Halucha is a carpenter living a happy life with his big family in Kathmandu’s Maru Hiti in the 1960s handcrafting chairs, tables and temple woodwork. He observes festivals of his Newa community including <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-legend-behind-the-myth-of-indra-jatra">Yenya</a>, Indra Jatra, enjoys his favourite choila baji and with friends, and occasionally momocha. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/wine-and-women-during-yenya">Wine and women during Yenya</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240914040936_b1f8b03dc37e18d45a24c93422715ea0f6480b050683893d0fc5f3a8d6a290ce.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240914040936_b1f8b03dc37e18d45a24c93422715ea0f6480b050683893d0fc5f3a8d6a290ce" data-rendition-name="original" width="1833" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="London Lakhey review MASK NT2"> </figure>  But then a big new furniture factory is set up nearby, which takes away the jobs of those with the ancestral occupation of carpentry. Halucha loses his customers.&nbsp; One thing leads to another and by the 1970s, Halucha travels to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepalis-in-the-garden-of-england">England for work</a> after borrowing money at a high interest rate. London is rainy and dreary, he struggles with the language and at his job. He has no friends, people look at him differently and treat him poorly. He feels lonely and homesick. The isolation affects his <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-other-pandemic-mental-health">mental health</a> and before long, he loses his job and is homeless.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240914040952_5ff460d094ce67737cfcdf0bbf88edaadeffd58571806fe91bfc37a962d1390f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240914040952_5ff460d094ce67737cfcdf0bbf88edaadeffd58571806fe91bfc37a962d1390f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1320" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="London Lakhey review MASK NT3"> </figure>  Author Ojesh Singh weaves a layered tale that delves into the universal themes of migration, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/50-diaspora-diaries-in-nepali-times">diaspora</a>, mental health, racism, heritage and identity in simple, engaging storytelling style with vibrant illustrations by Sahanshil Dangol in the new Nepali children’s book, London Lakhey. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/brain-gain-into-brain-drain">Brain gain into brain drain</a>, Sonia Awale “Children are smarter than we give them credit for, they have genuine reactions and responses, and the earlier they are exposed to difficult emotions, the sooner they will learn to express them openly and grow up better able to deal with them,” says Dangol on some of the heavier themes underlying London Lakhey. Indeed, as children’s literature, the book does not shy away from difficult topics. This was a very conscious choice, says Singh, who himself went to England in 1999 and is now an aerospace engineer running two restaurants specialising in Newa cuisine in London. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/passing-the-baton-on">The Unstoppables</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar&nbsp; “The story is inspired by some of my own experience when I moved to England and that of people close to me, the not-so-easy beginning, the loneliness,” adds Singh, who is in Kathmandu to launch the book.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240914040956_bc4f28cd93c2b2c568d979707bc0d8a04f37e0fe519e1d8752f952b91a5fdea2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20240914040956_bc4f28cd93c2b2c568d979707bc0d8a04f37e0fe519e1d8752f952b91a5fdea2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1141" loading="lazy" alt="London Lakhey review MASK NT"> </figure>  “The first thing we Nepalis seek abroad is a plate of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/dal-bhat-power">warm dal bhat</a> and not getting that can be so hard, then there are our festivals, dance and music that we miss so much.” Singh had it relatively easy as his father was already in the UK. But even then, he had to support himself and for the first five years he studied by day, while working at a restaurant at night. Finally, he bought his own restaurant, and another one a few years later. He calls them “Nepali-Indian” restaurants but actually specialise in Newa food, the first of few in the London area. “I do a lot of work virtually so the restaurant for me is like a living room and it is as if I am cooking for my friends and family, it keeps me feeling alive,” says Singh, whose clan home is in Basantapur. He is actively involved in the Pasa Pucha Guthi in London as one of the founding member since its inception in 2000. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepalis-in-the-garden-of-england">Nepalis in the Garden of England</a>, Joy Stephens The Newa-English community in London organises cultural events including performing the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-spirit-that-is-fire">Lakhey mask dance</a> during Mha Puja, also the Newari New Year. This real-life tradition in London serves as an inspiration for the book. “The new generation of Nepali diaspora should know the struggles of their parents, what they went through, some were asylum seekers, others came for better opportunities,” says Singh, stating how this was one of the ideas behind the book, especially as he is himself a father now. A mutual contact brought animator and illustrator Sahanshil Dangol onboard for the book, and the two would go on to work closely for the nearly two years it took for the volume to develop. Dangol works for London-based studios and was previously involved in making commercials and music videos for up-and- coming Nepali artists like Yugal Gurung and Ankit Shrestha.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/memories-of-a-london-nepali-hangout">Memories of a London Nepali hangout</a>, Sunil Pun But what really got him passionate about the book project was the Lakhey element. During his undergrad, Dangol was working on a film to document his cousin’s mask dances in Pokhara but had to shelve it. He has since come across the Nepali Creative Gang, an online collective of artists, writers, game developers, animators and others which helps young talent with guidance and feedback as well as protection for their work. Dangol went on to develop a 4-minute-long stop motion film called Death and Exposure but he always had the Lakhey project at the back of his mind. “It felt like a second chance to work on something close to my heart,” he told Nepali Times in a video interview from London. It also helped that the characters spoke to him. Having moved to London at 11 following his father who was in the army, Dangol never felt like he quite fit in, neither in London, nor in Kathmandu. “Growing up, I didn’t have Nepali friends, and in any case, I didn’t feel like I completely belonged anywhere, and while I didn’t go through everything that Halucha went through in the story, I could still resonate with the character and sympathise with him, it is a relatable story with so many of our friends and families migrating today.” Dangol based the physical attributes of Halucha and other characters on people around him. The last few pages of the book are dedicated to the process of illustration including doodles and sketched studies of Lakhey and his masks. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/getting-behind-the-divine-mask">Getting behind the divine mask</a> The Lakhey mask depicted in the book is a variation of the real thing which is supposed to give devotees divine powers when they wear them. In fact, communities in Kathmandu did not want their actual mask to be represented in the book for fear of offending the deities.&nbsp; Lakhey is a demon in the carnival of God but is worshipped as a deity protecting townspeople of the Newa civilisation. He is depicted as having a ferocious face, protruding fangs, and a mane of red or black hair.&nbsp; During festivals including Indra Jatra which falls on 17 September this year (below), he comes out on the streets and dances in a trance whirling and jumping to the thump of drums.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240914040936_0d60bd64fe6b3db69c9654e3a90569768ba0caeaaaacd1b46b5ca4e357b21a6e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20240914040936_0d60bd64fe6b3db69c9654e3a90569768ba0caeaaaacd1b46b5ca4e357b21a6e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2170" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="London Lakhey review MASK NT 4"> </figure>  On the surface, London Lakhey is a children’s book but since its release, it has found as many adolescent and adult readers who have requested most copies, says Dangol. “I want our children to remember their roots and not be ashamed of it. They can so easily feel embarrassed because they are eating dal bhat for lunch and not burgers and pizza,” says Singh.&nbsp; “We have to own up to our roots but we don’t have to stick to one singular identity either, it can be a mix of Newa and British like in my own persona. This is important for stability and a peace of mind.” ­­  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240914040936_4af67a538381c66209f7cc834a6b2056857275cc12c2b3a5e3bf6f3f1c1c78c9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20240914040936_4af67a538381c66209f7cc834a6b2056857275cc12c2b3a5e3bf6f3f1c1c78c9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="London Lakhey review MASK NT 5"> </figure>

Sonia Awale

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Review

MASK

For the Sherpa people who live below Mt Everest, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/margins/songs-from-chomolungma">Chomolungma </a>means ‘mother god’. And as a young girl growing up below it, Lhakpa Sherpa gazed up at the mountain with awe and reverence.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/pasang-lhamu-sherpa-the-film">Pasang Lhamu Sherpa</a> was the first Nepali woman to reach the summit in 1993, but she died on the way down. Lhakpa remembers the funeral in Kathmandu, and says she sensed Pasang Lhamu’s soul enter her at the cremation.&nbsp; Since then, Lhakpa holds the <a href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-ascents-of-mt-everest-by-a-woman#:~:text=At%20the%20age%20of%2048,at%206.15%20a.m.%20local%20time.">Guiness World Record</a> for having climbed Mt Everest ten times, the most by any woman anywhere, and breaking her own record several times. Lhakpa Sherpa seeks Chomolungma’s blessings and forgiveness before and after every climb. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">The rise and fall of Nims Purja</a>, Pradnya Pradhan “I respect the mountain like my mom,” she says in the new Netflix documentary Mountain Queen: Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.&nbsp; The film is as much about Lhakpa’s skill and stamina as a high altitude climber, as about her courage to stand up to an abusive husband and the strength to raise three children as a single mother working in a Whole Foods Market in the US state of Connecticut. &nbsp; Directed by Lucy Walker who excels in documenting real life characters, the 104 minute film provides viewers with an intimate glimpse of Lhakpa’s home, conversations with her daughters, and some spectacular footage of her climbing in Everest’s Death Zone. Walker removes layer upon layer of Lhakpa’s life to introduce us to the real person that she is.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240910120952_549f2ebdc425038deb78854480449122da0890957389aa86b6a612bf91d33ec3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240910120952_549f2ebdc425038deb78854480449122da0890957389aa86b6a612bf91d33ec3" data-rendition-name="original" width="450" height="630" loading="lazy" alt="Mountain Queen Lhakpa Sherpa NT2"> </figure>  As a girl Lhakpa was a headstrong girl, and says her mother used to call her “too tough, too tall and very, very bossy” – and that is exactly how she comes across in the film. But behind the toughness and cheerful smile, Lhakpa is a soft-hearted person who has been in search of love and healing all her life. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/on-screen-mountains">On-screen mountains</a>, Sahina Shrestha Lhakpa was a social misfit, but found her true calling in mountaineering. She started out as a porter carrying up to 100kg on her back -- double her body weight. She had to pretend to be a boy since women did not get jobs with expeditions back then. Then, she was promoted to be a kitchen boy, cooking for the climbers in base camps.&nbsp; She needed money to climb but nobody at the time was sponsoring a woman. A chance meeting with King Birendra and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala got her the sponsorship she needed in 2000 to lead an all-women Nepali Everest expedition. She reached the top for the first time, the only climber from her group to do so. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/streaming-the-himalaya-on-film">Streaming the Himalaya on film</a>, Pinki Sris Rana Her goal achieved, that should have been it. But Lhakpa was hopelessly hooked to the thrill of climbing. She met the Romanian-American mountaineer George Dijmarescu who encouraged her not to just be a porter, and join him in climbing Everest from the Tibet side.&nbsp; For the next several years the two became climbing partners, the ultimate power couple in Himalayan mountaineering. She emigrated to the United States and gave birth to daughters Sunny and Shiny. It was not long before Dijmarescu showed his true self, and Lahkpa was trapped in an abusive marriage in a foreign land. As a girl child in Nepal, she was never sent to school and had no other job except climbing. The fairytale had ended. She was featured in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/sports/lhakpa-sherpa-everest.html">New York Times</a> report, training for her 10th ascent of Mt Everest carrying boxes of vegetables and fruits at Whole Foods. In Mountain Queen, Walker directs a highly personalised profile of Nepal’s &nbsp;almost-forgotten mountaineering legend, digging up her troubles and triumphs with sensitivity and care. Walker does more than tell the story of perseverance and resilience that go hand-in-hand with climbing, she also tells the story of a matriarch who has to be strong for her family. &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/why-we-climb-mountains">Why we climb mountains</a>, Damien Francois After her 10th Everest ascent, sponsors line up to fund an expedition to even more challenging K2, which Lhakpa climbed last year. Pasang Lhamu’s soul burns brightly in Lhakpa Sherpa, and she sums up her own journey: “I’ll give my life to the mountains, keep climbing until the day I die.” Mountain Queen: Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa Directed by Lucy Walker Netflix, 2024 104 minutes&nbsp;

Pinki Sris Rana

Daughter of Chomolungma

Pasang Lhamu Sherpa was the first Nepali woman to climb Mt Everest, but she died on the descent. She is a national icon, but few have heard of Lhakpa Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to scale the world’s highest mountain and get back down alive.
Both Pasang and Lhakpa were enduring, resilient women who defied the patriarchy, struggled, and triumphed. Their compelling stories are the subjects of two international documentaries.
The 2024 Netflix film Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa recounts her career from porter to a mountaineer who scaled Mt Everest for the 10th time in 2022, and then her hard life as an immigrant in the United States.
That film follows the 2022 documentary Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest which breathes life into a celebrated national hero whose climb and tragic death every Nepali knows by heart. The film is available on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and the US.
The recent trend of making documentaries about mountaineering for streaming sites was kicked off by 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible featuring Nepal-born Nims Purja, in 2021. 14 Peaks was on Netflix's top ten list for months after its release.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/seeking-identity-in-diversity">Seeking identity in diversity</a>, Sonia Awale
This was followed by another Netflix production, the docuseries Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake about the earthquake-triggered avalanche at Everest Base Camp in 2015 that killed 18 climbers.
Biopics about mountaineers or dramatised adaptations of real-life expeditions have an even longer history with Hollywood’s 1998 IMAX film Everest and the 2015 movie, also titled Everest, about climbers killed by a storm on the mountain in 1996. A biopic on Tenzing Norgay is currently being produced by Apple Original Films starring Tom Hiddleston and William Dafoe.
“The West had always seen Nepal from the set narrative of exotic Shangri La or Shambala, and mountaineering adventure has always pulled them,” explains Ramyata Limbu of the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF).
More rare have been films about Nepali mountaineers made by Nepali producers. But as Nepali mountain guides move from being porters for hire to expedition leaders and accomplished mountaineers in their own right, this may be changing.
Says filmmaker Shanta Nepali: “It is only now that the extraordinary stories of Nepali mountaineers are being recognised.” Her 2023 documentary Climbing Temperatures features the Sherpa struggle to adapt to the impact of climate breakdown in the Himalaya.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/pasang-lhamu-sherpa-the-film">Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the film</a>, Tayama Rai
The 2024 documentary Girls Rewriting Destiny by Lawa Pyakurel is another example of Nepali filmmakers telling the story of Nepali mountaineers. Pyakurel’s documentary stars mountaineer Maya Gurung and explores the lives she has touched over the years.&nbsp;
As Nepalis gain fame and respect for their mountaineering feats, this has concurrently opened up opportunities for local filmmakers to chronicle their adventures on streaming channels.
“It is ten times harder for Nepali filmmakers to take equally deserving Nepali stories to a global platform like Netflix,” says Nepali. “It’s not that we cannot come up with good stories, we just cannot afford it.”
Lack of exposure and a talent gap means some Nepali productions have not been of sufficient quality for streaming sites to take interest. Co-production can be a way out for films on mountaineering, and some have opted for this. But it is equally important for international filmmakers to use local expertise where available so the stories ring true.
Says Nepali. “If local filmmakers are hired just as fixers, they don’t have much say. But if it is for creative input in cinematography, production, or their cultural understanding, the production has an authentic voice.”&nbsp;
Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-star-shines-in-locarno"> Nepal’s star shines in Locarno</a>, Pinki Sris Rana

Streaming the Himalaya on film

K V Rajan, India’s ambassador to Nepal from 1995 to 2000, and Atul Thakur, a respected voice in Nepal affairs in India, have jointly published ‘Kathmandu Chronicle: Reclaiming India-Nepal Relations’.&nbsp; The book is an earnest attempt to reproduce Rajan’s personal experience during his tenure in Kathmandu combined with research by Thakur and makes for interesting and meaningful reading.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240828120824_73c2130fef41483d02101d520ad44e20c79797b4f6e365d9091fbb660ff10b91.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240828120824_73c2130fef41483d02101d520ad44e20c79797b4f6e365d9091fbb660ff10b91" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="K V Rajan and Atul Thakur NT 1"> </figure>  The methodology is simple, aligning both formal and informal which projects the right tone to guide people-to-people connect between the two neighbouring countries.&nbsp; The book starts with a first-person account by Rajan, moving on to analyse the complicated political transition in Nepal, and concludes with an elaboration on future challenges. And unlike many other such works penned by former Indian bureaucrats, this one is honest, unbiased and more balanced -- all much needed to move Indo-Nepal relations forward, at least from the Nepali perspective. Rajan cites his personal rapport with King Birendra with whom he built the trust needed to guide bilateral ties. When Rajan landed in Kathmandu, back in Delhi India’s Nepal policy was in the hands of veterans like Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Salman Haider. Their line was to build relations with the palace as well as the political parties.&nbsp; Rajan quotes Prime Minister Rao as advising him, ‘The King seems to have learnt his lessons. So have we. Let him know we take him seriously, we are not taking him for granted … Make all political leaders feel that they are equally important for us, whether they are supposed to be pro or anti-India. I will not give an inch more to the pro-India prime minister, and not an inch less to the anti-India one.’ Then, of course, Birendra was killed in the massacre at the royal palace on 1 June 2001. Pranab Mukherjee apparently warned him after an earlier meeting with Birendra that the king ‘felt a certain threat’ and was ‘very worried’ before the killings.&nbsp; Rajan makes the rather far-fetched connection between Crown Prince Dipendra and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the underworld, thereby hinting at a conspiracy that he does not expound on. We have to remember that these undercurrents followed the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to Delhi on 24 December 1999.&nbsp; The plane was forced to fly to Kandahar in Afghanistan and finally released at the turn of the millennium on 31 December. The hijacking itself affected Nepal-India ties for years after. &nbsp; Rajan takes us on a flashback of Nepal’s recent history in which the shadow of King Mahendra loomed large, and Gyanendra’s effort to emulate his father after his coup on 1 Februrary 2005 when he assumed total state power.&nbsp; It is quite clear from the book that India was not in favour of the move by Gyanendra, who ws regarded as being more friendly towards China. Rajan does provide an honest analysis of the dilemma India faced in dealing with Gyanendra and the political forces at a time when Nepal was in the throes of the Maoist conflict.&nbsp; ‘Tactical U-turns and transactional compromises would leave lasting perceptions in Kathmandu of Indian inconsistency, unreliability and insincerity, and in Delhi, of Nepal’s ingratitude, deviousness and how easily it could be led astray,’ Rajan writes, referring to India’s twin-pillar policy of supporting both the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy post-1990.&nbsp; The authors urge India to fashion a new twin-pillar policy of ‘strengthening democracies as well as civil society engagement for regional good’. The second section of the book retells the long political transition of Nepal from Panchayat system of absolute monarchy right up to turning itself into a secular federal democratic republic, and India’s role in these changes. The authors argue that the aspirations of Nepalis has been thwarted by the power struggle among the ruling elite, which have prevented the peace dividend after the conflict to be fully realised. The authors are also critical of Nepal’s foreign policy as being ‘chaotic and lacking vision’, but also advise Indian policy makers on how to should provide space and support to Nepal. They hark back to the role of statesmen like Prime Minister B P Koirala, a polished and respected leader, whom the Nepali public should follow to revive his glory.&nbsp; The book touches upon the Tarai-Mountain division in Nepal, and controversial bilateral issues like 1950 Treaty, the Limpiyadhura border dispute and the ‘China factor’. The book tries to untangle the political, socio-economic and even psychological factors affecting Nepal’s quest for being a true democratic country. The last section of the book looks at ways to repurpose India-Nepal ties by strengthening cooperation in various fields, especially water resources and trade. A ‘revolutionary resolve’ is needed from both sides, they say, to meet the aspirations of the Nepali people.&nbsp; Structural reforms and an alternate development paradigm are a must for Nepal, they argue, and this can be achieved by strengthening bilateral, regional as well as sub-regional cooperation. The book quotes Nepali authors like Manjushree Thapa, Sanjay Upadhyay, Prashant Jha, Lok Raj Baral, Hari Bansh Jha, Aditya Adhikari, among others, to add a Nepali perspective.&nbsp; The authors are unnecessarily brutal in criticizing Amish Raj Mulmi’s ‘All Roads Lead North’ which is actually a cogent analysis of how China came in to Nepal in a big way post-2015. It would also have been useful if Ambassador Rajan could have elaborated on the relations he built during his posting with members of Nepal’s business community, civil society and media.&nbsp; Rajan was well known at the time for promoting India soft power, the mention of which is limited to just one event in the book. That India is an important player in Nepali politics is a given, what the book falls short on is explaining why India has not been able to show greater magnanimity in its dealings with a much smaller neighbor.&nbsp; Socially and also psychologically, there are changing perceptions among citizens of both Nepal and India regarding each other. The book could have elaborated on how real change can be brought about in an era of social media magnification of opinion.&nbsp; Nevertheless, this can be good reference material for those interested in the recent history of Nepal-India relations as well as those concerned about its future, as told by an insider with a researcher.&nbsp; Akanshya Shah is a Nepali journalist and researcher based in New Delhi. Kathmandu Chronicle: Reclaiming India–Nepal Relations&nbsp; by K V Rajan and Aul K Thakur Penguin, 2024 Paperback, 280 pages INR 499 ISBN-13 : 978-0143463375  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240828120824_7081ca2518c8db6d14e80d41c19cb85ad1f482cdf5cd86e1694c093b49ad6168.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240828120824_7081ca2518c8db6d14e80d41c19cb85ad1f482cdf5cd86e1694c093b49ad6168" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu Chronicle cover page NT 2"> </figure>

How to reboot Nepal-India relations

Wise and wrinkled grandmothers dressed in vividly patterned dresses lounge elegantly against Mughal backdrops, and are attended to by young women, lovers, and deities. The paintings depict traditional grandmoms in non-traditional settings, and Muna Bhadel in her ongoing exhibition Silent Whispers at Siddhartha Art Gallery forces us to do a double take.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822120812_e941c14b423047b56a14cc8e4a20eae1005c99325c5a05532922ca8aa2178877.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240822120812_e941c14b423047b56a14cc8e4a20eae1005c99325c5a05532922ca8aa2178877" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Muna Bhadel NT"> </figure>  Bhadel, a recipient of the 2022 <a href="https://www.australianhimalayanfoundation.org.au/">Australian Himalayan Foundation </a>Art Award, explains: ‘This series is a tapestry woven with threads of emotional bonds, captures the poignant experiences of grandmothers as I have felt them. Their journeys through time are uniquely their own.’ In a painting titled Mute Melodies, an elderly woman reclines on a pillow with her hair down, frowning into the distance while surrounded by three young women. One fans her face, another presents her with a box of jewelry, and the third anoints her feet in a ‘sora singar’ wedding ceremony representing a bride’s transformation from girl to wife.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822110840_e78e786aca3447be1b6583acc3ef6c26bf55befbacc4abf1b8fca4aa967578d6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240822110840_e78e786aca3447be1b6583acc3ef6c26bf55befbacc4abf1b8fca4aa967578d6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2676" height="3024" loading="lazy" alt="Mute Melodies by Mona Bhadel NT 2"> </figure>  The juxtaposition of the grandmother’s wrinkled face and veined arms with the smooth-skinned attendants painted like a fantastical Mughal mural, is a recurrent motif in Bhadel’s exhibition. The paintings contrast images of youth and age, and explore the longing and unfulfilled dreams and the imagery blends memories with dreams of what look like nautch girls. Bhadel trained at the Lalitkala Academy of Fine Art, then joined the MFA program at Tribhuvan University while doing a residency at Taragaon Museum. Her works were also exhibited at the Himalayan Art Festival in 2022 and the Dalai-La gallery in 2023. The 2023 exhibition titled 'Co-Relation Between Us' featured subjects dressed in vibrant textiles, and she has carried this style to Silent Whispers as well. A painting titled Uncharted Desires features reclining woman clad in a dhaka-patterned cholo, a golden shawl, and a flowery black gunyo, while a turbaned young man combs her hair.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822110844_fd5e920221af3d2613059a2e673aa1308c0eb78c601ddda661956b24f263ad52.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240822110844_fd5e920221af3d2613059a2e673aa1308c0eb78c601ddda661956b24f263ad52" data-rendition-name="original" width="2676" height="3024" loading="lazy" alt="Uncharted Desires by Mona Bhadel NT 3"> </figure>  Many of the women in this series feature elderly women seemingly reminiscing romance, perhaps experiences or fantasies they had when younger. Sometimes, there is a doting man in attendance.&nbsp; Bhadel wants to leave a lot to the viewers’ imagination, and so as not to give it all away, just says, “This is how I imagined they would like to be with their past companions.”&nbsp; Most of the paintings at the exhibition are acrylic on canvas, but some are done in coloured pencils on the walls, perhaps studies or sketches before working on her final pieces. The drawings show two hands, one often visibly aged, and the other smooth and young.&nbsp; “These represent memories of my grandmother and how we are connected despite our difference in age,” says Bhadel. “It reminds me of a time when she pinched the skin on her hand and then the skin on mine.”&nbsp; Perhaps some of Bhadel’s reflections on the passage of time comes from the recent birth of her child, and the passing of her grandmothers who lived simple lives, nurturing their families, yet trapped by duty and society. While the women have aged physically in the paintings, their minds and spirits burn brightly and full of life in Bhadel’s works.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822110848_a31931b41dbb24cbe9db3da768788613d13d560a855a58a99b5a40f5185e6e17.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240822110848_a31931b41dbb24cbe9db3da768788613d13d560a855a58a99b5a40f5185e6e17" data-rendition-name="original" width="2129" height="3576" loading="lazy" alt="Custodian of Fate by Mona Bhadel NT 4"> </figure>  These bittersweet emotions are expressed in colours that are either bright and saturated, or dull and subdued, but both enveloped in warm vermillion. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/artistic-prayer-for-our-common-future">Artistic prayer for our common future</a>, Pinki Sris Rana Explains Sangeeta Thapa of Siddhartha Art Gallery: ‘Muna Bhadel’s paintings are an observation about the cycle of life -- of birth and death, youth with all its beauty and seductions, and about loss, ageing, nostalgia, and isolation.’ Silent Whispers Paintings by MunaBhadel Siddhartha Art Galley Baber Mahal Revisited 18 August – 18 September Kathmandu Triennale 2026 Although it is still almost two years away, the organisers of the Kathmandu Triennale are not waiting till the last moment to start preparations. Siddharth Art Gallery and Nepal Academy of Fine Arts are poised to unfurl a vibrant canvas in February 2026 with the theme ‘Coexistence, Kinship and Care’.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024082212080_376592b1d0ce331e80f65820ea891b99d7e4b2bcdca9c51951f7eee9777965e5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2024082212080_376592b1d0ce331e80f65820ea891b99d7e4b2bcdca9c51951f7eee9777965e5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1750" height="992" loading="lazy" alt="Triennale Siddhartha Art Gallery 2026 NT"> </figure>  Kathmandu will host a kaleidoscope of creativity, with shows at venues like the Siddhartha Art Galley, Patan Museum and Nepal Art Council. The triennale will be curated by Australian artist Natalie King and Sujan Chitrakar of the Kathmandu University School of Art, and will feature at least 40 Nepali and international artists.&nbsp; Outgoing Australian Ambassador Felicity Volk spoke at the event announcing the Triennale, saying: “In a world fragmented by politics, war, and geopolitical tensions, we seek unity—a shared canvas where we weave threads of solidarity and harmony.”&nbsp;

Vishad Raj Onta

The unbearable lightness of being old

The five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) reign supreme, each wielding a veto over whatever the other 192 members might want. That is why Israel, owing to US support, can <a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/israel-ignores-un-cease-fire-resolution-to-keep-pummeling-gaza">blithely ignore countless UN resolutions</a>, and why Syria, owing to Russian and Chinese support,<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/04/555292"> handily escaped sanctions</a> for its use of chemical weapons. Owing to the disproportionate power they wield, the Permanent Five share an old, decidedly British sense of empire. The authors of two recent books on empire, Lawrence James and Nandini Das, offer no thoughts on how the UN might, or indeed should, be reformed, would agree. In The Lion and the Dragon, James, a prolific historian of the UK’s role in world affairs, follows Britain’s relations with China from the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/20/hk.history.01/">nineteenth-century Opium War </a>until the return of Hong Kong and today’s tensions over Taiwan. And in Courting India, Das, a professor at the University of Oxford, concentrates on the very beginnings of the British Empire and its covetous reach into what was then the Mughal Empire in India. What this history shows is that empire is still very much with us. Though Americans, proud of throwing off the rule of King George III, tend to bristle at the idea, their own military, technological, and commercial power is as imperial and pervasive as Britain’s territorial dominance ever was. As James notes, we can thank the post-World War II Pax Americana for the mostly stable international relations that prevailed during the aptly named Cold War with the Soviets and their own empire. Read more: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/two-new-books-on-conflict-and-conservation">Two new books on conflict and conservation</a>, Kunda Dixit A perennial question, especially during periods of geopolitical upheaval, is not just how empires emerge, but how they fade. Though Britain and France still indulge their memories of empire, they have long since accepted being ‘middle powers’ at best. Ever since the Suez crisis of 1956, when the threat of US sanctions forced Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw from Egypt’s Suez Canal, Britain has supinely followed America’s lead in international relations. (UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s refusal to send troops to Vietnam in the 1960s is the exception that proves the rule.) At the same time, France has sought comfort in the collective embrace of what became the European Union. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on a hopeless <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/what-does-defending-europe-mean">quest to reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union</a> and recreate the empire of Peter the Great. And China already sees itself, with some justification, as wielding global influence to rival that of the American empire. China’s pursuit of superpower status is born of not just current economic and political realities, but also its deep-seated resentment over the ‘century of humiliation’ (1839-1949) that it suffered at the hands of European (and Japanese) imperial powers. Of course, similar sentiments also animate Putin’s revanchism, as well as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dismissiveness of diplomatic overtures from post-Brexit Britain. In William Faulkner’s oft-quoted words, ‘The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.’ <h2>Passage To India</h2> The trite answer to the question of why empires fall is that they become victims of their own success, growing too large, too corrupt, too exhausted to fend off energetic newcomers. As the Arab philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun argued in the 14th century, empires are like living organisms: they grow, mature, and die. As Das’s wonderfully researched book shows, the Mughal Empire was almost mature when the British arrived in the 1600s. Its Muslim rulers, with their roots in Central Asia, are fascinating figures. Emperor Jahangir, a generous patron of the arts, was addicted to opium and wine, whereas his wife, Nur Jahan, wielded significant political influence. The emperor’s son, Shah Jahan, was a ‘king of the world’, whose love for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is permanently commemorated in the Taj Mahal. Mughal India was both a place of immense wealth and a bastion of religious tolerance (unlike Europe, with its centuries-long Inquisition against Muslims, Jews, and heretics). Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-smallpox-virus-in-british-india">The smallpox virus in British India</a>, Tom Robertson By contrast, the British Empire was barely in its infancy when its clash with Mughal India began. In Courting India, Das paints a vivid picture of the experiences – mostly endured, rather than enjoyed – of King James’s ambassador, Thomas Roe, at the Mughal court. But more than that, she also offers a rich description of Jacobean England as it was emerging from the first Elizabethan age and jostling for power with Portugal, Spain, France, and Holland. Roe’s own journals are a major primary source, but so, too, are the cultural interpreters of the period, from William Shakespeare to the poet John Donne (a friend of Roe). Theirs was an England full of energy, seeking its fortune in the Americas and the Indies. However, it was nowhere close to as sophisticated as courtiers like Roe seemed to believe. Indeed, Roe was almost a caricature of the Englishman abroad. He refused to learn any language that might have helped his mission (be it Farsi or Turkish), and he insisted that he and his staff wear English wool and silk, even through the Indian summer. While he eventually came to admire the pragmatic tolerance of Mughal society, he remained convinced of England and Protestant Christianity’s superiority. Never would he have allowed himself to ‘go native’. Roe was answerable not only to King James but also to his financial backer, the East India Company, which had been granted its charter by Elizabeth I in 1600. This meant he was constantly tussling with the miserly company for money (its traders were always jealous), as well as struggling to quell, or at least make excuses for, the riotous behavior of English sailors. Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/buried-in-history"> Buried in history</a>, Lisa Choegyal <h2>Century of Humiliation </h2> Two centuries later, the East India Company, as it appears in James’s book, would still be clinging to the same assumptions that Roe had held. The superiority and integrity of Christian Britain went unquestioned, and still stood in stark contrast to “Asian greed and despotism.” The biggest change, in the meantime, had been the collapse of the Mughal Empire. Mughal India, the wealthiest place in the world at the end of the 17th century, was steadily enfeebled by internal dissent and Persian and Afghan invasions. In 1857, the East India Company formally dissolved the empire, setting the stage for <a href="https://www.royal.uk/encyclopedia/victoria-r-1837-1901">Queen Victoria</a> to establish the “British Raj” and direct rule over the Indian subcontinent the following year.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240815120836_d96f9f442c51b3abd7717e340c856b87423a5f6d5a9e97422ffa7deec482aac2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20240815120836_d96f9f442c51b3abd7717e340c856b87423a5f6d5a9e97422ffa7deec482aac2" data-rendition-name="original" width="842" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="The Mughal Empire's Treaty of Allahabad by Benjamin West NT"><figcaption>A painting by Benjamin West of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II conveying the Treaty of Allahabad to Robert Clive in August 1765 after the Battle of Buxar that gave the Company the right to collect taxes -- marking the beginning of British India rule.</figcaption></figure>  To paraphrase Ibn Khaldun, 19th Britain was no longer an infant with imperial ambitions; it was now an adult with all the energy and ruthlessness needed to extend its reach around the world. As such, the British lion had no misgivings about disgracing the Chinese dragon. Looking back on this period, it is easy to see why Chinese President Xi Jinping is so determined to expunge the century of humiliation from the national memory. That century began in 1839 with the First Opium War. When China tried to block imports of East India Company opium from Bengal, Britain responded with all its (industrialised) military might. By 1842, British warships and soldiers had crushed all opposition and compelled China’s Qing emperor to sign the Nanjing Treaty. That opened China to international trade and ensured that British citizens in ‘treaty ports’ would be subject to British, not Chinese, law. Another consequence of the war was that Britain took possession of Hong Kong, which it would hold until 1997. Whereas Das describes India principally through Roe’s eyes, James is keen to present a balance between British actions and Chinese reactions. In doing so, he stresses that China was not reacting only to British imperialism. After all, this was a time when ‘a spirit of predatory imperialism … pervaded the foreign ministries of Russia, France, Germany and China’s near-neighbour, the newly industrialized Japan’. Seized by their own commercial ambitions, all four ‘regarded China as a land mass to be partitioned and shared out in the same way as contemporary Africa’. But these other imperial projects hardly give Britain a pass. In arguing that ‘Britain was reluctantly sucked into the complex geopolitics of great-power empire building in the Far East’, James simply is not convincing. Britain, the world’s leading naval power and the home of the Industrial Revolution, was already adept at the game of geopolitics and quite prepared to protect its interests in China, not least because that would also protect its interests in India. By the 18th century, the Qing Dynasty had expanded from its Manchu roots and established an empire extending from Mongolia and Tibet to the Pacific. But by the 19th century, it was too exhausted to withstand the pressure not only from the other imperial powers but also from its own people. The century of humiliation always refers to foreign interventions, but equally important were domestic embarrassments such as the 1850-64 Taiping Rebellion – in which some 30 million people died – and the 1899-1901 Boxer Rebellion. The dynasty’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’ was clearly slipping from its grasp. It finally came to an end in 1912, when the Western-educated Sun Yat-sen, following a brief revolution, established the ‘Republic of China’. <h2>Remember Thucydides</h2> Today, that title applies only to the island of Taiwan, whereas Xi presides over the ‘People’s Republic of China’, which was established in 1949 with the victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist Party over Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces. Since the 1970s, most countries – including both rival Chinas – have embraced the fiction that the ROC and the PRC refer to a single country. But there is a constant fear that Taiwan could formally declare its independence and destroy the fiction, thus provoking an invasion from the mainland. If President Joe Biden is to be believed, the US would then come to Taiwan’s rescue and the South China Sea would witness a Sino-American war with far-reaching regional and global consequences. Given his focus on Britain and China, James understandably devotes only a handful of his final paragraphs to US analysts’ ‘bleak’ prognosis of a future war over Taiwan. Moreover, throughout the preceding chapters, he deals deftly with other instances when conflict erupted between rival regional powers. These include the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, which led to Japanese occupation of Taiwan, the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, Japan’s bloody expansionism in the 1930s, and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought America into World War II. The big risk today is that China and America could end up at war as much by accident as by design. Graham Allison of Harvard University has famously warned of the ‘Thucydides trap’, an allusion to the Peloponnesian War, in which Sparta, the incumbent hegemon, was ‘destined for war’ with the rising power, Athens. It is tempting to dismiss Allison’s argument as alarmism. But over the past 500 years, there have been 16 instances of an incumbent power facing off with a rising power, and war was avoided in only four of them, the most famous being America’s rise to replace Britain as the leading world power in the early twentieth century. Notably, James recalls that China was ‘stunned’ by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887">Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union</a>. The message pushed by Chinese state-controlled media was that the UK had surrendered to ‘a losing mindset’. Clearly, the current Chinese leadership has no intention of showing weakness. The good news is that political and military leaders on both sides of the Pacific are aware of the risks. As Xi said in 2015, on his first state visit to America, “There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.” The bad news, however, is that all countries are prone to ‘miscalculation’. <h2>Tick-Tock</h2> Almost a half-century ago, John Bagot Glubb, a British general who commanded the Jordanian army from 1939 until 1956, published a book entitled The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. His thesis was essentially the same as Ibn Khaldun’s, only with the added claim that almost all empires rise and fall over a period of roughly 250 years. Putting aside the obvious flaws in Glubb’s arithmetic (the Ottoman Empire certainly did not ‘end’ in 1570), the core idea should not be dismissed. After all, historians now give the Qing Dynasty a lifespan of 267 years, and the Mughal Empire of Das’s book began to lose territory after only two centuries. A pessimist might say today’s China began with Communist victory in 1949, and that America’s quasi-imperial power began 201 years ago with the Monroe Doctrine. Time may not be on the side of those who place their trust in America to protect democracy and ‘liberal Western values’. John Andrews, a former editor and foreign correspondent for The Economist, is the author of The World in Conflict: Understanding the World’s Troublespots. © Project Syndicate  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817040832_cfc464995c06ecb51810752401d179a4b4da0c9be7a21219b8b2f0845e1f1920.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240817040832_cfc464995c06ecb51810752401d179a4b4da0c9be7a21219b8b2f0845e1f1920" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The evolution of empire book cover page NT"></figure>   <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817040832_f993521a48e8f6baa1ccc7fd4428cb0f19ae2b39a5ae76a9fb062a9af0675c36.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20240817040832_f993521a48e8f6baa1ccc7fd4428cb0f19ae2b39a5ae76a9fb062a9af0675c36" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The evolution of empire book cover page NT"></figure>

The Evolution of Empire

Gregor Samsa wakes up from his bed one day and realises he has changed into an insect. This is the opening act of Franz Kafka’s novella ‘The Metamorphosis’. Gregor now has to navigate his life as an insect and he sees a change in how the world including his family views him and alternatively, him the world and himself. One of the opening paintings of Hannah Grace’s solo exhibition has amoeba-like patterns in vibrant colours. Upon closer look, viewers find a grasshopper in the right corner. The grasshopper is a misfit and yet seems to belong there. Grace tells us she sees herself as the grasshopper navigating a symmetric world. Kafka’s Gregor metamorphosing into a bug symbolises his alienation from society resulting from the exploitation he faced all his life. Grace’s paintings, on the other hand explore <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-struggles-to-balance-nature-and-industry">human exploitation of the natural </a>world, to a point where both are in irreversible decline.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-nation-built-on-sand">A nation built on sand</a>, Ramesh Kumar In her ‘Where My Home and Allegiance Lie’ exhibition at Takpa Gallery, Grace brings California’s Napa Valley to Kathmandu through depictions of living organisms in vivid detail. The artworks are precise, albeit repetitive, and create a “sense of buzz” like she experienced as a dyslexic child.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024081412088_70087676d9e0d3a2c938653662aaeb5a1f8c874b46a6bb33a01d37408893fbc1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024081412088_70087676d9e0d3a2c938653662aaeb5a1f8c874b46a6bb33a01d37408893fbc1" data-rendition-name="original" width="3106" height="2337" loading="lazy" alt="Where My Home and Allegiance Lies NT "> </figure>  Growing up in the Grace Family Vineyards founded by her grandparent Dick Grace, she learned early on about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/families-that-farm-together-stay-together">sustainable agriculture</a> and practiced “compassionate animal husbandry” from her parents. This upbringing later turned into passion as she pursued environmental science in college. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-vanishing-land">The vanishing land</a>, Taylor Mason Even then, something was missing, and Grace decided to take on studio art. “Science helps me understand where I fit in the world and art helps me explore and showcase the interaction I have with nature,” the 25-year-old artist told us. Interestingly, in a painting titled ‘A Place Called Home’, Grace puts together a diagram of an ecosystem which has an uncanny resemblance to a mandala, like the ones in<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/remembering-nepals-lost-and-the-found"> Buddhist artworks</a>.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240814110824_044b06bc590dcd8b2abf406ea2711b8a267a29c3bd9683f48fe34d6577e1cdd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20240814110824_044b06bc590dcd8b2abf406ea2711b8a267a29c3bd9683f48fe34d6577e1cdd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2872" height="2831" loading="lazy" alt="Where My Home and Allegiance Lies NT 3"> </figure>  “Buddhist paintings were part of my childhood. It felt natural to do that,” says Grace as she talks about how her grandparents who frequent Nepal to support <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/changing-disability-to-this-ability">disabled children</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-women-flee-abuse-for-overseas-work">abuse survivours</a>, and children with cancer had Mandala paintings on their walls.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-mandal-in-manhattan">Nepal Mandal in Manhattan</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit “For me, the circular expression of the mandala represents the cyclic life of the ecosystem,” she adds. In 2016, Grace came to Nepal herself and volunteered in a monastery, teaching English, mathematics and art to the young monks. Eight years later, Nepal is also where she chose to exhibit her art for the first time as a professional.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240814120816_5f3ac03dd3dbf33b0aecc2837ea24fe7eb02a0585d9519d8b8d2343aeb6f3196.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240814120816_5f3ac03dd3dbf33b0aecc2837ea24fe7eb02a0585d9519d8b8d2343aeb6f3196" data-rendition-name="original" width="5689" height="4271" loading="lazy" alt="Where My Home and Allegiance Lies NT 4"> </figure>  Most of the paintings here are acrylic, but Grace has experimented with different techniques for unique texture and feel. In ‘Fantom Flowers’, she used her fingers to paint the background, while for ‘Rainbow Trout and the Rainbow’ and ‘Salmonberry Thorn’, she used beads. “I have always liked mixing and matching colours, and trying out different tools which give me different sensory inputs. It is exciting and calming at the same time,” says Grace of her methods.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240814120816_babb538f7136ded1ccf44b09e99910ca6743d2aa07513c5422f66f5720cfd94b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20240814120816_babb538f7136ded1ccf44b09e99910ca6743d2aa07513c5422f66f5720cfd94b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2627" height="3318" loading="lazy" alt="Where My Home and Allegiance Lies NT 5"> </figure>  All 15 artworks at the exhibit are bright, colourful and vibrant even as the artist is trying to portray a grim future brought on by anthropogenic ‘development’ and ‘progress’. Grace says it is a strategic move. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/vibrant-mithila-art-thrives-in-nepal">Vibrant Mithila art thrives in Nepal</a>, Anita Bhetwal  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240814120828_4f1d75cc31b5117a397bfee3cc975345a08a1ceef398f335caa68a2de8a40c95.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20240814120828_4f1d75cc31b5117a397bfee3cc975345a08a1ceef398f335caa68a2de8a40c95" data-rendition-name="original" width="451" height="638" loading="lazy" alt="Where My Home and Allegiance Lies NT 6"> </figure>  She adds, “This is a prayer for the future. I want to remind people of all the beautiful things that exist simultaneously with us in nature and do our part in preserving them.” Where My Home and Allegiance Lies 11AM-7PM (Fridays to Sundays) 11AM-6PM &nbsp;(Tuesdays to Thursdays) Till 25 August&nbsp; Takpa Gallery&nbsp;

Artistic prayer for our common future

<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/alternative-lifestyle-alternative-art">The Kalā Salon at the Chhaya Centre</a> in Thamel is now four shows old, and currently is running an exhibition of paintings by South Asian artists of the elephant-headed deity, Ganesh.
Also known as Binayak, Ganesh is worshipped as a remover of obstacles and is honoured before starting new ventures.
Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/the-boy-gods-of-kathmandu,4158">The boy gods of Kathmandu</a>, Sahina Shrestha
Titled ‘Hamsadhwani: Depictions of Ganesha’, the exhibit showcases paintings from the private collection of the Pratima and Prithvi Pandé family. It is curated by Chakshita R who is also the archivist of the gallery.&nbsp;
“My parents have always supported the arts in Nepal, often sponsoring artists and musicians,” says Sophia L Pandé, founding director of The Kalā Salon. The Gallery is continuing this support, sponsoring residencies for two artists a year, one male and one female under the age of 30.&nbsp;
Some of the paintings depict Ganesh traditionally with his official vehicle, the mouse, and laddoos, while others show the God more abstractly.
“The title "Hamsadhwani," referring to a serene raga in Hindustani classical music, reflects the many ways in which Ganesha is celebrated and worshipped, across disciplines,” writes Chakshita R in her introduction to the exhibit.&nbsp;
The paintings are in the second, attic-like floor of the gallery, a rectangular space where every painting can be seen from anywhere in the room.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/deity-devotion-and-divine-dance">Deity, devotion, and divine dance</a>, Vishad Raj Onta
A painting by Daya Ram Palpali shows Ganesh as he may be seen in a temple around Kathmandu: lights are lit, bells are hanging, and the statue is golden and garlanded. The entire picture is in warm colors that make sections of green leaves stand out. Batsa Gopal Vaidya paints a blue Ganesh dancing on a background of green hills, mountains and a red sky. The tusks and the outlines of the mountains are done in a reflective silver underlay on the paint.&nbsp;
A series of three paintings by Shankar Raj Singh Suwal show Ganesh in a celestial, heavenly form, engulfed in murky clouds.One of the three shows him with blue-skin just like his father, Shiva.
Suwal paints a winged mouse, perhaps pointing out the irony of an elephant-headed God riding around on a rodent. &nbsp;
Then there are two prints by Seema Sharma Shah: of a temple glowing gold and a Ganesh standing up in a reddish-orange lotus with blue bells hanging above him.
“These are very sophisticated to make, and need to be etched out on metal first, and then treated with acid to create places for the paint to go into. Then they are printed layer by layer, blue first, then red, and then black,” explains Chakshita R.&nbsp;
Real also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/in-the-realm-of-the-gods">In the realm of the gods</a>, Pinki Sris Rana
S C Suman’s work is influenced by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/vibrant-mithila-art-thrives-in-nepal">Mithila art </a>and his piece looks like a pen drawing on a background of red, yellow and orange. The outline is then filled in concentrically, and some parts look like fingerprints.&nbsp;
One abstract Ganesh, by Kiran Manandhar looks like it was finished in a hurry. Another in black and white uses stippling to create illusions of light and shadow. Yet another one shows a Ganesh with his usual gadgets and mouse but also with tattoos and posture that makes him look feminine. The mouse is smiling at him from below.&nbsp;
Another Ganesh signed ‘Jizza’ features a cartoony, round Ganesh with a peacock feather on his head and ornaments in gold and weapons in silver, apparently a style found in South India.&nbsp;
Going clockwise around the room, the depictions of Ganesh get more and more abstract and humanlike. This culminates in a series of prints by noted Indian painter M F Hussein where the deity is drawn with animals such as an elephant, a bird, a horse and a bull.&nbsp;
The paintings are often in a single primary colour, with Ganesh as a fighter, a dancer and a toddler, just hanging out drinking water, or in a hammock.
“All these paintings were collected by my parents, who never acquired paintings for their name but only if they liked them,” says Sophia Pandé about the exhibition. “The Kalā Salon is a non-profit space for artists to see works by Nepali masters collected over the past 40 years, as well as a place to support current Nepali talent.” &nbsp;&nbsp;
Hamsadhwani: Depictions of Ganesha
The Kala Salon
Chhaya Centre, Thamel
11AM-6PM, until 10 August

A gallery full of Ganeshes

In the middle of the first floor of the Rasa Lila exhibition at the Nepal Art Council is a model of Patan’s Krishna Temple made of Jenga blocks (pictured above). Inside the temple is a red holographic Radha, dancing. The temple here represents Vraja, a realm that lies far away from the universe in the heights of paradise. This mystical place is the setting of the Rasa Lila: a long lyric poem in the 10th book of the Bhagavata Purana that describes Krishna’s circular dance of love with his female devotees. So the choice of material makes sense: Vraja, much like buildings made out of Jenga, is more an impermanent zone where players dance with focus and balance.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/my-sweet-lord"> My Sweet Lord</a>, Sewa Bhattarai Rasa Lila is put together by Priyam Pradhan and team and is made up of various media, including paintings, sculptures, songs, and films.&nbsp; The exhibit spans two floors of the Bagmati Art Gallery atop the Nepal Art Council in Baber Mahal. The first floor is about the Rasa Lila (Rasa: divine dance, Lila: divine play). The start of the exhibit plays with the story of Shiva being stopped from entering the Rasa Lila, because he is nine feet tall and not a woman. So he takes a dip into the Yamuna River and emerges a beautiful lass ready to take part.&nbsp; Referring to this story is Gopeshwar Mahadev, a sculpture made out of concrete hands and feet joined by rods of carbon steel. The pre-dip hands are masculine, and the post-dip feet, adorned with ghungroo beads, are feminine.&nbsp; Next is a river of letters that represents the Yamuna River and contains the initials of the team who worked on the project. Explains Pradhan: “I want visitors to the exhibit to feel like Mahadev, crossing the river into Vraja." A description reads, "The Yamuna is a bridge spanning the celestial and physical realms, and bathing in its waters is the final act after which the Gopis return to everyday life." Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/swasthani-lecture">Swasthani lecture</a> Next to this piece are two large wiry structures of Gopis in dance. They have black metal rod skeletons and wire bodies: one red, and one yellow.&nbsp; Inside an alcove in the gallery is a five minute film on loop titled ‘There is no perfection, only life’ made by Urza Acharya. It depicts the life of a Gopi after participating in the Rasa Lila. She is initially struck by depression and lethargy, but slowly finds the motivation to dance and be creative again.&nbsp; The short movie describes the fleeting nature of transcendental moments of pure creativity, and how most other moments are boring and mundane. Reads the description: ‘The banality of everyday, in fact, is what fuels those exceptional moments.’ &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024072812074_21e2b50f2ac9f7a30a596f110d957ede1f9569e59c716688bf63b6befcb01447.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024072812074_21e2b50f2ac9f7a30a596f110d957ede1f9569e59c716688bf63b6befcb01447" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Vastraharan NT"> <figcaption>'Vastraharana,' a scene from the Mahabharata where the Pandavas gamble away Draupadi's honor </figcaption> </figure>  While the first floor was about the Rasa Lila, the second floor depicts scenes from the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/being-good-is-not-easy">Mahabharata</a>, especially ones where Krishna features heavily. Vastraharan (pictured above) is a striking piece of a female figure in a white dress in the middle of a gambling board. Rectangular dice lie on the board and instead of a head the sculpture has a red light. The story depicted is from the Mahabharata of a game of chance between the Pandavas and the Kauravas where Duryodhana cheats the Pandavas out of all that they have, to the point where Yudhishthira puts up the Pandavas' wife Draupadi, promptly losing her too.&nbsp; Duryodhana orders his Kaurava brother to disrobe Draupadi in the court, and although the game has clearly gone too far, nobody in the court, not even Bhishma and Drona, intervene. The clear identical masks represent their shared passivity.&nbsp; As her sari is being unravelled, Draupadi has no other option but to pray to Krishna, who saves her by extending her sari infintiely. Yet she is still ashamed and angry, represented by the red light.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-violence-of-violation">The violence of violation</a>, Sewa Bhattarai In the next room is a blue angular metal sculpture of Krishna waking up on a bed of coins.&nbsp; “Coins represent Lakshmi, who is present wherever Krishna is,” explains Pradhan. “To make the sculpture we first 3-D printed a mould, then laser cut metal sheets and welded them together.” The last piece in the exhibit is a large painting of Krishna’s mother Devaki, a divine, pure figure who kept giving birth to divine incarnations even when locked up in a dark murky jail by her brother Kansa.&nbsp; The exhibition follows a cohesive theme overall and is well timed for the upcoming Krishnashtami festival which this year falls on 27 August. &nbsp; Rasa Lila Nepal Art Council Baber Mahal 10AM-5PM, until 3 August

Deity, devotion, and divine dance

<a href="https://www.ranjanadiga.com/">Ranjan Adiga</a>’s debut short story collection, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.in/book/leech-and-other-stories/">‘Leech and Other Stories’,</a> is a bold and honest exploration of a wide variety of modern experiences of Nepalis home and abroad. A million Nepalis leave the country every year, mostly for work, and about 90,000 to permanently resettle abroad. The ten stories in this slim volume revolve around characters who have migrated and are dealing with issue of identity in their adopted homes.&nbsp; Four of the stories involve Nepalis in the United States navigating success, divorce, cash jobs in Indian restaurants, diversity committee politics, and the Broncos. America is where Adiga himself is based currently, teaching Creative Writing and English at <a href="https://westminsteru.edu/campus-directory/directory-profiles/adiga-ranjan.html">Westminster College in North Salt Lake, Utah</a>. After publishing a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17263">few articles for this newspaper</a> in 2010, and a brief internship at The Kathmandu Post, he spent some well-paying years in advertising in Kathmandu and Bahrain.&nbsp; Fascinated by fiction, he did an MFA in creative writing at <a href="https://uncw.edu/">University of North Carolina Wilmington</a>, before completing a PhD at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Observing Nepalis struggling with identity and acclimatising to American culture gave the fiction writer in Adiga plenty of plot material to work on.&nbsp; Adigais often mistaken for <a href="http://www.aravindadiga.com/">Aravind Adiga</a>, author of the Booker-prize winning author of the 2008 book, <a href="https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2009-winter/selections/review-of-aravind-adigas-the-white-tiger/">The White Tiger</a> that was made into <a href="https://www.netflix.com/np/title/80202877">a Netflix movie</a> starring Priyanka Chopra. “When you introduce yourself in Nepal, it’s never just your first name. If I just say ‘Ranjan,’ the next question is automatically ‘Ranjan ke?” Adiga tells us during a recent visit to Nepali Times. “People are often intrigued, and some harbour preconceptions about who I am.”&nbsp; And if it is not being mistaken for Aravind, it is to be taken for an Indian. But Ranjan’s pedigree is even more exotic: his grandfather was a <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/kathmandu-ripples-in-karnataka/cid/507815">high priest of Pashupati Temple</a> in Kathmandu, whose predecessors have been traditionally sourced from <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/coastal-karnatakas-bond-with-nepal/article7144615.ece">Udupi of the Karnataka-Kerala border</a> in south India for the past 300 years. Both his parents are Nepali. Like many people who straddle multiple cultures, Adiga does not feel completely accepted in either place. In fact, the uprootedness of being at home everywhere and nowhere helps him in his writing, and that is also reflected in many of the characters in his stories.&nbsp; They too feel alienated in new cultures with various values and different requirements for getting by: whether a Madhesi in Kathmandu, a newly-Christian Dalit woman, or a homocurious uncle. One of the ten stories is titled Leech, and seems to be inspired by the experience of author and former American Peace Corps volunteer Broughton Coburn, whom <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11933">Nepali Times profiled in 2006</a>. Says Adiga: “A lot of my characters feel like parasites in the system, they feel alienated in the places they find themselves, often facing dilemmas between morality and survival.” Indeed, the protagonists in Adiga’s stories are mostly morally ambiguous. They may steal, lie, cheat and drink, but ultimately own up to their mistakes. “Most of my stories tell themselves as I write. It’s a process of discovery, of observing what the characters do and how they interact,” Adiga explains, adding that in only one of the stories did he start with the plot completely outlined beforehand.&nbsp; That story is ‘Student Visa’ about a Nepali youngster named Sanjay on whom his parents have great expectations: he will go to America and eventually bring Mom and Dad, too. Sanjay completely bombs the interview but lies to his parents (and to a neighbour uncle who has a brother in the States, and is naturally an expert) that he got the visa. The author seems interested in how Nepalis deal with relationship norms abroad. Adiga writes about couples in the US where the wife has a ‘better’ job and earns more than the husband, and a visiting father of a divorced son who looks past all of his successes in tech and only talks to him about his failed marriage. This is a story titled ‘A Short Visit’and has a strong plot with real writing. Nirmal is the son who works in tech and has a fancy house and a Tesla. His Baba is an electrical engineer turned alcoholic. Father and son bond over alcohol as a poignant, vulnerable story unfolds. Baba is not supposed to drink at all, and when Nirmal’s sister in Nepal finds out, she berates Nirmal. Brother and sister also have an interesting dynamic. Nirmal is rich and divorced in Denver, while Binita lives in Nepal with a stable joint family and children. The question looms: who has made the bigger sacrifice?As the booze flows, son and father process their different understandings of the divorce, get into arguments, and head to a party where Baba gets on stage and tells the crowd that he loves his son. “That was the story that I had to write quickly, as a replacement for one that fell through,” Adiga explains. “I wrote it in about three weeks, while usually take several months on each one.”&nbsp; Adiga’s stories are observant, uncomfortable and true. Like when he talks about Nirmal texting his ex-wife occasionally and liking each other’s photos on Instagram. Or when he writes: ‘Baba looked like someone’s driver at a wedding in Nepal, cowering in a corner, scrounging on leftovers.’ In ‘A Haircut and a Massage’ a middle-aged man named Krishna is in a sad sexless marriage and teeters on the edge of homosexuality. When his wife sends him out to buy veggies, he starts frequenting Iqbal’s salon for full body massage. Krishna’s marriage had started out well but deteriorated after his wife had their first child. Most of Adiga’s stories feature strong, pragmatic female characters who are in charge, with weaker and often embarrassing male counterparts. Adiga writes bravely about issues that we usually skirt around. ‘High Heels’ looks at a Dalit woman who converts to Christianity and works at a bank, doing better than if she did what her caste identity dictated. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/sermon-on-the-mountain,3911">Prosletysation may have its problems</a>, but the Church treats her as an equal.&nbsp; The story ‘Diversity Committee’ is about the tension between a professor and his white female student after he follows an awkward hug with an iffy text. Soon there is rumour spreading around school that the prof has a staring problem. The student has heavily bought into diversity brainwashing and is a star student, and now does not know what to do that her Professor-Of-Colour has hugged her and stroked her back. Meanwhile an interesting interaction is taking place between the Nepali professor and a Black lesbian professor in the same department. They are good friends in lily-white rural Idaho, but also compete for leadership and inclusion grants from the diversity committee. Adiga admits that one his inspirations is fellow-Nepali writer in America, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/writing-about-nepal-from-afar">Samrat Upadhyay</a> (<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4483">The Guru of Love</a>, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9235">Arresting God in Kathmandu</a>, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Kathmandu-wont-let-go-of-me-samrat-upadhyay,3649">Mad Country</a>) who is also a Kathmandu St Xavierite. The short, clipped sentences, sparse prose and simple plot lines involving Nepalis are indeed vintage Samrat. And like Subcontinental authors who write in English, Adiga also grapples with making the vernacular dialogue sound authentic. The stories are set where the author lives and works, and it is about fictional fellow-Nepalis, so it is natural to wonder how autobiographical they are. Ranjan Adiga leaves us guessing.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024070411070_c4a190ab73e414a17b257fe459d8845b2615b9dbcd3eff06e202fafbe7f902d5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2024070411070_c4a190ab73e414a17b257fe459d8845b2615b9dbcd3eff06e202fafbe7f902d5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Leech and other stories NT"> </figure>

Feeling at home nowhere and everywhere

Bhogendra Kathayat successfully defended his PhD thesis at Tribhuvan University, and the very next night he was at Tribhuvan International Airport.&nbsp; No, not to emigrate, but to captain a Nepal Airlines Airbus A330 on a 7-hour flight to Narita. Capt Kathayat, 41, is now the only PhD airline pilot in Nepal, and one of a handful actively flying internationally. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/women-standing-above-the-ground">Standing above the crowd</a>, Ayesha Shakya Born in the village of Sanischare in Morang to a farming family, it was a hard life. Money was always short, and the four siblings went to a village school with mud floors.&nbsp; Kathayat excelled in his studies, earning a scholarship after topping the entrance exam out of 1,000 students for admission into<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tri-chandras-run-down-state-is-a-microcosm-of-nepal"> Tri Chandra College in Kathmandu</a>. Always good in maths, he passed his MSc in Physics with flying colours – which may be why he took up flying next.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024082213088_f1f4ffbfff44f8701cf6808495375afecc6f978632e5c1090af614ed5ccf2b45.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024082213088_f1f4ffbfff44f8701cf6808495375afecc6f978632e5c1090af614ed5ccf2b45" data-rendition-name="original" width="1298" height="1316" loading="lazy" alt="doctor-pilot Capt Kathayat NT1"> </figure>  This was 2006, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10616#.YV7B7tVBypp">the conflict</a> had just ended, and Nepal Airlines announced a scheme for pilot training. His parents did not have the collateral to afford the Rs3.4 million loan to pay for flight school. But Kathayat managed to borrow from relatives, and was off to Kota Bahru in Malaysia.&nbsp; When he returned after a year to join Nepal Airlines, Kathayat was flying Twin Otters but did not even have a driving license because he could not afford a car or motorcycle. He was a Himalayan bush pilot for the next seven years, flying in challenging weather and terrain to remote airfields carved out of mountainsides.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/60-years-of-living-dangerously">60 years of living dangerously</a>, Kunda Dixit In 2015, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/jet-closure-benefits-nepal-airlines">Nepal Airlines</a> bought two Airbus A320s, and Capt Kathayat was off to Toulouse – leaping straight from Twin Otters to twin jets. But it was easier for him than for colleagues who had been flying 757s, because Boeing and Airbus have different philosophies of flying. After being on 320s for three years, Kathayat upgraded to the bigger Airbus A330s, but still does not have a car license and arrived for this interview in a Honda Unicorn. “Although I felt like aviation was in my blood, there was this nagging sense that my education was incomplete,” Capt Kathayat recalls. Meeting Nepal’s foremost atmospheric scientist Arnico Panday on a flight, he was convinced that Nepal needed more scientific research into<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/air-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-smoking"> air pollution</a>. Since Panday is an aviation buff himself, they devised a way to use decades of visibility data from Nepal’s airports to come up with policy-level solutions to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/making-monsoon-flying-safer-in-nepal">improve aviation safety</a> as well as public health.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822120848_523fef9cb91959c2b39f2798fbbd066d9d55f4c9778ff692dd957cb58cdd827e.png" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20240822120848_523fef9cb91959c2b39f2798fbbd066d9d55f4c9778ff692dd957cb58cdd827e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1922" height="1062" loading="lazy" alt="doctor-pilot Capt Kathayat NT3"> <figcaption>Capt Kathayat(right) and Arnico Panday(left)</figcaption> </figure>  Capt Kathayat used long layovers in Dubai, Doha and Tokyo to pore over historical airport data from Bhairawa and Kathmandu to look into how domestic and crossborder pollution sources, humidity, or aerosols affected the optical property of suspended particulates. He also analysed seasonal and time of day variations. The results were predictable: the number of days with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/good-cop-bad-cop">heavy smog in Kathmandu</a> increased steeply after 2000. The days when planes could land under visual flight rules (VFR) had gone down in Bhairawa, especially as winter fog had become thicker, more frequent and long-lasting.&nbsp; Kathayat’s PhD thesis also carries recommendations. Bhairawa may not always be useful as an alternate airport for big jets in winter because it is fogged up when Kathmandu visibility is also below minima. Bhairawa will need a Cat II Instrument Landing System (ILS).&nbsp; The long-term solutions are to control pollution at source, and in Kathmandu that means vehicular emission, open garbage fires, cross residue burning, and in Bhairawa reducing industrial and crop burning. But for both airports, visibility will remain marginal unless pollution is controlled in north India. Capt Kathayat’s PhD adviser,<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/arnico-panday-the-political-scientist"> Arnico Panday who is also a member of the opposition RSP</a>, is a proud mentor. He says: “Capt Bhogendra is the hardest working student I have ever supervised, and his topic is very relevant for aviation safety and efficient flight operations.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240822120856_f455cfac962eada84c53b588575b80051845107ab83371509d9eab6648fe03e8.png" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20240822120856_f455cfac962eada84c53b588575b80051845107ab83371509d9eab6648fe03e8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1636" height="1302" loading="lazy" alt="doctor-pilot CaptKathayat NT 4"> <figcaption>Arnico Panday, Capt Kathayat, and his Phd supervisor Narayan Chapagain after his Phd thesis defence </figcaption> </figure>  At a time when most <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/brain-gain-into-brain-drain">young Nepalis are cynical about the country’s future</a>, this doctor-pilot is an example of how, given the opportunity, even Nepalis from the humblest beginnings can rise up. Says Capt Kathayat: “It is fashionable nowadays to be negative about the government, but I keep reminding myself that I would not be where I am today without government subsidies, government scholarships and the opportunity that a government-owned airline provided me.” Yes, and plus a lot of hard work and perseverance.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024082306084_adf00d94a8d7229ab1ef05fe5862dfc3203e7f9a9a36b4df30ae328005c2368b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="2024082306084_adf00d94a8d7229ab1ef05fe5862dfc3203e7f9a9a36b4df30ae328005c2368b" data-rendition-name="original" width="996" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's flying doctor"> </figure>

Nepal’s flying doctor

Bidya Prasad Pant was a junior ophthalmic assistant at <a href="https://getaeyehospital.org.np/">Geta Eye Hospital</a> in Dhangadi when a 70-year-old man, blinded by cataract, was brought in by a relative who carried him for a week in a bamboo basket from Bajhang.&nbsp; Back then in 1984, the charity-funded hospital only performed cataract operations when its Nordic surgeons were visiting. So the man had to be turned away. &nbsp; “It made me feel helpless, my inability to help the man touched me deeply. I made up my mind to be an eye surgeon myself,” Pant told us just before flying to Copenhagen to receive this year’s Boberg-Ans Award from the Danish Ophthalmological Society on 27 September for 'significant contribution to the dissemination and advancement of cataract surgery in the developing world'. In the past 40 years, Pant has done over 200,000 eye surgeries in Nepal, Burma, and around the world. He possibly holds the record for most eye surgeries: 312 in one day and 16,005 in one year. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/myopia">MYOPIA</a>, Yugeshwor Koirala Pant shuns publicity, and agreed to this interview after repeated requests. His is an extraordinary journey of determination, perseverance -- and vision. The cheapest and fastest way to become a doctor those days was to go to Russia. Pant left his wife with three children at home and went to Russia in 1992 and graduated in 1999 from Rostov-on-Don, specialising in eye surgery. He was then invited by his surgeon colleague from Geta, Dag Riise, to Hamar in Norway to get further training in ocular operations. The conflict was raging in Nepal, and Riise offered Pant a job in Hamar, but he refused. Pant did not just return to Nepal, but came back to Dhangadi to rejoin Geta.&nbsp; Riise regarded Pant as his “Nepali son” and the family invited him for his funeral in 2013 after he drowned at age 81 during a skiing accident. Back in Nepal, Pant devoted his life to expanding Geta, which offered free surgeries to patients from Nepal and India.&nbsp; Bidya Pant was trained as his surgical assistant by Albert Kolstad who founded Geta Eye Hospital in 1982 as a WHO and Norwegian government project. Kolstad’s wife Sissel Halden remembers Pant as a “gifted young man”. She adds: “My husband noticed his potential immediately. Bidya was smart, a fast learner and he started doing cataract surgery under supervision. His work as a surgeon was outstanding.” Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/dhanvantari-miracle-men-sanduk-ruit-cataract-surgery,751"> The miracle men</a>, Buddha Basnyat  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240905100948_59cd6d0dbb32d14d337909ac270880f223547bc7a112271a2a4e4c1cd1fc4cb2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240905100948_59cd6d0dbb32d14d337909ac270880f223547bc7a112271a2a4e4c1cd1fc4cb2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Bidya Prasad Pant eye surgeon NT 2"> <figcaption>Bidya Prasad Pant has performed over 200,000 ocular surgeries in the last 40 years, including in Burma, Ethiopia, Nepal and with Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.</figcaption> </figure>  When an Indian diplomat visiting Dhangadi noticed that 85% of the patients at Geta were from India, the embassy helped build an annexe to the hospital. More surgeons were trained, and at one point the hospital was performing 45,000 surgeries a year. <a href="https://helpmesee.org/meet-dr-bidya-pant-from-nepal/">Pant worked with HelpMeSee </a>to perform free surgeries in Nepal, and also on board<a href="https://www.orbis.org/en/news/2020/10-facts-flying-eye-hospital"> DC-10s of Orbis</a>, the flying eye hospital hopping to airports all over Africa, Asia and Latin America.&nbsp; Since 2014, Pant has been doing free eye surgeries for<a href="https://dak.org.au/"> Australia's DAK Foundation</a> in developing countries, and he and his team have performed 300,000 operations just in Burma. &nbsp; The need is still great because of the backlog of ageing patients, and greater ultraviolet solar radiation risk at higher altitudes due to the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer. Cataract is the cause of more than half the blindness worldwide, and this will increase by 70% in the next 25 years.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/sanduk-%C2%ADruit-%C2%ADtil-ganga,2574">New vision for Nepal</a>, Stéphane Huët One of the neediest places is the Burmese hinterland near Mandalay where Pant leads a team of surgeons at Tipitaka Chalupala Eye Hospital and Monastery. “When I first went to Yangon in 2013 there were people waiting up to six months in queue for eye surgery,” recalls Pant. Burmese Nepalis were excited a doctor from Nepal was doing the operations. When his father died last year in Dhangadi, Pant’s Burmese patients collected more than $4,500 as donation, which he promptly handed over to the monastery.&nbsp; Pant was not just operating, but also helping Burmese surgeons to be trained at Kathmandu’s <a href="https://tilganga.org/">Tilganga </a>and other hospitals.&nbsp; For his work in Burma, Pant was recognised by the British Medical Journal with the Surgical Team of the Year award, and the International Association of Preventive Blindness (IAPB) Eye Health Hero Award in 2017. &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-far-sighted-eye-care">Nepal's far-sighted eye care</a>, Sonia Awale

Nepali surgeon with a vision for the world

More than 2.5 million Nepalis left the country just in the last three years to study and work abroad. In the past year alone, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/push-factors-driving-nepalis-out">nearly 900,000 students and migrant workers flew out of Kathmandu airport</a>. These figures do not include those who crossed over to India.&nbsp;
There were, of course, returnees in that period, but it is estimated that up to 16% of Nepal’s population at any given time is outside the country. Most of them are 20-35 years old, which means an estimated q<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepals-demographic-window-is-closing">uarter of all Nepalis in that age group are abroad</a>.&nbsp;
It is mandatory for students going overseas to get a certificate from the Ministry of Education, and last year alone 112,593 were issued -- nearly double the pre-Covid figure (graph, below).
Before leaving, Nepali students officially exchanged Rs117 billion last year into hard currency to pay for their education costs. The actual figure through unregulated channels is probably higher.
<div class="embed-block"><iframe title="MORE NO OBJECTIONS" aria-label="Column Chart" id="datawrapper-chart-OBL1y" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OBL1y/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="600" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script>All graphs: RAMESH KUMAR</div>
<div class="embed-block"><iframe title="$ in, $ out" aria-label="Column Chart" id="datawrapper-chart-gUPnY" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gUPnY/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="600" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script></div>
Meanwhile, the 4 million <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/the-migration-myth">Nepali migrant workers</a> in Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Korea, Europe and elsewhere sent back through banking channels Rs1.47 trillion in remittances ($11 billion) last year. Actual figures are higher.
“The great irony is that while poorer Nepalis toil in the Gulf and Malaysia to increase our foreign exchange reserves, middle and upper class families are exchanging a part of that money to pay for college fees, travel and medical care abroad,” points out migration researcher Ganesh Gurung.
The numbers going to Australia and Canada dropped last year because of visa restrictions. But that has been more than made up by a 30% uptick in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-hard-working-students-overseas">Nepali students</a> going to the US (11,261) and UK (13,339) compared to last year.
But by far the largest number of students are going to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepalis-are-flocking-to-okinawa">Japan</a> (34,731) which is also an increase of 30% over the previous year (map, below). Numbers going to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/yo-man-ta-mero-nepali-ho">South Korea</a> doubled in one year to 6,889.&nbsp;
Nepalis go to 66 countries for higher studies, with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/looking-for-the-nepali-dream">Denmark</a>, Finland and France becoming more popular, although the numbers are still much lower than the top six.
Till recently, Nepalis were the third largest number of foreign students in Australia. They were number three also in Canada. Nepalis were among the top ten in the US.
<div class="embed-block"><iframe title="TOP 6" aria-label="Grouped Columns" id="datawrapper-chart-mbIyZ" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mbIyZ/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="496" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script></div>
It is no secret that many young Nepalis leaving on student visas <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/migration-certificate">intend to emigrate permanently</a>.&nbsp;
Countries in the Global North experiencing declining populations know this, but find it a convenient way to allow controlled entry for much-needed workers in the service or tech sectors.
“Many young Nepalis plan to settle in first-world countries eventually, or to return only after 10-20 years,” affirms migration expert Ganesh Gurung.&nbsp;
“Destination countries benefit too, they are getting a new generation of cheap labour without having spent anything on raising or educating them. What’s more, they also earn university fees. It’s a way for them to allow calibrated migration,” he adds.
Nearly half the students coming out of 10+2 schools opt to go <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Between-the-lines/More-Nepali-students-settle-overseas,528">abroad for higher education</a>, leading to a significant drop in college enrolment across Nepal.&nbsp;
Just like migrant workers are a safety valve that lets the government off the hook from providing jobs at home, students going abroad allows the state to dodge its responsibility to improve higher education quality here.&nbsp;
Indeed, some argue that better universities and colleges in Nepal would not lessen the exodus of young Nepalis, because many of them intend to emigrate for good.&nbsp;
“Yes, student visas have become a means to an end, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/hardworking-students">the goal is to work and settle</a>,” says Narottam Aryal of King’s College in Kathmandu. “But more alarming than the figures of students leaving is that we are taking it so casually, calling it normal."&nbsp;
He adds: “Let us not worry about people who will leave anyway, but focus on the students who will stay if Nepal’s higher education is system is redesigned, repurposed and reformed to foster an entrepreneurial mindset so they benefit the country.”&nbsp;
<div class="embed-block"><iframe title="Where We Went" aria-label="Map" id="datawrapper-chart-edwh9" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/edwh9/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="550" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script></div>
The method of education in state-run colleges and universities are still stuck in the era of rote learning taught by under-motivated teachers using outdated curricula, regurgitating memorised answers at exam time. The university environment is politicised and there are frequent disruptions with delayed exam results.
One way to change this is twinning with international universities, but for this there has to be a less xenophobic and transparent government machinery that is open to new methods.
“Accreditations, partnerships and exchanges with institutions around the world will open up opportunities for students,” says Aryal. “The government should welcome foreign universities, they will force us to raise the standard of our education.”
Information technology and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/grass-is-greener-overseas-for-nepals-doctors">medicine</a> are among the most lucrative options for Nepali students abroad. Institutions of higher learning in Nepal itself could specialise in inter-disciplinary liberal arts, social studies, agriculture and the environment, public health, hospitality, or heritage studies.&nbsp;
Youth are also leaving because there is no guarantee of jobs even when they get a higher degree here. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/brain-drain-into-brain-gain">The informal sector</a> is still the biggest employer, and job options in private companies and civil service are limited.&nbsp;
Ganesh Gurung says the education sector must adapt to the changing labour market such that Nepal produces skilled human resources in the areas with high demand like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nursing-grievances-against-the-state">nursing</a>.
He adds, “The focus must be on our strengths. The economy can be revived by making the best use of Nepal’s natural beauty to generate jobs in the hospitality industry, and turn it into a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/go-away">destination for international retirees</a>.”&nbsp;

Brain gain into brain drain

A flash debris flow just after noon on 16 August had damaged half the village of Thame in the Everest region, but no human casualties have been reported.&nbsp; Experts and residents have said <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/himalayan-icecap-melting-faster-than-thought">rapid melting of the Himalaya</a> due to climate breakdown was the cause of this and more frequent flash floods on Nepal glacier-fed rivers in the past years. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">Nepal’s mountains are melting</a>, Alton C Byers  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817040812_b5c90a2ec0cdf7aede204f3912c646f2a30b8fbb668548f8f6ba832c47e6a608.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240817040812_b5c90a2ec0cdf7aede204f3912c646f2a30b8fbb668548f8f6ba832c47e6a608" data-rendition-name="original" width="1050" height="535" loading="lazy" alt="Thame flash flood NT 2"> <figcaption>Friday afternoon after the flood hit Thame.</figcaption> </figure>  Early reports said five lodges, a school, a health clinic and 12 homes were damaged in Thame, which usually has a population of 300 Sherpa people who depend mostly on trekking and mountaineering for their livelihood. One person who was trapped in one of the buildings is said to be missing.&nbsp; Thame was hit by an even more devastating <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Dig-Tsho-4-400-m-as1-the-pear-shaped-glacial-lake-lies-embedded-in-the-uppermost_fig12_271811212" target="_blank">glacial lake outburst flood on 4 August 1985</a> when the Dig Tso lake burst after an avalanche from the east face of the 6,940m high Tengi Rau fell into the lake. Twelve people were killed then, a hydropower plant was destroyed and part of the Everest trekking trail was washed away. Thame also suffered extensive damage in the 2015 earthquake.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817030856_ab024c339325d46527245315cdf1682da699499c8b2532388f4d8d93e76d0c72.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240817030856_ab024c339325d46527245315cdf1682da699499c8b2532388f4d8d93e76d0c72" data-rendition-name="original" width="1182" height="774" loading="lazy" alt="4 August 1985 Dig Tso lake glacial lake outburst flood NT"> <figcaption>The glacial lake outburst flood in 1985. </figcaption> </figure>  Dig Tso has again filled up in the past decades due to glacial melt and could have burst again, experts say. There was heavy rain in the catchment area of the Bhote Kosi this week, and this could have also swept down melted glacial moraine from further up the mountain.&nbsp; “Unfortunately, those of us who have done the least to contribute to this man-made climate change are the ones facing the worst consequences,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa, mountaineer and tourism entrepreneur. “When will we learn that for many of us, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-climate-crisis-is-a-water-crisis-in-the-himalaya">the threats of climate change</a> are not in some distant future but are already happening?” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/living-with-climate-anxiety">Living with climate anxiety</a>, Rastraraj Bhandari <div class="embed-block"><div><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="//cdn.iframe.ly/api/iframe?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FkYJ95MCRpWY%3Fsi%3DEuyCEbZPK8Eew368&key=87ca3314a9fa775b5c3a7726100694b0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;"></iframe></div></div></div> Thame is on the former trade route between Nepal’s Khumbu region and Tibet across the 5,806m high Nangpa La pass. After The Chinese annexation of Tibet, the trade route was closed and the Sherpa people turned from being traders to mountaineering guides. There are several other smaller glacial lakes upstream from Thame, and a team from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) flew to the valley on Saturday morning to find the actual cause. “We weren’t aware that the lakes were at the risk of bursting but we suspect it might have been Dig Tso again, or one of them,” Ward chair Pasang Galzen Sherpa. Dig is a highland yak pasture below the lakes, and it is not known if any livestock of herders were affected.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817040812_08b1a13e9e5cff070775f7b91aa46e1c57298a26e56f7ddf8e75586020fff596.png" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20240817040812_08b1a13e9e5cff070775f7b91aa46e1c57298a26e56f7ddf8e75586020fff596" data-rendition-name="original" width="1070" height="1610" loading="lazy" alt="Glacial outburst Thame flash flood NT 3"> </figure>  The sudden flood in Thame Khola at about 1:30PM on Friday gave locals just enough time to flee to safer higher ground. The trekking off-season meant this Sherpa village of 45 families at about 3,800m in Khumbu Valley was relatively empty. Thame is also the staging point for the Renzo La traverse from Thame to Gokyo Valley. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tracing-past-glacial-floods-in-kangchenjunga">Tracing past glacial floods in Kangchenjunga</a>, Alton C Byers  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240817040816_72a0727d11706de3e845caf759a3356f47c5751f72535d4d2bd7ecc3baa31a42.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240817040816_72a0727d11706de3e845caf759a3356f47c5751f72535d4d2bd7ecc3baa31a42" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="926" loading="lazy" alt="Thame flash flood NT 4"> </figure>  The District Administration Office of Khotang issued an alert about a flash flood downstream on the Dudh Kosi into which the Bhote Kosi flows. The District Police Office, Halesi Tuwachung Municipality, Aiselukharka Rural Municipality and Rawabensi Rural Municipality have asked people to move to higher ground, but no casualties or major damage was reported overnight. Nepal Police in Thambuche and Namche and a team from the Nepal Army have been deployed in the flood-damaged areas. Helicopter flights were prevented from reaching the site on Friday due to bad weather.