She remembers paying 1 paisa for the moon, but five times more for tattoos of gods. Her 79-year-old husband has a tattoo of Chakuncha, a sparrow (pictured above), but it is barely visible now. He remembers getting it because everyone else was at the time in his neighbourhood. Suman Nepali Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/from-paintbrush-to-tattoo-needle">From paintbrush to tattoo needle</a>, Naresh Newar

Inking an identity

With her husband unemployed, it was difficult to manage the household expenses. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/soaring-debt">Debt was piling up,</a> and Sonika Sanjel saw <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/foreign-employment-revival">foreign employment </a>as her only way out. “I was always fighting with my husband because we didn’t have enough to get by so I found a middleman,” says Sanjel. The broker said she had to go to India overland and then fly to Kuwait from Delhi. Having travelled far from home, first to Kathmandu and then to Raxaul in Birganj, she was ready to go to an even more unfamiliar place if it meant it would free her from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/till-debt-do-us-part">financial trap</a>. Sanjel reached the border town of Belahiya in November, where volunteers deployed to control <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/human-trafficking-patterns-changing-in-south-asia">human trafficking </a>became suspicious and questioned her. She told them she was going to Kuwait but could not produce the necessary documents. They were telling her she was being trafficked, when the recruiter disappeared. She is now at the Shanti Rehabilitation Home in Bhairawa. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/two-decades-of-debate-on-female-migration">Two decades of debate on female migration</a>, Upasana Khadka Nitesh Kumar Chaudhary heads the organisation monitoring human trafficking at the border, and says that the number of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/trafficked-nepali-woman-s-testimony">Nepali women being trafficked</a> has increased significantly. “We have been stopping those we suspect,” he adds, “but some may have slipped through.” Organisations working on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/migration-not-a-wish-but-necessity-for-nepalis">migration</a> and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-goal-is-empowerment-and-independence-of-women">women’s issues</a> in the area including the Peace Rehabilitation Center, Aafanta Nepal, Sana Haat and Shubha Avar Gram provided counselling to nearly 33,000 women at the Belhiya border crossing in the past year. Of them, nearly 800 women were trying to go to a third country to bypass a ban on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/female-migrant-workers-hold-up-half-the-sky">women migrant workers</a>. Nepali women used to be <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/people-to-people-at-india-nepal-border">trafficked to India</a> to work in the sex industry, but the recruiters have now shifted to luring them to third countries. However, those going overland via India are also sometimes stranded in Mumbai and Delhi and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/epicentre-trafficking-migration,3256">sold to brothels</a>.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250117050144_04798f07ac862be15b5862cf3e276256ed800d4a522e30306b3befaa00199e7b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250117050144_04798f07ac862be15b5862cf3e276256ed800d4a522e30306b3befaa00199e7b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1033" height="580" loading="lazy" alt="Women on the move NT"> </figure>  So far, 15 human trafficking and smuggling cases have been filed at the district police office in the last five years. Deputy Superintendent of Police Suraj Karki also confirms that the number of women traveling to third countries overland through India has increased. “There is an increasing trend of women travelling India on foot and then flying off to other countries from there,” says Sita Pantha of the group SAMI. “Those who take this route are at a much higher risk.” Just on one day two months ago, 13 women were stopped at Belahiya checkpoint. Other checkpoints on this side of the border in Biratnagar, Birganj, Nepalganj, and Mahendranagar have also seen <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-baby-export">human trafficking cases</a>. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/girl-trafficking-in-nepal,1829">Teach to fight trafficking</a>, Stéphane Huët Following some high-profile cases of violence against Nepali female workers in the Gulf, the Nepal government on the recommendation of the International Relations Committee of Parliament banned women from travelling to the region in 2016. But women continue to migrate in the absence of other <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/life-and-livelihood-in-remote-nepal">livelihood options</a> at home, often resorting to illegal routes and at much higher costs. Gyanu Poudel of the Namuna Integrated Development Council that works in human trafficking and social awareness in Bhairawa says that the risk has increased since the government closed the legal route to migration. “The government banned women workers from going to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrants-returning-from-the-gulf-with-infertility">the Gulf</a> because of abuse and exploitation but it did not give them an alternative either,” points out Poudel. “This ban should be reconsidered to ensure that women go through the legal route safely.” Following the ban, middlemen are now using tourist visas to get women workers to the Gulf. Recruiters also pay immigration officials at Kathmandu airport to look the other way. Sunita Pahari of Lalitpur reached the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a tourist visa in August 2023. But unable to land a good job, she jumped from a building three months later. Nearly 300 female migrant workers have died abroad in the past 14 years.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250117050144_f58df7097c5d9689e284a0957ee03b12ad728d26df3fc673e75efd4b39bda7d7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250117050144_f58df7097c5d9689e284a0957ee03b12ad728d26df3fc673e75efd4b39bda7d7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1339" height="750" loading="lazy" alt="Women on the move NT"> </figure>  The report by the Ministry of Labour also considers suicide as a major cause of death among Nepali workers in the Gulf and Malaysia. According to the report, 1,187 Nepali migrant workers have died by suicide in the same period. Of these, 10-15% are women. Tikaram Dhakal at the Foreign Employment Board says that women who take a backdoor to the Gulf are undocumented and essentially illegal in these destination countries. Nepali embassies there do not have any information on them, which means they have no recourse<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-abused-by-nepalis-in-luxembourg"> in case of abuse </a>or exploitation of any form, they are deprived of services and compensation of any kind. Brokers who take women to India via land and fly them to third countries are known to lure unemployed people in the villages, tempting them with free visa and ticket. Sunita Ram of Jhapa received a similar offer. The broker also told her that she would earn Rs55,000 a month in Kuwait. Ram made a passport soon after, and before long was at the Sunali border about to cross into India when she was stopped. She wasn’t arrested because the broker wasn’t with her and instead taken to the Peace Rehabilitation Center, from where she was handed over to her relatives. Panchamaya Tamang from Sindhupalchok was also lured by a broker with an offer of a free visa and ticket. But when she was trying to cross the border, she was found without necessary documents, and without a middleman. She was sent back home. Women going for foreign employment via India are between 20-35 years, most of them from ethnic and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-marginalised-on-the-margins">marginalised communities</a>. Gyanu Poudel of the Namuna Integrated Development Council cautions aspiring women migrants against tempting offers while also noting, “It seems that the brokers are targeting uneducated women from remote villages.”

Women on the move

Kusum Devi Dagaura has chaired a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/reviving-nepals-community-forestry-success-story">community forest</a> group in Kailali for three years. In that time, the forest has thrived on her watch, but she has never been allowed to take any decision. The Mohanyal Community Forest Users Committee seven-member executive committee includes five women and two men. The men call the shots. “Sometimes they pretend to listen to us, but in the end, whatever the men say goes,” says Dagaura. As chair, she once suggested that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/adding-fuel-to-the-funeral-pyres">timber</a> from their forest be provided for free to the most underserved, including the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/reaffirming-affirmative-action">Dalit and indigenous communities</a>. But the men disagreed, and the poorest in the village had to pay to use timber they helped protect. Once Dagaura was assaulted during a dispute over <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-can-up-forest-cover-to-45-by-2030-duwuo37q">forest conservation</a>, and she asked the committee to bear the cost of treatment. The two male members refused. Dagaura is from the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/5-myths-about-the-tharu">Tharu community</a>, and a freed bonded labourer. She never went to school but learnt to read and write participating in an adult education program. Many community forests across Nepal are led by women, and rules require a woman to be either the chair or secretary of working committees, and that stipulates that half the members are women. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/safeguarding-the-soul-of-sal">Safeguarding the soul of sal</a>, Lila Nath Sharma The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/taking-away-forests-from-communities?fb_comment_id=2705189856162677_4626131784068465">Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN)</a> includes 22,415 community forests across the country, out of which 1,072 are headed by women. Kailali is among the districts with the most community forests in Nepal with 700 locally protected forest committees out of which 150 are led by women.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025011512010_adac73267cafcace9af323a7237b13b1cd18e0fdbb08753867a7895131f7f187.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025011512010_adac73267cafcace9af323a7237b13b1cd18e0fdbb08753867a7895131f7f187" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="482" loading="lazy" alt="Women in conservation (2)"> </figure>  Women have played a crucial role in forest conservation, and expanding Nepal’s forest cover, which has grown to nearly 46% of the country’s area from just 25% 30 years ago. Tej Rani Chaudhary is a member of the Hariyali Community Forest Users Group, which has a male chair and five women among the total eight members in the working committee. The forest was registered 20 years ago by Chaudhary and a group of women. “When we registered the forest, the men scoffed at us and questioned our ability to manage it,” &nbsp;recalls Chaudhary. “It wasn’t just unkind words, the men undermined our efforts by allowing their animals to graze in the forest and even smuggled logs out.” When the women resisted and brought the forest to a healthy state, the men took over control of the committee. Chaudhary says, “When the forest improved, we were forced to hand over leadership to the men.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepal-s-tigers">Villagers step up to protect Nepal’s tigers</a> Women forestry committee members add that the men constantly belittle them, discouraging them from voicing any opinion during the working committee meetings. But the women are resisting. “Whenever we do not agree with the points being made during committee meetings, we simply get up and walk out in a group,” says Chaudhary. Women who chair or are members of community forest user committees say that despite being in leadership positions, they are tasked with forest maintenance and conservation, while men have control over the budget, accounting, and resource distribution. “They task the women with fire control, tree plantation, fencing, and conservation, without being paid anything,” says Dagaura of Mohanyal Community Forest. Karna Rawal, vice-president of the Kailali chapter of FECOFUN, says that men reject the authority and dominate the decision-making processes in 60% of community forests that are led by women. “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-leaders-unable-to-accept-women-in-power">The non-acceptance of women in leadership</a> is not just limited by male office-bearers, but also by other employees,” he admits. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/women-leaders-seen-but-not-heard">Women who lead </a>community forests also face pressure from family members and society. Jhuma Chaudhary, who heads FECOFUN’s Sudurpaschim Province chapter, says the role of women in Nepal’s community forestry success story is being undermined by discrimination. She says: “Women are actively participating in conservation, but have not yet been given control of resources that help manage our forests better. We must ensure that changes. Starting now.”

Women conserve, men still conservative

A young non-resident Newa person in Dallas emails a New York Times article to his grandfather in Nepal who cannot read English.
Grandad copies the English text, pastes it into Google Translate to read it in Newari.
This translation feature, available to the world’s major languages, can now also be used by the indigenous people of Kathmandu Valley to translate their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/decoding-diversity?fbclid=IwAR3P0GygTCQ7HE-LaaVOhmKSyUDLlIrR2l9VzXKwCFJ8Em7YFHSAOiiXqQE">mother tongue</a> into English and vice versa.
This involved three-and-a-half years of effort and will impact everyday life in the study and preservation of Newa culture. It also shows a path forward to Nepal’s 123 other languages and dialects.
The World Newah Organisation (WNO) in 2011 invited Newa people from around the world to a convention in London. Software engineer and historian Sanyukta Shrestha was involved, and now leads WNO.
The top priority for discussion was how to conserve the language which was classified as ‘definitely endangered’ by UNESCO, with only 850,000 speakers left.
“The Newa people are diverse: there are different sects, religions. The language and the calendar are what is common,” explains Shrestha. “The strategy was to unite the community behind an existing technology.”
Ujjwal Rajbhandari, an engineer at Google who does not even speak the language, got involved. “I thought why not take advantage of a great tool that already exists,” Rajbhandari, who is co-founder at Qubrid AI in Austin, Texas, told us on the phone.
Work started December 2020, but the prognosis was bleak. Engineers said that the project may take up to 10 years. Translate runs on a ‘transformer’, a machine learning neural network designed to take sequences as input, uses math to understand the context, and outputs a probable output. It uses an ‘attention’ mechanism, which looks at the input text and tries to work out the relationships of each word to each other word.
The more data you feed this statistical monster, the better it gets. But that was the first problem. There was a dire lack of digital material, either in Newari, bilingual Newari-Nepali or Newari-English dictionaries.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/languages-are-both-software-and-hardware">Languages are both software and hardware</a>
“Tens of thousands of digital pages of content were needed, so in 2021 we met with the editors of Newa magazines and asked to scan and digitise their material,” Shrestha recalls. “We hunted down writers, publishers, songwriters, invitation cards - anything that was written in Nepalbhasa.” &nbsp;
Google gave WNO a sheet of 1,200 sentences from random contexts, to be translated. WNO formed a committee to complete this task, and by April 2021, Translate could at least identify the language.
Nepalbhasa can be written in 13 different scripts, the two most popular are the Ranjana and Devanagari. The team chose the latter because there is a lot more material in Nepalbhasa in Devanagari, and many more people who can type in it. “Devanagari is what has allowed any of this work at all,” points out Shrestha. “Translation was the much harder problem to solve, converting output to another face is much easier.”
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lost-in-translation">Lost in translation</a>, Alisha Sijapati
Now the model needed a large volume of input from the community. “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/tech-and-transition-in-nepal">Every AI model</a> is dependent on the volume of data, even that which is introduced later. User corrections are fed back, which makes the model more robust,” says Rajbhandari.
This happened to be at peak pandemic-time. People knew how to video-chat and had time on their hands. WNO members met for one or two hours in the evening, on a Zoom call that they also broadcast on Facebook. People worked together translating. Which was very effective, because they could get instant input or feedback from others on the call. “It was cool to see was how this brought together elders who knew the language deeply, and the youngsters who have the tech skills,” says Rajbhandari.
By February 2024 there were 500,000 contributions, and Google deemed that this volume of data was sufficient for the model to ‘level up’. Translate added Nepalbhasa to its list of supported languages in June last year. The language had now been intergrated into a tool that can be used for free from anywhere with an internet connection. Accuracy was unusally high, over 90%.
It opens up a whole different world on the internet, for those who only know Nepalbhasa, since any website integrated with Google can be used automatically and instantly converted to that language.
The translations are already being used in East Europe to translate legal documents, Newa songwriters, like Ujan Shakya, use it to convert English lyrics. And when Rajbhandari speaks to WNO over video, his English is instantly translated into Newari subtitles.
“Older people are happy that language will now not die. Younger ones can use it to self-learn the language, now they can’t blame elders for not teaching them,” says Shrestha.
Yet another use is the integration with large language models, like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/chatgpt-news-about-nepal">ChatGPT</a>. LLMs encounter Nepalbhasa in their training data, so they can already generate rudimentary responses.
Says Shrestha, “You can ask questions about a Newa book in English, and the LLM &nbsp;gives you a coherent answer and even cite the page number.” This makes the use of Newa books for research possible and a lot faster.
Leading this mammoth task led Shrestha to a better appreciation for his mother tongue. “I saw the richness of Newari. There are onomatopoeia and proverbs that only elders use, and it is these and the dialects that need to be saved,” he says.
The next step is a text-to-speech, speech-to-text interface, which would open up its use by those who speak and understand Nepalbhasa but may not read, write or type it. Tourists to Nepal would also benefit.
Rajbhandari wants to work on similar projects for other endangered languages of Nepal, and the team has shown that it does not need government to do such work.
Says Rajbhandari: “We have learned many things that would make integration of future languages more efficient so we can solve problems in other projects.”

Nepal Bhasa on Google Translate

This is the 56th edition of Diaspora Diaries, a regular column about migration in Nepali Times. <h2>Heera Tirwa</h2> I was just 13 when I married an India-born Nepali from Achham. &nbsp;An arranged marriage, I first saw my husband only at the wedding ceremony. I moved to India from Achham when I was so young that I associate my childhood with Mumbai instead of Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250110100124_fcc447c7d7436ff80312e71a4cfcdbaae9610dff932ec2398c57c75eb256fa19.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250110100124_fcc447c7d7436ff80312e71a4cfcdbaae9610dff932ec2398c57c75eb256fa19" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="4284" loading="lazy" alt="Heera Tirwa"> </figure>  My father, also a watchman in Maharashtra, did not visit us when my children were born despite living just a 10-hour drive away. I had to accept the fact that my mother who was in Nepal would not visit me, but my father’s absence hurt. I wrote a letter reminding him that his responsibility as a father does not end simply because he married me off. Navigating new responsibilities at such a tender age far away from home, I needed his attention. My father then visited us and lifted my spirits. Years have passed, filled with both happy and sad moments. &nbsp;Access to education, health, jobs and road networks is better here. But the cost of living is high and making ends meet is difficult, especially in single-income households. That is why I also work full time at a company that makes nuts and bolts. We are so invested in our children’s education and future that we overlook all the hurdles in life. In the old days, someone’s departure from the village to Mumbai would draw a crowd, with people asking them to deliver letters and gifts to their loved ones. This flow of people between our villages and Mumbai ensured we were up to date with news including of childbirths, marriages and deaths on either side, despite the absence of phones and internet. I still cannot believe it took me 13 years to make my first trip back to Achham from Mumbai. It was a reunion filled with tears and embraces, especially with my mother, much like my departure years ago. <h2>Chandra Singh</h2> I grew up in Doti. My mother passed away when I was around four years old, so my five siblings and I pretty much raised ourselves. Even at that age, I took care of my younger siblings.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250110100128_a03c86a5cf2d7fd396d331b54114613fdd4350ec89aef8f0d150fb3ccb364369.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250110100128_a03c86a5cf2d7fd396d331b54114613fdd4350ec89aef8f0d150fb3ccb364369" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="4284" loading="lazy" alt="Chandra Singh "> </figure>  I do not know exactly when I came to India from Doti, it must have been over 40 years ago. But I vividly remember weeping non-stop till I reached Dhangadi en route to Mumbai with my new family. The next time I visited Doti was years later, accompanied by my three children. My father-in-law worked as a watchman in Mumbai. My husband, who is no more, was born here and also worked as a watchman. &nbsp;Many Nepalis like my father-in-law who had permanent jobs moved their families to India. Housework including taking care of my grandchildren and elderly mother-in-law keeps me busy, but I continue to work as a part-time household help for an Indian family. I mop and wash dishes which provides me some spare cash to supplement my sons’ earnings. Back in our village in Nepal, one can rely on agriculture and livestock to sustain ourselves. There are social networks to lean on during difficult times. One can borrow or even beg. You won’t go hungry. Someone or the other will check on you. Here in the city, all you have is your hard work to rely on. You can eat only if you work hard. <h2>Kamala Tirwa</h2> I was a bright student growing up in Mahendranagar. I had completed Grade 9, and also taught adult literacy classes to women in my village, so they knew how to sign or to read letters.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250110100128_f98f1d4217aa5bc1e5d727d84a4a457ef9b8314dd0f4db497b8b78d07d03ae3e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250110100128_f98f1d4217aa5bc1e5d727d84a4a457ef9b8314dd0f4db497b8b78d07d03ae3e" data-rendition-name="original" width="4032" height="3024" loading="lazy" alt="Tirwa"> </figure>  I also spread awareness against HIV stigmatisation.These engagements exposed me to a world beyond my four walls, expanding my knowledge as I interacted with diverse people, underwent training from organisations, and taught classes. It was also fulfilling as women showed up for the classes after finishing their household chores and participated intently. To complete SLC was a big deal in our village, especially for a girl, and I was so close. But my parents decided to marry me off to an India-born Nepali at 16. I knew of him as he sometimes visited from Mumbai during his vacations and played football with the village boys. My son, who is now in his twenties, is still a baby in my eyes. I was significantly younger than him when I got married. Yet, I was expected to know how to manage a household and fulfill my responsibilities as a wife, daughter-in-law and mother. We also did not have access to tv or internet back then. Children these days are so knowledgeable. We were living in the dark age and did as we were told. Even after all these years, a part of me regrets not completing my education despite being a good student. What was the point of being studious in my circumstances? I remind people to study hard because education is such a privilege. I am invested in my sons’ education. The elder one is now doing a bachelors in AI and data science. Just as my in-laws returned to Nepal after we settled down in Mumbai, we too are considering returning to Nepal after our children are settled. <h2>Suresh Singh</h2> I cannot believe it has been 34 years since I came to Mumbai. For most of us Nepalis, जन्मभुमी (land of birth) and कर्मभुमी (land of work) are two separate geographies. Like my father, I worked as a watchman. My grandfather, too, worked in Mumbai in a mill.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250110100128_d3ca3227f428b8711ab76f617deab6e74df2302f2715a6a489512f5fb2b51067.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250110100128_d3ca3227f428b8711ab76f617deab6e74df2302f2715a6a489512f5fb2b51067" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="4284" loading="lazy" alt="Suresh Singh"> </figure>  I am now the Security Head, the highest position at my company. The city provides opportunities for those willing to seize them. In my case, I should have used the time outside my 8-hour shifts to complete my education or take skills-based training so I could be competitive in the labor market. The realisation that education is important came late to many of us. My wife was back in Achham, while I worked in Mumbai. She passed away when my son was just one-and-a-half years old. It was difficult to comprehend the news, and I rushed back. I forced authorities to let me on the flight from Tikapur. I was going to leave anyhow, even if it meant having to stand on top of the plane. Grief can make you act in strange ways. In my white clothes, shell-shocked and filled with raw emotions, I must have been quite the sight. They eventually provided me with a seat. My mother raised my son until he reached five, after which I brought him to Mumbai. As a single parent, I don’t think I was able to provide him the kind of guidance that is needed during children’s formative years. Work obligations to provide for him often took precedence. Thankfully, he grew up just fine. He recently left his secure banking career to start his venture in digital advertising. He does not have any memory of his mother. We don’t have a single photo of her.&nbsp; Diaspora Diaries is a Nepali Times collaboration with Migration Lab providing a platform to share experiences of living, working, studying abroad.

The tale of four Nepalis in Mumbai

When a dozen tiger range countries met in St. Petersburg for a summit in 2010, they committed to doubling the population of their big cats in 12 years. Nepal became the first country to not just achieve the target but nearly triple the figure, from 121 in 2010, to 355 in 2022. But some people in Nepal, including Prime Minister KP Oli, now think Nepal has been too successful and the number of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-counting-its-tigers">wild tigers</a> should be reduced. This was the same prime minister who last year had urged people to help in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-tigers-now-number-235-1iulcaq1">conservation of tigers</a>, calling it “the pride of Nepal”. But last month, in his own pithy language, Oli said <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-tiger-conservation-too-successful">tigers had become as numerous</a> as dogs, and they could not be allowed to breed at the cost of human lives. “The tiger population should be proportionate to our forest area, why not gift the extra tigers to other countries as economic diplomacy?” Oli added at a debriefing on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/bad-cop">COP29</a> last month. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/human-animal-interface-in-nepal-wildlife-corridor">Human-wildlife conflict</a> has indeed claimed lives, since tigers are venturing outside crowded parks to find prey. So, the prime minister’s proposal to promote wildlife diplomacy may not be such a bad idea since it would raise Nepal’s international profile and highlight <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/is-wildlife-conservation-a-victim-of-its-own-success-in-nepal">the country’s conservation success story</a>. “Tigers can be sent to other countries through diplomacy, but the receiving countries must have the right capacity and environment,” says Ghana Gurung of World Wildlife Fund (WWF Nepal), adding that tigers to be sent must also be chosen carefully. “The Prime Minister gave an emotionally charged statement, which probably came after he spoke to affected groups,” Gurung added. “We tripled the tiger population, but if proper steps for management and cooperation are not taken, we can lose them all as easily.” However, member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) would have to follow strict protocols and paperwork to transport the tigers. Previously, Nepal has sent <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-many-rhinos-is-enough-rhinos">rhinos</a> to China in two batches through the completion of complicated procedures. Naturalist Sushila Mahatara at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bardia-s-birds">Bardia National Park</a> does not agree that Nepal has too many tigers. She tells us: “Tiger numbers are not excessive according to the areas allocated for them. If there are too many tigers, they fight and kill each other to keep their numbers in control.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025011008010_8cf30b15459a919f1d72d06ca02b3515255460c025a62222a219218787c08bc6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025011008010_8cf30b15459a919f1d72d06ca02b3515255460c025a62222a219218787c08bc6" data-rendition-name="original" width="640" height="481" loading="lazy" alt="No. of tigers"> <figcaption>Photo: WWF</figcaption> </figure>  Bardia National Park has 125 adult tigers, and Chitwan National Park has 128. There were about 12 fatalities from tiger attacks in the past year, and some of the maneaters are darted and caged. However, many of them soon die in the confined space. Dhan Bahadur Tamang, a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/unsung-heroes-of-nepal-s-tiger-recovery">tiger conservationist </a>with over 50 years of experience explains exactly why tigers venture out when they do: “Those that enter human settlements are usually young tigers which have been separated from their mothers. Some are injured tigers who cannot attack traditional prey.” The other reasons include encroachment as a result of human settlement and infrastructure projects in close proximity or within the protected areas with no wildlife-friendly components such as overpasses. The water shortage made worse by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/those-who-stay">the climate crisis</a> has added to the challenge. Although an average of 3,000 people in Nepal are killed every year by venomous snakes, tiger kills get far more media attention. This has led to tigers being seen as a threat rather than an important apex species in an ecosystem. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/the-snake-bite-emergency">The snake bite emergency</a>, Chandra Kishore The other threat to tigers is from commercialisation. Last year, then Minister for Forests and Environment Birendra Mahato of Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) &nbsp;proposed auctioning tigers to trophy hunters because Nepal had “too many tigers”. He calculated that the country could earn $25 million through tiger hunting licenses which would underwrite the cost of maintaining national parks. His statement created widespread outrage as well as mockery from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/conservation-vs-conservatives">conservationists</a> and environmentalists, just as Prime Minister Oli’s statement last month did. Tigers are also a major source of revenue for national parks, and a highlight for tourists. “The tigers being in the jungle means that there is the presence of a balanced environment,” says Mahatara at Bardia. “Any <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal">loss of biodiversity</a> in the parks could lead to a decline in the influx of tourists.” Eco-tourism and tiger safaris are a big source of income also for homestays and the local communities in Chitwan and Bardia. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/saving-tigers-to-save-the-economy">Saving tigers to save the economy</a> Says <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/conversation-with-mr-conservation">Ghana Gurung</a> at WWF: “Tourists visit national parks in anticipation of viewing tigers. At present the number is 355 and if tourists don’t spot a single tiger during their safari, then how will they see one if the numbers are reduced?” Better management of wildlife is the key, and involves a mix of approaches including the idea of tiger diplomacy. But because many human-wildlife conflict cases take place when locals go to the forest to collect firewood or fodder, they should be aware of safety precautions. “We have worked continuously through skill development and behaviour change campaigns to help the locals live and maintain a livelihood in the buffer zone and protected areas,” adds Gurung. “This has been one of our major goals, to uplift the living standards of the locals so that they can coexist with wildlife in the area.”&nbsp;

Does Nepal really have too many tigers?

Top news

Petroleum and politics do not mix. If they do, it is volatile. Twenty years ago this week, we reported how then Supplies Minister Ishwar Pokhrel of the UML hiked petroleum prices and got party-affiliated students to protest it. Excerpts of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1389">story </a>published in<a href="https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_230.pdf"> issue #230 14 – 20 January 2005</a>.
Politicians are known for populist grandstanding, that is what they are made for. So it’s not surprising the UML comrades want to have it both ways: Supplies Minister Ishwar Pokhrel hikes petro prices with a fishy one-week delay and his party’s student wing is out on the streets vandalising public property in protest. Even by the reckless standards of Nepali politics, the UML’s two-faced opportunism is stunning. Then Pokhrel makes the shocking admission to us (p 8) that dealers are allowed to hoard. All this doesn’t make the fuel price hike less inevitable. The 30 percent increase in global oil prices in the past year has put Nepal Oil Corporation Rs 5.12 billion in the red. The corporation’s losses are threatening to bankrupt the state as well.
The basic rule of business is you can’t sell a product for less than what you bought it for unless you are: a) stupid, b) a welfare state or c) Nepal Oil Corporation. To be able to afford subsidies, a government needs to be honest, efficient and have a revenue source. Our government is none of the three.
There is another reason for raising prices: smuggling of cheap subsidised fuel across the open border to India. This is a well-oiled business in which folks on both sides get a cut. Forty percent of the kerosene Nepal imports is either used to adulterate diesel or is smuggled into India. The Nepali state is subsidising Bihari consumers.
For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/">nepalitimes.com</a>

Oily Business

Between the 1980s and 2000s, over 5,000 <a href="https://download.ssrn.com/11/01/06/ssrn_id1736064_code1383023.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&amp;X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEBkaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQCiYUc7BuJ7zaDn%2BOTCFOWBgNKqYarnapqY%2FWZbamFVsgIhAOC%2FPFXHR9Dx6xTicWMj5%2BJXdIEGZ7LxKRyjrCe61Ng9KsYFCPL%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEQBBoMMzA4NDc1MzAxMjU3IgzWD1Y1XNz2kaOS3jEqmgX0TbxyBTTrZrpd%2B5N72pFzJAwc%2BxTF8Dc0GnVG2tUGUYyxBt1YmfEqAw5cdOuRCZV23SSKkJwndg9IwI3yrjZGBp9XKxg4lK4Vq0Qy9RMmma5hNCVnA2T0MwGghlnmkgWPZA5ouZPiKFAecf4PE5qml2fu1wj72LEAig5R77cN6nC6%2BxTcygMiuiHrR9yZB4RyvTD9s58avGqUcn9hcIUdku3ydvAGVEgczzgEMCesRMtSgqzHz3E9bju9QLR5RpcDRp0wptfQ89uGXgyBGLCX%2BAl6uareSxQCSaDOthP4PmswWI7y7kBJbQp1pZq8r56Yoa3Qf5WVtmxbsWmDtbOsaSBa0yB6EIS8RKFGeQ%2Bcz%2BnEsOoPHIS%2BqO1k1%2BQuihjN0T66SnWFo8rl8Cv2g4GghY9p9DR3wopBJ6cE%2FtDJMY%2BZ03LkUwS%2Fc7ckyaRpfPX5g6Bb9J56a%2BNA5lnIV5o%2Fpjp%2BZJaVIvEzciyzzTwP58wznmcy3xppvK%2BwXBzBR96cPMXKTdNv9%2FqJ5jlnsgSRJpHWE3UyHbFucwQYXi19i7mCglFSuSkkL5Tg9nQWvXpuP9Z9VmMlQfQ%2F%2FpsfA6KlL81K3UK%2Bp%2FJB2mxQD9SYexZvAf1g21NUSF%2F8I19orsNrT6LutAnoJU%2FOTgO3qMbdgnR%2FuBytI3POnQAEIfbG0Za%2FrEDJ9j8CEbasNXsBMqkx8JKGRG2PUHMRC2xl5Z%2BNIbpsqGB8t%2BvAt40osDpgZStiyeiGdC1nMakUzZtBjWlttzoirCdemwPKJ8M%2BEohj2%2BLEN92yaOKdFewns0gjh%2BUxcotGvBo%2F7QZFappBNjLlR0PyanjcuB4MndEQjeIrd67ntscTKiLDI%2FfzwCHulsl6nbMpewpWFAYwg67guwY6sAGb3VJ2q%2F36hWhrVa8igP2hswnnLlcIU2uhOZa5ge2hCXkUYhL1BcSJfoWy2LwrWCXtdFo%2BT7KMU3p6O3jySdxSop8F4iO%2BJBiXVjSiXm%2FqZo3ri8sVwUgo4ksJI%2BT4AbfK3D3VGYapBgU5LdX%2FjkNwSVoR1vz4vMIyF56i7MKeYG1nFLgc0l9cIjrQI6eY869uIbgZ1XKqqBsuavCbYjSbSy7dMP0QSym%2FgmoWILGE0Q%3D%3D&amp;X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Date=20250103T172339Z&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Expires=300&amp;X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWE65YAH56X%2F20250103%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Signature=9b654b526e0779da4fa9f54e2fcde04ac9f7e91fb50d4f8094b1039ebb19e21b&amp;abstractId=1736064">Nepali children were adopted abroad</a>, primarily to the United States, France, and Spain. While international adoption was intended to provide vulnerable children with better opportunities, child trafficking and irregular practices prompted Nepal to suspend adoptions in 2007, and overhaul its policies. By 2010, stricter regulations aligned with the <a href="https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/intercountry-adoption">Hague Adoption Convention</a> drastically reduced adoption numbers. Today, many of these children, now adults, are returning to Nepal in search of their roots, only to encounter a society that no longer recognises them, legally or socially. Behind the statistics lie the <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01GRNPPXAC1Z3AETV9HARNCG5Q">deeply personal and emotional journey</a> of adoptees returning to reconnect with their past, seek family, and rediscover a sense of belonging. These stories reflect a broader struggle for identity and the complexities of bridging two worlds. Maya Adopted at 9 by a family in Barcelona, Maya carried fragmented memories of her early life in Nepal including the painful recollection of the day her mother and sister vanished, leaving her and her younger siblings behind. She had faint images of her mother, elder sister, and the village where she once lived. In June 2017, Maya came to Nepal accompanied by Chandra Kala and two friends, Jay and Vikram. With only a few photographs of her mother Tulsi, her elder sister Pargati, and her brother-in-law Kamal, along with a street name, Maya arrived in Birendranagar after a 20-hour bus ride from Kathmandu. “Now that we’re close, I feel like I can’t face them,” she confessed to Chandra Kala, wrestling with anxiety about what she might uncover. “I’m nervous. I don’t know if I’ll recognise them or if they’ll recognise me. I don’t know how they’ll react or what they’ll say. And then there’s him [Kamal]. I have such bad memories of him. I don’t know if I can handle this.” Chandra Kala reassured her, reminding her of her courage and the importance of this moment. Maya and her companions asked around the town with little success until a shopkeeper recognised Kamal and directed them to a nearby village. Jay went to confirm and returned excitedly, shouting, “It’s her! It’s your sister!” Maya froze, paralysed by fear and anticipation but she pushed ahead. At the village, Maya’s sister Pargati initially struggled to recognise her. Jay introduced Maya: “Do you recognise her? This is your younger sister. She’s come all the way from Spain to find you.” Slowly, realisation dawned, and the two women embraced, bridging the decades of separation with tears and disbelief. The next day, Maya met her mother Tulsi in an emotionally overwhelming reunion. Tulsi rushed into the room and embraced Maya tightly, sobbing uncontrollably: “Mero chhora-chhori, gaye, gaye… my children they went, they went …” Once the tears subsided, Tulsi and Pargati began recounting the heartbreaking circumstances of their separation. After the death of her husband, Tulsi faced relentless judgment in their village when Kamal stayed with the family before his marriage to Pargati. The villagers accused Tulsi of impropriety, calling her पापी (sinful) and demanded that the family leave. “We didn’t want to leave, but the village didn’t want us here,” explained Pargati. “We left intending to bring you and your siblings later. But when we returned, you were gone.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250103120140_da7482d222e0a03b783c5e1df25536ed416d7b7475442e7fd40e54451572142e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250103120140_da7482d222e0a03b783c5e1df25536ed416d7b7475442e7fd40e54451572142e" data-rendition-name="original" width="384" height="512" loading="lazy" alt="Searching for a homeland away from home NT"> <figcaption>An adoptee and companion return to Bal Mandir in Kathmandu after 19 years. Photo: CHANDRA KALA CLEMENTE-MARTINEZ</figcaption> </figure>  Tulsi recalled how she had entrusted Maya and her siblings to relatives, hoping they would be cared for temporarily. However, when she returned, the children had been sent away without her knowledge. “I only trusted them because I had no other choice,” Tulsi said through tears. “I didn’t know they would send my children away. What kind of mother does that make me? They called me a bad mother, but what else could I have done?” The reunion brought healing and answers but it also exposed the societal pressures that had fractured Maya’s family. Despite the challenges, Maya spent the rest of her visit bonding with her sister, nieces, and younger half-sister, Sunita, slowly bridging the gaps created by time and distance. Maya’s journey was a testament to the courage required to confront the past, the pain of uncovering difficult truths, and the hope of rebuilding connections once lost. Her story highlights the enduring emotional complexity faced by adoptees navigating their history and identity. Ashmita Unlike some adoptees whose main focus is reuniting with their biological family, 26-year-old Ashmita’s priority has been to uncover the institutional details surrounding her adoption. She wanted to understand what the orphanage and the government knew about her background and why so much information seemed concealed. “I just want to know where I come from,” she said. “Even if I never find my biological family, having a better sense of the places and people connected to my story would mean so much.” For many adoptees, returning to Nepal is not just about reconnecting emotionally, it is about seeking formal recognition as members of the Nepali community. However, the legal framework in Nepal often fails to acknowledge their unique status.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250103120144_bf0158b7829cf5db44382d7386d3b123032adad3f9e10e28096b80cd09170ba6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250103120144_bf0158b7829cf5db44382d7386d3b123032adad3f9e10e28096b80cd09170ba6" data-rendition-name="original" width="384" height="512" loading="lazy" alt="Searching for a homeland away from home NT"> <figcaption>A mother reunites with her don after 18 years. Photo: CHANDRA KALA CLEMENTE-MARTINEZ</figcaption> </figure>  In Nepali law, adoptees are left in limbo: their birth parents are not considered legal parents, and their ties to the country are effectively erased upon adoption. This lack of recognition creates significant hurdles, particularly in two key areas: accessing pre-adoption records and obtaining Non-Resident Nepali (NRN) status. Despite international norms like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees the right to know one’s origins, institutions often refuse to cooperate. Orphanages and non-profits in Nepal, which hold critical pre-adoption records such as birth certificates and citizenship documents, frequently withhold this information, reflecting the systemic reluctance to provide transparency. In numerous cases, records that should include family names, addresses, or relinquishment agreements were either incomplete or falsified. These practices not only prevent adoptees from reclaiming their histories but also perpetuate their disconnection from their heritage. Ashmita’s initial requests for information from her adoption agency were met with delays and incomplete responses. When she turned to the orphanage where she spent her early years, she encountered even greater resistance. At one point, the director of the orphanage issued veiled threats. Nevertheless, Ashmita persisted and managed to find the name of the individual who had brought her to the orphanage. However, the person had disappeared, leaving yet another gap in her story. A breakthrough came when Ashmita accessed a police report that suggested she might have been born in a different municipality than the one in her adoption records, prompting her to seek help from local authorities. The police took an interest in her case and began investigating possible connections to her birth family. While progress was slow, they meticulously followed leads to help her trace her origins. “It’s not easy,” Ashmita said of the process. “But every small step feels like I’m piecing something back together.” She also noted that societal perceptions could add to the difficulty. At times, she felt questioned about her identity and her right to seek answers. “People have asked me why I care so much or even suggested that I’m not Nepali anymore because I was adopted abroad,” she reflected. Ashmita’s story is a complex account of persistence in the face of institutional and personal challenges. While her search has not yet provided all the answers she seeks, it continues to offer her insights into her early life and the systems that shaped her adoption journey. &nbsp;“These records are sealed for a reason. They are not meant to be reopened,” said a government official. Even an NGO representative said: “It’s better for everyone if the past remains in the past.” An orphanage director asked: “Why are you asking these questions? This is not your place anymore.” Hari Prasad Sacré The Non-Resident Nepali (NRN) card is a lifeline for Nepali diaspora members, granting them residency and property rights in Nepal. Yet, adoptees are notably excluded from this framework. While the law stipulates eligibility for individuals whose parents or grandparents were Nepali citizens, it makes no provision for adoptees whose legal ties to their Nepali parents were severed by adoption. When Hari Prasad Sacré, a Nepali adoptee, sought to obtain an NRN card at the Nepal Embassy in Belgium, he encountered officials unfamiliar with processing an NRN request from an adoptee. His case was the first of its kind, setting a precedent but also highlighting the systemic barriers adoptees face. "You are not eligible; your surname is Sacré, it is not a Nepali name," an embassy staff said.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250103120140_9bdc24b7e34930059f895048ab7dc0ad3ca23b16907c572f01a8d5404a5feac5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250103120140_9bdc24b7e34930059f895048ab7dc0ad3ca23b16907c572f01a8d5404a5feac5" data-rendition-name="original" width="446" height="512" loading="lazy" alt="Searching for a homeland away from home NT"> <figcaption>Hari Prasad Sacré receives tika from his father Khul Prasad Adhikari during Dasain, a few weeks after receiving his NRN card. Photo: HARI PRASAD SACRÉ</figcaption> </figure>  Sacré’s situation was legally ambiguous. Although his biological parents, including his father, Khul Prasad Adhikari, are alive and he maintains contact with them, he no longer had “legal” ties to Nepal due to the adoption process. Carrying a Belgian surname the embassy staff was initially convinced the adoptee couldn’t claim Nepali origin. Nepali law, which does not recognise biological parents as legal guardians once a child is adopted, created complications for the NRN application. To navigate this complexity, Sacré relied on a testimony from his father. Issued by a local government body in Kaski, the testimony affirmed that Hari had been put up for adoption and was of Nepali origin. While this enabled the embassy to approve his NRN card, the process was unnecessarily protracted and emotionally charged, highlighting the inadequacy of current policies to accommodate the unique situations of adoptees. Sacré’s case represents a rare instance where biological parents were alive and willing to provide testimony, but many adoptees are not as fortunate. A large number of adoptees were declared “orphans” during the adoption process, even when their parents were alive. This severed their legal ties to Nepal, stripping them of documentation that could later prove their origin. For others, the absence of living biological relatives or access to their original adoption records creates insurmountable barriers. Without clear documentation or a family member to vouch for their Nepali heritage, adoptees are excluded from the NRN framework. This denies them the rights and privileges afforded by the card, including property rights, legal recognition, and a formal connection to their homeland. Current laws fail to account for the complexities of adoptees’ legal status, leaving them disconnected from their cultural and legal heritage. Adoption papers, as evidence of Nepali descent, should be accepted as proof, granting adoptees rightful access to the NRN card and ensuring their inclusion in Nepal’s diaspora. Such reforms are crucial to ensure that all adoptees, regardless of their circumstances, can reclaim their heritage and establish a sense of belonging in Nepali society. Without these changes, the systemic exclusion of adoptees will persist, perpetuating inequities and denying them the opportunity to step up as active members of the Nepali diaspora. Sacré’s case serves as both a precedent and a call to action. It exemplifies the challenges and triumphs of adoptees navigating complex bureaucracies and advocates for a more inclusive and equitable approach to reconnecting adoptees with their homeland. Nepal can draw inspiration from South Korea, where the government has actively supported the reintegration of adoptees into their society. The F4 visa, established through efforts by organisations like the Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (GOA'L), grants adoptees the right to live and work in Korea, while dual citizenship acknowledges their dual identity as members of the diaspora and their country of origin. GOA’L further fosters reconnection by offering language classes and cultural exchange programs, creating opportunities for meaningful reintegration and belonging. As Nepal refines its NRN citizenship framework, explicitly including adoptees could address the severance of legal and cultural ties caused by international adoption. Such inclusion would provide adoptees a pathway to residency, citizenship, and rights, enabling them to reconnect with their heritage. Complementing this with programs for language acquisition, cultural immersion, and historical education would honour Nepal’s responsibility to the approximately 5,000 children sent abroad. Nepal could establish a dedicated organisation similar to South Korea’s GOA’L and help adoptees access pre-adoption records, navigate legal processes, and engage in cultural exchange initiatives. It would also serve as a bridge between adoptees and Nepali society, fostering mutual understanding and collaboration. This article is based on doctoral studies by <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01H4Z85GPS63ZWDJ3WB2E6KS70">Hari Prasad Sacré</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357823.2022.2142932">Chandra Kala Clemente-Martínez</a>. Hari Prasad Sacré, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University in Belgium, specialising in cultural translation, multilingualism, and identity in education. His PhD, Reading Illiteracy, explored fractured multilingualism and illiteracy in displaced identities such as adoptees, with work published in leading journals like Critical Arts and the European Journal for Cultural Studies. Chandra Kala Clemente-Martínez, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the AFIN Research Group, Autonomous University of Barcelona, with a PhD in Social Anthropology. Her research focuses on family strategies, reproductive decisions, and adoption, with extensive fieldwork in Spain and Nepal examining adoptee reunions and related governance and rights.

Searching for a homeland away from home

Villages along the proposed alignment of Nepal’s ambitious <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/putting-nepal-on-the-right-track">east-west train project</a> are excited about the connectivity and development it will bring. But here in Hariban village there is only apprehension. While elsewhere, there are environmental concerns about the train track slicing through national parks and protected forests, here along the densely populated Tarai plains there is worry about losing farmlands. “This project will cost me a big chunk of my land,” says Dinesh Mahato, who farms a small plot in the Ghurkauli village near the East-West Highway. “Why should I agree to give it all away when I will only be compensated partially?” Hari Narayan Mahato echoes his brother’s anger. “The map shows that I have to give up nearly 700 sq m of land, but I know the area is going to be three times bigger once construction begins,” he says. “It’s just not worth it.” There is also opposition in the Dhanpati locality, and 10 households from these two villages have refused to accept the government’s compensation rate for land which they say is much less than market value.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050152_41071574c82ba8f9698b8b7fdecb3ebf280dd314b1175262d961f76dc6d6ad5b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250105050152_41071574c82ba8f9698b8b7fdecb3ebf280dd314b1175262d961f76dc6d6ad5b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1292" height="821" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  The East-West Electric Railway project will ultimately be <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-journey-to-electric-public-transport">Nepal’s transportation </a>artery stretching from the eastern border with India in Jhapa to Kanchanpur, connecting 24 districts. It will intersect with the proposed Birganj-Kathmandu railway at a junction in Sarlahi district. When completed, Nepal’s 950km long ‘gateway to prosperity’ as it has been dubbed, will have 123 stations, 10 tunnels, 334 bridges, a dam, and a 132kV transmission line to supply electricity to the locomotives. The project will require the acquisition of about 4,520 hectares of land, including 518 plots belonging to 4,000 households. Some of this will be along corridors through Chitwan, Bardia, Banke and Sukla Phanta <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/does-nepal-need-the-army-to-guard-parks">National Parks</a> and other nature reserves. Controversy about land acquisition and compensation as well as environmental impact have stalled the project since 2010. “The biggest issue has been compensation for land,” admits Kamal Kumar Shah of the Department of Railways. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/india-china-rail-race">India-China rail race</a>, Shristi Karki This means less than half of the work along the 70km Bardibas-Nijgad segment has been completed and 16 bridges built, and this is the first section of the railway where construction started 15 years ago.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050148_9e1de8c104dcbd239a70d4a3abda71579f86502c8b9f4cdd7e184aeef90eb638.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250105050148_9e1de8c104dcbd239a70d4a3abda71579f86502c8b9f4cdd7e184aeef90eb638" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  Says Senior Division Engineer Kiran Karki: “It is difficult to work here, people have built houses in public land, knowing that the railway is coming. How do we ask them to leave?” Part of the delay is also due to lack of budget, and this has increased the initial estimate of the total cost because of the increase in land value. The government has nationalised over 190 hectares for the Kakadbhitta-Inaruwa section of the railway in the eastern Tarai for which it will have to distribute Rs24.41 billion in compensation. But the budget allocated for that is only Rs1.5 billion. This means farmers have lost their land, but have not yet been compensated. The East-West Railway line was initially estimated to cost around Rs1 billion per km, but this has increased to Rs1.5 billion per km. Just the first Bardibas-Nijgad section will need an additional Rs50 billion to complete. The estimate for the entire project was estimated at Rs955 billion, but a revised budget has already surpassed Rs1.5 trillion. A major bridge across the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/kosi-now-kathmandu-next">Kosi</a> north of the barrage on the Indian border is expected to cost more than Rs410 billion. The &nbsp;Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been revised to build an elevated line over towns in the Butwal section, for example, to avoid paying exorbitant compensation. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-railways-janakpur-test-drive">Nepal Railways Janakpur test drive</a> “This project works on multi-year contracts, which have been difficult to award due to a lack of budget,” says Shah. “So the date of completion of the project depends on money being forthcoming.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050148_addd8a08b727efb1bf1f71752dce1a28d6ea2e9d5f76dafe5dbc9a53a223c5e0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250105050148_addd8a08b727efb1bf1f71752dce1a28d6ea2e9d5f76dafe5dbc9a53a223c5e0" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  Meanwhile, activists have raised concern over the project’s environmental cost. The Railway Department has prepared DPRs for four sections of the railway, but <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/from-nowhere-to-nowhere">Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA)</a> have not been carried out. In Chitwan, the proposed route was realigned to avoid Chitwan National Park following a Supreme Court stay order. However, Chitwan residents have now formed a Railway Victims’ Struggle Committee, saying that the new route would cut through their densely populated communities. “We only found that our land would be part of the railway line when the people from the Railway Department came here last year,” says Hari Thapaliya of Bharatpur Municipality. “The decision to reroute the track was made overnight without any consultation with us.” Angered locals had set fire to a Railway Department vehicle when a survey team reached Krishnapur in July. Bharatpur Deputy Mayor Chitrasen Adhikari says the Railway Department did not even coordinate with the municipality about the new route. “We have proposed an alternate route to the Department,” she adds. “This project affects the livelihoods of people across <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/fogbound-tarai">the Tarai</a>, their concerns must be heard, and they must be included in the decision-making process,” says infrastructure expert Surya Raj Acharya.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050148_682ed3ef3e398592f098d1ac638faa4d3b7517515e0f1b2014cb9c4383e6d9c3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250105050148_682ed3ef3e398592f098d1ac638faa4d3b7517515e0f1b2014cb9c4383e6d9c3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  The problem is that 53% of Nepal’s total population now lives along the narrow strip of plains along the Indian border through which the railway line will pass. The Railway Department is squeezed between the need to balance environmental concerns with high compensation demands of locals. Conservationists have maintained that the railway alignment will go through ecologically sensitive areas, disturbing and fragmenting the habitat of endangered species, blocking their migration routes and disrupting water and food sources. All of this could in turn increase <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/human-animal-interface-in-nepal-wildlife-corridor">human-wildlife conflict</a>. Experts have suggested measures to invest in ‘ecological offsetting’ programs that help in the creation of new protected areas, restoration projects, and wildlife underpass and overpass corridors. There is also <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/more-pre-monsoon-forest-fires-in-nepal">concern about the forests </a>that have to be sacrificed. Already, 13,500 trees have been cut down in the Bardibas-Nijgad section alone. The Sagarnath Forest, which stretches from Sarlahi to Mahottari, and areas under the Rautahat Division Forest also lie along the proposed alignment. Surya Raj Acharya blames inadequate monitoring and evaluation during the preparation of the DPR because government agencies lack sufficient technical capacity and experience in the railway sector.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050148_7823653d3f037122441c11f6485c5407acc716811bedf464255aefe3a76d97f8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20250105050148_7823653d3f037122441c11f6485c5407acc716811bedf464255aefe3a76d97f8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  He adds, “Transparent financial planning and management are necessary to ensure the project’s sustainability and economic viability. But the contracts have been hurriedly awarded without proper land acquisition. An urgent review is necessary.” All this needs stronger political will and coordination between various agencies which is sorely lacking not just in the east-west railway project, but in other infrastructure schemes as well. When built, the nearly 1,000 km long railway will streamline cargo and passenger traffic, making it cheaper and more convenient for ordinary people. Railway junctions can also facilitate the north-south transshipment of goods and passenger traffic when coordinated with public transport. Transport costs for exports and imports from India will also be slashed. “A high-speed train running at 200 to 250km per hour will mean that trains will get from Kathmandu to Dhangadi faster than planes, and at much cheaper fares,” notes Acharya. Trains will also reduce carbon emissions by up to 30% compared to trucks and buses. Train lines will be the backbone of Nepal’s transportation system, boosting tourism in the Kathmandu, Chitwan and Lumbini triangle.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250105050148_ee137f417c5712be9d2d16f295ba7e30fc207e878214103e387346dfed3a9815.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250105050148_ee137f417c5712be9d2d16f295ba7e30fc207e878214103e387346dfed3a9815" data-rendition-name="original" width="577" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal train project struggles to stay on track NT"> </figure>  Ultimately, the Kerung-Kathmandu trans-Himalayan railway will connect with the Birganj-Kathmandu line and in future be a future non-maritime corridor for India-China trade. Nepal has been trying to get the East-West railway project funded through foreign investment, but so far there has not been much interest. There also needs to be a better viability study for future railway links, otherwise Nepal may be straddled with loans it cannot repay. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-and-china-to-study-trans-himalayan-railway">Nepal and China to study trans-Himalayan railway</a>, Ramesh Bhushal “The border region along the Tarai remains behind in terms of education, health, and the economy,” says economist Bishwo Poudel. “A railway line alone will not do much to improve their quality of life, there have to be other interventions.” Poudel adds that a north-south railway through Kathmandu to connect India and China through Nepal makes much more economic sense. China has been studying the Kerung-Kathmandu track with tunnels under <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/cleaning-up-high-places">Langtang National Park</a>, which would have technological and financial challenges. India is also working on a railway alignment to connect Kathmandu to its border town of Raxaul. At present the only operational passenger railway in Nepal is the 35km cross-border Jaynagar–Janakpur–Bardibas line. The former Department of Railways Director General Rohit Kumar Bisural is a road engineer, and says: “Very few people in Nepal have experience in railways.”

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