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

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Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

The Himalayas can be seen as a heap of rocks covered in ice and snow, aloof and permanent. But what of the intangible, non-physical Himalayas — the heritage, culture, songs, languages, festivals, lives and livelihoods? The mountains are in flux, and some of the changes to the climate and weather are global in nature while others are local — outmigration and influences of the outside world. Wang Lama is deeply affected by the changes he sees around him, and using his art tries to peer into the future. Will the Himalayas as we know it survive in the coming decades? He shares these worries in his solo exhibition, In Search of Vanishing Identities at the Takpa Gallery.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240603140644_cd82723e54e2445a1faa9ecd2a67716de3d09b0173f000a14bbb153a48cb4a88.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240603140644_cd82723e54e2445a1faa9ecd2a67716de3d09b0173f000a14bbb153a48cb4a88" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Wang Lama"></figure>  Will the yaks, the monasteries, monks and prayer flags be just a memory? Taking the reference of villages of three trans-Himalayan districts (Humla, Mustang and Manang) Lama mostly uses pen and ink with watercolour to bring us minutely detailed Himalayan landscapes. Lama takes refuge in Himalayan architecture and art, his works primarily focusing on the remnants of the past and sites of the present.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240603140644_6eaa5442c9fccb2abd191d5cf38fc3962d1cf05f1ffc45848026652b7078d96e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240603140644_6eaa5442c9fccb2abd191d5cf38fc3962d1cf05f1ffc45848026652b7078d96e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1056" loading="lazy" alt="Wang Lama"><figcaption>Artist Wang Lama</figcaption></figure>  “We have always associated identity with people and our cultural dress. But what about the knowledge, architecture, and art of these places?” asks the 35-year-old artist rhetorically. “Villages are emptying out, and city dwellers are migrating abroad, there is no one left to recognise the knowledge, to witness the pace of change and associate our space with their vanishing identity.” A traveller artist, Lama draws as he goes from place to place. Born in the Nyin Valley of remote Humla, Lama is nostalgic about the places of his childhood among the arid mountains of northwest Nepal. Those places are no longer what they were, he worries. In some of his exhibits, he takes a broader temporal perspective taking us back in time when yak caravans carried rock salt through the mountain trails whose existence is slowly vanishing. Simultaneously, he yanks us back to the present with the works showcasing abandoned alleys, houses and monasteries.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240603140644_d976cfd07d92c6ed46a02f78810c3240cc6e674c57dc3bdea322f874380de855.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240603140644_d976cfd07d92c6ed46a02f78810c3240cc6e674c57dc3bdea322f874380de855" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="2133" loading="lazy" alt="Wang Lama"></figure>  Lama has also captured Manang and its changing landscape in Golden Hour which is a mix media on canvas depicting traditional mud houses, each with a waving vertical prayer flag. There is a wisp of smoke rising from the houses, and in the middle is an incongruous concrete house. A dilapidated traditional stupa stands amidst the mud houses and a concrete stupa lies next to the concrete. “I wanted to show how modernity can kill the essence of a place,” Lama explains. “Today, everyone is opting for concrete structures and the traditional stupa which was made from stones brought from each household in the locality is being replaced with cement. The idea of everyone coming together to build something is gone.” Then there are prayer wheels embedded in walls, paintings and carvings on windows and doors, and alcoves embedded in the stone walls of traditional houses. The colours red, blue, white, green and yellow represent the five elements of nature in Buddhist philosophy — and serve as a motif in most of Lama’s art.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240603140640_b75f9b7477a8ba00c149bcd81ee7e94056f3027c85c06ce85a43a53afcea2b52.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240603140640_b75f9b7477a8ba00c149bcd81ee7e94056f3027c85c06ce85a43a53afcea2b52" data-rendition-name="original" width="1742" height="2501" loading="lazy" alt="Wang Lama"></figure>  There is a rustic tone in every piece, and Lama says, “In the past, our ancestors built houses that were a part of nature. The holes in the mud houses were deliberately made as nesting areas for birds, they were a refuge to birds as much as for humans.” Birds help pollination and insect control in the shrinking arable land of the Himalayas. In the piece Eternal Silence, a monk is meditating inside a sky cave facing the stupa.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240603140644_2e8a9c181a0d2af74c01cdaa45f5b8a37e2b5057b61b3efe2ed6356078ed5517.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240603140644_2e8a9c181a0d2af74c01cdaa45f5b8a37e2b5057b61b3efe2ed6356078ed5517" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1048" loading="lazy" alt="Wang Lama"></figure>  “The stone stupa, the sky caves of Mustang and even the monkhood are all on the verge of extinction, and this painting documents their memory,” says Lama. Though the exhibition’s dominant theme is the changing Himalayan landscapes and its fragile ecosystem, each of Lama’s works also raises the global changes that are affecting us all as we grapple with figuring out the type of world we want to live in. Is it the world centred solely on human ‘progress’ we want to be part of, or a tradition that believed in co-existing with nature? In Search of Vanishing Identities 11AM- 6PM (Tuesday to Thursdays) 11AM- 7PM (Fridays to Sundays) Till 9 June Takpa Gallery, Lazimpat

Pinki Sris Rana

Between losing and loss

While Dutch conservationist and architect Anne Feenstra was giving a presentation ten years ago at a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) event in Kathmandu, Ang Phuri Sherpa was fascinated. This was a whole new way to design modern buildings in Nepal’s mountains that respected heritage, conformed to the climate, and conserved energy using locally available raw material.&nbsp; Sherpa was working for WWF at the time, but when he became Country Director for the Red Panda Network (RPN) he remembered the presentation from all those years ago, and approached Feenstra’s Sustainable Mountain Architecture (SMA) to help design a new resource centre in Taplejung. RPN has been working in Kangchenjunga Conservation Area in eastern Nepal to protect the endangered red panda, and its researcher <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-conservationist-wins-whitley-award">Sonam Tashi Lama</a> in 2022 won the Whitley Award for his work. Feenstra and his Nepali colleague Sapana Shakya at SMA designed the Rs20 million two-storied building at Deurali near Taplejung airport which serves to provide information about the red panda and the need to protect its habitat.&nbsp; The tastefully designed and functional multi-purpose resource centre is also supposed to pay for its own upkeep by offering accommodation and dining to trekkers, researchers, students and other visitors.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110348_da88f94ba8af650b6f87708ba62bc24a18ea146b8759ec29e80d400e97b2be03.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20230310110348_da88f94ba8af650b6f87708ba62bc24a18ea146b8759ec29e80d400e97b2be03" data-rendition-name="original" width="2204" height="1257" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda House"> <figcaption>The Red Panda Research Centre is located on a ridge top near Taplejung. All photos: SUSTAINABLE MOUNTAIN ARCHITECTURE</figcaption> </figure>  Since it is located on the route to Pathibhara, it could also be a comfortable stopover for pilgrims. And all guests will also automatically learn about the need to preserve the red panda habitat Known as हाब्रे in Nepali, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/red-panda-on-the-red-list">the red panda is critically endangered</a> and lives on the canopy of broadleaf in mixed temperate forests from western Nepal to Sichuan. The mammal is not related to the giant panda, and is not a bear but is closer to racoons and squirrels. There are now less than 10,000 wild red pandas, with 800 in zoos around the world. In Nepal, there are about 1,000 of the animals living in bamboo and rhododendron forests in 24 of the country’s mountain districts, mostly in eastern Nepal. But their population is in decline because of poaching and habitat destruction. Despite not having any medicinal, cultural, or religious value, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/republic-of-nepal-s-animal-kingdom">red pandas</a> are being poached for their pelt.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110352_59ba2f0eaddb108b8897728eb29fee6f2d538b1cb009698f6f6ed921e9e495b1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20230310110352_59ba2f0eaddb108b8897728eb29fee6f2d538b1cb009698f6f6ed921e9e495b1" data-rendition-name="original" width="774" height="744" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda distribution and habitat"> <figcaption>The Red Panda range spans Nepal to Sichuan in China. There are about 1,000 of the rare mammals remaining in Nepal's forests, mainly in the east.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110348_d5d82659a79df8c8e52600433492b352505d9026d161428e9ef53c8e8e1eba3c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20230310110348_d5d82659a79df8c8e52600433492b352505d9026d161428e9ef53c8e8e1eba3c" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda in Nepal"> <figcaption>Photo: JAMES HOUSTON/RED PANDA NETWORK</figcaption> </figure>  Anne Feenstra has designed more than 50 similar sustainable buildings in mountain regions across the world in the past three decades, including a structure in an Afghan national park that is home to snow leopards. “As a student of architecture, I have always been a proponent of climate-friendly construction,” explains Feenstra. “When rainfall, the sun, and other topographical and environmental elements are not taken into account, a building will not be sustainable.”&nbsp; Indeed, Feenstra explains, every mountain region is different, and requires a specific <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/foundations-for-sustainable-buildings-in-nepal">building approach</a> from the type of roof, windows and height of the ceiling based on local climate and available local materials. The Red Panda Centre in Taplejung sits on a forested ridge 2,600m in Deurali near Taplejung. The wood-and-stone structure is conceptually modelled on a mountain lodge, is built to withstand heavy winter snowfall, and is earthquake resistant. The floor is made of local stone, while the second floor is timber. The roof is up-cycled tin coated in tar. Feenstra and Shakya studied indigenous building materials and construction techniques which are disappearing because of cement and concrete.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110344_58e29764a142eacdb722dfa79377a49bafefcc2c1d47403f34cda70e3cee2486.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20230310110344_58e29764a142eacdb722dfa79377a49bafefcc2c1d47403f34cda70e3cee2486" data-rendition-name="original" width="1776" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda House"> <figcaption>Architectural renditions of the interior of the structure which has been designed with local materials and to also serve as a visitor centre and a lodge to generate income. Photos: SUSTAINABLE MOUNTAIN ARCHITECTURE</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110344_451328764ac8314a2517a5cd43139c94ca6df4b47b6889d6954d69d59fa546d6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20230310110344_451328764ac8314a2517a5cd43139c94ca6df4b47b6889d6954d69d59fa546d6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1776" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda House"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230310110344_1ed7be0772d331be7a4286563f49ac5098109060391e86b86afd4bcef711f826.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20230310110344_1ed7be0772d331be7a4286563f49ac5098109060391e86b86afd4bcef711f826" data-rendition-name="original" width="1776" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Red Panda House"> </figure>  “When we use indigenous resources, we must always pay the utmost attention to native skills and materials,” says Shakya, who helped design new school buildings in Makwanpur and other districts after the 2015 earthquake.&nbsp; “It is the combination of local skill and resources that makes any building stronger,” she says. For Ang Phuri Sherpa of <a href="https://redpandanetwork.org/">Red Panda Network</a>, the building is exactly what he had hoped for. He says the use of cement for construction would have been costlier and less climate friendly. “The reduction of our carbon footprint and the use of local skill and resources were our primary objectives in the construction of this resource centre,” says Sherpa. The research centre also serves as a place where knowledge about water harvesting, smokeless fuel-efficient use of firewood, and other techniques will be shared with local people who are suffering a scarcity of water in the dry season. As the number of trekkers to the Kanchenjunga region grows, villagers will also be given practical knowledge about running homesteads and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/eco-tourism-in-gadi-siraichuli">promoting ecotourism</a>.&nbsp;

The Red Panda House

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd5129c7e80680e0d30d1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Architect Götz Hagmüller and his wife Ludmilla have made the 18th century Kuthu Math in Bhaktapur their home for three decades. Photos: THOMAS L KELLY</figcaption></figure>The Himalaya may be famous globally for the world’s highest mountains and the people who climb them, but this 3,000km range has also evolved its own distinctive <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/niels-gutschow-leaves-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">art and architecture</a>.Kathmandu-based photographer Thomas L Kelly and author Claire Burkert have collaborated to document the elegance of the built environment of the Himalaya in a new edition of their coffee-table book, Himalayan Style: Shelters &amp; Sanctuaries.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Himalayan-style-kelly-burkert-book-review,2032" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">First published in 2014</a>, the 2022 edition updates the content with new museums that preserve art and precious objects, and public gardens that are oases in the urban sprawl of Himalayan towns.‘Himalayan styles are not static, it is ever-evolving, absorbing the ideas of cultures within and outside the region,’ writes Burket in the introduction.This lavishly illustrated book combines photographs by Kelly, a former US Peace Corps volunteer with meticulously researched text by Burkert, who set up the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/colour-play-mithila-art-janakpur,796" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Women’s Development Centre</a> in Janakpur. The final product is a record of Himalayan design, style and culture across Pakistan, India, Bhutan, China and Nepal some of which is disappearing, and others are being revived.The first chapter features monasteries, dzongs, temples, palaces, and houses of nobility that have outlasted their original purpose and found a new one. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/Patan-town-as-a-museum-piece" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Patan Museum</a> in Kathmandu Valley is a model of adaptive reuse of a historic structure, with the former royal palace preserved and converted into a hub for art and history.So is the 17th century house of a royal secretary in Ladakh which is now the Ladakh Arts and Media organisation, and the Tower of Trongsa Museum, a transformed watchtower of Bhutan’s Trongsa Dzong.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd5159c7e80680e0d30d2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Himalayan Style has a chapter dedicated to the faith, rituals and objects of devotion of the people in the mountains. Another chapter highlights building materials and technologies suited to the mid-hills and high Himalayas including the dressed or undressed stone with mud mortar, mud brick, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/foundations-for-sustainable-buildings-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rammed earth</a>.Kelly and Burkert’s attention to detail is reflected in their portrayal of hand-crafted metals and wooden utensils in the homes and buildings. A section on Mustang in particular is a tribute to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/robert-g-powell-1948-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Robert Powell</a> who passed away in 2020.But no book on the Himalaya is complete without looking into their trails and retreats that cater to tourists. Burkert notes that hotels and restaurants in the Tibetan town of Gyalthang in China’s Yunan combine local design with Western elements adding to the comfort in a high-altitude environment.The clean, simple design of a mountain resort 360 Leti in Kumaon in India marks a new direction for Himalayan architecture — something that Nepal’s hotel architecture could emulate.But much of Himalayan Style, in fact, one-third of it, is dedicated to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-making-of-kathmandu-valley-style/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the style of Kathmandu Valley</a> and its various forms of art — from ceramics and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Putting-it-down-on-paper-nepali,3750" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lokta paper</a> maps to Tibetan carpet and cashmere shawls.The chapter also details the inner workings of some of the restored neo-classical Rana-era structures including the Baber Mahal Revisited and Garden of Dreams. Leslie Shackleford’s movable house and Taragaon’s modern Buddhist architecture inspired design with exhibition spaces, a café and specialty shops also make the cut.But the readers will have to get until the very end for the main highlights. In the chapter on Bhaktapur is a section on the 18th century <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/remembering-robert-powell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kuthu Math</a> which has been lovingly restored by German heritage specialist <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-guardian-of-the-shadows-%20G%C3%B6tz%20Hagm%C3%BCller,3352" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Goetz Hagemuller</a> who has lived there for the past four decades.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd5199c7e80680e0d30d3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="273" height="377">Kelly and Burkert painstakingly document the architecture and objects of art from Kathy Math’s living spaces and stairways to metal idols, rugs and its elegant garden.A chapter on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/preserving-patan-post-earthquake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Patan brings its artisans to the fore</a>, from skilled painters and stone carvers to a lost wax-casting master. The Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT) building gets a special mention as does its director Rohit Ranjitkar’s family home, founder Erich Theophile’s penthouse near the palace complex and co-executive director Thomas Schrom’s revamped six-storey house in Patan Bahal.A book by non-Nepalis to remind Nepalis about the richness and treasures of Himalayan style and our way of life.

Sonia Awale

Style and substance

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19c69c7e80680e0ac83bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Niels Gutschow next to the 17th century wooden door added to the guest house. All photos: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>"Welcome to my playground,” calls Niels Gutschow from the brick-laid front yard of his home in Bhaktapur. At the centre stands the single-storey house, with a narrow door in the middle of the vast brick façade, bracketed by two lattice windows. The house originally had three floors, but the 2015 earthquake brought much of the structure down.Cool breeze rushes in from all sides, filling the air with a polyphonic rustle of leaves. Here is a world unto itself, far from the hustle and bustle of this historic city. The sky is blue, the landscape is crisp, absent of dust, and butterflies flutter about. The nearest road is a 7-minute walk away, whatever trace of the mechanical city life beyond filtered by the willow trees that line the narrow trail leading up to the house.Gutschow’s wife Wau sits on the plinth next to the door, knitting. “A sweater for Niels,” she says, holding it up. “I knitted a red one before, did I not?”Gutschow nods. It is a white sweater this time.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19cb9c7e80680e0ac83cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Every year for the last 30 years (although, Nepal has been his home for nearly 50 years now), Niels and Wau would leave Nepal for Germany in November where they live near Heidelberg amidst landscape much like their Tahaja Hill home in Bhaktapur, secluded and peaceful.But this November, the Gutschows are making the trip back for the last time, leaving behind an extensive bibliography on the architectural anthropology of Nepal as well as an invaluable contribution to the conservation of the country’s tangible and intangible heritage.A striking example of this can be found in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/hyatt-performs-its-annual-chaitya-puja/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/hyatt-performs-its-annual-chaitya-puja/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145453000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGKse0tTwL-gkaxdbdj7U6diiE7Xw">chaitya-studded lobby</a> of the Hyatt Regency in Bouddha which Gutschow designed. These are the exact replica of shrines built between the 7th and 19th centuries around Kathmandu Valley.Even as the Valley’s cityscape turns to cement and steel, spreading like tumour devouring the countless quarters of historical and cultural significance, visiting the stone archive in Hyatt lobby presents some consolation and even a chance to return to our architectural roots.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19ce9c7e80680e0ac83djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/people/person/persdetail/gutschow.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/people/person/persdetail/gutschow.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145453000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEzu69uTKZOvGSr0pRp7f2IrReWOA">Gutschow</a> was born in 1941 in Hamburg. His father was an architect, to whom he credits his entry into the visual 3-D world. He studied Latin and Greek in school, and in 1958 attended Buddhist Sunday classes. Educated not just in the Western classical canon but also Buddhist philosophy, he first came to Nepal in 1962 en route to Burma.In May of the same year, he witnessed the Machindranath Jatra in Lalitpur which had a profound impact on him, and made him decide this was something he would like to study. An architectural anthropologist by profession, he returned to Nepal in 1970, sponsored by the German Research Council to study the villages of Marpha and Tukche in lower Mustang.It was around this time that he met a German diplomat who wanted Gutschow involved in a project to restore the historic Pujari Math priestly residence in Bhaktapur. He prepared a plan for its restoration after surveying the badly ruined building complex with the help of Krishna Shrestha, the director of the National Art Gallery.The project was a precursor to what was to follow: an ambitious bilateral initiative between Nepal and Germany for the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19496#.YXqErFVByJA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19496%23.YXqErFVByJA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFaE5KX7Au_TkhfxlIGyc6fP4fKeA">conservation of the architectural heritage of Bhaktapur</a>. He returned to Nepal on 22 August 1971 to organise the site visit, and took up residence at Bhaktapur in the ‘Rana House’ – now a homeopathic clinic – near Nag Pokhari.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19d29c7e80680e0ac83ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Walking around Bhaktapur even today is like stepping back in time. Its unique charm is preserved intact in the folds of its buildings and heritage – still largely untouched by the haphazard westernisation that has destroyed other towns in the Valley.Back in the 1970s, Bhaktapur was dilapidated, but had its historic urbanscape even more pristine. The Arniko Highway was just being built, and there were only a couple of buses a day to and from Kathmandu. Gutschow fully immerse himself in the life and happenings of this little city. He witnessed Indra Jatra and Dasain, and experienced communities get together during the Bisket Jatra and during the procession of the Navadurga.“It was fascinating to see Newars use their space as a stage,” he recalls.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/remembering-robert-powell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Remembering Robert Powell</a>, Ashish Dhakal<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19d59c7e80680e0ac83fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Gutschow returned in 1974 with a scholarship to study Bhaktapur, which was also the year the German-supported Bhaktapur Development Project (BDP) got a start. Although many consider that Gutschow himself was part of the project, he says it is a misunderstanding.“I only wrote the first paper to initiate the project,” he adds. “The project went through a tender and we were young people then, we did not compete.”That paper is only a small part of Gutschow’s vast scholarship on Nepal. One of the many people who have <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/remembering-the-kathmandu-we-have-lost,3804" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/remembering-the-kathmandu-we-have-lost,3804&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGh8sMM2TUnfH-Rq-sLC9OGLvfVBQ">introduced Nepal to Nepalis</a>, he conducted architectural surveys of Gorkha and Nuwakot, Kag and Khyinga (in Mustang) from 1980 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1995. He also studied in greater detail the 19th century temples of Patan, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFeD3US2WS_CdO-jWiHXfT2UZgC6w">Kathmandu</a> and Deopatan, and Buddhist chaitya to develop a chronology based on stylistic evidence.Further, his documentation and analysis of the urban space and rituals of Bhaktapur, his mapping of the city’s religious and social topography, and his architectural and anthropological research are unparalleled in their significance and impact.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19d89c7e80680e0ac840jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="947" height="369"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19da9c7e80680e0ac841jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="1017"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19dd9c7e80680e0ac842jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1629" height="1373">He has written three detailed volumes on death rituals (Handling Death), initiation rituals (Growing Up) and marriage rituals (Getting Married) of Newars, with special focus on Bhaktapur. The 3-volume encyclopædic opus Architecture of the Newars, spans the early, Malla and modern times. Another book, The Sky Face studies Kirtimukha – a recurrent iconography of a fierce monster face with huge fangs and gaping mouth – and related creatures in Nepal, South- and Southeast Asian art and architecture.In the 50 years that he has spent in Nepal, Gutschow has also witnessed the steady change and decline of the Valley’s pristine <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/protecting-kathmandus-historic-roofscape/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/protecting-kathmandus-historic-roofscape/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3ZS3m3pvF94PuKiF7OAnSi81f9g">landscape</a> into an ugly concrete jungle, which he also documented in his 2012 book, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19765#.YXqB4VVByJA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19765%23.YXqB4VVByJA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGRu8irEABYxHUEsLPvoFzWllq58g">The Kathmandu Valley</a>.A meticulous chronicler of change, Gutschow held a deliberately dispassionate tone in the book – subdued and impartial, despite the sadness, telling Nepali Times: “The curiosity I feel about this ongoing development has nothing denunciatory about it. The documentation of the construction sites does reveal a certain crudity, not to say brutality. Its aim is to achieve a largely unemotional presentation of one aspect of reality.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19e09c7e80680e0ac843jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1343"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19e39c7e80680e0ac844jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1250" height="1194">Gutschow’s <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/towers-in-stone-niels-gutschow,1762" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/towers-in-stone-niels-gutschow,1762&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1635599145454000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG4O0PgeSv0XMLeOypVaA1ErzV7Iw">passion and dedication to documentation</a> can also be seen in his house in Bhaktapur – an integral part of his œuvre, a historical record of three decades in bricks and beams, where his research, scholarship and life spent among the people, the rituals, and the festivals of the Newa communities of Bhaktapur culminate, and which he is leaving behind when he returns to Germany.The house stands atop Tajaha Hill (literally ‘a net of snakes’) where snakes are indeed a common feature to this day. Gutschow remembers several large snakes basking in the sun, and some smaller ones in the lotus pond, especially in the monsoon or winter afternoons.Unlike most mythologies in the West, snakes represent strength and rebirth in Buddhism and Hinduism. This feels like an apt analogy, adding to the serene, mythical quality of the house, which itself was rebuilt and reconfigured in 1989 and lived in for 30 years.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19e79c7e80680e0ac845jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Narrow bricked steps lead the visitor away from the trail and towards the house, flanked on both sides by a small forest of monkey grass, isicha, willow trees, mugwort and persimmon among others. A small round lotus pool on the right and a kuwa, or a wellspring, on the left are near the entrance.A stone pikhalakhu sits on the ground before the steps leading to the courtyard where a long arcade has been reconfigured after the earthquake. The columns and capital-brackets on top Gutschow bought for the price of firewood. “No one wanted these,” Gutschow says, shaking his head. The carvings depict buffalo eyes, lotus leaves, snake virgins under snake hoods, and the mythical makara aquatic beings.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19eb9c7e80680e0ac846jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19ee9c7e80680e0ac847jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="767" height="1500">Behind the house stands the Kadam Chörten, a chaitya completed in 2002 to commemorate the passing of the Buddha, and further up is the tall guest house, its roof peeking from behind the fan palm and lapsi. Two giant vermillion circles look ahead from under the roof like eyes keeping watch over the hill, the neighbouring houses and fields.“The earthquake affected this building too, the base twisted,” Gutschow says, demonstrating the jerk and twist with his own body. The door had to be removed and replaced with a wall upon which another giant red circle was plastered with a smaller yellow circle painted inside. When asked about its meaning, Gutschow smiles slyly: “I cannot tell you that, you should come up with your own interpretation.”From the guest house, one can see another tower up ahead which looks as though it is simply a decorative piece. The bricks are of singular styles not seen elsewhere in the house, which were designed by students from Frankfurt.“It was an experiment,” Gutschow says, moving his hand across the jagged motif. The traditional Newa bricks are arranged at the bottom, with a layer of modern rough bricks above, followed by a single line of traditional bricks, above which the Frankfurt-designed bricks sit, and the pattern continues.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19f29c7e80680e0ac848jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Three columns stand in the tower – two on one side and one inside a narrow opening opposite. These are unique columns, which came from Pondicherry in India, wide at the base, and tapered rather sharply at the top. The lonely column on the other side is painted red, as is the top of the wall inside. This colour is a recurring motif with Gutschow. “Red is an important colour, almost like my trademark. It is the colour of blood, and especially associated with life and death,” he adds.Red also has ritualistic significance in Hinduism and Buddhism, and is the colour of the sun in mornings and evenings. Gutschow would not reveal the mystery of the coloured circles in the guest house, but perhaps they too represent the same sense of duality: of life and death, of dawn and dusk, of Nepal and Germany.However, Gutschow is cautious with hasty interpretations, since in art they can often allude to a notion of functionality, and an object is reduced simply to its utility. “But form does not need to follow function,” he says as we walk away from the tower towards the house.“The lonely pillar stands in the space as an aesthetic choice, an object to be appreciated as itself,” he says.It is the same with the anthropomorphic façade of his study tower, where two window panels that function as eyes are separated in the middle by a wooden arch which is the nose. Above the eyes, the cornice serves as eyebrows and there in the central axis sits a small block carved into a third eye. This is a prime example of the “impulse to adorn” which features heavily in the architectural practice of Bhaktapur, where decorations serve a pure aesthetic purpose.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19f79c7e80680e0ac849jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After the tour, sitting inside the arcade, Gutschow recounts the Navadurga ritual, which he has been attending for the past 50 years not as a tourist but as an inhabitant of Bhaktapur, belonging to the community. Even then, despite his work, projects and involvement all these years, Gutschow has been coming to Nepal on a tourist visa which covers about five months at a time, and he still has to buy a $15 entry ticket every time he visits Bhaktapur Durbar Square.But, he shrugs: “Now it does not matter anymore.”Gutschow laughs when asked about how he balanced being in Nepal and Germany. “I enjoyed being in two worlds, and being able to work and write in Germany as well as in Nepal meant that when I returned to one of the places, I always returned with new questions.”

Ashish Dhakal

Niels Gutschow leaves home

<figure><img width="1080" height="1079" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19999c7e80680e0ac82ajpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Kuthu Math. All photos: ROBERT POWELL/TARAGAON MUSEUM</figcaption></figure>Robert Powell’s drawing of the courtyard façade of Kuthu Math in Bhaktapur is a prime example of his singular style: light enters from the left and the contrast between surface and shadow accentuate the depth of the carvings, guiding the viewer’s eyes.The windows are the many eyes on the wall, some open and some closed, some watchful and some resting. The blackness behind the openings contours the face and enhances the intricate latticework. There is a stillnessto the painting, but wait: is that a flying pigeon frozen in time under the second-floor window? The retrospective exhibition at <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nepali-times-buzz/taragaon-museum-boudha,1609">Taragaon Museum</a> is a tribute to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/robert-g-powell-1948-2020/">Robert Powell</a> who died in Thailand on 16 December 2020. It is also a celebration of talent that sheds light on the artist’s unique visual range, subtle playfulness and an austere dedication to detail.There are 30 of Powell’s works on exhibit, including the museum’s recent acquisition: the artist’s rendition of the 17th century Licchavichaitya at Vambaha in Patan. Individual pieces of the original chaitya date to the 7th century and was only later assembled. This is an intricate drawing of an exquisite sculpture, and Powell’s brush strokes add to the superior craftsmanship of its unnamed master. Directly beneath the dome sits a Buddha flanked by two ferocious lions looking in opposite directions. The fiery tails of the lions rise to frame the niche where the Buddha meditates and are swallowed by Kirtimukha above, who then regurgitates water, signifying rain.Where is the line between the opposites – fire and water? Where does one begin and the other end? Meanwhile wide lotus leaves jut out of the tails on each side. The details are immaculate, each curl of the tails and manes rendered to perfection.The drawing captures the essence of the sculpture in minute scale, carefully measured and rendered on paper. The chaitya itself is of special interest because unlike other Lichhavi era sculptures in Kathmandu, where the niches are empty, this has the Buddha meditating in it. <img width="288" height="560" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d199d9c7e80680e0ac82bjpeg.jpg" alt="">Powell does not just portray what is literal. These are hyper-realistic impressions taken to another realm by his artistic genius. There is an added dimension inaccessible to the human eye, or even to the camera. Reality mingles with the artist’s own impression.Take, for example, his drawing of Taka, a Magar village in Rolpa, which depicts a 3-storeyed structure seen from above. The surface appears as if in motion with the viewer almost hovering overhead, as the hat-like granaries on the flat roof leap out of the frame. The rows of houses represent the Magar marriage system in architectural form: matrilineal unions between cousins across 3 lineages.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mustang-in-shadows-and-light/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mustang in shadows and light</a>, Kunda Dixit<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/niels-gutschow-leaves-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Niels Gutschow Leaves Home</a>, Ashish DhakalThe painting of a temple with an overgrown pipal shows the carved arch interlocked between the Kirtimukha and the trunk, both vying to devour it. Much of the front façade has crumbled and the bricks lie about as the tree lifts the shrine. Inside is a solitary shivalinga, displaced or at home among nature, one cannot say.The interaction between natural and human structures is what ties together Robert’s work, even though the paintings themselves are not peopled. The houses, windows, lonely temples, and even thowo (row of piled up stones) – all are either placed amidst nature or built of natural materials. Earthy pigments of ochre, yellow, white, colour the canvas in thin effervescent layers. <figure><img width="1114" height="630" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d199e9c7e80680e0ac82cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The lack of people could make the structures appear forlorn. A house in one of the drawings has visible cracks on its brick wall, looks worn out and abandoned, ready to give up. There is a sense of melancholy, but an aesthetic one. The landscape revels in its objective existence, seen as themselves. Robert is careful not to overlay his own influence onto the canvas, his point of view is reflected solely by what he selects to draw.This is architectural documentation at its best. Historians and conservationists draw lines with sharp pencil or ink, without using a T-square, aiming to depict an objective reproduction of the artefact without manipulating it, or completing the missing details. Powell famously counted the bricks in the courtyard of Kuthu Math in Bhaktapur and meticulously painted each of their colour, texture and size.Such exactitude adds a layer of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5455#.YXjm6lVBypo">poetry to Powell’s art</a> which aims not to influence but to uncover what was previously unseen or unnoticed, giving a more holistic image of the structure with surgical precision and mythic elevation.The Taragaon exhibition showcases Robert Powell’s powerful narrative quality that augments an archival contribution to architecture and ethnography, full of aesthetic and historical significance. The eyes on the windows watch us as we pass, and their doors open to remind us of the cities of the old from where we have come. These drawings are vessels for memory, since only the material world is transient. Robert Powell Exhibition<a href="https://taragaonmuseum.com/">The Taragaon Museum</a>, BoudhaTill 12 November 2021+977-01-6201035<a href="mailto:museumdirect@taragaon.com">museumdirect@taragaon.com</a>Pictured right, Rob Powell in his Koh Samui studio.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161132/636d19a19c7e80680e0ac82djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1334" height="1000">

Remembering Robert Powell

<figure><img width="3264" height="2448" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5b89c7e80680e096727jpeg.jpg" alt="wooden frame if the new school in bihi"/><figcaption>The school in Bihi that was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake being reconstructed using traditional building methods and designs. Photos: Sonam Lama</figcaption></figure>I was born and raised in Tsum Nubri’s Chhokangparo village in Upper Gorkha, the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/life-times/In-the-Mountain,181">holy valley famous for its Kyiumolung pilgrimage</a>. From when I was in primary school, we used to look up to the mountain above us that we called Lombo.It was only after I came to the city for my higher studies, that I realised the peak above my village is also visible from Kathmandu where people call it Ganesh Himal.From Kathmandu I went on to study architecture in Germany and graduated from the School of Architecture at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany, and at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya in Spain.  I returned not just to Nepal, but to the land of my birth—drawn by a spiritual connection to the holy beyul valley where every monastery, mani wall, khanyi carries a centuries of history and culture.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLjrnoXUN4The <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9268#.USXvvB2LA1s">Guru Rimpoche </a>is said to have visited Tsum and there is even a cave where the Mila Repa meditated in the caves of Pirenphug. Tsum is truly a beyul, a hidden valley of such tranquility and beauty that it makes mortals contemplate eternity and transcend to a higher spiritual plane.  <img width="559" height="278" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5bb9c7e80680e096728jpeg.jpg" alt="">The 120km sacred <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2489#.YH0N6-4zaUl">Kyiumolung circumambulation</a> in Nepal and Tibet of Siringi Himal is now not possible because of the difficulties in travelling to China, but pilgrims still do the partial trek on the Nepal side.Since returning, I have campaigned to preserve the culture and heritage of the Tsum and Nubri valleys, actively trying to shelve plans to build a road that I felt would destroy our traditional way of life and everything that is precious to us. Haphazard highways are causing irreversible damage to the culture, nature, and economy of Nepal’s remote valleys. Driven by greed and graft, roads are being built where one already exists, and where they destroy the region’s culture and tourism prospects. The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nation-road-from-nowhere-to-nowhere,549">Tsum road</a> will bulldoze chortens, mani walls and settlements because the alignment would have to follow the foot trails along the narrow valley. Our way of life, language, culture is different from other parts of Nepal. It has been passed down to us through generations by our ancestors and we are duty bound to protect them. We are just temporary custodians of this heritage. We may not be able to improve on what they left us, but we have to at least try to protect it. <figure><img width="6591" height="2592" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5bc9c7e80680e096729jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>I have travelled across the world, and am convinced that Tsum Valley is unique in many respects, and not because my family is from there. As an architect, for instance, I can see that the method of construction of old houses here is suited to local conditions, uses materials such as stone, bamboo, timber and blends with the high-Himalayan environment. All this richness lay in ruins after the 25 April 2015 earthquake. I was in Kathmandu then, and immediately set off on the four-day walk to Tsum along trails that had been wiped out by huge rockfalls. I was devastated, but was determined to do what I could towards reconstruction and rehabilitation.First, I trekked across the valley to assess the damage to the houses, monasteries, trails and bridges. I talked to local builders about their traditional construction methods which had been passed down from the generation before them.I met village elders, and took their advice about seismic resistant construction methods. The challenge was to try to preserve traditional building methods and designs, while making the structures strong enough to withstand future shocks. <img width="350" height="475" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5c09c7e80680e09672ajpeg.jpg" alt="">This was not as easy as it sounded. For example, the new plans had to conform to the government’s 17 listed designs for reconstruction to be eligible for the Rs300,000 grant. None of the designs were suitable for Tsum Valley, neither in terms of material, nor of traditional space requirements. This made my job even more complicated. We concentrated on rebuilding schools and health posts first using designs that matched local architectural traditions, while being earthquake resistant.  <figure><img width="4032" height="3024" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5c39c7e80680e09672bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Delays due to the government bureaucracy was expected, and it was a given. Even after the designs for the Bihi school reconstruction was completed, for example, it took a year for approval from Kathmandu. We had adhered to every parameter laid down by the government and sourced local materials. We chiseled stones in the traditional way, used the lighter and softer ones  for walls, using longer stones for the middle of the wall sections, known as kyangur or jakkhuyuk. <img width="347" height="462" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5c79c7e80680e09672cjpeg.jpg" alt="">In other places we used overlapping stones called noljyak, and employed only experienced masons. We raised the walls 0.8m above the ground and used treated wooden bands at the plinth, sill, lintel and roof levels, trying them at the corners to wooden members called nas. We changed the gable end walls to timber to lighten the structure.The other areas where we departed from traditional design were in the roof timber trusses. Traditional flagstone and slate roofs were heavy and required thick beams and rafters to support them, which made them unstable during quakes. We also secured the truss by gabion wire to the foundation so the light corrugated metal roofing stays safe from winter snowstorms. <figure><img width="3264" height="2448" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121148/636ce5c99c7e80680e09672djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>We also used traditional technique of seismic resistant construction with timber-only design for schools which has a wooden frame inside stone masonry envelope called nang che. In 2015, the timber frame prevented the complete collapse of a building in Shya La in Nubri even though the outer stone walls fell down.Since the classrooms also had to be acoustically sealed, in the Bihi school we filled the gap between wooden wall panels with sawdust to reduce noise, and also insulate the rooms from the cold. By using local materials we were not just preserving traditional architecture, village artisans and carpenters also got jobs, and nearly forgotten building techniques were revived.  Interns from my universities in Germany and Spain have travelled to Tsum and Nubri to see for themselves what we built, and learnt about local Nepali culture as well as the reconstruction process.Despite obstacles we have now handed over the schools and health post buildings in Bihi and Chumling to local communities. Sonam Lama is a native of Tsum Valley and an architect currently pursuing Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

Building back a beyul in Tsum

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b78809c7e80680e0646a4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3264" height="2448"/><figcaption>Sir Ed's signed photo hangs in a third floor corridor with Elizabeth Hawley and Boris Lisanevitch pouring over Desmond Doig’s Shangrila Hotel plans 1979</figcaption></figure>As befits a celebration in the time of coronavirus, the party in the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1742#.XmcKJ6Mza71">Shangri~la Hotel’s</a> Shambala garden is muted. Hugs and handshakes are replaced with knuckle taps, elbow embraces and even jazz hands, but I prefer the good old namaste. Numbers are limited to just a few key staff and contributors gathering on the lawn in the unseasonal afternoon chill.“Oh no, I even forgot to invite my sister!” groaned <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/so-far-so-good/mainly-fine-throughout-the-kingdom/">Kunda Dixit</a> our host, clasping a large bunch of chrysanthemums presented by a guest to honour the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/1000-weeks-of-nepali-times/">twentieth year and one thousandth issue of the Nepali Times</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b78839c7e80680e0646a5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2485" height="3773"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Kunda was in a reflective mood, and not just about contagion and the longevity of the newspaper. “Being here in the Shangri~la garden reminds me of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1742#.XmcHh6Mza70">Desmond Doig</a> who was pivotal to my early career. Desmond’s letter of recommendation got me accepted into Columbia – so kind of him, as he didn’t really know me much, but that was his way.”Forty years ago, owner Shyam Bahadur Panday cleverly charged Desmond with the task of building the perfect Kathmandu hotel. Embarking late in life on a career as architect and landscape gardener, the Shangri~la is a living tribute to <a style="letter-spacing: 0.15px;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16164#.XmcKlKMza70">Desmond’s skill, style, taste</a> and, along with the Malla Hotel, the culmination of his talents. <a style="letter-spacing: 0.15px;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/the-lyrical-life-of-Desmond-Doig,1052">Celebrated as a writer and artist, ‘Des-la’</a> had retired to his ‘emerald valley’ of Kathmandu from a lifetime of journalism in Calcutta.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/In-memorium-of-Dubby-Bhagat,3180">Dubby Bhagat</a>, <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5455#.XmcKyKMza70">Robert Powell</a> and Chino Ronchoroni all made special contributions to mould the Shangri~la over the years, and many more designers and managers have come and gone. The Panday family, father and sons, maintained a watchful eye, and are now expanding beyond Pokhara into Begnas and Chitwan. But the enduring spirit of the hotel, firmly imprinted at its inception by Desmond Doig’s sure hand, is still with us today.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b78869c7e80680e0646a6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="620"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>I glance around the terraces and fountains in the gathering March twilight, a haven of tranquillity remarkably little changed over the years. It does not seem four decades ago that Desmond Doig was striding through the Shangri~la building site, clipboard in hand, pointing imperiously, and issuing strings of instructions to the attentive acolytes in his wake.Utpal Sengupta, the curly haired member of his original entourage, carried on the legacy and ran the Hotel with flair and imagination for 20 years since its opening on 1 July 1979. Desmond hosted Utpal’s marriage to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8946#.XmcK7aMza70">Caroline</a> amidst the marigolds, one of the first of many remarkable events in that soothing oasis of a garden.Desmond’s ‘Shang’ was a fixture for many of us local expats. Lingering in the al fresco café, lounging at the hiti pool, or enjoying a hot rum punch by the roaring fire in the lobby bar, one might have run into <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19173">Tony Hagen the Swiss development pioneer</a> who walked the length of Nepal, Dudley Spain long-term British Embassy implant, UNICEF’s Gordon ‘Golden’ Temple before he decamped to Bhutan, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/john-r-edwards-a-life-in-the-shadow/">Jim Edwards</a> the indefatigable owner of Tiger Mountain, or Col. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/hiking-with-jimmy/">Jimmy Roberts</a> with his floppy-eared spaniels, the founder of trekking in Nepal.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b78899c7e80680e0646a7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3024" height="4032"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The legendary <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10754#.XmcLhaMza70">Boris Lisanevitch</a> regularly graced the kitchens as a special guest chef, bearing bones with which to make his famous borscht, and of course Des-la held my 30th birthday party there amidst the newly planted flowerbeds.The burra sahib himself, Sir Edmund Hillary was feted at a garden dinner by a group of Sherpa friends to mark the Everest Golden Jubilee. Suites are named after him and Tenzing Norgay, and a photo hangs in a third floor corridor showing Sir Ed poring over Desmond’s hotel drawings with Boris and Elizabeth. He and Lady June would have preferred the Shangri~la for the main 50th anniversary on 29 May 2003, but only the Hyatt could accommodate the thousand-plus mountaineers, dignitaries, friends, media, well-wishers and hangers-on who turned up.The Prime Minister attended the reception honouring the Himalayan chronicler, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/elizabeth-hawley-1923-2018/">Elizabeth Hawley</a>, with 35 years of service to Reuters. Kunda had survived as her youthful intern. Always a stickler for accuracy, to our embarrassment she kept interrupting the regional boss’ laudatory speech with factual corrections. Ten years later in 2004, under an elegant white awning in a peaceful corner of the garden, Bernadette Vasseux and I hosted a small lunch to mark the New Zealand Queen’s Medal that Elizabeth received after 20 years as Honorary Consul and mainstay of Sir Ed’s Himalayan Trust.Desmond could sometimes be prevailed upon to guest-escort tour groups, being especially susceptible to posh Brits with ancient titles. My favourite story was during a sightseeing of his beloved Kathmandu, the tour bus paused in the heart of the Durbar Square to admire the exquisite temple-scape. A fruity British voice boomed disapprovingly from the back seat: “Awful lot of people hanging around doing nothing.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b788d9c7e80680e0646a8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="519" height="805"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b788f9c7e80680e0646a9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="515" height="723"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Freya Stark, writer, Arabist explorer and eccentric, was one of the first to stay at the Shangri~la. Already in her 80s, and a little forgetful she declared vaguely "I feel we must be somewhere east of the Euphrates"  as I helped her check-in. We arranged two treks for her in the early 1980s, with her favourite hill pony named ‘Red Balls’. She much admired the muscle-bound legs of the Nepali porters, and professed a desire to die in the Himalaya. Thankfully, she was not successful. On leaving Nepal for the last time, Dame Freya wrote in the Shangri~la guest book: ‘This is the finest hotel I have ever stayed in with the nicest people in it.’Desmond Doig left us in 1983 but he lives on in his gardens, in our memory, in his books and in his paintings which adorn the hotel walls. I was leading one of the first treks permitted in Tibet that October day when Desmond succumbed to a massive heart attack on the road from Pokhara.I lit oil lamps for him, finding solace in the dim, musty prayer halls of all the surviving monasteries from Rongbuk to Lhasa, knowing how these powerful places would have appealed to him. My group of intrepid European clients included Roman Polanski. It was a stressful trip for me amidst the victim mentality and fragile egos, travelling together in an old truck grinding along the dusty tracks to the north side of Everest, perched precariously on our luggage, food supplies and heaps of camping equipment. Once back in Nepal, I relished introducing Roman to the American Ambassador.

Lisa Choegyal

Remembering Des-la at Shangri~la

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI1CkRG7MxU“Had I not become a woodcarver, I don’t know what I would be doing today,” says <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/featured-videos/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indra Prasad Shilpakar</a>. “I have never thought about it.”Indra Prasad, 38, cannot see himself in any profession besides wood carving, despite having a degree in fine arts and a masters in contemporary sculpture from Tribhuvan University.Not only is wood carving a passion for Shilpakar, his family has been into the craft since the 6th century, and their surname literally translates as ‘woodworker’.Indra Prasad, like his father Indra Kaji, started playing with wood when he was just 12. By the age of 17 he had already learned the basics of carving from his father.“I grew up seeing my father’s woodwork and his dedication to keeping our traditional Newa craft alive. It inspired me to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors and continue what the Shilpakars have always been known for,” he adds.Both Indras have built and restored windows, doors and struts of temples and falcha resting places, and crafted replicas of old masterpieces in Bhaktapur and Patan Darbar Squares. All their work is purely handmade and reflects traditional art, mythology and symbolism. <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66879c7e80680e05998cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photos : SHRILUNA SHRESTHA</figcaption></figure> It takes 15-20 days to complete a skeleton of the work. They draw the figures with pencil, and carve by hand using only a few modern implements: electric saw, plane and drill.“We do not use modern machines for production because it depletes the quality. Doing it manually may consume time, but it is much more satisfying,” says Indra Kaji.Adds Indra Prasad, “Wood carving comes only to those who have patience and passion to create, learn and bring art to life. Those who see it as a business do not go a long way.”Indra Prasad has carved 32 Newa masterpieces in the past 18 years, mostly sculptures and traditional windows. He held his first solo exhibition at the <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.15px;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/taragaon-museum-boudha,1609">Taragaon Museum</a> earlier this year, and plans another one in Germany next year. It will include carved deities and spirits, dragons and Tantric struts, based on themes of fertility, wisdom, compassion, meditation and music. <img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a668a9c7e80680e05998djpeg.jpg" alt=""> For both father and son, wood carving means more than using a chisel and designing. It is a detail-oriented process that requires an understanding of traditions, norms and values.“There are some rules for carving the designs onto wood. We cannot just randomly chisel away — every object or creature seen in the toran has its precise significance that cannot be changed. That is why understanding the meaning is highly important,” says Indra Kaji.Both father and son want traditional Newa wood carving taught as a discipline in universities in order to preserve its values and techniques for the future. Otherwise, the father and son may be the last generations of master carvers in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/clash-of-cultures-in-bhaktapur/">Bhaktapur</a>.“The young generation today is more drawn towards technology and machines. They are in a hurry,” says Indra Prasad. “I cannot guarantee my 9-month son or 5-year-old daughter will be woodcarvers, but I am hopeful they will have new avenues to preserve and promote what my family has been doing for so long.”Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=37782&amp;preview_nonce=9d7ef77938&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coming out of the woodwork</a>, Kunda Dixit

Crafting a heritage

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151120/636a667f9c7e80680e059989jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="843"/>Heinrich Meyer came to Nepal in 1975 to work on the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19496#.XfIPEZMzbIV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">German government-supported Bhaktapur Development Project</a> to restore the old town and its glorious architectural heritage.As a cultural conservationist, his job was to rescue some of the magnificent but crumbling buildings of the historical kingdom, as well as the devotional art that decorated them: mainly carved wooden struts, windows, doors and eaves.Between 1975 and 1979, Meyer worked to set up a cooperative to revive woodcarving and to make the profession sustainable again. He worked with the Shilpakar clan, the traditional woodcarving family of Bhaktapur, in which the craft has been passed down through generations. By the time he left, the Shilpakars had revived the skills they had nearly lost.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/featured-videos/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In with the old, in with the new</a>, Sewa BhattaraiAfter the 2015 earthquake, which <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bhaktapur-shows-the-way-by-rebuilding-itself/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devastated Bhaktapur</a>, in his hometown in Germany, Meyer took out boxes of slides from his time in Nepal and found photographs taken 40 years ago of the woodcarvings of Bhaktapur.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66839c7e80680e05998ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1148">‘The photos were unique because many of them cannot be photographed in the same setting again, and that prompted me to start this book project,’ Meyer writes in his preface to Kasthakala: The Art of Nepalese Woodcarving. ‘Many of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">valuable historical carvings in Nepal</a> had been lost over time through neglect, decay, earthquakes and theft.’Indeed, the book is an image-rich documentation of what has been lost, and what is still left of this priceless facet of Nepali heritage. The numerous close-ups of the carvings provide detailed information of the grain, the texture and components of the pieces for posterity.Meyer gives full credit to the Shilpakars for setting up the Kasthakala Sajha Sansthan and upholding the tradition. He writes: ‘Today Indrakaji Shilpakar is one of the best carvers in Nepal.’Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=37788&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crafting a heritage,</a>Shriluna ShresthaWood carving was a component of the Kathmandu Valley civilisation from at least as long ago as the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13528#.XfISUpMzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Licchavi Period</a> (3rd-9th century CE) till the Malla Period (12th-18th century CE). Thereafter it suffered a decline during the Rana and Shah Periods, and it was not until the revival of Bhaktapur and its artisans in the 1970s that woodcarving came out of the woodwork, as it were.Unlike stone sculptures in Kathmandu Valley, which go back at least 2,000 years, the fact that wood is perishable material means it is less durable. Still, the oldest wood carvings found in Kathmandu are from the 6th-7th century CE, surviving mainly because they were carved in hardwood sal timber.Meyer traces the evolution in the carving style in the bilampu wood struts, as Patan and Bhaktapur moved from Buddhism to Hinduism, including how the designs of the sculptures of the salabhanjika lost their fluidity and elegance, becoming increasingly rigid and flat renditions of Hindu avatars as extra limbs and heads were added to the deities. The golden years of wood carving were during the Malla period (1482-1768), when the most elaborate winged lions in the roof struts, along with the lattice windows and doorways of Bhaktapur, were carved.No book on the wood carvings of Kathmandu would be complete without a discussion of the eroticism depicted there. This one explains how the carvings of figures copulating in twos or in groups became bolder after the 15th century as Tantricism took hold. There are scenes of acrobatic intercourse, oral sex and even bestiality. As Meyer’s compatriot Wolfgang Korn explains in his book, Erotic Carvings Of The Kathmandu Valley Found On Struts of Newar Temples (Ratna Pustak, 2019), the explicit carvings were supposed to be too shocking even for evil spirits, and so helped ward off their wrathful manifestations like lightning and earthquakes. However, could it be that they were just an early method of sex education?Kasthakala is magnificently produced, with page after page of exquisitely detailed photography. The most amazing section displays intricately carved windows (the Nepali word jhyal comes from the Newa jhya), in Kathmandu Valley, which seems to have witnessed an explosion of lattice windows, each more elaborately carved than the next.The photos were taken in the 1970s and the captions, which are simple enough for the lay reader, remind us that many of the carvings no longer exist in the original space. The book is in English and German, but with a little extra effort it could have easily been published in Nepali as a trilingual offering.Overall, this is a hopeful book that shows how traditional woodcarving now has a sustainable future thanks to the 800 or so artisans of Bhaktapur who are training others in Patan and Panauti through the cooperative set up in the 1970s. They can make a living because many of the carvings are meant for post-earthquake reconstruction, or have an export market among collectors abroad and the Nepali diaspora.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66869c7e80680e05998bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="207">Kasthakala: The Art of Nepalese WoodcarvingHeinrich MeyerVajra Books, 2019In English and German159 pagesRs4,800ISBN: 9789937623889

Kunda Dixit

Coming out of the woodwork

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

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

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

UFO over Pokhara

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

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

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