"Why are adults sexist?” my ten-year-old nephew, Paartha, asks in response to a scene where the parents threaten to marry off Asha Karki, if she fails her exams. I’ve been reading to him from an illustrated young adult fiction series by Anbika Giri. In the story, Asha, like many <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/half-of-nepal-s-girls-may-drop-out-of-school?a=">girls in Nepal</a>, has to juggle between household chores and schoolwork. By the time she is done at night, she is too tired to study. In the mornings, she is always late for the school assembly because of chores. And as if the burden of household work wasn’t enough, there is constant threat from her parents to “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/too-young-to-marry">marry her off</a>” if she fails-- the idea of marriage, dangling like a dagger over her head the entire time. Asha is compliant to the daily needs of her family over her own desire to study. The elders do not appear aware of her aspirations as a schoolgirl, but it is her brother who shows up, becomes an ally. The boy starts to take up responsibility for household errand and is present for his sister in times of distress, eventually helping her to win the accolades and recognition she is deserving of. The series comes in the form of five books: Mother is Mighty, Nisha’s Life Lessons, Lakshu’s Silence, Superhero Sister and Payal Goes to School (आमाले सक्नुहुन्छ, नाक कसरी ठाडो हुन्छ, लक्षु किन बोल्दिन, मेरी दिदी र पायल पढ्न जान्छे). The series was completed in 2021 and was first published in Nepali -- they are taught at schools in Kathmandu and elsewhere. The English edition of the novellas, translated by our friend <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/of-crows-and-people">Prawin Adhikari</a>, hit the bookstores in June 2025.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250706080724_c9d3bf0c738b0b14e36ffe31fe82eb9317aa5b6e090687dd47f8e2f3b6cf89ef.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250706080724_c9d3bf0c738b0b14e36ffe31fe82eb9317aa5b6e090687dd47f8e2f3b6cf89ef" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="On life lessons"> <figcaption>Photo: PRATIBHA TULADHAR</figcaption> </figure>  In each of the novellas, the story pivots around a schoolgirl, either as the narrator or the protagonist. She is faced with a range of challenges-- from the yearning for a bicycle to the agony over confronting social afflictions. And in all of them, Anbika creates <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/educating-your-sons-will-protect-your-daughters?ref=blog.togglecorp.com">male allies</a> in the roles of family members, teachers or neighbours or government representatives. Her<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/she-is-the-story"> female characters </a>as mothers, sisters, friends, students are resolute, self-aware, astute, and feisty. If they are cast down because of life’s circumstances, they get up, pick their bicycles and pedal again. Anbika had started writing these books in 2017, when she and I used to be colleagues. She would disappear one weekend and would show up at work on Monday and announce she had sort of finished writing a novella. That’s right, one of the books was written in exactly three days. I recall her saying she wanted to create a series about how <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/educating-girls-to-break-cycle-of-poverty" target="_blank">girls in different parts of Nepal </a>commute to school, which appears in a different series. Her books for children all hinge on the idea of bringing books about Nepali girls to young readers. “I wanted to write these books for my daughter, Awani. I wanted to write books that are gender sensitive,<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/placing-nepali-women-first-past-the-post"> female-led</a>, and represent cultural diversity,” says Anbika. “Awani has never had books like that to read. Female leads do not exist in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/for-children-about-children">Nepali literature for children</a>.” Like many other children in Nepal, Awani too grew up on books by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/with-love-labour-and-writing">international writers</a>. And while the beauty of that is that a wide range of context is presented to children, which helps build empathy, but they lack the local context. And that is the gap Anbika tries to fill through her books. “I wanted to put into context some important questions. How can we change ourselves as humans? How can we have empathy, gain realisation and evolve as individuals? I wanted to write stories that carry morals,” she explains. “I wanted to introduce politics to children in the simplest way.” Anbika’s girl characters aim at becoming prime minister, local leader, doctor and riding bikes when they grow up-- challenging the traditional portrayal of women’s desire for beauty, love, marriage and home. She introduces topics like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-end-child-marriage-by-2030-gmx92qf3">child marriage</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/menstruation-is-normal-period">menstruation</a>, casteism, bullying, property ownership, economic independence and the local governance system. And none of them are easy subjects to broach when writing for children.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250706080728_2bad0254f87d5f89cb31a1476a5079d68838a157ad4a0349ec6e619274bcf7fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250706080728_2bad0254f87d5f89cb31a1476a5079d68838a157ad4a0349ec6e619274bcf7fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1483" loading="lazy" alt="On life lessons"> <figcaption>Photo: HIMAL</figcaption> </figure>  “I’m a political writer and I have my own politics, and it shows in everything I write. I think of gender as my politics. And it shows in subtle ways in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/illustrating-innocence">children’s books </a>I write,” says Anbika. She says she hopes for the books to also be read by parents. “I thought of creating something that both adults and children can read, comment on.” The stories are mostly set against the rural Madhes backdrop. “Some have questioned me about the romanticisation of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/life-and-livelihood-in-remote-nepal">village life</a>, but that kind of life also exists and needs to be seen and understood,” she says. Some scenes slide into what could be difficult to read for some children, such as the mention of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/why-has-progress-in-saving-women-s-lives-stalled">maternal death</a>. There is no sanitised version of life in these books. But there is triumph and hope. Anbika says the details of village life and the core sentiment of the book have been earnestly transferred to the English iteration, something she had always hoped for when she had started writing the books. “Thanks to the thoughtful and sensitive translation by Prawin Adhikari, the dream has taken flight. I’m deeply grateful for the care he’s brought to every word and nuance. I chose him to translate these books because he understands the context of my stories.” Prolific and also deeply passionate about her projects, Anbika wants to eventually write her books in English. That passion is embodied by her characters. “My characters in Ama le Saknu huncha and Payal Padhna Janche carry books, dreams and strength on the handlebars of their simple bicycles. They are brave, determined, and ready to ride against the wind.” Each book has been illustrated by a different artist, some depictions better than the others. The books’ covers bear dreamy images by Anamika Gautam-- the one with a schoolgirl on a bicycle, a common favourite between Paarth and me. Paartha, was very impatient when we read the parts where the key characters went through difficulties. One of the questions he asked on repeat was why do adults treat girls unfairly, reminding me of the deep responsibility we bear towards children.&nbsp; When we had finished reading Superhero Sister, I told him: “That unfair treatment needs to change, so girls can live as boys do.”

Pratibha Tuladhar

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

thumbnail

viewImage

Suburban Tales

On life lessons

At the start of May, Bunu Dhungana brought some things in the belly home to Nepal. When she had curated the first iteration of the show in 2023, in Delhi, she had hoped she would be able to bring it home, and she did. The exhibition opened to the public in Kathmandu at Nepal Art Council on 2 May and closes on 16 May. The exhibition brings together works by Asmita Badi, Irina Giri, Shradha Devkota, Tripty Tamang Pakhrin, Shristi Shrestha, Ujjwala Maharjan, and the curator, Bunu Dhungana herself. And there’s an installation of yours truly. In the step up to the show, Bunu organised calls for the artists. Tripty joined at odd hours from her newfound home in Syracuse. As did Shradha from her home in London. Ujjwala joined, from her many different trips to India and other places in Nepal.&nbsp; The rest of us joined from wherever we were in Nepal during call hours, probing the unknown, most of us unsure what we wanted to present to the public. The only thing we had clarity on was the theme Bunu had suggested: mother-daughter relationship. And we were to exchange letters with our mothers. Some of us wrote letters to our mothers from the comfort of our homes, some from Pokhara, or whichever town we were in at the time of writing-- sending it by snail mail, which thankfully, hasn’t gone obsolete yet! Our mothers responded to us from their comfort nooks, each one, taking it up seriously like little girls responding to school assignments. Standing before the wall that has the mothers’ letters at the exhibition, one is easily struck by the basicness of the stationery used by the mothers to write to their daughters. They use pages torn out from a notebook, loose examination sheets or even an abandoned diary. So simple and so straightforward. And in that, powerful. Like the truth of the uterus that is all mothers. In the letters, their emotions take center-stage, as maternal emotions do, coming from a place of wanting the best for their daughters-- to protect them, and to keep them happy and healthy. Daughters’ desires are not too different from that of the mothers. But they come in more complex forms and through different mediums. They write an entire journal on these feelings, write pages and pages, enough to fill a room, weave poems and songs from the rhythm that connects the phantom umbilical cord to the mother. Daughters compose images-- some of oil and smoke, some of suffocation, of stillness, of water and ice and of open spaces and of moments of strife, like something heavy being dragged up a stairway by a lone woman.&nbsp; “While not all the works were made exclusively for the show, I did create new pieces - paper made from a letter I wrote to my mothers, and a series of linoleum cut prints. These processes made me reflect more deeply on the role of repetitive, physical labor in my practice and how it relates to the everyday labor of my mothers,” says Tripty, who documents work dedicated to her two mothers. And there are bright hues in gouache, where mothers and daughters are arrested in moments of fun and chit-chat or even just being at the table watching Tiktok. There’s abandoned sound in a dark, spotlit corner, which takes the listener through a journey of contemplation and upheavals. And there are stories from the kitchen, the base for most mothers in the world. For many of us, it is sometimes impossible to separate the fragrance of spices from our mothers or to tell the spices apart from the scent of our mothers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514140528_1dd1b5f95e6230f49afb3b084b88542b3fbcc6a454548a3eee60ee85724f7215.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250514140528_1dd1b5f95e6230f49afb3b084b88542b3fbcc6a454548a3eee60ee85724f7215" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="some things in the belly"> </figure>  some things in the belly is an intimate exhibition, and as the show got underway, visitors were seen returning as if to collect something they had left behind. Many kept coming back to read and to write. And that was precisely what Bunu had wanted to create-- a safe space. Visitors sat down, read, wrote letters to their mothers, listened, watched, laughed and wept. Ujjwala says: “The [letter-posting] wall, how it’s growing and how people are reading and writing, that’s the most interesting thing for me. You don’t know how people connect and what hits who. But I’ve seen people tearing up at the letter-writing section. You forget that it does reach the people it needs to reach.” Bunu’s aim when she was taking on the challenge of curating the exhibition was to also create a circle of sisterhood, by bringing together women to work together on a theme. And in the process, she has also managed to help the artists involved create and learn from one another and to be deeply touched by the familiarity of sentiments. “Each piece is so different and that is the beauty of this exhibition that has come together. Tripty’s and Shradha’s work, the experimentation was very inspiring for me and the process itself...what has come out is powerful,” explains Ujjwala.&nbsp; She adds: “They are visual artists but the poetry in it is so beautiful. Shristi’s work, I fell in love with. The care of it. Ashmita’s work, too. To textual people, the importance of a desk and sitting down, the tactileness of books that inspire us. What would mom write? What would their lives be like...the imagination is dreaming along with our moms-- the amalgamation of dreams.” In one of her journal notes to her mother, Ujjwala mentions she can’t remember how long it has been since she gazed carefully into her mother’s face. One pauses to read that sentence again. How long since we did that? At the heart of the stories in the exhibition is also intergenerational trauma and mother-daughter conflict-- how mothers and daughters tug in different directions, even when they’re chasing the same love.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514140528_d150acebaa02da545dd3c92db7c1202aef73e60d600537106ec0db40dc84cbfc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250514140528_d150acebaa02da545dd3c92db7c1202aef73e60d600537106ec0db40dc84cbfc" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="some things in the belly"> </figure>  When Hishila Yami and her daughter Manushi visited the exhibition with little Yugeen in tow, we caught up on this topic briefly. Manushi said: “We hold so much in our hearts and who do we tell it all to? So we end up dumping it on our mothers. Because who else is there for us as mothers are? “We have such complex relationships of love with our mothers,” Bunu said.&nbsp; All loves have their own equations. The love daughters feel for their mothers is raw and tender and full of familiarity. Everything daughters want for their mother is the same they would want for their daughter, so in that, we serve an endless knot.&nbsp; Then there’s the question of language. What language really serves as a bridge in the gap that exists in mother-daughter relationships? How do we make up in language for the absence of words that can ever convey the sentiments? And so the process of creating some things in the belly has been something like reforging mother-daughter relationships in the crucible. “Each one of us has shaped our practices, and stepped more fully into ourselves. Watching that unfold has been such a privilege,” says Shradha. “I hope, as a collective, this exhibition has offered something real for people to hold onto, reflect upon, or carry with them.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/our-mothers-silences">Our mothers' silences</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar some things in the belly Till 16 May Nepal Art Council, Baber Mahal

Dear Maa,

I’ve been stalking a man since 2013. Twelve years is a long time to pursue someone. I first saw him at a busy bar in Pokhara, where I was hanging out with my girlfriends. In a space crammed with youngsters, his long, flowing grey beard set him apart. James (Jim) Robinson looked more like a man out of Hogwarts School.
And I knew I had to speak with him!
And that set off many years of wooing, if you may. When I first saw him, I kindled a conversation and I sat next to him for a few minutes. I found out that he had been coming to Nepal since his first visit as a young hippie man.
Did he have a number I could call him at or email? Jim said he didn’t do emails or cell phones.
In December 2016, when I was in Pokhara, I inquired about Jim at the bar he frequents. I left a note with my number on it asking Jim to call. I went back the next day to ask if Jim had received the note. He had. But there was no call.
Looking for Jim in Pokhara had become a ritual-- my friends found my pursuit funny. If I happened to be there in winter, I would show up at the bar, wait, leave a note sometimes. There was no response.
One time, during the pre-Covid era, I met Jim on a green tourist bus heading to Kathmandu from Pokhara. He needed to call a friend in Thamel and I offered him my phone for use and also its number. He pocketed the piece of paper and left it at that.
In 2023, I was at an old bakery in Thamel to meet a girlfriend. I ran into Jim there and introduced myself again, quickly wrote my number down: Can I give you my number?
&nbsp;And no, he didn’t call.
In 2024, I ran into Jim in Pokhara at the Literature Festival. I reminded him of our many half-meetings. This time, I didn’t offer my number. Then he asked me if he could have my number and also said he had also joined Facebook recently and could now keep in touch.
As I wrote down my number and email for him, I told him it was the third time I was giving him my number. I think I set Jim off on a guilt trip, because then he started to email, finally agreeing to meet me.
Last week, we met at the same old bakery in Thamel. The cafe was fragrant with the fumes of hot coffee and the joy of cinnamon rolls wafting through the air. Jim and I found a table at the topmost floor. He said he was willing to do an interview if I was still interested. But I found that the scribe in me had become replaced by something of a quiet listener.
I asked Jim about the many fascinating, expensive gems-studded rings on his fingers. He gave me details about how each of them had come to find a place on his fingers. He also explained to me the journeys of the gems on his necklace. Jim has been collecting the stones since he first showed up in Nepal in 1968 as a 23-year-old.
When the hippie movement made waves in certain parts of the world in the mid-1960s, Kathmandu wasn’t untouched by its ripples. Youth from the west, driven by their quest for freedom, peace and love, showed up in Kathmandu among other places, making Jhochhen (Freak Street) their home. Jim was one of them.
On his way to Nepal from the UK on his first trip, he stopped in Israel where he worked as a tomatoes and cucumber picker and then spent some time in India before arriving in Nepal.
The journey-by-land spanning across weeks, was deliberate and purposeful. As opposed to it, he now takes the flight from the UK every year in December to arrive in Nepal, and goes back at the start of spring. While in Nepal, he spends his time pretty much the same way he did many years ago-- except, instead of smoking up and chilling with fellow hippies, he now drinks beer and hops bars to find the best music.
Jim, like some of us, thrives in solitude. Much of his time in Kathmandu and Pokhara is made up of that. At bars, he speaks with strangers and has a good time swaying to live music.
Why have you been coming back all these years, I ask him and he says: Because I love Nepal!
When he arrived in 1968, he saw Swayambu and was blown away. “I had never seen anything like it! This beautiful temple on the top of a hill!” Jim explains how in no other place in the world, had he seen monuments of different faiths alongside each other. When he saw it in Nepal his mind was blown to never be the same again, he says. He knew he had to keep coming back.
Back in the day, Jim stayed in Freak Street, the hippies’ hub. The amenities were basic but sources of entertainment were accessible there. “The only place you could buy cakes was the Snowman. All other places sold Nepali food. And there was just one souvenir shop that sold khukuri and that kind of stuff.”
Jim says it hasn’t been easy to follow the changes in Kathmandu over the years, but he doesn’t mind the change as much as he minds the way people have turned to technology. He isn’t a fan of cell phones and he doesn’t carry one. But his daughter (who he visits in Canada once a year) has gifted him an iPad so they can stay in touch.
Apart from spending lone time in Nepal, Jim also shops for silver rings, sometimes buying them for himself and sometimes taking some back to the UK to sell them.
His now off-white beard, leaping down his face and his colourful rings flashing around the room as he moves his hands when he speaks, manages to catch the attention of a Chinese tourist seated at a nearby table. Later, as we are leaving the bakery, she catches up and shows a photo of Jim on her phone: Is this you? I took your picture in Pokhara. I love your rings!”
&nbsp;Then she asks: Can I take a picture with you?
Jim says no at first, and then says okay, maybe. As I say goodbye and walk away, I smile knowing he’s no longer denying people the opportunity to interact with him. Perhaps someday, he will eventually spill the story of his life.
Jim turns 80 this month. I had asked him how many more years he intends to keep coming back to Nepal and he said: “Let your life be like a leaf cast upon the ocean. Go with the flow.”
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people in Pratibha’s life.

Chasing a nomad

Rameshwor Bhaiya was a mailman and a chowkidar rolled into one. He was stationed at Loreto College, Southfield in Darjeeling for many many years, until he retired.
I learned the other day from a WhatsApp group that he recently passed away at a hospital in Siliguri after battling throat <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-other-pandemic-cancer">cancer</a> for a long time. I had forgotten all about him until I saw the message.&nbsp;
Rameshwor Bhaiya was a petite, agile man, always taking mails to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/is-nepal-entering-the-post-post-office-era">post office </a>and fetching them back. He was always busy, walking with brisk, soft steps, sometimes stopping in the lunchroom for a glass of water, the last one sitting down to eat because the mail had to be done in the first hour.&nbsp;
For his physical stature, I cannot recall how he managed his guard work as a chowkidar, but he must have been good at that too, because he kept some 500 girls safe everyday.
Rameshwor Bhaiya always wore his hair oiled and combed back with a side parting, neatly. His postal bag slung over his shoulder, the strap falling across his chest was bulky on some days and some days it would be shriveled up and swinging in the air with the lack of weight.&nbsp;
He wore gray or khaki sweaters mostly and a jacket the same tint. His trousers were in the same shades too, and once in a while, he would spot a colourful shirt -- there was a maroon one with a fading collar. The V of one of his V-neck sweaters had come undone and looked like a Y with a short tail instead and I don’t remember that he ever fixed it.
I do not even remember his full name. But we all understood from a way of understanding caste and religion in South Asia that he was a Hindu, North Indian man who had moved to<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Connecting-dots/Darjeeling-and-the-idea-of-Nepal,944"> Darjeeling</a> for work. We never understood where his family was because he lived on campus.
The Southfield building was known to have once been the summer palace of a Maharaja of Burdwan, and by then had become Rameshwor Bhaiya’s home. He lived in a small room on the ground floor of the building, close to the lift. Sometimes, he would point at the lift and explain how the pulley worked. It had to be pulled by men to move the lift users up and down the two-storey durbar. But as chowkidar, Rameshwor Bhaiya was the sole nighttime occupant of that house.
In the morning, he woke up to the nuisance of monkeys from the Mahakal temple right above Southfield. And the morning would get noisier as the cleaners came in and then the girls and the teacher would start to trickle in, first slowly and then in quick steps and in full numbers as the bell for the first class went off.
My roommate Meenu and I were sincere letter writers. We wrote to parents, to friends, to admirers sometimes. Sometimes, to boys we crushed on. (I mean, I did.) Meenu was always more careful about how she put her feelings out there. But she was the one always doing couriers home. Her mother would send her parathas and achar and ladoo by courier, all the way from Phuentsholing, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/small-bhutan-dreams-big">Bhutan</a>, our midnight snack. So, Meenu maintained a cordial relationship with Rameshwor Bhaiya.
Our hostel was at the Convent in Springfield and we were only allowed outings on weekends, which meant mails had to often wait a whole week until Saturday. On Sundays we couldn’t mail. That was when Rameshwor Bhaiya would come to our rescue. If we needed to send a mail to the post office or courier something on weekdays, we would give it to him and he would make sure it was done. For us, the Indian postal service’s efficiency thrived on Rameshwor Bhaiya’s existence.
When we returned to hostel life from our holidays, some of us would bring little gifts to the staff. I used to bring pustakari from Nepal for Rameshwor Bhaiya. He said once that it hurt his mouth to suck on them but he still enjoyed it. He was more of a connoisseur of paan, but he appreciated the gesture.
The campus was always bustling with staff, but when I think of Rameshwor Bhaiya letters instantly come to mind. There was the post office and the smell of mail and the feeling of rippling open an envelope and thrusting the fingers into it to reveal its content to the self.&nbsp;
Once or twice, I had surprise letters from a secret admirer and I was worried they would be discovered. No, having a boyfriend was not encouraged. In fact, we were often pre-emtively reminded of the student who went on a walk to the mall road with her boyfriend and was gang-raped by strangers, an incident Late Peter J Karthak records in one of his novels.
So, we led sheltered lives. Mama’s girls and Daddy’s girls, all huddled together in classrooms, heads buried in textbooks, but our minds wondering who to borrow the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/14-books-to-read-gift-love-this-valentine-s">next romance novel</a> from. Cloistered, free of the world’s strings, we bubbled with hope for all kinds of things. Mostly, for what our <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/scoring-a-better-future-for-nepals-soccer-girls">future as women</a> in the real world would be like.
And in his own little way, Rameshwor Bhaiya made lives possible for us because he brought us letters, documents, exam results, notices from the University of West Bengal.
“Is there a letter for me, Rameshwor Bahiya?” Sometimes he would joke and say no even if there was one. Usually there was no mail for me at Southfield. But there was always Rameshwor Bhaiya with his postal bag -- the bag of hope.
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

The man who came bearing letters

Frangipani always finds me. The first time, they were strewn over my pillows at a Colombo hotel. I had no memory of seeing the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/when-flowers-become-feed-for-the-livestock"> flowers </a>before and I fell in love with the fragrance, the fleshy petals, generous just so. Then I never saw them again until I started my life in Chiang Mai. I lived in a gated community, where the avenues were lined with frangipani trees. When Mona and P’Champ took me around house hunting, I zeroed in on houses that had frangipani trees. I eventually had to settle for one with a wall of tall strands of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bardia-s-birds">birds</a> of paradise, instead. But there were frangipani trees the moment I stepped out of my gate lining the roads, meeting me everywhere I went. They felt like friends.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025021609020_59326ead694a156d5c60523aab070983909e0eabae52b46a8d488fb1629434b2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025021609020_59326ead694a156d5c60523aab070983909e0eabae52b46a8d488fb1629434b2" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Frangipani"> </figure>  Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/we-used-to-be-flowering-trees">We used to be flowering trees</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar In November 2024, they found me in Goa. I showed up in Pilerne, a village in the north of Goa, to spend alone time at my friend V’s stowed away house. The idea was to learn to make peace with myself. And to finish unfinished assignments. I cannot remember where I picked such a habit, but since the time I was a child, I’ve always had to bury myself in solitude. By the time I had grown into a woman, the need had sort of leveled up and found me sitting at cafes buzzing with strangers for hours, and/or holed up in strange hotel rooms so I could just be. One time in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/a-villa-in-thamel">Thamel</a>, the receptionist looked at me searchingly. He was probably not used to girls renting rooms for a day to be on their own. And now, well into my 40s, the question still gets thrown at me. In Goa, at V’s house, the caretakers of Casa Pilerne were curious about me. Why had I chosen to come live in isolation? How did it feel to be the sole resident in a colony of fifteen houses? What did I do for a living? Where had I come from? Where would I go next? On my first day in the village, the housing manager had told me to strictly follow a bunch of rules. Not to leave the house alone after 5PM. Not to loiter in the village alone as feral dogs were likely to gang up on me. Not to wear shorts. No, I did not wear shorts during my walks. Even in Goa heat. And I tried to keep to the 4-5PM walking slot. On my first day, my legs were aching for a long stride and took me further than I had planned, all the way to the nearest highway. The road is scenic, and is a reminder of some scenes from a Bollywood movie Dear Jindagi, lined with coconut trees on both sides, making way for the golden fields.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250216080252_85f64b65f2393d85fb848a851810b642d5b0cf9f8a66cb96fb80bd59ee6b2ac5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250216080252_85f64b65f2393d85fb848a851810b642d5b0cf9f8a66cb96fb80bd59ee6b2ac5" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Goa 2"> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250216080252_0ad78340790912dd155ab81c3d529f8a460ad71e27068828f0e5bf175b52cc3b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250216080252_0ad78340790912dd155ab81c3d529f8a460ad71e27068828f0e5bf175b52cc3b" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Goa 3"> </figure>  I stopped when I saw birds, to listen, took pictures and walked some more. When a car started to follow me, I didn’t realise. Three men in a white car, they rolled down the window and tried to make signs at me and talk to me. I tried not to look at them and I kept walking ahead, my skin crawling and the air suddenly feeling very hot and humid. I walked on until a bus came towards us from the other end, and then a scooter with two boys riding on it yelled and waved at me. Then the car made a U-turn and left. I just walked on. So fast, I didn’t even stop to glance at the man from Rukum, who ran a small convenience store by the road and had earlier sold me a nail-cutter.&nbsp; The feral <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-street-smart-dogs">dogs </a>probably caught sense of the fear emanating from my body. And then it happened. Five of them came at me at once! They barked, snarled and surrounded me. And at this point, I just froze and stood very still. The only people in sight, a couple seated at the bus stand, did not leave their seats to come help me. But an elderly man, carrying heavy iron tools, the kind you use to work the roads, showed up and shouted at the dogs. Chal chal! Chalejao! I shouted my loudest. He brandished his tools at them and they dispersed. He told me not to worry and to keep walking. And I walked at the same pace, barely breathing until I reached the casa. I learned that day to bring a stick with me during my walks. It scathed the dog-lover hubris in me to be wielding a stick to protect myself from dogs. But it was the only way. The <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/repairing-rural-roads-nepal-earthquake,3985">village roads</a> were mostly deserted. Every few metres, I was likely to run into a passerby returning from work or school. They would glance at my stick and look away-- I probably became known as the woman who walks with a stick. Pilerne is a lovely old Portuguese settlement with large, sprawling colonial era houses, and frangipani trees everywhere. Most of the old houses have been abandoned as the residents have mostly moved to Portugal, following a fading bloodline. The incidents with men did not end with the car stalkers. I would encounter a young man near a church every evening, playing on his mobile phone, trying to make conversation with me. Then a man would follow me while calling out to me. And a small group of men on motorbikes would park at the same place every evening and watch me. And everytime, I would step up my stick game. I would stop by a big tree outside the colony, to find a better stick. Everytime I needed reassurance, I would wave the stick in the air a little. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/memories-of-a-country-in-transition">Memories of a country in transition</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar In two weeks of walking the same road to and fro five times to keep up with my steps count, I had learned by heart the nooks and corners of the Pilerne road, the colour of the houses, the smell of the trees, the voice of a certain man from Pondicherry who lives in a yellow bungalow with two frangipani trees that bear pink flowers. And I had learned by heart, the smile of the gardener who used to be out tending to the garden with a massive frangipani in the front yard. He became, sort of, my only acquaintance in the village.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025021609020_97320ff0451ed625718c01246ce96cb5fb1613eac2bc9b3d80543acd0f5433be.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025021609020_97320ff0451ed625718c01246ce96cb5fb1613eac2bc9b3d80543acd0f5433be" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Frangipani trees"> </figure>  By the time I was ready to say goodbye to Pilerne, we had started to wave at each other. And I was no longer as terrified of walking in the village.&nbsp; Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

No tips on walking here

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

The tenderness in men

Rain pelleted the windshield furiously. Iva Maharjan dashed down the footpath and slid into the backseat of the taxi, next to me. We were about to be stuck in Kathmandu traffic for exactly two hours and I would ask her a question around which our time would pivot. Iva goes by the name “That cello girl” on her WhatsApp ID. I had always wondered if the title had more to reveal. “Yes, I play the cello,” she flashed a demure smile. The cello is a stringed instrument, used in various genres of music. It is also known as violincello. I had never met a cellist before! The cello isn’t the instrument Iva has always played. When she was 11, she started to learn to play the violin. “My cousin-brother (Sabin Munikar) had set up a music institute in our house so my father asked me if I was interested in learning the violin,” Iva recalled. Her father, Babukaji Maharjan, a music enthusiast himself, plays the dhimay and the flute. He has been the biggest force behind Iva’s music journey. “If my father hadn’t dropped me off to rehearsals, I wouldn’t be here.” I teared up when Iva said that, as I thought about my own father always holding the light for me. When Iva first learned to play the violin, it was very hard. “It’s uncomfortable and painful in the beginning because you’re not used to putting your hand like that and holding the bow in a certain way. It is also difficult to press on strings, hurts your fingertips," Iva said as she showed me the dead skin on her fingers. "But it was a part of the learning and never did it feel like I didn’t want to do it. I liked being known as someone who could play the violin.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241117111120_fbcff54cb40b5fb4f757c687e83ee79964192e6084cc8441f29bfd0e296854f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241117111120_fbcff54cb40b5fb4f757c687e83ee79964192e6084cc8441f29bfd0e296854f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="1620" loading="lazy" alt="Meet the cello girl"> <figcaption>PHOTO: KATHMANDU YOUTH ORCHESTRA / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  While the violin became attached to her identity, it was only in 2017 that her instrument really found her. Iva is part of the Nepal-Norway project, which had donated three cellos to Nepali music groups.&nbsp; They had instruments but not enough players. It was then that her cousin asked her if she wanted to take up the cello. Although not a cellist himself, he taught her how to hold it and where to place her fingers. “I started to practice based on the theory I knew from learning the violin,” Iva said.&nbsp; It was difficult for her to make the transition at first. The violin is in the treble clef and the cello is in the bass clef and so there were different notes on the staff notation to navigate. Yet, a month after picking the cello, Iva played in an orchestra. She debuted as a cellist in 2017 at a performance at the British School: “At that time, my mentor told me, play what you can and leave what you can’t. Just stay focused on the staff notation because you need to know where you are in order to pick the notes that you can play. It was quite simple at that time.” Iva has continued playing the cello after that. “I liked the fact that I didn’t have to hold my hand up anymore. For the violin you have to do that. I could sit and play. I liked the sound. When it’s just the violin, the sound can be quite high pitched. With the cello, it balances it out. It also gives it a more fuller feeling.” As I watched Iva smile and talk about her music, the stillness of the traffic and the fury of the rain had somehow started to wane from my mind. Thinking about Iva in the midst of an orchestra brought a simple and real comfort. She brought out her phone and showed me recordings of her performances.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241117111120_e732ece843b7533b3a7f9896284f55d6789d88b4f0b07eaa379de33e5b6322a2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241117111120_e732ece843b7533b3a7f9896284f55d6789d88b4f0b07eaa379de33e5b6322a2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Meet the cello girl"> <figcaption>Photo: SAGAR CHHETRI</figcaption> </figure>  What also attracted Iva to the instrument was that it was a unique thing to do. There are currently only a couple of cellists in Nepal and Iva is the only female performing. More recently, Iva has formed a string duo with her friend Phoebe Shrestha on the violin. The duo have presented to audiences in Kathmandu. For Dasain, Iva and her friends released a video, in which she plays the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0xMEe9Jxa4&amp;t=60s">Malashree dhun</a>. It stoked audience interest in the instrument as noted in comments. “People love it when we play these kinds of songs because they’ve only seen them played on traditional instruments,” Iva said. Outside, the traffic had started to stir. Iva receives a lot of attention on the streets because of her cello--a 5'2" girl, bearing a 48-inch, 4X4 instrument in her arms. “People are curious what’s in the bag because it looks so big. They think it’s a guitar. But when they see it, they don’t know the word ‘cello’ so they just call it a big violin,” she laughed. Iva also teaches violin and cello: “Most musicians in Nepal teach music at multiple schools to sustain themselves as musicians. It is a bit of a hustle to get from one school to another sometimes. Currently, she has many students learning the violin but only one learning the cello. The student doesn’t own her own instrument. It has mostly to do with the inaccessibility to a cello-- the instrument is large and the cheapest costs close to 70K and has to be pre-ordered and shipped to Nepal. The one Iva plays was donated by the Norwegians to The Kathmandu Youth Orchestra, of which she is a member. The group starts rehearsing a month or two ahead of the orchestra and plan to do a show every year. Iva described the group as “just a bunch of musicians getting together to make music”. Since the orchestra is not able to support the players, they have to find work elsewhere, which also means the orchestra doesn’t always get a full set of musicians at times of performance. Iva's job is unique, and rewarding when people come up to her after a performance. She feels the cello has become a part of her identity now. “I would not like to leave it [the cello] behind. I haven’t thought about what life would be if I was not playing.” It continued to pour. We had finally covered six kilometres and arrived at our destination. Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people in Pratibha’s life.

Meet the cello girl

Kanchhi, Weena Pun’s debut novel, was delivered to me by a rider on a very rainy afternoon, as Kathmandu Valley and the nation was pummeled by violent rainfall. The book revealed itself in big bold letters: KANCHHI, like someone hollering the name. The letters flank the cover bearing an illustration in shades of grey, showing a hamlet in the mountains. The cover sets the tone for the novel, as Kanchhi’s disappearance is revealed to the readers in the prologue. The story opens with 16-year-old Kanchhi leaving her home. The novel then becomes a journey the reader makes with the writer, as conduit. The narrative toggles between times tracing the days of Kanchhi’s presence and leaping ten years forward into 13 November 2005, a day in the life of Kanchhi’s mother, Maiju, as she waits for her daughter's return. As the plot makes progress, the readers get to know Kanchhi, first as a child and then as a teenager. The novel is set in the mid-western mountains of Nepal, the language landing it firmly. The storytelling is matter-of-factly as it takes us through descriptions of the village and into lives of the villagers. Unseemingly, the writer weaves in the political background of the Maoist insurgency into the narrative, which also works as signposting the timeline for the story. Weena Pun describes the writing process for the novel as “ridiculously slow”. “I struggled to understand Maiju, the mother character. But once I had her and the village down, Kanchhi just took off,” she says of the novel which she started writing everyday, in 2017. While at the core of the book are some key sociopolitical issues, there is also plenty of humour brought out through small moments. Kanchhi, as a child and later as a teenager, is a “no-nonsense” kind of person. So when there are funny moments around her, they become even more pronounced-- in some scenes they work as comic relief. Sentences are frugal, a reminder of Weena’s background as a journalist. She has written for the Himal Southasian, The Kathmandu Post and The Record. There is no meandering, the writer cuts to the chase. She uses “f***” instead of “sex” or even “love-making”. As is with the more grim aspects the book touches upon. The narrative is not lyrical, but rather deliberate, with extensive details of moments and events, including those that have no direct connection to furthering the plot. There is also the thorough description of how a girl goes through menstruation, as rarely seen before.&nbsp; If you are looking for ornate reading, this is not where you will find it. The story is told simply, smoothly, without frill or fluff. The writing is terse. The narrative softens into poetic manoeuvre every other chapter, gathering forgotten songs for the readers. And occasionally, imagery wins: “The disappeared do not disappear. Their memories drape the yard like a fog.” Kanchhi, is a story of defiance. Like every girl, Kanchhi is a rebel. When told to put aside a spoon that has just ladled ghee, Kanchhi will lick it instead. When told to stay back, she chooses to go. She is the curious explorer every girl is. She picks ‘true’ crime stories as a source of entertainment.&nbsp; She knows lyrics of filmy songs, by heart. The titles of cinemas also serve to signpost. But she also understands the poetry of Bhupi Sherchan. She attempts to tell her own stories, write her own poetry. And in Kanchhi doing so, Weena has created a repository of stray lines from jhyaure songs, and own lyrics. The chapters are strewn with Nepali songs and poetry, a respite from the heaviness of the story in some instances. The writing is replete with italicised Nepali words. The text wraps them in for meaning. Regardless, a glossary is supplied at the end of the book, which serves as a fun addition, even if not entirely accurate. One of the words that appear on repeat, is chadar (a word brought to the mountains by the men who migrate to Indian cities for work, another theme that runs high in the book).&nbsp; In the prologue, we see Kanchhi wrap a chadar around herself as she leaves home. A chadar appears every once in a while and makes it to 2005. Kanchhi’s mother, Maiju, throws one around herself, to go speak to a woman who has been battered and tied to a pole by the Maoists, and left to die. It serves as a motif. The novel does run into sections that read like banter. There are dialogues that appear to have no consequence or connection to major events. But by the time one arrives at the second half, familiarisation with Kanchhi’s life has helped build an attachment, which is important for the impact the writer wants to make. Kanchhi, the novel, doesn’t try too hard to be something, and in doing so it becomes. The story brings to attention the themes of love, loyalty, friendship, familial ties, sexuality, and a woman’s worth in Nepali society. Who is a woman besides an object of desire and a womb? Where do her own desires, aspirations, dreams, passions, figure? The book raises the question of abortion rights, by showing without telling. The double standards maintained for the sexes come across through many anecdotes in the novel. Even when both man and woman engage in a sexual activity together, and if and when found illicit, the man is only superficially reprimanded. It is the woman who really pays. And not just in cash. “I hope Kanchhi adds a perspective, tells a good story, and enriches Nepali literature as a whole,” says Weena.&nbsp; Kanchhi is not a frail girl. She is whole. She is flawed, but she is also good. Like we all are, which is why she is endearing as a character. The plot catches you unawares. It leads you to a crescendo, then abandons you, unprepared and heartbroken. Kanchhi is an ache that lingers, long after you’ve put the book away.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241006121040_70b39161504287e5283a2f04a4509e6e3afcb9efc17b73c1a27090712bec0197.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241006121040_70b39161504287e5283a2f04a4509e6e3afcb9efc17b73c1a27090712bec0197" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="642" loading="lazy" alt="Kanchhi book Weena Oun"> </figure>  Kanchhi, by Hachette India is set to hit bookstores in Kathmandu on 10th October. Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people.

A tale of resistance

On a certain February morning earlier this year, we gathered in the drawing room of a friend, reading through the drafts of a set of four books for children, by Luja Mathema. The books, “Unstoppable Women Series” features four Nepali women who are icons of courage, intelligence and perseverance. It was the first time I was seeing books for children on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/50-outstanding-women-of-nepal">female figures from Nepal</a>. Our friend Prawin Adhikari, who also translated the books from English into Nepali, had made available his space so that Luja, Iva Maharjan, and I could join him to proofread the books, created over a period of 18 months. Across a slow day, punctuated by coffees and teas, we read the stories about these four women: Entrepreneur<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ambica-shrestha-1933-2024-9kaynjv7"> Late Ambica Shrestha</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-singing-nun-is-a-hit-in-china">Ani Choying Drolma</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/the-goal-is-empowerment-and-independence-of-women">Jurist Sapana Pradhan Malla</a>, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/pasang-lhamu-sherpa-the-film">Mountaineer Late Pasang Lhamu Sherpa</a>. The first book I picked was the one on Ani Choying Drolma, someone I had met through my work as a journalist. The first time I saw her, she was sat on the floor of a raised platform inside a hall at Yak and Yeti, performing to an audience to raise funds for the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18218">Aryatara School for nuns</a>. I was a rookie reporter and it was one of my first stories. But seated on the floor as Ani’s chants filled the room I felt I had been removed to someplace else. I had been taken on an inward journey, not just one of music but one of profound gratitude. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7229#.YVVcFC8w3u0">Pilgrim's progress</a>, Alexandra Alter I went back to the newsroom, holding three DV tapes to edit, not knowing how I would fit the story of such force in a two-minute broadcast. But I did anyway. Between my news editor Binod Bhattarai and I, we came up with the title, “the singing nun”, for the story. A colleague from The Kathmandu Post came over to watch the tapes and write the story-- he would call her the singing nun, too. Anchor story, Page 1. The experience of writing/producing a story can shift something in you. Covering Ani's performance was such an experience for me. I came away feeling braver. It is this change that Luja hopes to inspire in children through the books she has written. Between proofing, I had asked Luja what had drawn her to write the books and she said she had written them for her daughter, because she found that when buying books, she was hardly ever able to find books about female heroes. So, she felt the need to write them herself!&nbsp; “I want my daughter, as well as the children of Nepal and all over to learn about these individuals and their positive impact in our society,” says Luja whoa lso works as a Gender and Communications consultant outside of her writing career. “I want the children to be encouraged, excited, and hopeful. Having access to such stories at a young age is crucial to increase children’s awareness about all the possibilities in the world.” Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Israeli-authors-in-Nepal,4223#google_vignette">Imagining better futures</a>, Duksangh Sherpa A couple of years ago, I was watching an animated film with my nephew, which had a female ship captain as the lead. I recall how fascinated my nephew was while watching the film. He had many questions about the character. One of the things he asked me was how come he had never watched a film with “girl captains” before? So, it is these beginnings that count and it is what excites me about Luja’s books. Spending a day proofing her books is the only time I’ve ever met Luja. But in those few hours, I was fascinated by her drive to get the books done and to put them out on the shelves for children to come find them. “I hope that both children and parents enjoy the stories of these unstoppable women from Nepal,” says Luja. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/for-children-about-children">For children, about children</a>, Ashish Dhakal The second book I picked to proof from the set was the one on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/ambica-shrestha-92-442e9mix">Ambica Shrestha</a>, who was still among us when we were reading together that day. When we come to the part where she arrives in Darjeeling and joins Loreto Convent, there’s an illustration of her looking out through the window of the convent with a friend. At that, I teared up and I suppose there was a catch in my voice. I had met Ambica Shrestha for the first time at a Loreto alumni meeting. And every time I met her after that, she said hello. What I really took away from seeing her each time was the way she carried herself-- always so tall in the things she did and never afraid. As a fellow alumna, I hoped I had somehow inherited some of her traits. The common thread that binds the four books is the determination and strength of character of all the four women featured. The text is replete with anecdotes of inner strength that helped them forge unique paths.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240901080948_aab1f583e5c1f37f5f69fc48d44dd6b9fdf29a3e9b6348180bff197d16435b70.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240901080948_aab1f583e5c1f37f5f69fc48d44dd6b9fdf29a3e9b6348180bff197d16435b70" data-rendition-name="original" width="1426" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Passing the baton on, books on female figures from Nepal NT"> <figcaption>Luja Mathema and her books.</figcaption> </figure>  The books series by Luja reminds one of the <a href="https://www.rebelgirls.com/products/good-night-stories-for-rebel-girls">Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls</a> series, stories about girls from around the world who went on to do great things. The marvel in doing so is that even when one might only be doing it for oneself sometimes, the drive and the courage eventually serves as inspiration for others. And while Luja’s attempt in bringing these books together was rooted in the intent to gift them to her own daughter, she has gone on to set substantial precedents for others to create books about Nepali women. The books are illustrated by artists <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/365-is-not-just-a-number">Prakash Ranjit</a>, Shaili Malla and Nhuja Shakya. Shaili captures some details of Boudha in the illustrations that you would only notice if you grew up in the vicinity. Nhuja’s illustration on the last page of the book on Pasang Lhamu is steeped in pathos, and yet salvages the book from what might have been a dreary ending. And on a personal note, Prakash’s drawings of LC, makes me want to visit Darjeeling. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/female-foeticide-to-football">Female foeticide to football</a>, Srijana Singh Thakuri What I like most about these books is that they are bilingual. The Nepali and the English text appear alongside each other on each page. From my experience of reading to my nephew at bedtime, I do wish that the font size had been larger and more eye-friendly. Regardless, I can’t wait to bring the books home to my nephew, so I can share with him the stories of the Unstoppable Ambica, Ani, Pasang and Sapana. The books, published by Nepalaya, will be launched in Kathmandu on September 1, 2024. Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

The Unstoppables

On a very still wintry morning in Kathmandu, a black and white puppy bobbed about the pavement along Jamal. The municipality workers had just started sweeping the streets. Timorous rays of the sun lit the section where the pup had been tied to the railing.
The pup, with long dangling ears and the droopiest eyes I’ve ever seen, tripped over my feet and tugged at my shoelace. I giggled. Tried to pick him up. A woman stepped out from one of the shops on the pavement. Mickey! She called out and the pup went towards her, staggering with the weight of his ears. She picked him in her arms and took him inside. I followed.
She let me pet him for a bit. He nibbled at everything he could dig his teeth into-- my coat, my hands, my hair. I laughed. He likes you, the woman said. Why don’t you take him? I can’t, I said. I have a dog at home. Get one more, she said.
I fished out my phone-- Nokia music express in those days-- and called up my friend A. She squealed in joy and said, get him! I said I can’t, because there’s Cookie. But something transpired quickly during that call and it was decided we would gift the pup to our dear friend P.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/a-walk-in-the-memory">A walk in the memory</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
Had we asked our friend P if he wanted a pup? No. But in that weird moment that was a phone call, A and I had made a decision that would be the puppy’s life, woven into our friend P’s. Such unfathomable draw, small moments of whim can sometimes hold.
I walked to the ATM, counted a thin sheaf of thousand rupee notes and handed it to the woman in the shop. Tears suddenly welled-up in her eyes, as though she regretted the decision she had made a minute ago. She held Mickey in her arms, kissed his face a million times and said: Be well! Then turned to me and said: This is my baby, please take good care of him.
I said he was going to be loved well.
Mickey in my arms, I walked towards the micro bus stand in Jamal. He leapt up to chew my hair as I took quick steps down the footbridge. Inside the micro, he bit my hands some more. Fellow passengers who said Cute and tried to pet him were not spared the attack. By the time I got home my hands were covered in bites.
I showed up on the porch with the droopy-eyed cocker spaniel baby in my arms. Cookie, my golden, who was about four then, glowered first then growled and then barked in jealousy. She wasn’t going to make room for him.
I called up P and said I wanted to meet him. He was just back in Kathmandu after wrapping up an eventful life abroad and was learning to get used to the familiar, all over again. P-- so fragile at that time, so loved by A and me, that in our immaturity, we decided a dog would be the answer to everything he sought.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/stealing-a-dog">Stealing a dog</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar
I waited for P outside Bhatbhateni, on one of those steely, airport-like seats. It wasn’t a sunny day. When he showed up Mickey was in my arms, biting me when he could, but mostly watching the passersby.
P came, stood before us and said: Can I hold him?
There was no Hi, nor whose puppy or girl or boy. Just, Can I hold him? And I remember passing Mickey into P’s arms and suddenly feeling like something hard to name had happened.
He’s yours, I said. And P sank slowly on the seat next to me like a weight had been dropped over him. But he held Mickey. Said thank you.
A tender boy holding a puppy-- if you know this, you have known the sweetness of everything before the world turns us into adults. You know how some images stay in our mind forever? That moment is one of those images for me-- P and Mickey.
P got into a microbus with Mickey. It was the only time I saw the puppy. One day of his life and mine, intertwined. I thought many times to visit him, but never did for no reason. Yet, in that moment when I handed him over, A and I had thrust a living responsibility into P’s arms. We hadn’t asked for permission to do so. We were two reckless girls who assumed it was okay to decide a dog’s destiny and in that, somehow, a young man’s. We assumed P would be joyous. And like only a sensitive person would, he embraced the puppy without a fuss, without anger, without rejection, almost as if he had been waiting.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/must-love-dogs-js05baah">Must love dogs</a>, Benjamin Zimmerman
In the weeks that followed, Mickey morphed into his new name-- Havoc. Yes, that’s who he had become. Cocker spaniels are a hyper breed and the puppy had unleashed his energy into P’s home, destroying furniture and upholstery, nibbling at what he could not and chewing down what he could. Something of a little storm had been passed into P’s home when we got him Havoc.
Over the years, Havoc went missing twice. The first time he did, a heartbroken P messaged me saying: Havoc is missing! Then he wrote an opinion piece, pinning for his lost dog. Havoc eventually came home. He went missing again. There was no opinion piece the second time, but he was found.
When P’s other dog, Dali went missing, P hoped for such a miracle again. But miracles are liars that elude us when we need them the most. No prayer works. And one is left waiting, hoping something will change and the face of the beloved will be in sight again. But the change only moves even further away. Miracles are liars-- Dali didn’t return.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/kalle-s-cross-continental-journey">Kalle's cross-continental journey</a>
Last week, Havoc passed away. P, from receiving him from my arms to creating a fortress for him in his home, ensured Havoc led a long, eventful life. &nbsp;Last I saw an image of Havoc was of him as a geriatric dog, struggling with the ailments that seem to eventually get all our dogs. When P told me he passed away, I didn’t cry. But I saw an image of the puppy in the morning light in Jamal on a winter’s day, leashed to the sidewalk, tripping on his own ears, readily running into a stranger's arms. Hope you’re in peace now after a lifetime of such and such, Havoc. And if you’ve met Cookie, tell her that now, perhaps you two can become friends?

One more to remember

The monsoon has got bad press because Nepal’s tourism operators actively told visitors to avoid <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon?%2F">the rainy season</a>. It is time to change that. The reason can be found right here in the vast alpine meadows of Central Nepal where this time of year you can walk on velvet grass of pastures abloom with delicate pink, red and yellow flowers as the mist rolls up the valley. There is no sound except the hum of bumble bees. &nbsp;&nbsp; There are dozens of places across high Nepal called Chaurikharka, which means yak pasture. But this particular Chaurikharka in Rukum East located at an altitude of 4,000m stands out for its serene beauty, rustic charm and bucolic setting. There is just the occasional chime of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">yak bells</a> in the distance, and the sharp whistle of herders corralling sheep. &nbsp;&nbsp; The grass shoots are so fragile that one hesitates to step on them, the rounded ridges appear and quickly vanish in waves of mist. With the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/before-the-next-monsoon"> arrival of monsoon</a>, these meadows are a soothing shade of green dotted with millions of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-anatomy-of-a-flower?%2F=">multi-coloured flowers</a>. Until very recently, it took a week or so to hike up to places like Chaurikharka, but with the expansion of the road network even to these far-flung mountains in the lap of Dhaulagiri, they are much more accessible. It is just a three-hour uphill from the Mid-Hill Highway on the border between Baglung and Rukum East.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Purists would say that such easy access devalues the sanctity of these remote high meadows, but it also means more people will be moved to treasure the experience, appreciate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/natures-fragile-gift-to-nepal">the value of nature </a>so they can take steps to protect it.&nbsp; To be sure, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier">monsoon season can be challenging for road travel</a>. The roads are rough even at the best of times, and in the monsoon they become muddy and treacherous, often blocked by<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/monsoon-deluge-in-nepal"> landslides</a>. But that could be precisely the kind of adventure that the more intrepid visitors crave. Improved road connectivity has already made Chaurikharka and places like Badimallika &nbsp;and other sacred lakes in the mountains of western Nepal popular with domestic tourists. What is driving this traffic is the urge to go to exotic new places and share videos and selfies on social media. Several of Nepal’s travel vloggers have visited Chaurikharka and popularised the place, enticing followers on TikTok or YouTube to retrace their footsteps. But even as they become more popular, these fragile and once-remote places should be protected from over-tourism.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446" data-rendition-name="original" width="1083" height="699" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon NT"> </figure>  <h2>INCREASING FOOTFALL</h2> Chaurikharka is located in Bhume Rural Municipality of East Rukum, near the scenic valley of Dhorpatan in Baglung district. Even in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-culture">middle of the monsoon</a>, there is a steady stream of Nepali hikers trooping to these high pastures – especially during festival days like Saune Sankranti which this year was on 17 July and actually marks the auspicious beginning of the monsoon here. “This year the rains have not been as heavy and there have been some clear mornings when we could see everything from Dhaulagiri to Machapuchre,” says Khageswar Bhandari, who trekked up here from the road. “The flowers, the greenery and the snowy mountain views make this an incredibly unique place.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1152" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Chaurikharka is worthwhile to get to in any season, but it has a different charm during the monsoon. Word has spread and because it is now easy to get to from Baglung or even Pokhara, people have been flocking here.&nbsp; “Holidays and Saturdays see the largest crowds, with up to 500 visitors every day,” says ward chair Mankaji Pun of Bhume.&nbsp; There was a time not too long ago when local herders brought sheep, goats, cows, buffaloes, horses, and mules to graze here during the monsoon. Although there are still livestock around, animals have been replaced by visitors taking selfies. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">The monsoon, and nature’s arithmetic</a>, Tom Robertson Ward Chair Pun says infrastructure development is his main priority. A foot trail to Chaurikharka was built last year by the Tourism Division Office in Kohalpur, but access via the Raniwas-Koipa road section still remains challenging.&nbsp; “If we get more budget, we can improve the road and facilities to make Chaurikharka the main tourist attraction of this region,” says Bhume Municipality Chair Hom Prakash Shrestha. “After that, we hope to promote Chaurikharka as a top tourist spot.”&nbsp; Economic activity is also picking up with the arrival of visitors, but there seems to be a need to manage the makeshift sheds made of corrugated sheets that spoil the beauty of the place. Tea shops and lodges are also available but facilities are basic. Kuldeep Neupane took a three-day trip from Ghorahi in Dang to visit Chaurikharka recently, and says: “This is an ideal trip to make a quick getaway and let nature recharge your mind and body. And it is much more fun with a tent, to watch the sunrise over the Himalaya or the mist blowing in.”

Visit Nepal in the monsoon

The final investigation report on the crash of a Saurya Airlines jet on 24 July 2024 at Kathmandu airport has revealed flaws in the carrier’s technical operation procedures, poor monitoring by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and gaps in the airport’s emergency response. Eighteen people including a child were killed, and only the captain survived as the plane plunged seconds after takeoff, crashing within the airport perimeter. This was the latest in a series of aircraft accidents in previous years, and further tarnished Nepal’s already poor aviation safety record and contributed to the country being retained in the EU’s air safety list. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The circumstances in the Saurya crash were different from the Yeti Airlines crash in Pokhara in January 2022 that killed all 72 on board, and two Tara Air crashes in February 2016 and May 2022 on approach to Jomsom that together claimed 45 lives. However, all four tragedies were a result of negligence of carriers and crew, failure to follow procedures, regulatory slackness, and overconfidence. The Saurya crash, especially, was a glaring example of how an ailing airline broke its own rules to allow passengers, including non-employees, a joy ride to Pokhara on a maintenance ferry flight. CRASH REPORT The Final Investigation Report prepared by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission and released on the first anniversary of the crash last week carried a long list of rules that were ignored or broken, and of regulatory failure. The first mistake was to cram spares, tools and inflammable chemicals needed for the aircraft’s C-Check in Pokhara into the cargo hold flouting its own ground handling procedures.&nbsp; There was no check-in of passengers, some of whom were not even employees – even though regulations say only flight and maintenance crew should be on board a maintenance positioning flight. Many brought their own luggage into the plane and stored it unsecured in the cabin. There was no flight attendant to give a safety briefing to passengers. The load and trim charts given to the flight crew were rough estimates, and the total takeoff weight of the plane was 18,300kg plus or minus 200 kg. That would still have been all right, but there was a glaring mistake in the speedchart Saurya pilots were using to calculate the minimum takeoff speed (known as VR), and it had been wrong ever since the 21-year-old aircraft entered service with the airline in 2017. FAULTY DATA&nbsp; The Commission probed Flight Data Recorder inputs from previous takeoffs of the Canadian-built CRJ200-LR in 2023-2024 and found that the undetected error in the speedchart had caused the plane to pitch up at an abnormal rotation rate at least 18 times on previous takeoffs.&nbsp; Any rotation rate more than 3°/sec is regarded as unusual. But on at least two occasions, this aircraft with tail number 9N-AME had rotation rates of 5.8°/sec and 5.5°/sec, the second one was when the pilot who survived was flying in March 2024.&nbsp; On this particular day, the plane’s rotation rate was 6.5°/sec, causing it to go into a deep stall soon after takeoff, the Commission report said. Essentially, the plane was not flying fast enough down the runway to take off safely.&nbsp; It is not yet clear whether excess weight, unsecured luggage, wrong centre of gravity were also factors, but relying on a faulty speedchart for the given takeoff weight, the captain flying pulled back on the yoke before the plane had reached takeoff speed and at a pitch angle that was too steep. The investigation report says the plane then went into a deep stall and started banking right with the stick shaking. At this point, the flight officer on the right hand seat is heard on the cockpit voice recorder saying: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sir, Sir, Sir…” It then banked left before the pilot flying turned the plane sharply to the right again in an evasive action to avoid the parking aprons of the international and domestic terminals. Had he not done so, there would have been a disaster of a much greater magnitude at Kathmandu airport that day. The plane scraped the runway with its right wingtip, collided with a container having helicopter spare parts, and plunged into a gully east of the runway, exploding in a fireball. The investigation also noted that the impact forces seemed to be survivable for some occupants. The fire trucks took unnecessarily long to reach the site even though it was inside the airport perimeter. The absence of an ICAO-standard runway strip, inadequate rescue drills, lack of training, and a blocked emergency service gate leading to the crash site were cited as other factors. &nbsp;&nbsp; <h2>Timestamp of a Disaster</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110724_39cdd04693994ce6e55a5b302905c0fa4884fe85bed21ff0779bb1439f3a5725.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250731110724_39cdd04693994ce6e55a5b302905c0fa4884fe85bed21ff0779bb1439f3a5725" data-rendition-name="original" width="778" height="826" loading="lazy" alt="Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy NT"> </figure>  11:10:34 - The Saurya Airlines CRJ200 on the takeoff roll from runway 02. It had a takeoff weight of about 18,300kg, but the pilot’s speedcard had a previously undetected mistake about the minimum takeoff speed. 11:10:55 -The plane with tail number 9N-AME goes into deep stall soon after takeoff because it does not have enough speed to lift its weight. The plane also has an abnormally steep nose-up attitude.&nbsp; 11:11:03 - Without enough speed to generate lift, the plane banks right, then left and right again in CCTV photos taken from the domestic apron (below). If it had not banked right, it could have hit the aprons and terminal buildings. Seen parked is Saurya’s other CRJ200 with tail number 9N-ANM.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110732_608132f7225c649125cca2691dd6a6bf930984c5b359e888d7ad9e5eacce3afd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250731110732_608132f7225c649125cca2691dd6a6bf930984c5b359e888d7ad9e5eacce3afd" data-rendition-name="original" width="770" height="555" loading="lazy" alt="Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy NT"> </figure>  11:11:08 - The plane scrapes the runway with its right wingtip, and falls into the gully. The captain is thrown off the left side of the cockpit and survives. 11:11:15: Plane explodes in a fireball inside the airport perimeter. Firefighters take time to reach the site because of lack of access road and a blocked gate. Read the full investigation report <a href="https://www.tourism.gov.np/files/9N-AME%20AIC%20Final%20Report.pdf">here</a>.

Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli announced jubilantly on social media that Nepal had achieved a historic annual growth of 81.8% in exports. He was right. Nepal’s trade did take a great leap forward compared to last year. But the dramatic rise was mainly due to processed soya bean oil.&nbsp; However, Nepal does not produce the edible oil it exports. In fact, the soya and palm oil that make up 44% of total exports are imported from Southeast Asia and South America, and simply re-exported, mostly to India.&nbsp; Under the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area) Agreement, Nepal can export products to India duty-free if it has at least 30% value-added. Nepal’s traders have taken advantage of SAFTA even though the edible oils they export do not reach that value addition threshold. “The 30% value addition requirement is often only on paper,” says former commerce secretary Purushottam Ojha. “It is clear that simply packaging edible oils in Nepal does not fulfil the terms of the trade agreement.” Prime Minister Oli is aware of this, and even called Nepal’s export figures “fake” at an earlier event. The government is relying on other iffy figures to suggest that Nepal’s economy is strong and getting stronger. For example, the value of imports rose by 13.25% in 2024-25 compared to the previous fiscal year.&nbsp; Some of it was due to a jump in electric vehicle imports worth Rs 31.76 billion, but mostly it was because more wholesale soya oil was imported to be re-packaged and sold in India. The very fact that the government boasts about increased imports is an indication of how much it relies on taxing them for revenue. Touting such trade figures cannot be the basis to claim an economic rebound.&nbsp; “A jump in the value of imports can be interpreted as an increase in purchasing power, but it is not evidence of a stronger economy,” says economist Keshav Acharya. “Even though imports have increased, Nepal's domestic production and productive capacity have not improved.” Nepal Rastra Bank's semi-annual economic activity study report shows that industrial production was down in the first six months of the last fiscal year. This despite an increase in the number of new industries registered and investment commitments. Out of the Rs70.2 billion proposed foreign investment, Nepal received only Rs17.9 billion last year.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the rate of capital formation was limited to 24% last year, which is lower than the year before, suggesting that new investment, job creation and economic expansion all declined. If domestic production does not improve in relation to this year’s inflated trade figures, the outflow will put pressure on foreign exchange reserves like it did three years ago. At that time, Nepal borrowed from the IMF under its Extended Credit Facility Program to kickstart the economy.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080710084_2cdaaa5795828c4a7de93a0604ba884ef0a8b8f24cccd939f6c24e279ab6058f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025080710084_2cdaaa5795828c4a7de93a0604ba884ef0a8b8f24cccd939f6c24e279ab6058f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1633" height="723" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's bubble economy NT"> <figcaption>Source: NEPAL RASTRA BANK</figcaption> </figure>  The macroeconomy is on firm footing with foreign exchange reserves at a comfortable Rs2,520 billion in May, up 23% from last year. This was largely due to remittances, and partly due to a falling NPR exchange rate. Real estate transactions and the stock market index have also been climbing as a result of government policies to revive the sector.&nbsp; However, former executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank Nar Bahadur Thapa cautions: “This is not organic growth, it is the result of deliberate policy decisions to relax rules on real estate and stock markets transactions.” In reality, the sharp rise in land prices have increased the cost of production, and excessive monetisation of the real estate has become the main source of Nepal’s economic woes. The central bank has announced a slew of new policies, shifting the terms of loan repayment for industrialists and entrepreneurs, reducing interest rates, and injecting more working capital — all designed to inject adrenaline into the real estate and stock market sectors.&nbsp; When he was governor, Mahaprasad Adhikari made several financial reforms during the latter half of his tenure to stimulate the economy, including tightening credit flow.&nbsp; By the last fiscal year, additional financial reforms had resulted in a credit expansion rate of around 8%. As the pace of credit expansion slows, real estate prices have started to fall. This is actually beneficial to the economy, because it lays the foundation for improvements in land-related entrepreneurship, production, and the construction sector. Just because real estate and the stock market transactions increase, it does not indicate an economic turnaround — especially when manufacturing and productive sector continues to languish.&nbsp; “It is foolish to believe that real estate and the stock market have magically revived our economy. Agriculture employs more than half of the population, but it is in decline. Investment in the productive sector has not increased, and job creation has not increased.” Two years ago, Nepal’s industrialists, business leaders, and political leadership predicted a recession amidst a sluggish business, declining market demand, large-scale job loss, and a shrinking real estate and share market.&nbsp; Still, the economy grew by 3.36% in fiscal year 2023/24. In fact, Nepal’s economy has grown nominally over the last two decades even when all sectors of the economy are in decline.&nbsp; Says Keshav Acharya: “The growth in trade, real estate, and the stock market are bubbles. The real economy remains stagnant.”

Nepal’s bubble economy

French citizen Louis arrived in Nepal for the first time earlier this year, planning to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-abcs-of-a-winter-trek-in-nepal">trek the Annapurna Circuit </a>before heading down to Bardia to hopefully catch a glimpse of some<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-counting-its-tigers"> tigers</a>. Before he began his journey from Besisahar, Louis (who only revealed his first name) had imagined breathing crisp mountain air, and following the melodious gurgle of the Marsyangdi.&nbsp; Instead, he had to breathe fumes and dust all the way to Chame. Louis says he masked his face with a handkerchief: “It was not what I expected, this is not right.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304080_f03fce1527cf8a63178e4e82589a1a7096c8cfa28893ca4a5f7fe82d91a6e38a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025080304080_f03fce1527cf8a63178e4e82589a1a7096c8cfa28893ca4a5f7fe82d91a6e38a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2419" height="1814" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails NT 1"> </figure>  Many other trekkers are similarly disappointed as roads have been built along what used to be <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-walk-back-in-time-chandragiri-hatiban">walking trails</a>. Manang and Humla are the last remote regions in the Himalaya to be connected to the national road network. &nbsp;Construction of the 87km Besisahar-Manang road began in 1994, but was stalled during <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/14-years-after-conflict-no-closure-in-nepal">the Maoist conflic</a>t, and finally finished in 2012.&nbsp; Most of it has not yet been blacktopped, and sections have been carved out of vertical cliff faces, making them treacherous. But it has allowed road access to Manang, a journey that previously took a week on foot.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304084_32b3ca875a0df9f1dd42dbe915e6f6a2cd4f2e53f1cf2d3ee5cbdb3435905000.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025080304084_32b3ca875a0df9f1dd42dbe915e6f6a2cd4f2e53f1cf2d3ee5cbdb3435905000" data-rendition-name="original" width="2400" height="1505" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails NT 1"> </figure>  While the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-road-out-of-nepal">road has improved access</a>, it has impacted on<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/trekking-in-the-time-of-climate-change"> trekking tourism </a>— the mainstay of Manang’s economy. The number of tourists visiting the scenic valley behind the Annapurnas grew from 21,245 in 2023 to 30,866 in 2024. The Annapurna Circuit is known for unique sights like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9194">Tilicho</a>, one of the highest lakes in the world, the Thorong La pass that connects Manang to Mustang, and the valley’s own rich cultural heritage. Thorong La at 5,416m is the highest hiking pass in the world, and was used by locals for trade with Mustang before it became a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/lift-restrictions-on-upper-mustang">popular trekking route</a>. &nbsp; “For guests, the excitement of reaching Thorong La is now overshadowed by their disappointment of having to journey through dusty roads to get there,” says Manang lodge-owner Ongma Gurung. “That is the complaint we get the most.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tourism-that-treads-lightly-on-the-land">Local tourism </a>operators are trying to get the government to build alternative foot trails. But there have been delays due to a lack of budget.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304084_c5f76e398182785bb17846a148e3ca89de5687b4623580f8e2d725a7a287edfa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2025080304084_c5f76e398182785bb17846a148e3ca89de5687b4623580f8e2d725a7a287edfa" data-rendition-name="original" width="2419" height="1762" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails"> </figure>  The Naso Rural Municipality has identified other routes along the Annapurna Circuit in Chyamche, Tal, and Khotro so trekkers can bypass heavy vehicles involved in the construction of the Manang-Marsyangdi Hydropower Project. “But the local government cannot do everything,” admits the chair Dhan Bahadur Gurung. “And for leaders in Kathmandu, Manang is out of sight and out of mind.” Munindra Jung Gurung represents Manang in the Gandaki Provincial Assembly, and says he has raised the issue in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/pokhara-s-tourism-woes">Pokhara</a>. He is hopeful there will be a hearing. To be sure, the road is not all bad news. Locals benefit, the number of visitors has grown, and trekkers can now also save time and use it to explore <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5960">side valleys in Manang</a>, visiting the villages like Nar and Phu. Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) chief Rabin Kadariya concedes that the road to Upper Manang was crucial to connect the remote region with the rest of Nepal, but adds: “We have built an alternative trail connecting Talgaun, and we will consult local communities about their priorities on other hiking trails.”&nbsp;