Selling sex tourism

Visit Nepal Year is off to a rocky start because coronavirus has gone viral, and it is unlikely that the country can meet its 2 million target for 2020. To compensate, it is the humble opinion of this scribe that Nepal Tourism Hoard, under new management, should sell sex.

You read it right. Nepal is losing a huge opportunity to cash in on the erotica depicted on our temples, monuments and other erections as a value-added tourism attraction and should revive the slogan, ‘Visit Nepal: We Make Love, Not War’.

This Ballantine’s Day let us pledge to honour our past Tantrick masters who, unlike present day Nepalis, were not bashful about putting up porn on their sites. Our forebears didn’t beat around the bush when it came to depicting the birds and bees. No, they got straight to the point. It is hard to tell today that we are descendants of an outstanding and upright people who contributed valuable research data to Prof Vatsyayana for his ground-breaking PhD dissertation, The Kamasutra.

Alas, much of that research is now lost. But some of the early ornithological and apiarian data can still be found in the Valley’s three Durbar Squares. A pair of powerful binoculars is all you need to unlock the secrets of Nepal’s holy edifices (From Sanskrit: ‘edi’=dirty, and ‘fices’=stuff).

The carvings allow us to take a sneak peek into what constituted fun and games for our prehistoric ancestors during lunch breaks while they were laying the foundations of our glorious civilisation. And thanks to their meticulous documentation, we have evidence of the kind of playful hanky panky they indulged in. The carvings show us that they did not just mix business with pleasure, but they also made pleasure their business as they are caught in flagrante delicto on many of these x-rated wood panels frozen in time immemorial.

After casual perusal, many visitors may get the mistaken notion that the temple eaves are not amorous scenes, but depict memorable replays of prehistoric World Wrestling Federation bouts. Protagonists are seen grabbing each other with vice-like body-locks, tying themselves into knots, entangled in half-nelsons, and pulling each other over with gut-wrenches and ankle-laces.

Our ancestors had such fertile imaginations that there are even carved selfies of them exhibiting posterior motives towards sheep, water buffalo and other semi-mythical fauna. They were such eager beavers they humped anything that moved. They grappled in groups, and sometimes they even grappled with themselves.

This Valentine’s Day let us pay silent homage to these illustrious acrobats of yore who laid the groundwork of our proud heritage, and without whose seminal contribution we would not be here today to pen these words of grateful tribute.