<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0fe9c7e80680e08f889jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="480"/>It was my Dr Zhivago fantasy period, and I had this wild idea that it would be compelling to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/so-far-so-good/wintering-in-mongolia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">travel solitary by surface</a> all the way from Japan home to Britain – in winter.‘How I envy you that railway journey,’ wrote <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-postcard-from-jan-morris-1926-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jan Morris</a>, who fully appreciated the ‘special grace’ of travelling alone. Several days were spent transiting by train the massive expanse of the Soviet Union, and an uncertain seasonal ferry across the Sea of Japan to the east Siberian port of Nakhodka.We disembarked at Omsk, or was it Tomsk, and the teeth-aching cold was such that breath crystalised and tongues froze if anyone was unwise enough to open their mouth. The grey platforms, steaming wheels and stolid Soviet silhouettes were discouraging, and I quickly climbed back into the carriage.I remembered that time on the Orient Express when helplessly I watched the train with all my worldly belongings aboard chug out of the station – the stuff of nightmares – only to miraculously reappear after a few panicked devastating minutes. Character building stuff.I had no such alarms on <a href="https://www.trans-siberian-travel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Trans-Siberian</a>, just surviving the bitter sub-zero temperatures every time I ill-advisedly alighted at a halt, and navigating the food where an expansive menu always seemed to have everything ‘off’ and only thick soup ‘on’. This became routine in the prescribed Intourist world of Soviet tourism, and was rather alarming at first. I adapted fast.Frozen rivers became smooth wayfares for the winter trucks, and across a pristine snowfield from the relative comfort of my second class sleeper I witnessed a pack of wolves fleeing at the sound of our monstrous approach. The rich biodiversity of Lake Baikal was a disappointing expanse of frozen ice, fringed in skeletons of willow trees under a threatening sky. ‘The earth … spell-bound in a death-like winter trance,’ in the lone walker words of Kenneth Grahame.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/nov/12/trans-siberian-railway-russia-100-centenary" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The train</a> windows were permanently edged with ice and outside the monochromatic views were truly bleak, but inside the atmosphere was cosy and encompassing. Large Russian ladies carried covered baskets of black bread and strong sausage with which I was plied.Without any common language it did not take long to realise that these robust figures were worried about my slender frame – at nearly six feet tall and nicknamed 'hatini' back at <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/back-to-Chitwan,1075" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tiger Tops in Nepal</a>, I was unfamiliar with feeling dainty and delicate, never before nor since.It was the winter of 1974 and I was returning from Nepal — the long way round. Following a solitary trek to Jomsom and an interlude in Kathmandu as <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/the-hippie-era-in-kathmandu,837" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an unsuccessful hippie</a>, I had been working in Chitwan for a few marvellous months until the monsoon floods drove us out of the national park.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd1009c7e80680e08f88ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1443" height="910"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>A series of adventures had landed me in Tokyo, including a spell selling diamonds with a couple of canny cockneys in Malaysia and Singapore, hanging out with bankers in Hong Kong, and devouring the sophisticated design and elegant intricacy of Japan’s ancient cities.But my mind was occupied with schemes as to how to wangle my way back to Nepal and the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Conservation-and-tourism-Chitwan-National-Park,2957" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">conservation tourism</a> work that had captivated me. It would take me less than a year. Looking back, we can see our lives hang by a thread on seemingly random decisions and the vagaries of fate that could not have been predicted.That 1974 me, dreaming of the Himalaya in another railway carriage heading home from Moscow and Leningrad through Poland to another ferry across the choppy English Channel, would have been astonished at what lay ahead.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd1039c7e80680e08f88bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2853" height="4032"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and the long afternoon shadows of the Indian Embassy Residence reached us across the gently sloping and perfectly mowed lawn — white stucco columns, spreading balconies and blatant colonial blustering of the two story house first constructed for the British and handed over shortly after Independence.I felt the distant presence of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3246#.X_FprdgzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brian Hodgson</a>, the first British resident to inhabit the bequeathed badlands of distant Lazimpat, depicted in this garden supposedly with his Moslem consort. The contemporary drawing has a picturesque primitive charm, that seemed strangely distant from the gathering of literary luminaries.The scent of roses mingled with that of my be-saried neighbours as we settled into the lushly padded chairs to enjoy a discourse on a small stage in front of the begonias. The subject was a book on mid-twentieth century life in the Kumaon hills by an esteemed Indian author swathed in cashmere and silk.‘I can’t cope with this nostalgia nonsense.’ The Indian ambassador’s face beneath his perfect turban was crumpled with nuance. ‘We have to move forward from the Raj, away from those battalions of white men, into the current reality. Romanticising the hill station life into a forgotten yesterday does none of us any favours.’ He fixes me with a steely glare. ‘Nor all that Raj rubbish about polo in the jungle.’ My <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-genesis-of-elephant-polo-in-chitwan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most recent column in Nepali Times</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd1079c7e80680e08f88cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="796" height="478"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>I have no trouble agreeing. Wrestling with nostalgia has been my fortnightly task in this space for the last three years. I prefer to think of my articles as recalling living history, as background context to today’s evolving environmental issues and tourism landscape.Without even a nod to nostalgia, there are many hardnosed lessons to be learned from the impressive track record in tourism and conservation of which Nepal should be proud.After 100 articles and three years, Lisa Choegyal is closing her So Far So Good fortnightly column. All her past pieces are available in the www.nepalitimes.com archives.

Lisa Choegyal

original

674x448

610x380

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

So Far So Good

The vagaries of fate

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be9189c7e80680e08789fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Gurkhas on parade during the 2015 G200 celebrations in London 2015. All photos: JOHNNY FENN PHOTOGRAPHY</figcaption></figure>’Twas the night after Christmas 1993 and we all thought the bumps were just someone else going to the bathroom. Next morning downstairs was devastation. Christmas gifts were strewn amongst the chintz-covered sofas, draws emptied onto the carpets, the silver candlesticks gone along with a camera, binoculars and the children’s new toys.The night-time robbery with a houseful of sleeping friends and family was all the more daring as this was the home of the head of the special elite Gurkha force hired to protect the royal family, deep within the Sultanate of Brunei.I was visiting the Colonel during a break from one of my first consulting jobs with New Zealand teammates in neighbouring Sabah and Sarawak – marketing specialist for the Malaysian states’ tourism master plans. Lessons learned from the jungle, wildlife and ecotourism experiences in Nepal were being applied to the bio-rich rainforests of Borneo.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be91b9c7e80680e0878a0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>At <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/recreating-tiger-tops-in-the-tropics/">Tiger Tops</a> we had a long association with the military – British Gurkha as well as the Royal Nepal Army who guarded the wildlife of Chitwan National Park manned the guard posts, and whose major would often drop by the Lodge for a cup of tea.A retired Nepal general reminded me recently of the occasion in the mid-1970s when as a junior officer he led parachutist’s training at Meghauli. Camping overnight on the grass airstrip, I had accepted their invitation for a दाल भात meal around the campfire, complete with customary Nepali dancing featuring squaddies dressed as women. What most impressed him, he told me, was my bare feet in the jungle.Our boss <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15828#.XE1Al1UzaUk">Jim Edwards</a> favoured running jungle tourism operations along military lines, and many of my colleagues had army backgrounds, especially Nepali officers trained in admin, engineers, drivers and mechanics. As did our ancient green Land Rovers, their legacy of action evidenced by bullet holes that riddled their chassis, along with the occasional dent made by a charging rhino.One of Jim’s proudest moments in later life was being made an honorary British Gurkha, and he regularly sported the green and red striped regimental tie with the iconic crossed <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3679#.X-AppVUzaUk">खुकुरी</a> knives.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be91e9c7e80680e0878a1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Colonel was one of a long line of commanders of the Brigade of Gurkhas Nepal, who now hold the multiple roles of Defence Attaché and director <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/cold-comfort/">Gurkha Welfare Trust</a>, based in the British Embassy compound Kathmandu.These British officers speak fluent Nepali with a clipped Gurkhali accent, and most would find any excuse to leave the diplomatic confines of the office to escape into their beloved hills with the soldiers to whom they are so dedicated.Not only are Nepalis still being recruited as an integral part of the British Army, but significant funding and energy goes into pension paying and ensuring veterans returning to Nepal are well supported. The British Gurkha connection put over <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10937#.X-Ap91UzaUk">£140 million into Nepal’s economy</a> last year, and the Gurkha Welfare Trust works in health and education throughout the length of rural Nepal.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be9209c7e80680e0878a2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="399"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The first British Defence and Military Attaché appointed to Kathmandu in 1958 was mountaineer <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-himalayan-odyssey/">Lt Col JOM Roberts MVO MBE MC 2GR</a>, distinguished for his war service in India and founder of Nepal’s trekking industry, providing employment for the Sherpas he so admired. Jimmy made Nepal his home and stayed on rearing rare pheasants in Pokhara retirement until his death in 1997. He was followed by some fabled and highly decorated army names in the 1960s, Wylie, Kemmis Betty and Hickey.Others are remembered for less illustrious traits. One officer’s Land Rover mowed down the white posts that line the Embassy driveway after an evening of revelry, and another was infuriated when his wife eloped with the tennis coach. One colonel astounded the congregation by bursting into tears during a remembrance service, and another enjoyed slipping into army fatigues with an officious clipboard at the slightest provocation.My favourite story about Col David Scotson, DA in the late 1980s, was how he got married on crutches, both legs encased in plaster casts, having wandered out of the first-floor window of his future in-law’s Swiss chalet to admire the view only to realise too late that there was no balcony.The curfew that accompanied the end of the single-party system provided the perfect cover for one officer to pursue an extra-marital affair, whilst others preferred mahseer fishing, rafting and camping on the remote rivers of western Nepal. During a royal visit, at a pre-trek mess dinner under a military camp shamiana, the colonel’s wife was overhead counselling the Prince of Wales not to listen to ‘his mother’ about marital difficulties with Princess Diana, and to ‘follow his heart.’The British Gurkha Khukris team were a fixture at Tiger Tops’ annual elephant polo championships, often attracting the top brass from Hong Kong HQ and always handy as reliable timekeepers to monitor the matches. The players were most celebrated as winners of the best-dressed award with their natty uniforms, whilst actual goals scored were usually few and far between.One Defence Attaché, Col Mike Allen, pursued his passion for moths, and could regularly be found at dusk with bright lights and a white sheet, adding new species to scientific collections for Nepal. Col Mike Kefford led a British joint services expedition to scale Everest before abandoning his military career to sail around the world.One commander went on to become Prince Philip’s private secretary living in Kensington Palace. And a couple of former incumbents have remained closely connected to Nepal, reinventing themselves in new Pokhara-based jobs supervising privately funded agricultural and livelihood projects throughout the countryside.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be9229c7e80680e0878a3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Gurkha recruitment dates back over 200 years to 1815, even before the Treaty of Sugauli formalised the Nepal British relationship and ended the Anglo-Nepal war 1814-1816. Highly impressed by the fighting spirit shown by his opponents, General Sir David Ochterlony had led the East India Company attack, a colourful character alleged to have kept thirteen concubines and gifted each an elephant whilst British resident to the Mughal court in Delhi.In the early 1960s, the British Gurkhas numbered nearly 18,000 men, recruited from their headquarters near Dharan in southeast Nepal, with brigades stationed in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong as well as the United Kingdom. Today they total about one-quarter of that and are all assigned in the UK except for a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-forgotten-gurkha-rebellion/">battalion in Brunei</a>. The selection process remains famously hard-won –- last year 12,000 young men competed for just 400 places.I took my mother to the Gurkha bicentenary pageant celebration at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea one chilly June evening in 2015 – lots of smart green uniforms, precision marching, wailing bagpipes and whirling खुकुरी. The purpling London night sky faded above us, and tall windowpanes glowed gold in the elegant Wren building backdrop to our ringside seats.Actress Joanna Lumley made a speech, and the VVIP stand contained a full hand of all the immediate British royal family led by Queen Elizabeth II, a tribute to the legendary esteem in which Gurkha servicemen continue to be held in Britain.In the words of Sir Ralph Turner MC 1888-1983, former Gurkha, linguist, philologist and Professor of Sanskrit: ‘Once more I see you in your bivouacs or about your fires, on forced march or in the trenches, now shivering with wet and cold, now scorched by a pitiless and burning sun. Uncomplaining you endure hunger and thirst and wounds, and at the last, your unwavering lines disappear into the smoke and wrath of battle. Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you.’

500x500

1250x600

1084x550

Collateral benefits

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be68a9c7e80680e0877adjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="965"/><figcaption>HA Oldfield's 1850 painting of the British Residency in Kathmandu (now the Indian Embassy) showing the empty, barren landscape of Nagarjun in the mid-nineteenth century. Collection: BRITISH LIBRARY</figcaption></figure>Back in the day when my walls were empty, I used to buy old paintings and photos with whatever cash I had, rummaging around in Darbar Marg antique shops and Thamel bookstores. Particularly fruitful were the exhibitions at the then-newly created Vajra Hotel.I picked up several pictures from some of the whacky international cast of characters with strange names like Firefly and Tango who congregated in the roof-top meditation pagoda with its aspirational view of Swayambhunath.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=vajra+naga+theatre" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Dvajra%2Bnaga%2Btheatre&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG1eRsvJ_zlmKiKQ_VRkQMrnxybVw">Vajra’s Naga Theatre</a> troupe is still going strong, led by the indefatigable <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11646#.XBcsidIza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D11646%23.XBcsidIza70&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGPdeFJtQtUF3bQyi0ji--7_YsW8w">Sabine</a> Lehman and <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-guardian-of-the-shadows-%20G%C3%B6tz%20Hagm%C3%BCller,3352" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-guardian-of-the-shadows-%2520G%25C3%25B6tz%2520Hagm%25C3%25BCller,3352&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG8TcmWZr3jgm0XyRMXnyP4tvkM2Q">Ludmilla</a> Hungerhuber, but long gone are the ‘scientists’ from the US Institute of Ecotechnics, paid for by a visionary Texan squillionaire who funded marine research vessels and a futurist biosphere experiment to save the planet.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be68d9c7e80680e0877aejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2027" height="2628"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6909c7e80680e0877afjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2194" height="3008"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6939c7e80680e0877b0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3561" height="2415"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Several of our <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/no-tiger-no-mountain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/no-tiger-no-mountain/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFORa7G-RfxHMaCyQzw3lpHZfvN9A">Tiger Mountain</a> staff, including a Sherpa and a Tharu, travelled to the US to be sealed into the massive biodiversity dome as part of their mysterious innovations, surviving to tell the tale. ‘Pursuing the harmony between ecology and technology since 1973’ - I never could fully grasp what they were all about. ‘If you are too stupid to understand, than you don’t deserve to know’ pronounced <a href="http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199947000/Luther-Gerald-Jerstad-1936-1998" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199947000/Luther-Gerald-Jerstad-1936-1998&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFsCcB-VDBjniIZFGkZCYvYYD3Xrw">Lute Jerstad</a>, America’s first Everest summiteer, giving up on me.But they were an entertaining bunch, and in the early 1980s the Vajra art enthusiasts sold me wondrous works by M M Poon and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=chandra+man+maskey" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Dchandra%2Bman%2Bmaskey&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH4im6nKtksdazCFrl4Y4tr6_xLQw">Chandra Man Maskey</a> for what seems today like an embarrassingly small amount of rupees. I also acquired a couple of contemporary portraits of Jung Bahadur, one with three of his many wives, but perhaps my most precious find was a watercolour of Bhadgoan Darbar showing Nepal’s first glass window pane, beneath which red-jacketed troops paraded on inspection.It was allegedly painted around 1850 by pioneer Nepali artist, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=rajman+chitrakar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Drajman%2Bchitrakar&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGeQTJPbOpenoUoupvlRLEe4eQ5YA">Rajman Singh Chitrakar</a>, pupil of the series of artistically inclined Brits based in the British Residency in Lainchaur - <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=Brian+Houghton+Hodgson" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3DBrian%2BHoughton%2BHodgson&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNERq84lvDzeUcLI2_TF9zCE2FL9Yg">Brian Houghton Hodgson</a>, Henry Montgomery Lawrence and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=Henry+Ambrose+Oldfield" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3DHenry%2BAmbrose%2BOldfield&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEazMGNa0GHAznAiS8DiYLXKGEydw">Henry Ambrose Oldfield</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6979c7e80680e0877b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1325" height="1500"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be69a9c7e80680e0877b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="868"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Captivated by the historical insights that these early English-style pictures promised, my investigations took me to musty London archives and basement reading rooms where the collections are now stored. With the Royal Geographical Society, we selected four from amongst their collection of H A Oldfield treasures to be printed as postcards sold in Kathmandu in the early 1980s. My favourites were the ones of the Nepal army marching through the <a href="https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_245279/Dr.-H.A.-Oldfield/Soldiers-invading-Tibet-from-Nepal-entrance-to-the-Keerung-Pass.-The-plain-is-part-of-the-Town-of-Keerung-with-the-Valley-of-Pauring-Tiar-and-the-Buoria-Gondu-river-May-1855" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_245279/Dr.-H.A.-Oldfield/Soldiers-invading-Tibet-from-Nepal-entrance-to-the-Keerung-Pass.-The-plain-is-part-of-the-Town-of-Keerung-with-the-Valley-of-Pauring-Tiar-and-the-Buoria-Gondu-river-May-1855&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEKkTG-AfL2kfB3Ex4Y6CaUQUfavg">‘Keerung Pass’</a>, invading Tibet under cobalt blue skies and fanciful white peaks.This era of Western realism paintings started with the polymath Brian Hodgson, an East India Company official who served in Kathmandu for over 20 years from the time of Bhimsen Thapa in 1820 until 1843. Hodgson used the extensive leisure time afforded by his job to make the first systematic study of Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-antelope-and-an-artist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-antelope-and-an-artist/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622266000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFpGG6E0Svx0dU2jXaGZ6TkK0iD8A">fauna, flora, religions</a>, culture and languages. In order to illustrate his findings, he trained the artist Rajman Singh Chitrakar, introducing him to the European principles of camera lucida, ‘light and shade and perspectives’.For someone steeped in Nepal’s rich heritage and the traditions of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14649" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D14649&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622266000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG5AQA4vLkLgnHwPTmyej_Vowu1mw">poubha</a> art, Rajman’s drawings indicate a major shift in style. Kanak Mani Dixit, curator of the influential 1999 Oldfield exhibition in Yala Maya Kendra at Patan Dhoka, credits Rajman as being Nepal’s first ever landscape and architectural painter, and his work was recognised by the world of art and science in Europe at a time when photography was in its infancy.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be69e9c7e80680e0877b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1082"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a29c7e80680e0877b4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1082"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rajman Singh was part of the extensive Chitrakar clan (meaning ‘painter’ in Nepali) whose successive generations since the Malla reign had recorded royal and Rana court activities, firstly in the form of paintings and drawings, and then in a vast collection of photographs, many engraved onto delicate glass plates.This wide array of images includes diplomatic missions, cultural events, portraiture of the elite and everyday ordinary life, capturing an era of extravagant autocratic Rana rule whose state policy of ‘implacable xenophobia’ prevented foreign penetration and influence. As a direct descendent, Cristeena Chitrakar explains: “My ancestors’ images explore visual narratives and historical accounts. The photographs create memories and preserve the past.”Kanak Dixit writes: ‘It was Hodgson who provided Rajman with the graphite pencil, probably also coaching him on the novel techniques required to realistically illustrate landscapes, architecture and objects of natural history… If it were not for Rajman, we would have had to rely only on the arriving Westerners who happened to paint, including the doctor in the British Residency, Henry Ambrose Oldfield, whose watercolours have been useful in reconstructing several lost structures.’Referring to him as ‘my Bauddha citrakar’, British Resident Brian Hodgson drafted Rajman Singh and his kinsmen to illustrate the broad range of disciplines which absorbed him. On departure he bequeathed Rajman and his team to work on drawings for his successor Henry Lawrence, then to Dr H A Oldfield, the Residency surgeon who lived in Kathmandu from 1850 until 1863.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a69c7e80680e0877b5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1094"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Like his predecessors in their isolated outpost beyond the empire and forbidden to venture outside the Valley rim, Dr Oldfield developed an interest in all things Nepali, spending his time on Buddhism, Nepali history, ethnography and the caste system. He and his wife Margaret were accomplished amateur artists in their own right, their valuable contribution consisting of hundreds of watercolours that shed light in meticulous detail on the architecture, landscape and people of the Kathmandu Valley at that time.These pictures chronicle the comparatively dilapidated state of historic buildings, temples and stupas in the nineteenth century Valley, and the surrounding hills are startlingly naked and denuded in comparison to the thick cover on today’s reforested slopes.Dr Mark Watson, Himalayan botanical historian, writes: ‘Henry Oldfield is well-known to students of Nepali history for his 1880 posthumously published, richly illustrated, two-volume classic: Sketches from Nipal. Oldfield got on well with Maharaja Jung Bahadur, so much so that in 1855 he was allowed to accompany the Nepali army to the northern Rasuwa Gadhi frontier when Nepal declared war on Tibet – a remarkable privilege for a foreigner. The British Library and Royal Geographical Society hold significant collections of their work, including pictures by Nepali master artist Rajman Singh Chitrakar who worked closely with them.’<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a99c7e80680e0877b6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1155"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The dazzling November weather accentuated the scarlet poinsettia and orange marigolds in the British Cemetery last month when I visited with a red poppy in my lapel, wandering amongst the headstones on immaculately manicured grass beneath an Oldfield-blue sky. One of their six children is buried here, and I found the small, square column with a white marble plaque marking the grave of Philip Henry Oldfield, toddler son aged only 17 months when he died in August 1861.The site is protected within a low, rectangular, stone wall along with an identical monument for Alice Irwin, the new-born baby daughter of the British Commandant of the Escort who in 1859 had lasted only 13 days. It is said that the Maharaja Jung Bahadur Rana himself was so touched by the tragic loss of life so young that he requested the surrounding walls be built to provide shelter for the babies’ graves.

Nepal's history through art

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be2099c7e80680e083e84jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="900"/><figcaption>Writer, reporter, historian, traveller, and trans pioneer, Jan Morris died on 20 Nov 2020.</figcaption></figure>The last surviving foreign member of the first victorious Everest expedition died at the ripe age of 94 just prior to midday on 20 November 2020 at her home in North Wales.Jan Morris was unrecognisable from the heavily bearded, Oxford educated, ex-army journalist who strode across Advanced Base Camp for a congratulatory handshake in a typically British fashion with the triumphant Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. Now, only <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-last-of-the-first/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-last-of-the-first/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606094371855000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0ZjG0jFRKS-K47F5yeXUEC">Kancha Sherpa</a> from Namche is still with us from the historic 1953 British team.With an exclusive commission from The Times of London, James Morris was embedded as a member of the John Hunt-led expedition, but never ventured far up the mountain on his arduous assignment.‘I was no climber, was not particularly interested in mountaineering. I was there merely as a reporter.’ Terrified that someone might leak the glorious news of the first ascent, his Base Camp message was concealed in a pre-arranged code carried by Sherpa runners then telegraphed from the British Embassy in Kathmandu: ‘Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement.’Back in The Times’ newsroom, they knew what he meant and the glad tidings ricocheted around the globe on the auspicious morning of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. The world's highest mountain had been conquered, Sir Ed was knighted and Tenzing Norgay put Nepal firmly on the map. For the first time the Sherpa name resonated worldwide, just as the hidden kingdom of Nepal was unlocking its secrets and beginning to allow foreign visitors.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be20c9c7e80680e083e85jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1594" height="854"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>At the time of his Sagarmatha scoop, James Morris was already happily married to Elizabeth Tuckniss, daughter of a tea planter who both confirmed mutual love at first sight. Their 70-year love story would produce five children, including their son the poet musician Twm Morys, and the partnership survived the death of an infant and James’ transition into a woman.Elizabeth said: ‘I never stopped loving James or Jan. It did not make any difference to me. We still had our family. We just carried on.’ Forced to divorce, they remained together in a ‘civil union’.Author of over fifty books including British histories, an empire trilogy, travelogues and personal reminiscences, the irrepressible and articulate Jan Morris transitioned from James during the unsympathetic 1970s.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be20f9c7e80680e083e86jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="438" height="570"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>An ostensibly highly successful man’s man, he had in fact felt all his conscious life that at heart he was female. Her ground-breaking memoir Conundrum, written 46 years ago about risky and experimental surgery, is an elegant classic of the gender genre and still in print, a slender volume that poetically and comprehensively addresses today’s transsexuality debate.Reflecting on her transition, Jan said: ‘I would never use the word change, as in “sex change” for what happened to me. I did not change sex, I really absorbed one into the other. I’m a bit of each now. I freely admit it.’I was delighted to be introduced by London publishing connections to this highly accomplished, cerebral and exciting writer during our 1973 research on Marco Polo -- I had wangled my way as the only female member of a <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/so-far-so-good/marco-polo-the-film-that-was-never-made/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/so-far-so-good/marco-polo-the-film-that-was-never-made/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606094371855000&amp;usg=AOvVaw31CG7tk4VmTthyAGf8uV1N">British film team driving overland from Venice to Central Asia</a>.A daring reporter and tireless traveller who had crossed deserts and scaled mountains, her gender transition the previous year was not our focus. We consulted Jan Morris about our route and particularly the intricate details of ancient Venice, one of her most popular books and home to Marco Polo, the peripatetic 13th century trader whose travels about journeys to China had first revealed the orient to avid European readers. I remember Jan as strong, straightforward, enthusiastic and helpful, lots of hair and heavy jewellery.Baring her soul, Conundrum was published the following year in 1974. In response to my no doubt naïve gushing fan letter about the book’s profound effect, admiration of her bravery and reminder of our Marco Polo meeting, Jan’s hand-written postcard to me arrived dated 30 October 1974 from their home in Bath.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be2119c7e80680e083e87jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1996" height="1302"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Recently I retrieved her card during a Covid clear out, a precious reminder of a long-gone encounter, although the casual multiplicity of our respective travels struck me as completely extraordinary in these static times. Despite the sentiments in her card, Jan and I did not meet up on her return from ‘S Africa and Australia in the New Year’. I had already returned to Nepal, and stayed.The next and last time that I would meet Jan Morris was at <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/funeral-of-Sir-Edmund-Hillary,1100" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/funeral-of-Sir-Edmund-Hillary,1100&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606094371856000&amp;usg=AOvVaw17BOc90QU0k2a1V9c_Xw3Y">Sir Edmund Hillary’s funeral</a> in 2008. In the well-kept hallowed grounds of Auckland’s Government House, the great and the good of New Zealand and world mountaineering were gathered to mourn the national hero’s passing.Under the spreading trees of the gently sloping garden, the sun shone weakly on the Governor General’s reception that followed a rare state funeral in the cathedral, led by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/edmund-hillary-funeral,1127" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/edmund-hillary-funeral,1127&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606094371856000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1cRWCU9029-2B2EPtHnCpV">Prime Minister Helen Clark</a>. Jan attended as a government guest along with the bare handful of surviving 1953 members.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be2149c7e80680e083e88jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1660" height="1114"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>I was there with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/elizabeth-hawley-1923-2018/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/elizabeth-hawley-1923-2018/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606094371856000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1QR7Xpp0vNKIx7DD5gjroj">Elizabeth Hawley</a> and the five officiating Sherpa leaders, although by the time we arrived from the crematorium the shadows were lengthening and the crowd was thinning. The day before we had been sitting with the family around Lady June’s Remuera kitchen table when Jan arrived down the carpeted staircase directly from her London flight, a booming presence bearing flowers, slightly awkward and wonderfully untidy with wild white hair and another chunky necklace.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQGZ_4fXoFc&amp;fbclid=IwAR0rRARNossXocDp4FzGh13ir7Ox14oAlRwUSznAUsCn0sm6rgH9dPh8RuMJan Morris, legendary travel writer, met in conversation with Recce editor Don George on May 8, 2013, at the New York Times Center in Manhattan. A prolific and eclectic writer, in her 2018 ‘thought diary’ In My Mind’s Eye, Jan explained that her daily exercise was a thousand steps a day down the narrow green Welsh lanes lined with stone walls with distant views of the sea. ‘The thousand paces is my self-imposed basic discipline, rain, shine or earthquake,’ she wrote. As I trudged in dutiful circles during the worst of the lockdown, I remembered her regimen.Jan Morris has reached the end of her ‘tangled life’ and set off on her greatest journey. But even in death she plans never to be separated from Elizabeth, the love of her life. When buried together on a small island on the River Dwyfor, their headstone will read: 'Here are two friends, at the end of one life.'

A postcard from Jan Morris 1926-2020

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be09c9c7e80680e083e01jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1508" height="1126"/><figcaption>A rare Blue Moon rising over Kathmandu on 31 October. There will not be another one till 2039. Photo: Kunda Dixit</figcaption></figure>The lichened terrace wall chaffs the back of my legs and jasmine scent floods the night air as I wait for the blue moon to rise. The gradated rosy glow of sunset has etched the forest trees a black silhouette against the sky fading along the Kathmandu Valley rim. A chorus of crickets shrills in the bushes, and my bare feet can just detect the lost glow of afternoon sun in the terracotta tiles.Blocked by the bulk of Shivapuri looming behind the house, the dappled golden orb was slow to reveal herself above the horizon, sailing stately into the navy night sky. The rare spectacle of a spooky full moon on Halloween 31 October visible all around the globe has not occurred since 1944, 76 years ago deep in the last dark days of World War II. The next one will not be until 2039. I shivered, even though it was not a cold evening.It’s complicated, but a so-called blue moon is when a year has 13 full moons instead of the usual 12, the name given to the third full moon in a season that has four moons (normally a quarter year has three full moons). However more recent usage refers to when two full moons fall within the same month, as happened the other night very exceptionally on Halloween.But one thing is sure - the moon never looks blue and the event is not particularly unusual. A normal lunar cycle is 29.53 days, so two full moons are squeezed into one month about every two or three years, or seven times in 19 years to be exact. Although the origin of the name is hazy, I like the fanciful speculation that the term is derived from archaic English belewe or belaewe meaning ‘to betray’ because the extra moon "betrays the usual perception of one full moon per month."<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0a09c7e80680e083e02jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1424" height="1058"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>So why ‘once in a blue moon’ to denote something that almost never happens, extremely seldom, absurd or an indefinitely long time? Under extraordinary and rare atmospheric conditions the moon has been known to appear blue, and indeed sunsets turn green and the sky red, due to dust and smoke particles caused by prolonged droughts and the volcanic explosions of Krakatoa, Mount St Helen, and Pinatubo.In the West we have become dislocated from the celestial cycles, preferring our high days and holiday dates fixed and predictable on the annual calendar. Moons get a bad rap, unreliably made of green cheese and linked with lunacy, and blue moon crooners allude to sadness and loneliness in their songs. Easter is one of the few annual moveable feasts in the liturgical year, preceded by Lent and Holy Week and finishing with Pentacost, fifty days later. This week we mark Poppy or Remembrance Day in memory of all those lost in conflict, fixed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the moment that the Armistice was signed in 1918.On the other hand, people of the Himalaya are totally at ease with the mystery of lunar calendars which determine all religious festivals, life celebrations and even government rule in Nepal, as well as tsechus in Bhutan, purnima Hindu rituals and Buddhist traditions. Comfortable with uncertainty, astrologers presided over everything from royal decision making to sacred ceremonies, to ordinary existence, rites of passage, and practical concerns such as auspicious dates for travelling, initiating projects and even finding missing property.Soon after arriving in Nepal, some cash went missing from a bedroom in the Sanepa guest house where I was staying. To resolve the acrimony and accusations, the whole household repaired to a low dark room deep in the Kathmandu bazar, traipsing up a narrow staircase with bowed heads to settle around a lady psychic seated against the wall. A blue shawl shrouded her head and a shy little boy leaned against her knee. Swaying forward she muttered incantations, then consulted the boy’s palm that had been carefully smeared with a shiny black paste. We waited in awed expectation. Sure enough, the revelation on that tiny hand was able to describe a clear vision of someone entering the room, opening the trunk and taking the money. The thief was identified, and we all returned home satisfied and relieved.Cosmology governs the sequence of spectacular festivals that mark the Valley’s seasons and 12-year cycles, integral to normal existence for local inhabitants and core tourism attractions for visitors. I used to bike and hike through the dirt lanes and paddy fields to distant villages and far-flung temples, sampling the celebrations, witnessing the pujas, and processing with the pilgrims. I mixed with the colour-drenched crowds who concentrated in the Durbar Squares for vibrant festivals observed unchanged over centuries.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0a39c7e80680e083e03jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1600" height="1200"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0a69c7e80680e083e04jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1600" height="1160"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0a99c7e80680e083e05jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1602" height="1142"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One Indra Jatra I found myself in the royal rana magnificence of the great room of Kathmandu’s Hanuman Dhoka Durbar, overlooking the square thronged with worshippers and pyramids of people packed onto the temple steps. As privileged guests we mingled with ministers, generals and diplomats in that imposing space beneath the sculpted columns, glittering glass chandeliers and grand vaulted windows. From our vantage on the stucco balcony, we could look directly into the intimacy of the Kumari’s chariot and feel the fervour of the masked dancers.For me it was a once in a blue moon memory, especially precious as that wing of the palace was later destroyed in the 2015 earthquake.

Once in a Halloween Blue Moon in Kathmandu

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdaf89c7e80680e080299jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2513" height="1674"/><figcaption>Tengboche Rinpoche arrives at Namche monastery for the Dumji festival during the summer of 2018. Photo: SUJOY DAS</figcaption></figure>In the midst of the galloping pandemic, we were recently blessed with a moment of reflective respite in the form of a beautiful date - 10102020 - rounded calm numbers to relish and harmonise in these troubled times. It was not long before sad news from the Khumbu reached the Valley. Just after midnight on this perfectly balanced date, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-sherpas-mourn-tengboche-abbott/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-sherpas-mourn-tengboche-abbott/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEawnwmHU13bX4LRdMdiAa4LowiZA">Tengboche Rinpoche passed away in Namche Bazar. </a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-sherpas-mourn-tengboche-abbott/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-sherpas-mourn-tengboche-abbott/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEawnwmHU13bX4LRdMdiAa4LowiZA"> </a>Tengboche monastery triumphantly straddles a steep saddle overlooking Mount Sagarmatha, the heart of Sherpa heritage and religion. Its Rinpoche was born on the same day as His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1935 to a Sherpa family in Namche – named Passang Tenzin and later ordained Ngawang Tenzin Zangbu.He was sent to study in Rongbuk monastery in Tibet, and aged five was recognised as the incarnation of Tengboche monastery’s founder in 1916, Lama Gulu. Throughout his long life, Rinpoche’s grave, quiet, compassionate demeanour was a familiar presence at all significant ceremonies, memorials and events in the Khumbu, honoured not only amongst Sherpas but by every expedition and mountaineer who would seek his mandatory blessing before attempting the high Himalayan summits.Greatly respected by all who came into his orbit, Rinpoche’s gentle guiding hand and wise serious voice were behind conservation and development decisions affecting the region, to ensure that all viewpoints were considered and every outcome brought benefits to the natural environment and Sherpa culture.For the government, he chaired the Panchayat lama and monastery management committees and for the Himalayan Trust he inaugurated the Khumjung School in 1961. Far reaching initiatives which today we take for granted, such as the gazetting of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/more-trekkers-more-trees/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/more-trekkers-more-trees/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG_-kaFBdUXSuCo2A89MJf8BjqHrg">Sagarmatha National Park</a> and UNESCO World Heritage Site and the formation of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/everest-garbage-caravan/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/everest-garbage-caravan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFT_BcFt8HmHdeKrWkIUcVd0ZPMeg">Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee</a>, would not have got off the ground without his unobtrusive but steely support.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdafc9c7e80680e08029ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1402" height="1072"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rinpoche was a constant source of saintly succour and support, presiding through periods of trekking prosperity and favourable harvests, and during times of disaster including earthquakes, floods, avalanches and accidents that have caused much weeping and grief in Sherpa households and Khumbu kitchens.Late night on 19 January 1989, his Tengboche monastery burned to the ground, blamed on an electrical fault from the new micro-hydro. Rinpoche turned to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3170#.X4m-tC8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3170%23.X4m-tC8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3Y_El-s7vJzIhLoGo4EYq49VIng">Sir Edmund Hillary</a> and other friends to contribute to the monastery’s rebuild, presiding over the meticulous reconstruction of the Sherpa’s most significant Buddhist centre.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdaff9c7e80680e08029bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2016" height="1512"></figure>In the garden outside the Himalayan Trust office in Dilli Bazar, its Chairman Mr Pasang Dawa Sherpa and HH Tengboche Rinpoche who conducted the ten year ceremony remembering the death of Sir Edmund Hillary Photo: LISA CHOEGYALOn the auspicious day of the reopening in 1993, I was invited to join the Himalayan Trust group attending the consecration ceremony. By this time Sir Ed was confined to travelling by helicopter from Kathmandu, having lost all tolerance to altitude and unable to stay long in the high places he loved.With us were Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala as chief guest, and Himalayan Trust supporters including Richard Blum of the American Himalayan Foundation and the indomitable Elizabeth Hawley, a rare sight in the mountains. But Sir Ed was struggling with his health and bad weather threatened as we landed in the meadow in front of the newly restored gompa.Sitting cross-legged on carpeted cushions in the enlarged prayer hall beneath the repainted murals, Rinpoche presided, monks chanted, incense wafted, drums pounded and hand bells chimed. Afterwards, colour-drenched dancers whirled in the stone flagged courtyard and conches signalled the close of the celebrations, but Ang Rita’s face was sombre with apprehension.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdb029c7e80680e08029cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2144" height="1424"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Thick clouds had descended and a heavy silence enveloped the ridge – we had no choice but to wait in the high thin air under limp prayer flags wreathed in mist. Ed was not the only person looking grey and gaunt when the two helicopters found a gap to dive through the weather, just long enough to pick us up whilst the rotors roared, frantic farewells were waved, and rhododendrons bowed in the fierce damp gusts.Over the decades Rinpoche witnessed many cycles of Sagarmatha triumphs and catastrophes. In May 1996 my young sons ran ahead as I toiled up the Namche hill, to meet up with the retreating Everest expeditions. Their members were dazed and traumatised from the shattering events that resulted in eight people dead in one day including two experienced leaders, New Zealander Rob Hall and American Scott Fischer.Everyone along the trail was talking about the tragedy, and one lonely morning we offered lamps and katas at Tengboche monastery in the time-honoured custom. With the bleak cry of kites spiralling the thermals overhead, Guy Cotter strode towards us across the bridge below Pangboche, Rob’s Kiwi climbing colleague who had led the rescue. He was lean, drawn and exhausted in grief.The drama had unfolded over several days, so intense that it became the subject of many books and films, Hollywood made a blockbuster movie, and those of us directly involved have the events seared into our memory. Whilst attempting the summit on 10 May 1996 an unexpected storm descended, stranding climbers high on the mountain. With Guy in base camp I coordinated the rescue by radio phone from Kathmandu with help from the American Embassy, but despite everyone’s best efforts we failed to get them all back down.Some headway was made – valiant Sherpas saved members lost in the blizzard, America’s most experienced mountaineers abandoned their IMAX Everest film to help, and when the weather cleared the heroic helicopter captain Madan KC broke altitude records to pick up the worst injured climbers from above the Khumbu icefall. Later that day in the Kathmandu clinic, I held the telephone to Beck Weathers’ ear as the Texan surgeon, both frostbitten hands fully bandaged, told his wife in Dallas that he had miraculously survived having been “left for dead” - tears streamed down his ice-burned face.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdb069c7e80680e08029djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1694" height="1362"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/not-just-another-book-on-everest/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/not-just-another-book-on-everest/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602955815629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHxncUeA7AemNf6LneR3T_bBpJOTQ">Photographer Sujoy Das</a> remembers a monsoon visit to the Dumji festival, the landscape shrouded in mist and dripping with rain. “I climbed to Namche gompa where monks were occupied making torma, exquisite flour and butter sculptures, as festival offerings. Sherpa families take turns to sponsor Dumji, and invite monks to officiate in the monasteries.On my way back down the hill, amidst great local excitement, I passed the Rinpoche of Tengboche who had arrived by helicopter to preside over the services. The festivities honour the founder saint, Guru Padmasambhava, and are said to date back to the historic times of Lama Sangwa Dorjee and his two famous tantric brothers who established the original three gompas of Pangboche, Thame and Rimijung after the Khumbu beyul (holy refuge) was first discovered by Sherpa people migrating from eastern Tibet.”On one particularly bizarre occasion in 2003, Rinpoche agreed to an unusual proposition. Sitting politely on carpets beneath a wall of thankas, I explained that some Germans wished to arrange a memorable birthday for their boss. The card would read ‘HH Rinpoche of Tengboche is pleased to welcome Dr Klaus Zumwinkel to stay in his monastery in the Everest region. This gift on the occasion of your sixtieth birthday is given by all employees of Deutsche Post World Net’.The experience involved staying in monk's quarters and taking part in prayers and monastery activities for a week, with a personal monk interpreter deputed to help him navigate real monastery life. Despite sending a generous donation, I apologised that the boss never showed up to claim his birthday present. “Never mind!” twinkled Rinpoche.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171152/636bdb099c7e80680e08029ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2582" height="1953"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Without his encompassing spiritual authority, this week the Khumbu is a different place. Every forlorn Sherpa home is conducting personal pujas. In the diamond light of autumn, Rinpoche’s loss echoes through the stone houses, the rushing rivers, the rock walls, the soaring white peaks and reforested hillsides that shelter red tragopans, iridescent impeyan pheasants, skittish musk deer and Himalayan tahr with lavish manes. A striking dawn cloud formation seems to salute his passing.Mingma Norbu told me: “Early on Monday the local Sherpa people carried his body in procession to Tengboche after a solemn blessing from Deu Rinpoche at Namche gompa. Reaching at 1145am, monks from Thame and Thamo attended for his special welcome. Rinpoche’s body will remain in Tengboche for 49 days, after which he will be cremated according to our local tradition.”

The Himalaya mourn a saintly leader

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9479c7e80680e080205jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="850"/><figcaption>Blending into their natural habitat, elephants are a perfect vehicle on which to explore tiger country’s towering grasslands in safety and without disturbing the wildlife Photo: DHRUV SINGH</figcaption></figure>In the depths of central India the red rocks hung heavy in the dry April heat. The guide Bimal led us along the marked trail and tangled thorns through the prehistoric caves, solicitous that we admired the ancient paintings, the oldest rock art in India, preserved by UNESCO in the remote archaeological world heritage site of Bhimbetka. Our footsteps on the hot packed earth echoed with the silence of far-distant ancestors.Occupied in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times through to the historic period, the shimmering walls of Bhimbetka rock shelters were alive with drawings of stylised animals, ritual dancers and horseback hunters pursuing herds that had roamed up to 10,000 years ago, offering a rare glimpse into the earliest traces of life in India. Amongst the bulls, buffaloes, deer, antelope, a peacock, a tiger and the left handprint of a small child, my attention was immediately caught by the tusked elephant with people perched on his back.“I used to live with elephants in the Tarai jungles - have you been to Nepal?” I asked Bimal, to explain my enthusiasm. “Not yet,” came the elliptical reply.Rather like Covid-19, the complex conundrum surrounding the rights and wrongs of keeping captive elephants can be led by solid science and good sense, or it gets blinded in a whirlwind of rumour and innuendo. Whatever we may think today, the red wall art of Bhimbetka reminds us that elephants are embedded deep within the South Asian cultural psyche, a rapport built over many millennia.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-a-familys-destination/">Nepal: a family's destination</a>, Lisa Choegyal<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd94a9c7e80680e080206jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="5184" height="3456"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd94e9c7e80680e080207jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="956" height="635"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9519c7e80680e080208jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2016" height="1368"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Brought up in England amongst dogs, horses and a deep concern for animal welfare, arriving in 1970s Chitwan I was captivated by the Tiger Tops hatisar, bustling with phanits, pachhuwas, mahouts, wives, children and a dozen elephants, each with their individual character, personality and foibles. I observed the symbiotic bond with their skilled handlers, their sometimes feisty relationships with each other, and the delight that these clever creatures brought to decades of jungle visitors. Interactions with patient pachyderms were undoubtedly a highpoint of tourist visits to the Tarai national parks of Nepal.A primal affinity with the jungle pervades the senses as I sway soundlessly through the park landscape behind an expert phanit, a grey trunk delicately investigates the timeless scents and sounds, and a low gurgle communicates with her neighbours nearby.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/bardiya-beginnings-Lisa-Choegyal,1085">Bardiya beginnings</a>, Lisa Choegyal<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9549c7e80680e080209jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1882" height="1262"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Sangjay’s first spoken word was hati, Rinchen was only four when the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ri14rw32c" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3Db8ri14rw32c&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHIFavmdqNaM5XU6m0avVzlAnJNVg">Enigma elephant music video</a> hit the charts, and soon after I arrived in Chitwan my life was saved from an irate rhinoceros by Rup Kali, and her driver Sultana. As well as being a perfect wildlife-viewing vehicle on which to explore tiger country’s towering grasslands in safety, elephant walks in the forest, bathing in the river, and elephant camp visits to learn their husbandry, habits and friendships were highlights for Tiger Tops guests.These days, it is ironic that this elephantine ability to inspire sentiment and strong feeling is threatening their future, and even their very survival. Provoked by animal rights activists and fundraisers, a morass of misinformation, anthropomorphism and simplistic soundbites are shamelessly manipulating this emotion to convince the world that it is cruel to keep elephants in captivity.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/champions-of-nepals-conservation-movement/">Champions of Nepal's conservation movement</a>, Lisa Choegyal<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9579c7e80680e08020ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="384"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Well-meaning western tour operators are succumbing to media pressure, refusing to sell lodges or itineraries that offer elephant activities. Losing tourists would be the worst outcome for Nepal’s elephants with potentially tragic consequences – their welfare is dependent on sustainable tourism and visitor demand, and is specially fragile due to the ongoing coronavirus downturn.There is doubtless appalling abuse in parts of Nepal, and particularly in other Asian destinations where negligent authorities allow elephants to be taken from the wild, despite legislation prohibiting this, and some animals are cruelly trained, badly neglected, illegally trafficked or otherwise subjected to the misery of mistreatment. Are we not obligated to treat all animals with kindness and respect – farmed, tamed, trained, captive or wild – not just elephants?<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9599c7e80680e08020bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="853"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Over 200 domesticated elephants are scattered through Nepal, mostly in the Tarai living adjacent to their natural habitat around Chitwan and Bardia National Parks. About half are in private hands for tourism (106 private elephants reported by WWF Nepal), with 94 owned by the government and eight by NTNC where they are essential for conservation research, census, monitoring, translocation, rescue, anti-poaching patrols and reaching otherwise inaccessible areas, especially during the monsoon. Private lodge elephants are often used to supplement DNPWC’s important wildlife protection work, contributing to Nepal’s enviable record of conservation success.None of Nepal’s elephants are used for logging or expected to work in alien environments such as temples, forts, beaches, city streets and urban hotels -- all far less-humane activities than jungle safaris in their natural habitat. The worst that happens is the occasional royal coronation or ceremonial procession in Kathmandu, now that hunting is over. Since 1986 the pachyderm’s wild cousins are protected as endangered species, no elephants have been captured from the wild in Nepal since the mid-nineteenth century, and our habitual training techniques mostly employ kindness and positive reinforcement rather than brute force.It is expensive to manage any elephant camp, requiring space, shelter, supplementary food, veterinary attention, and substantial numbers of staff and their families – three persons tended each animal at Tiger Tops, mostly indigenous lowland people honoured for their generations of traditional knowledge and elephant experience.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/john-r-edwards-a-life-in-the-shadow/">John R Edwards, 72</a>, Lisa Choegyal<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd95c9c7e80680e08020cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Baby elephants born in captivity take years to grow and also keep their mothers out of commission - some calves are sired by wild bulls from accidental mating. Well planned and responsible jungle tourism in the elephant’s natural environment is the best benign option for sustaining their expensive existence, ensuring they are valued, kindly treated and venerated as Ganesh, integral to Hindu heritage and subcontinental culture.Boycotting the use of elephants for tourism comes with the danger of having the very opposite effect desired by well-meaning proponents. Naive calls to set elephants free back into the wild are not a realistic option due to lack of suitable habitat, exacerbation of conflict with humans, disruption to wild populations, risks of spreading disease, legal obstacles and limited alternative livelihoods for the local communities who depend on them for jobs.The idealistic dream of eliminating conventional tools utilised for control and safety for centuries, such as ankle chains and ankush (metal hooks), can be lethal for both handlers and tourists if not approached carefully. Elephants are highly intelligent animals with a developed social structure, so building herds and friendship groups is technical and skilled, and corrals can result in elephants fighting, becoming stressed, bullied and even less happy than when confined in a regular hatisar.According to science, neither is there any moral high ground to be gained by not riding elephants. Studies show that rides are not necessarily a problem provided they are done the right way, in the right terrain and with the right professional care. Elephant treatment must be based on science and experience, not on emotion and sentiment.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/elephants-born-free,3302">Born to be free</a>, Lucia De Vries<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd95f9c7e80680e08020djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3554" height="2420"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Ongoing studies by teams of scientists in South East Asian countries, where many of the welfare violations take place, have come up with best practice guidelines and a set of criteria to ensure management benchmarking that benefit both elephants and their stable staff. These can be adapted for Nepal.We need to distinguish our differences and separate our reputation from problematic issues elsewhere. Without too many changes, checks and upgrades with the cooperation of current elephant owners, Nepal could be leading the world in elephant best practice.Instead of a blanket ban, succumbing to pressure from uninformed rights’ campaigners and confused media, introducing a certification system to monitor ethical standards throughout Nepal elephant camps could improve animal welfare and human wellbeing, and help rescue Nepal’s flagging nature tourism.Without being apologetic or defensive, Nepal’s elephant practices can gain the trust of tour operators and consumers with external auditing to attain model conditions of animal care, without jeopardising the safety of our elephants, their carers or wildlife tourists.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14294">Bardiya's peace dividend</a>, Wanda Vivequin<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9629c7e80680e08020ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1624" height="1083"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Since my long-ago life in the jungle, a slew of zoologists, ecologists and a substantial body of research have been devoted to the issue of domesticated elephants. Their work overlaps to help protect the endangered 50,000 wild elephants remaining in Asia, of which Nepal has relatively few. The recent DNPWC count recorded only 227 jungly hatis resident in Nepal (Ram &amp; Acharya 2020) in isolated populations along the southern border – not many more than the 208 elephants employed in conservation and tourism.The Asian Captive Elephant Working Group (ACEWG) is a task force established in 2015 comprising some of the world’s foremost elephant specialists, scientists, conservationists, and camp managers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Think Elephants International, Elephant Care International and GTAEF run by John Roberts, who cut his teeth working with elephants in Chitwan.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/politics-threatens-to-undo-achievements-in-conservation-nepal,2952">Save nature from politicians</a><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9659c7e80680e08020fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="519"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>John is a leading authority, fighting for humane treatment based in Thailand at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (<a href="http://www.helpingelephants.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.helpingelephants.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHVNSvSDKeD5FSx6wY7DiIvP57xcg">GTAEF</a>). “If the working hours are limited and the terrain is suitable, two people in a saddle (less than ten percent of the elephant’s body weight) will not be an undue stressor for an elephant,” John Roberts reports. “The weight of one or two people without a saddle (less than four percent of body weight) would hardly be noticed.”Dr Ingrid Suter presents a persuasive argument having spent her career interviewing mahouts and working with elephant owners. “Private elephant ownership is here to stay … let’s be sure harm is minimised and ideally eradicated,” she says. As part of Asian <a href="http://www.elephantstandards.com/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.elephantstandards.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG4ZzZmNOwdckcEKLi-kCrfjGwjhQ">Captive Elephants Standards </a>she applies ‘scientific quantifiable evidence and <a href="https://www.pata.org/calendar/tour-operators-for-elephants." data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pata.org/calendar/tour-operators-for-elephants.&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFfJ9reFQKTDfPmhC9cunOSo-jCUg">expert findings</a> rather than emotion or trends or pressure’.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171144/636bd9679c7e80680e080210jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="210"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Best practice certification schemes to win the confidence of the tourism industry have been developed by organisations that include Travelife for Tour Operators, <a href="http://www.elefantasia.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.elefantasia.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGjRPNa-1hivTjNgp9j87eSJJPRVw">ElefantAsia</a> and Global Spirit, <a href="http://www.globalspirit.biz/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.globalspirit.biz/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601903926342000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGqMiXXkqa0e49KBoMrVpFVqTPSVA">Animals in Tourism </a>with support from IUCN, PATA and WWF.If we fail to convince the international travel industry of our ethical standards, and if the Chitwan and Bardia elephants cannot support themselves with responsible jungle tourism, we are condemning these giants and their dependent local families to worse conditions and an uncertain future. And we would be depriving visitors of a wonderful opportunity to experience Nepal’s spectacular wildlife from the vantage of elephant back, which in turn supports vital conservation work, and promotes education, awareness and protection for the wealth of species and biodiversity in our beautiful protected areas.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-humans-can-live-with-wild-elephants/">How humans can live with wild elephants</a>, Sheren Shrestha and Gokarna Jung Thapahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ri14rw32c&amp;feature=youtu.be

The elephant dilemma

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5509c7e80680e07bbf7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="782" height="914"/><figcaption>Fr Marshall D Moran (1906-1992) in Nepal with his ham radio and 9N1MM call sign.</figcaption></figure>We stood uneasily on the grass beneath the spreading fig tree. Father Moran was trying to create a sense of religious formality, our excited guests were in danger of being rowdy, and I was missing the church font usually associated with christenings from my Protestant upbringing. But this was our tiny patch of Bansbari garden in 1987, and we had to make do.I was carrying the precious bundle wrapped in his best, though not the trailing lace and embroidery of more traditional baptism ceremonies. The appointed god parents could not be with us so Alma, the dignified wife of Dudley Spain had offered to be surrogate godmother, and Lewis Macfarlane the American deputy was our stand-in godfather. The proceedings got underway with a blessing and some prayers as the audience settled in the spring sunshine, birdsong drifting through the lychee trees and insects busy in the flowerbeds.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5529c7e80680e07bbf8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="890"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5569c7e80680e07bbf9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="890"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Alma tried to wrestle Sangjay out of my arms, an undignified tussle ensued until I was reminded in an urgent hiss that church etiquette dictates that the godmother, not the mother, holds the child during the service. Father Moran carried on valiantly as I yielded my little treasure. Sangjay gazed typically phlegmatic throughout, the assembled friends politely pretending not to notice.My mother professed to be shocked that our babies, Sangjay then his little brother Rinchen a couple of years later, had been baptized “by a Catholic priest, darling!”, though I don’t think she really minded. She approved that both sons had also been blessed and named by the Tibetan family Rinpoche in Swayambhunath, careful to protect our katas, offerings and babies from the monkeys, and covering all spiritual options. And like me, she greatly admired the gentle legacy of the Jesuits in Nepal, holding special respect for their leader, Father Moran.The Society of Jesus fathers were an integral part of early expatriate life in Kathmandu, bringing gravitas to Christian community landmarks such as baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials, as well as being great fun at the after-party. Many of them were American and most took Nepali nationality, instilling their special brand of universal spirituality and essence of educational excellence without ever forcing their faith. Father Moran set the tone with his ham radio call sign, 9N1MM Mickey Mouse.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5599c7e80680e07bbfajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1128" height="736"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>No foreign funeral was complete without the reassuring presence of a presiding Jesuit, and Boris’s was no exception. At the age of 80 Boris died in 1985, inconveniently during Dasain so Jim Edwards and I had to mobilise a team of Buddhist Mountain Travel Sherpas to dig his grave in the British Cemetery - Hindus could not be tainted during the festival.Arriving in India with only refugee papers, Boris had managed British citizenship with the help of his friend Lady Diana Duff-Cooper. He often visited the British Cemetery on daily walks from the Royal Hotel, and always intended to be buried there beside his mother and mother-in-law. He liked to say that he knew the name on every tombstone, making the acquaintance of his future neighbours. Buried on a bright afternoon 22 October 1985, the funeral service was dramatic with Russian wailing, sobbing and embracing the coffin, despite the best efforts of Father Eugene Watrin and Father Tom Downing who conducted the service.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb55b9c7e80680e07bbfbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="416"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Jesuits’ commitment to their calling was manifest in their scholarly study, academic research and social work, resulting in books, centres and clinics where they were most needed. Their gowned silhouettes were a familiar sight around town, pursuing their devout vocations with practical ministrations. Father Moran is remembered riding his motorbike to Godavari, white robes billowing, and in his wake alarmed buffalos and excited dogs careering down the unmade road in a cloud of dust.For Nepalis, the brothers’ profound influence on education impacted on generations of privileged pupils lucky enough to attend St Xavier’s and St Mary’s in Godavari and Jawalakhel - Nepal’s first internationally accredited schools opened in 1951 and 1955 respectively. At the initiative of the newly instated King Tribhuvan, the Jesuits literally brought modern thinking to Nepal, founding the first permanent Christian mission sanctioned in Kathmandu for nearly 200 years. This remarkable achievement was mainly due to the sheer force of personality and charisma of Father Marshall Moran.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb55e9c7e80680e07bbfcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="536" height="557"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5609c7e80680e07bbfdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="557"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The first European ever encountered by the Valley’s Newa inhabitants was a Portuguese Jesuit, Father John Cabral, on his way from Shigatse (Xigazê) in Tibet to Bengal in early 1628. These intrepid Westerners were Jesuit monks despatched from Rome to their Catholic mission in Tibet. They must have been a strange sight, austere travellers clothed in long capes and plain, black, ankle-length soutanes gathered at the waist with a rope.The Jesuits’ legation in Lhasa was never robust and in 1702 Pope Clement XI reassigned the mission-field of Tibet to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin - a branch of Roman Catholic Franciscans. The Capuchins would have been instantly recognisable with their dark-brown robes, pointed hoods drawn over their heads, and untrimmed bushy black beards.The Malla kings allowed Capuchin friars from Lhasa to live in the Valley’s city states for over half a century, until they were politely sent packing by Prithivi Narayan Shah is 1769. With their centre in Bhaktapur, Raja Ranajit Malla wrote in Newari to the Pope saying that they were free to evangelise but, concerning his own conversion, he would “not be able to do it now”. The site of the Lalitpur Capuchin house and small cemetery, said to lie north of Patan, is forgotten and lost. Other than the occasional visit by a wandering Capuchin, there would be no Christian clergy living in Nepal until the restoration of the monarchy when Father Moran established the current Jesuit mission.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5629c7e80680e07bbfejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="630">Born in Chicago in 1906, Marshall D. Moran joined the Society of Jesus in 1924. With five other Jesuits sailed as a novice from New York to Bombay in 1929, then by train to their destination, the Patna Mission in Bihar. In India he studied and taught in Shembaganur, Bettiah, Kurseong and Ranchi, set up schools and hospitals, and worked in Patna University which had links with Tri Chandra College in Kathmandu - a connection that would change his life.Father Bill Robins tells the story: “The Patna University sent an invigilator each year to supervise the Tri Chandra college exams. Professors hated to go. Marshall volunteered to fill in, and so in October 1949 travelled to the border and on to Amlekhganj in Nepal. A bus got him to Bhimphedi and from there he walked to Kathmandu. During the month in Nepal, Marsh was able to build relationships with those in power, while offering to help Nepal through school education. He returned to Patna, hoping that he would be invited back.”On the feast of All Saints a year later, Marshall Moran received the keenly awaited summons from the new education minister, Nrip Jang Rana. Returning to Kathmandu in early 1951, Father Moran accepted the offer of Godavari Darbar, the Prime Minister’s summer residence, as the school site, he recruited students and prepared the buildings. St. Xavier’s in Godavari began classes on 1 July 1951, and land was purchased in Jawalakhel in 1954. Thanks to a plentiful supply of American missionaries and visa restrictions within India, a succession of Jesuit teachers were available to run the schools.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5639c7e80680e07bbffjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="516"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There were a couple of non-negotiable conditions attached to the invitation as prescribed by King Tribhuvan, and to which Father Moran concurred. The Jesuits’ work was confined only to the Kathmandu Valley, and they were not permitted to proselytise. Within those limitations, which to this day the brotherhood are proud to have honoured to the letter, the Society of Jesus fathers have made their indelible mark on the history of Nepal.

Father Moran and Nepal's Jesuits

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb34f9c7e80680e07bb33jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1508" height="1076"/><figcaption>Boris Lissanevitch and Inger at Kathmandu airport in 1955 when the first tour groups started arriving in Nepal.</figcaption></figure>Not since the early 1950s have we had zero tourists arrive in Kathmandu Valley.The combination of hostile geography and cautious politics had effectively conspired to keep foreigners out of the kingdom of Nepal, sealed for centuries. When <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/erika-and-king-tribhuvan/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/erika-and-king-tribhuvan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236748000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHQFdH_e6LubJypBFTxWDrJu4C-lQ">King Tribhuvan</a> wrested power back from the reclusive Rana rulers in 1951, only an estimated total of 300 foreign officials, diplomats and royal guests had ever penetrated the malarial swamps of the Tarai or the snow-bound Himalayan barrier of the northern passes.The xenophobia of previous regimes considered it prudent to keep the doors closed to Westerners, especially with the changing fortunes of Tibet and China to the north, and a marauding East India Company followed by a power-hungry British Empire lurking along the southern boundary, which extended nearly twice the length of Nepal today.All trade routes into the Valley were well patrolled, and the British incumbents at their Lainchaur Residency (now the Indian Ambassador’s home) were tolerated to varying degrees, but remained under escort even around the Valley and seldom permitted beyond its rim except to their ridgetop cottage at Koulia, then Kakani.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10754#.X1QpHS0w0Wo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D10754%23.X1QpHS0w0Wo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGso8FpUWgrP03HHkL5QMIf7nzj3Q">Boris Lissanevitch</a> changed all that when he opened Kathmandu’s first hotel and brought the first tourist group to Nepal in 1955. Having visited on a 10-day holiday in 1951 at the invitation of newly instated King Tribhuvan, Boris moved to Kathmandu with <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Obituary/Inger-Lissanevitch,886" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Obituary/Inger-Lissanevitch,886&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHOih_vfDV6zlCnFWEFlF5yTFGhgw">Inger,</a> two small boys, Mischa and Alexander (their third son Nicholas was born later in Nepal), and a mother-in-law with a penchant for collecting stray animals and antiques.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3539c7e80680e07bb34jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="399"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>‘After a few hours I fell madly in love with this country’ Boris declared in a contemporary interview. ‘This is where we wanted to live.’ Inger, his beautiful Danish Scottish wife, 23 years junior, agreed. They never left.An ebullient White Russian ballet dancer and big-game hunter born in Odessa of Ukraine, Boris was a larger than life character, born into a wealthy military Tsarist family amidst the hardships of the 1905 Russian revolution. A cadet heading for a career in the Tsar’s navy, instead Boris had to flee to France, escaping Bolshevik persecution.Boris’ exotic career included performing with Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes in Paris and dancing with Massine throughout Europe, South America and Asia. In 1936, finding himself stranded in India, he started the exclusive 300 Club in Calcutta, the first establishment to accept Indian members and to remain open 24 hours a day. Patronised by India’s princely elite, leading businessmen, world war pilots, diplomats and itinerant adventurers, Boris had the opportunity to meet and charm royalty and influential politicians from the region, especially Nepal.In addition to King Tribhuvan, his close friends and frequent guests during his ten years at the 300 Club included the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and exiled Nepali Rana militants, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepals-rana-dynasty/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepals-rana-dynasty/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFtOmOcnPI0RF2-UVycxv1Q-Yz4Lw">Mahavir and Subarna Shamsher</a>. Supposedly B P Koirala, Nepal’s democracy activist, and King Tribhuvan held secret negotiations in the men’s room. Not all the abundant stories about Boris’ exploits are true, but they are usually dramatic and always amusing – he was a collector of people and tall tales.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3569c7e80680e07bb35jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="465"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3589c7e80680e07bb36jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="361"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Boris set up a spirit distillery in Kathmandu, and with Prince Basundhara converted Bahadur Bhawan in Kantipath (now the Election Commission offices) into the Royal Hotel with 40 restored rooms. In its 1960s heyday, the Royal was considered amongst the most interesting hotels in the world, and its charismatic proprietor was a major attraction. The hotel’s Yak &amp; Yeti Bar was the heart of Kathmandu’s foreign community with Boris presiding, ever popular with a stream of mountaineers, envoys, explorers, spies, missionaries, aid workers, tiger hunters, yeti enthusiasts - and tourists.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb35b9c7e80680e07bb37jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="976"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19173" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19173&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNElTlkNs5GH0EG2RpJCct1bR0ERtQ">Toni Hagen</a> remembered, the Royal Hotel was ‘an irresistible gathering point’, eating, drinking and storytelling would go on late into the night, until ‘Boris began to sing Russian folk songs in his deep voice or even perform Russian dances’.  Featuring his flamboyant brand of personal charisma, warm hospitality and fine Russian recipes, Boris was the first to bring ‘ordinary’ tourists to Nepal and is thus credited with being the ‘father of Nepal tourism’.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb35e9c7e80680e07bb38jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="772" height="1198"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3609c7e80680e07bb39jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="772" height="1198"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Guests unable to pay the Royal room rate, pitched tents in the hotel’s spacious grounds, avoiding the bizarre vegetables that Boris introduced – he was the first to cultivate mushrooms, strawberries, artichokes, carrots and beetroots – and a roaming menagerie of stray animals. Lhasa Apso dogs, flying squirrels, leopard cats, and a mare that would come ‘clattering down the veranda to be fed lumps of sugar’, occasionally wandering into guest bedrooms leaving unwelcome offerings. A red panda named Pandaji, a gift from Ed Hillary, was said to be the most photographed animal in Nepal.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3639c7e80680e07bb3ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="416"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3659c7e80680e07bb3bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="373"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In 1964 screen idol Jean Paul Belmondo, with a crew led by director Philippe de Broca stayed at the Royal for a few weeks to make Nepal’s first feature film, a boisterous comedy released as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHg6UTl2pU" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DogHg6UTl2pU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE9qXIky7aCU5Fs0S8QUKPQZ0aPzA">Up to His Ears</a>. Boris played a small part. In a scene Belmondo asks: ‘How come you speak such good French?’ and he replies: ‘Because I am Russian!’ After filming in Kathmandu and Pokhara, the crew went to Hong Kong where Belmondo met Ursula Andress, leaving his wife in a much-publicised love affair.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHg6UTl2pU&amp;feature=emb_logoBoris’ special entertainment skills were required by his royal connections to cater extravagant parties and banquets, not least Mahendra’s coronation ceremony in 1956 and the hunting camp for Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh’s state visit in 1961. Boris himself was fictionalised by the novelist <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19768" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19768&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEU3DAX5Jmm9QJseAcnkRUHyh7JXQ">Han Suyin in The Mountain is Young (1958</a>), and his eventful life is described in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Breakfast-Story-Boris-Kathmandu/dp/B0007DYWXQ" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Breakfast-Story-Boris-Kathmandu/dp/B0007DYWXQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFdV652wX5cZw0Ep_GMKgUHXYVLtQ">Tiger for Breakfast (1966) by Michel Peissel. </a>With Boris’ word-of-mouth and media networks paving the way, tourism flourished during the 1960s. Nepali entrepreneurs and royal family members were quick to grasp its potential, opening new hotels of their own. The hordes of hippies, mountaineers and world travellers began to arrive, but preferred to hang out in Basantapur. In 1969 the Royal Hotel was forced to close.By the time I came to Nepal in 1974, myths about the famous Royal’s chaotic hospitality were lost in the building’s abandoned arches, its dusty corridors echoing with the footsteps of former guests – Hollywood stars Vivien Leigh and Ingrid Bergman, Baron Thyssen from Switzerland, Jean Paul Guerlain seeking ingredients for his perfumes, and Queen Sophia of Spain on her honeymoon.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3679c7e80680e07bb3cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="945"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb36a9c7e80680e07bb3djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="336"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>My boss <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15828#.X1QrTC0w0Wo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15828%23.X1QrTC0w0Wo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFYAa3SrosbOCt-tzhahsQv5RyeoA">Jim Edwards</a> greatly admired Boris and helped him through many lean times as he struggled with a series of restaurants in Kathmandu, always strong on entertaining but light on commercial acumen. As I sat behind my blue painted desk in the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/back-to-Chitwan,1075" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/back-to-Chitwan,1075&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGGGuZfftokdwTRGHtMBHYnpw4T9w">Tiger Tops</a> office, Boris would shuffle past in a gaudy short-sleeved shirt with a cheery wave, on his way to beg another loan from the soft-hearted Jim.‘He was a terrible businessman, he didn’t think about money at all,’ bemoaned Inger. Boris himself said: ‘I always spent just about a little bit more than I made’. Disasters over the years included trout, pig and vegetable farming, peach wine, and the failed mahua flower liquor business, which landed him in prison for a couple of months for non-payment of royalties.Restaurants came and went, located in Dilli Bazar, Darbar Marg and his Yak &amp; Yeti Restaurant in Lal Durbar which had opened in 1970 (now the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/a-new-chimney/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/a-new-chimney/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF7FvH0Nw4GKuw2_-zUoyX7d8pFFg">Chimney Restaurant</a> in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/hotel-yak-yeti-celebrates-41st-year/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/hotel-yak-yeti-celebrates-41st-year/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599440236749000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGwNJcmlNnTxmeLoKYiDQwyl9EINA">Yak &amp; Yeti Hotel</a>). I was first taken there for my birthday in 1974, and my future husband Tenzin and I had our first date, crammed on the narrow window seats around the circular brass fireplace. I was mesmerised by the sophisticated choice of flavoured vodkas - lemon, pepper, and something green and not very nice, dill perhaps. The elaborate 1970s menu featured not only Russian favourites such as borscht and stroganoff, but snipe pate, guinea fowl marechale, smoked becki fish and quail’s eggs provided by Jimmy Roberts.And who were Nepal’s first tourists? In 1955 Boris persuaded the reluctant King Mahendra, newly succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Tribhuvan, to invite the first tour group arranged with Thomas Cook &amp; Sons in Calcutta. Consisting of ‘mostly old ladies from a cruise ship’, the narrative goes that the King was so impressed by their genuine enthusiasm for his country, delighted by Kathmandu culture and hoovering up handicrafts in the Royal Hotel shop, that he was convinced by Boris to embrace tourism for his emerging nation, ordering officials to arrange two-week tourist visas.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb36b9c7e80680e07bb3ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="413"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Since that day when Boris achieved this historic reversal and Nepal began to tentatively welcome visitors, tourism has become an essential core industry with consistent growth, climbing from none in 1951, to 6,000 arrivals in 1962 and 1.2 million last year – until coronavirus hit.

Nepal’s tourism now has to re-start from zero

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7409c7e80680e07376fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="754"/><figcaption>The Houston-Westland flown by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton and Stewart Blacker approaching Mt Everest. Photo by S R Bonnett taken on 19 April 1933 from a chase plane. 1</figcaption></figure>The early 1930s were an era of aviation achievements when Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, Richard E Byrd reached the poles and Amy Johnson flew solo from London to Australia. Experimental flights were attracting not only swashbuckling, pioneering pilots, but also nationalistic sponsors keen to advance technology and force new scientific frontiers.This month a new biography is published about Lucy Lady Houston, a former chorus girl notorious as the richest woman in England who brushed aside scandal to become the patriotic financier of the first flight over Mount Everest, backed secret military research, and funded the creation of the Spitfire aircraft.Still nobody had flown over the highest point on earth, and the British were galvanised into action to beat their European rivals. Supported by the Royal Air Force, Britain had the advantage of a newly developed supercharged engine (the Bristol IS3 Pegasus) in a uniquely modified aircraft with an open cockpit they named the Houston-Westland, recommended by the RAF as the fastest-climbing two-seater aircraft ever tested. Douglas Douglas-Hamilton Marquis of Clydesdale (later 14th Duke of Hamilton) was appointed chief pilot, seconded by Flt Lt David McIntyre, each accompanied by an observer cameraman.Shipped by sea in crates to Karachi then reassembled, the two small Westland biplanes flew to the expedition base at Lalbalu airfield near Purnia in Bihar, due south of Biratnagar and some 160 miles southeast of Everest. The team was joined by three De Havilland Moths which had taken one month to fly out from UK, and large amounts of support equipment.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7439c7e80680e073770jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="869"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After all the preparation, by 3 April 1933 the clouds had dispersed and they were ready to meet the unknown challenge of flying over Everest. Climbing from the plains of India to an altitude of 34,000 feet over Nepal, the tiny planes’ double wings delicately bound together with struts and stays were dwarfed by the towering Himalaya. Buffeted by severe wind currents and air bumps, blown sideways off course, dogged by downdrafts and faulty oxygen flows, then saved from collision with icy rock faces by fortuitous updrafts, the two aircraft eventually scraped over the top of Everest, before circling safely back to Purnia.Lord Clydesdale would never say how close he came to hitting the mountain other than to admit that it had been “cleared by a more minute margin than I cared to think about, now or ever.”But the first ever Everest flight had failed to collect the expected survey data and film footage because the photographer was unconscious with hypoxia, slumped on the open cockpit floor when his air hose split. After a test flight around Kangchenjunga, one aircraft got lost and was forced to land at a busy railway station to ask for directions home.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7459c7e80680e073771jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="884"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Determined to complete their mission, a second Everest flight was made two weeks later on 19 April 1933 to collect the missing data. It had to be undertaken in great secrecy by the defiant aircrew, as it was expressly against the orders of the team leader, sponsor Lady Houston and insurance company who all felt enough had already been risked.Despite so many close calls, the expedition was hailed as a resounding scientific and technical success, although they failed to detect any traces of disappeared climbers Mallory and Irving. Having captured the first images of the roof of the world with several passes over the peak, their closely guarded pictures helped inform British Everest endeavours, culminating in Tenzing and Hillary attaining the summit 20 years later.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnK_GJf_q6wThe story is told in a couple of black and white documentaries <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zK4WblHxkI" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D9zK4WblHxkI&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598243357985000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHm_NrXEBvFoW_7bep2aIVHI4zDIw">Wings Over Everest </a>in all its colonial, pith-helmeted splendour, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnK_GJf_q6w" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DAnK_GJf_q6w&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598243357985000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHDDavghl4wE2RfbpbpJY9fJ2lJkQ">First Over Everest</a>, giving due credit to ‘His Highness the Maharaja of Nepal within whose territory Mount Everest stands’.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zK4WblHxkIEighty years later Douglas<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Overflying,288" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Overflying,288&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598243357985000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFUv5jXB_f6ZSx7Ls0j9FSqPelrHg">-Hamilton’s grandson, Charles, retraced the maiden trip</a> – we marked the neglected anniversary with a ceremony at the Nepal Tourism Board in 2013. The BAe Systems official who came with Charles confirmed that the ground-breaking 1933 Everest flight “had led directly to refinements in aviation technology that allowed high altitude flights”.******A couple of generations later, cameraman Leo Dickinson is another adventurer who likes to push the limits, pitting a fragile flying machine against the mighty mountains, and specialising in ‘filming the impossible’.He also enjoys a good joke. Short, bearded and sprightly, Leo danced around the Pilatus Porter plane, a tangle of celluloid film at his feet: “Quick, quick, kick it into the shade before it gets overexposed” he joked. Another one was “On this expedition we are experimenting with freeze dried water.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7489c7e80680e073772jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="906"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This 1991 expedition was aiming to fly a balloon over Sagarmatha, and we were tasked with helping with their Nepal support logistics. The four members consisted of adventure afficionados led by Leo with pilot Andy Elson, mountaineer Eric Jones and stroppy Aussie veteran balloonist Chris Dewhirst. They remain the first and only hot-air balloons to have flown over Mt Everest.Chris and Leo had made an earlier unsuccessful attempt to balloon over Everest in 1985 with an unruly bunch that had led to near-disaster. The team trained in skydiving in case of having to bail out, sought astrological predictions and practiced with flights at Bhaktapur and Bodnath.On the actual flight, they used fuel too fast, failed to gain more than 26,500 feet altitude and were forced to abort ten miles short of Sagarmatha. One balloon crash-landed into a tree and the other spread across a hillside before catching fire. Still, it stood as the highest alpine ballooning flight in history at that time.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba74b9c7e80680e073773jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="582" height="363"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>A crew of three Japanese attempted to fly over Everest from the north side in 1990 but smashed their balloon into the side of a cliff, lucky to escape with their lives.Leo and Chris were keen to complete their abandoned traverse of the world’s tallest mountain. The logistics to fly from the Khumbu over Everest to the Tibetan plateau were complex, requiring unprecedented Nepali-Chinese permissions, and an army of porters and yaks to ferry the fuel cylinders, camera gear, and snaking balloon skins. After Buddhist blessings at Tengboche, they set up their own weather station at Gokyo to measure the jet stream whilst meteorological satellites monitored the mountain’s moods.Acclimatisation was an important part of preparation whilst awaiting perfect weather conditions, but rivalry amongst the leaders was causing rifts and threatening competition instead of cooperation for the daunting exploit ahead.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba74d9c7e80680e073774jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="825"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7509c7e80680e073775jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="792" height="542"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>When the two balloons finally took off from the sacred shores of Gokyo lake trailing prayer flags and waving to locals, support crew and girlfriends, Leo was perched on a camera platform outside the basket. “Chris’ ego means there is no space for me inside,” he quipped.The wind carried them up and away, whizzing past the shimmering summit of Sagarmatha at 100 miles an hour with Leo’s suspended cameras capturing the unique perspective of the highest Himalayan landscape spread beneath their frail wicker baskets.The expedition goal had been achieved, but technical problems were only just beginning. Communications collapsed, Chris jumped the gun, both balloons got separated soon after take-off, and the hot-air temperature was running too high, threatening to rupture the membrane. Gaining altitude, hypoxia affected all of them even with oxygen masks and, despite the additional canisters lashed to the baskets, they again burned fuel faster than anticipated.Andy and Eric suffered the deadly silence that every balloonist dreads when the burners fail and everything goes out. With not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to keep the vital burners going, in order to reignite the pilot-light they had to balance on the basket rim with a box of matches.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMZxStI9YUOut of gas and spinning like a top, Chris was forced to make an emergency landing, crashing down in Tibet and being dragged across two miles of rugged rocky terrain. The flimsy balloons, expensive equipment and Leo’s cameras were in smithereens, but the film survived as a classic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMZxStI9YU" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DxAMZxStI9YU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598243357985000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJFL0jZa8Wxv_64-8Z1rJthZvddw">Everest by Balloon</a>.It was left to our colleague, mountaineering operator Russell Brice, to pick up the pieces on the northern side in Tibet – Leo had broken ribs, all were badly shaken, and everyone agreed it was a miracle they survived. The voyage had proven that the extreme altitude and climatic dangers of flying hot-air balloons in the high Himalaya were so enormous that no one has been reckless enough to attempt the feat since.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7529c7e80680e073776jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="495" height="711">

Biplanes and balloons over Mt Everest

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

Four international names in architecture, Shigeru Ban, Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Louis Isadore Kahn, all left their mark in Nepal. But despite their best intentions, the ambitious designs fizzled out. Ban, Koolhaas and Ando won Pritzkers, the best known international award for architecture, and Kahn could have won it had the prize been given in his lifetime. But their designs fell short of transforming Nepali architecture and did not help inspire local architects.&nbsp; Why were these four ‘starchitects’ unable to pull off their Nepal projects and enrich the country with exemplary contemporary designs? The failure, especially the violation of Kahn’s design, also raises larger questions about how much contemporary architecture is valued in Nepal.&nbsp; Whereas Sri Lanka had Geoffrey Bawa and Bangladesh had Mazharul Islam, the pioneers of contemporary architecture in Nepal have had far less public appreciation. One wonders if Nepali architecture only refers to the monuments and heritage of the past. Nepal does have examples of outstanding modern architecture such as the &nbsp;पाङ्रे घर ‘Wheel House’ and खुट्टे घर &nbsp;‘House on Legs’ by Shankar Nath Rimal in the 1960s. These are the best examples of how some Nepali designers successfully tailored modern architecture to the Nepali context.&nbsp; Ten years ago, Nepal had three architecture magazines, SPACES, praXis and Business Architecture, but none of these survived. This newspaper has prominently covered contemporary architecture, and the built environment, but these are exceptions in Nepal’s media. There have been a few encouraging signs. The 2024 exhibition Modern Encounters in Architecture in Kathmandu Valley (1945-1985) at the Taragaon Museum had many visitors and its accompanying book is a seminal document.&nbsp; In 2023, the Mountain Architecture Dialogue (MAD) that focused on examples of good-practice sustainable contemporary architecture for the mountainous terrains of Nepal was a packed event with over 300 young architects, engineers, environmentalists and architecture students. <h2>Shigeru Ban</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe" data-rendition-name="original" width="990" height="1074" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  Shigeru Ban had already built a name for himself in post-disaster construction when he came to Nepal following the 2015 earthquakes in which 500,000 people lost their homes. The basic design and its 3D-rendered images were reviewed in upbeat articles on DOMUS, Architectural Review, Dezeen, and Arch Daily.&nbsp; But his signature cardboard tubes could not handle the monsoon and the roof structure had to be re-designed with timber. Only two shelters were completed in Sindupalchok, and only one of them still stands at the Hyatt Regency grounds today, as Ban’s souvenir to Nepal.&nbsp; <h2>Rem Koolhaas</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="722" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  The designs of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas have a specific signature: bold shapes and an intriguing architectural typology that challenges standard building blocks. Some designs even seem to defy gravity, like the CCTV headquarters in Beijing: an angular, continuous geometry of glass and steel.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1168" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Rem Koolhaas' design for Ullen's School in Khumaltar.</figcaption> </figure>  Koolhaas was commissioned by Belgian billionaire Guy Ullens to design a new building for Ullens School in Khumaltar. The most prominent feature is its vertical glass block staircase. Some interior spaces have lowered windowsills, which provide ample views and daylight. But the school building has gone unremarked in Nepal. <h2>Tadao Ando</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675" data-rendition-name="original" width="626" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> </figure>  Doctors providing aid to victims of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 in Japan requested Tadao Ando, who had donated his Pritzker money to the victims, to also make a design for a hospital in Butwal.&nbsp; Ando’s contribution would be pro-bono and the construction was funded by the Hanshin Earthquake victims and by the popular Japanese newspaper Mainichi, as a tribute to Nepali doctors. The first block that Ando designed for the Siddhartha Children and Women’s Hospital (SCWH) was the out-patient department. He quickly realised that he would not be able to pull off structures with his typical style of smooth-finished, high-quality concrete.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579" data-rendition-name="original" width="1594" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Tadao Ando's Siddhartha Children and Women Hospital in Butwal.</figcaption> </figure>  Ando wrote in the online architectural catalog Architectuul, that the two main problems with the project were costs and the availability of local technology. ‘It became a facility that has a slightly different expression from the buildings I have completed so far,’ he wrote. He designed a colonnade for the west façade that would provide shelter from harsh sunlight, and the exposed brick walls were locally manufactured bricks.&nbsp; The hospital is characterised by modernist cuboidal massing, but the outer brick façades now appear unintentionally badly weathered by monsoons. The interiors lack both sufficient natural light and natural ventilation. <h2>Louis I Kahn</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f" data-rendition-name="original" width="694" height="926" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  American architect Louis I Kahn had experience of projects in South Asia, and several were under construction when he died suddenly in 1974. Amongst these were the National Assembly complex in Dhaka, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Family Planning and Maternal Child Welfare Centre in Kathmandu.&nbsp; Kahn had started the USAID funded project in Nepal by developing a master plan for the government institutional zone in Kathmandu, which included a building for the Health Ministry. The building’s façade in exposed brick has deeply recessed vertical windows for shading.&nbsp; The balancing of accentuated horizontal lines in the brickwork with the verticality of the larger composition is the work of a master. The brick walls rise up into punctured parapet walls at the roof level. These square apertures ‘frame the sky’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1924" height="1242" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Louis Kahn's plan for the Ministry of Health.</figcaption> </figure>  When Kahn died, only the eastern half of the building was finished. The Western part was never built and Nepal’s bureaucrats decided that without paint, the exposed brick façade was not finished. Then in 1995, citing roof leakage and a space crunch, the Health Ministry added a floor.&nbsp; The frames-to-the-sky in the roof parapet were converted into windows and topped off with a sloping roof of corrugated steel sheets, whose only virtue was that it was cost-effective.&nbsp; Kahn’s orthogonal composition, which clean horizontal and vertical lines, was desecrated despite a public outcry and legal challenges from architects and cultural organisations. A version of this article was first published in HIMAL Southasian. Illustrations by Varun S Bapu.

Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com