Almost a quarter of a century ago, in December 2000, a group of four anthropologists and historians at the University of Cambridge set out to explore new methods for collecting, protecting and connecting historical multimedia collections relating to the Himalayan region in ways that would widen access to the materials through emerging digital platforms.&nbsp; Sarah Harrison, Alan Macfarlane, Sara Shneiderman and I named this pilot project ‘<a href="https://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/">Digital Himalaya</a>’. We began by digitising older sets of ethnographic data held in European collections to protect them from obsolescence and decay, forward migrate them as new standards emerged, and share them back with originating communities in the Himalayan region and with scholars everywhere through the web and other appropriate and increasingly accessible digital platforms.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_b4aedd4b922b06065357141b8989dba5f04e7adfe33d099f08e0636ae63cfb7b.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024101515100_b4aedd4b922b06065357141b8989dba5f04e7adfe33d099f08e0636ae63cfb7b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1917" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> </figure>  The collections that we host have grown over the years, as has the geographic reach of our project and the network of partner institutions with whom we are affiliated. In all, the Digital Himalaya Project has widened and deepened over time, connecting with new audiences and users online and in person. Digital Himalaya is now, by any estimation, a ‘mature’ Digital Humanities project. It emerged before Google was a household name and long before the term Digital Humanities had much traction. The very survival of Digital Himalaya for these 25 years is an indication of its staying power and endurance.&nbsp; That <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/16-600-pages-of-nepali-times-on-digital-himalaya">Digital Himalaya is still ‘here’</a> after all these years (wherever ‘here’ is in these ambiguously-sited digital spaces) when so many other projects of a similar vintage have folded, tells us something about agility and resilience. The Digital Himalaya project has repeatedly had to make a virtue of a necessity. Born at Cambridge, the project moved to Cornell University from 2002 to 2005, where it also began its collaboration with the University of Virginia funded by a grant from the US Department of Education Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Program. The project then returned to Cambridge until 2009 when it moved, briefly, to Yale University but without any structural and formal support. From July 2014, the project relocated to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and became engaged in a loose collaboration with China’s Sichuan University. In each case, rather like being part of a large extended and multigenerational family, these alliances helped to demonstrate to our partners, patrons and ourselves that we were mobile and could bend as new opportunities arose, and harness the particular skills and assets in each institution: Nepali language instruction at Cornell, Tibetan Studies at the University of Virginia, community engagement at the University of British Columbia.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_30076d0830cc94f24deb49e84e35a789eab92cf7b382c38f48024fc490529005.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024101515100_30076d0830cc94f24deb49e84e35a789eab92cf7b382c38f48024fc490529005" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> <figcaption>Komintal Thami scanning back issues of Nepali-language journals in the Digital Himalaya office in Patan in 2010.</figcaption> </figure>  In 2024 Digital Himalaya developed a partnership with <a href="https://www.archivenepal.org/home">Archive Nepal</a>, a non-profit entity that has taken over the day-to-day management and future developments of Digital Himalaya. I have been worrying about the future of Digital Himalaya from the moment that I helped bring it into being. I was at once delighted that we were in a position to help protect, connect and digitally repatriate these precious collections and at the same time troubled by the fact that, once again, the initiative was housed at an elite Western university far from the communities whose cultural heritage we had the honour and responsibility of managing. I was also acutely aware that I embarked on the Digital Himalaya journey long before I had a permanent job adding an additional layer of vulnerability to an already somewhat fragile undertaking.&nbsp; Over the last decade, I have been principally concerned with two matters when it came to Digital Himalaya. First, ensuring that our collections were stable, secure and accessible to communities in the Himalayan region. Second, to find a way to make myself dispensable and disposable. It was always our intention that one day the collection would either be repatriated to the Himalayan region or maintained and managed by professionals from the region. In April 2022, I was approached by Monish Singh, Founder and Executive Director of a new initiative called Archive Nepal, a non-profit based in New York and Kathmandu registered with the Social Welfare Council of Nepal.&nbsp; Its mission is to encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitising, and improving accessibility to digital resources. Archive Nepal is run by an impressive collective of professional Nepalis with backgrounds in project management, software development, archives and information management, data visualisation, data analysis, and data migration.&nbsp; Our first partnership involved <a href="https://www.archivenepal.org/nepalitimes">cohosting the Nepali Times collection</a> which was such a success that we entered into a wide-ranging conversation about the Archive Nepal team taking over the management and maintenance of the Digital Himalaya website to ensure its continued accessibility. On 29 May 2024, day-to-day management of Digital Himalaya was handed over to Archive Nepal. It was always the dream of the founders that Digital Himalaya would one day be run by professionals from the Himalayan region, and in Archive Nepal, we found just the partner we had been hoping for.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_4b26be64f05ac3dfb769ccf6c1be63236f280625fac9c094feae044948004888.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2024101515100_4b26be64f05ac3dfb769ccf6c1be63236f280625fac9c094feae044948004888" data-rendition-name="original" width="953" height="715" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> <figcaption>Using a SONY Color Film Chain Adaptor, 16mm projector and a digital camera in Cambridge 2001.</figcaption> </figure>  Digital Himalaya was established to engage in a process of ethical connection and return, ensuring that the historical documentation of Himalayan cultures, languages and publications would be available to communities from the Himalayan region itself, whether online, in print or through local databases.&nbsp; Archive Nepal’s mission is closely aligned with ours: to encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitising, and improving access to digital resources. Beginnings are generally easier than endings, whether in relationships or projects. People generally don’t like to talk about endings as these are usually synonymous with death and decline, but those of us active in digital spaces must think critically about not only how we bring things into existence and life, but also how we bring them to a close.&nbsp; Creating dependencies in which projects (or children) cannot live without the people (or parents) who created them is not a position that should be fostered or cultivated, but rather an unfortunate by-product of unhealthy attachment styles and people becoming overly invested in their roles, authorities and importance. Rather like the phoenix of ancient Greek mythology, I have now come to think of Digital Himalaya as an undertaking that will be cyclically regenerated and reborn, gaining new life by rising from the ashes of its earlier incarnation, under new management, as it were, at each transition. As Kahlil Gibran so tenderly wrote, ‘You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.’ This is as true for the work we do as it is for the families of which we are part. With anticipation and excitement, I look forward to the next incarnation of Digital Himalaya under the leadership of Archive Nepal. To look at the PDF archives of Nepali Times from #0 till this week, go to <a href="http://www.nepalitimes">www.nepalitimes</a> and click on the Archive dropdown menu.&nbsp;

Mark Turin

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A homecoming for Digital Himalaya

When Balaram Chitrakar was only 10, he started helping his father in a photo studio in inner city Kathmandu to develop photos in darkroom. By age 12, Chitrakar was already a bonafide photographer. By the time he finished high school in 1959, his father had handed him the keys to the studio. He attended Trichandra College during the day and developed film by night. “Perhaps because photography had become my passion it did not matter that I worked all night,” says Chitrakar, now 82. In 1967, as he finished his BSc exam Chitrakar joined the Department of Archeology’s Bir Library. But during the first few months, all he was made to do was keep written records of the documents. He realised that library users, mostly foreign researchers, had access to original texts and documents of historical importance, as a result of which they had become torn and damaged.&nbsp; So Chitrakar proposed to the Director of the Archeology Department to make duplicate copies of documents so the originals were preserved. The department accepted it and set aside Rs800 for him to buy a camera.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023092511090_e3d69f83f919105d3885e9a8b62ced12ba56051e38cd5b69d1f52eaa14fe2ace.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2023092511090_e3d69f83f919105d3885e9a8b62ced12ba56051e38cd5b69d1f52eaa14fe2ace" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Microfilm archiving in Nepal"> </figure>  Chitrakar then began to make photocopies of documents, the first time this was done. Impressed with his work, the Department of Archaeology sent him to India to be trained in microfilming.&nbsp; “Microfilms had not been introduced in Nepal at the time, so I used my curiosity and made an effort during training to figure out how the practice could be brought into application back home,” Chitrakar recalls. When he returned in 1969, the Bir Library was incorporated into the Department of Archaeology’s National Archives. The Nepal government had also agreed with their German counterparts to make microfilms of Nepal’s archival documents, one copy of which would be with Nepal and the other sent to Germany.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023092511094_422339effd991229237231a70c2213de5d6ae2ac09850c98d32d5a88204ab209.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2023092511094_422339effd991229237231a70c2213de5d6ae2ac09850c98d32d5a88204ab209" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="1981" loading="lazy" alt="Microfilming in Nepal"> <figcaption>Balarama Chitrakar with German representative Bernhard Kolver (third from right).(Photo: suman)</figcaption> </figure>  German state-of-the-art equipment, including cameras and dark rooms were used to microfilm 29,000 documents during the first phase of the five-year project. The team worked every day for five years, microfilming many old books and paintings that Patan and Bhaktapur wanted preserved.&nbsp; In 1972, King Birendra personally took an interest in Chitrakar’s work and helped him with preserving the archives. The work continued for 25 years during which 182,000 manuscripts, inscriptions, copper plates, and other objects of archaeological significance were microfilmed. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yv8Fc2WDHPA?si=im2dd1KXGr69Af6D" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Chitrakar travelled to Helambu, Langtang, Pokhara, Manakamana, Janakpur and elsewhere to preserve more archival religious documents. &nbsp; He even went to microfilm archives in Dhaka.&nbsp; By 1993 Chitrakar found there was a storage unit of microfilms but it was not temperature and humidity controlled. With his help, the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Patan also began microfilming its archives.&nbsp; After 30 years, Chitrakar retired in 2001, and some of the documents he archived are 1,700 years old. But since then, the fragile microfilms themselves need to be preserved with digitisation.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023092511094_d660a59924507009b148c5e7a11828447a267f94cde841261b54d9e6220e93a2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2023092511094_d660a59924507009b148c5e7a11828447a267f94cde841261b54d9e6220e93a2" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Microfilming in Nepal"> <figcaption>Balram Chitrakar in Lumbini stydying microfiliming. </figcaption> </figure>  The microfilms Chitrakar had so painstakingly preserved are beginning to deteriorate due to ‘Vinegar Syndrome’— a chemical reaction that decays the emulsion in film. &nbsp; Microfilms have a lifespan of 100 years, but in Nepal they have begun to deteriorate in half that time. The National Archive has more than 200,000 positives and negatives of ancient texts and documents, out of which 500 are already damaged beyond repair. The Department of Archaeology submitted the Microfilm Reel Preservation Action Plan to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation in 2014 but the Ministry has not done much.&nbsp; Nepal stands to lose its archive of archaeological objects, and 82-year-old Chitrakar stands to lose his life’s work and legacy. He preserved historical documents by microfilming them which themselves now need to be preserved. “The fact that these microfilms are in a state of decay means that my entire life’s work will have gone to waste,” says Chitrakar wearily. “And what will we have left if we fail to conserve these microfilms?” &nbsp;

Memories of an archivist

I unwrap The Public Life of Women, A Feminist Memory Project, and then slide the book out of its maroon case. An olive photo book with black pages reveals itself to me. My palms and fingers close around it in an embrace, the texture of a book always tells you something. I flip through the pages and want to turn to the only other person on the terrace-pub, a stylishly-dressed young woman, to say: What a gorgeous, wholesome book! Flipping through the pages, I am swept by gratitude for the women who came before us, for making sitting alone in public places in Nepal possible for women. When my friend shows up, I nudge the book in her direction. She says: “The white letters against black pages are symbolic, like light in the dark, showing us the way forward.” Valentina Abenavoli’s aesthetics will not just pass you by — the design carries the depth of the content, even if the book might need a stronger binding. This collection by Nepal Picture Library is based on an archival campaign representing women from all &nbsp;backgrounds from all over Nepal. The acknowledgement, as acknowledgement should be, is generous and not at all rushed. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/feminist-prints">Feminist prints</a>, Monika Deupala &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;…  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230903030940_1c791ae4eba749940e0373ea3a992ca6e1b436d440bbee7b74cee87850e6adc0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20230903030940_1c791ae4eba749940e0373ea3a992ca6e1b436d440bbee7b74cee87850e6adc0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1065" height="710" loading="lazy" alt="Feminist project NT"> </figure>  Mamu receives the book, flips through it and says: “This is the book for every Nepali woman. Many thanks to whoever made this.” She sits down at the dining table and starts turning the pages right away. She pauses at the photo of urban Nepali women in Moscow in 1963. Yes, they did represent a certain class of Nepali society. Still, it makes me wonder if my mother, growing up, gained hope from women like them. And even though she has spent her own life in and around the kitchen, perhaps knowing that there were women out there, who were trying, gave her hope for her unborn daughters? The thought makes me weep. I wish Mamu had a moment like Prativa Subedi, standing coy of the ocean in a 1994 image, a reminder of The Awakening by Kate Chopin. “We will save the book for my unborn daughters,” I say. Mamu nods. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/coping-with-patriarchy">Coping with patriarchy</a>, Bhumi Ghimire &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;…  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230903030940_f05d136605b0771f07a63f7bb398868c54f9d6a96f0d3cce0abeec6382785184.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230903030940_f05d136605b0771f07a63f7bb398868c54f9d6a96f0d3cce0abeec6382785184" data-rendition-name="original" width="1065" height="710" loading="lazy" alt="Feminist project NT"> </figure>  Throughout history invisible lines have been drawn around women. This book is about those who have taken us beyond those lines. The first images in the book are of women at public events. Strangers stare back from the images. They feel familiar, because which woman is not &nbsp;familiar to another? They were women who cooked and cleaned alongside their public or political lives. Some operated as flag bearers for the men they loved. Long after I have put the book down, the image lingers of Rashmi Shah pillion riding on a motorbike with her husband, and her poem where red becomes the colour of revolution, the colour that binds them. The book is a collage of arrested moments in some stranger’s camera or perhaps that of acquaintances, mostly male. It is a representation of the gaze, all of them very different from one another, just as the women we see in the images, who tried to change the idea of belonging in class or caste. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/memory-of-a-conversation">Memory of a conversation</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230903030940_69399aa9662bb1ad09cd1241de5b341f288a1aa33c2a31c09f667bb700dcaab9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20230903030940_69399aa9662bb1ad09cd1241de5b341f288a1aa33c2a31c09f667bb700dcaab9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1440" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Feminist project NT"> </figure>  Sushila Shrestha’s ‘party marriage’ to Ashok Rai, which breaks the social convention is one such example, where marriage is also a political project. There is also mention of an ‘arrest warrant’ but no details divulged, making Shrestha’s story one of the many incomplete anecdotes in the book.&nbsp; Shanta Manavi is also ‘compelled’ to work as an underground operative after she met Modnath Prasrit in Banaras. And the un-captioned mugshots collected by Parijat and Punaya Prabha Devi Dhungana. So, they become an enigma. In the mystery of the intersection of the private and the political, are the very public images of Nani Maiya Dahal at the election victory rally in 1981. The photos are probably the first such we see of a woman leader woven into the fabric of her supporters. They depict what Nepal might have had to offer to its women politicians.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/are-women-not-nepali-enough">Are women not Nepali enough?</a>, Sahina Shrestha  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230903030940_213ab8ef0355e04cd5ea95b42d87182e5debeb8602a2613527a74b733626e8a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20230903030940_213ab8ef0355e04cd5ea95b42d87182e5debeb8602a2613527a74b733626e8a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1066" height="711" loading="lazy" alt="Feminist project NT"> </figure>  And yet, their political careers have always been short-lived, mostly oligarchic in nature, many of them operating from backstage, emerging time and again and then, exeunt. Women are beautiful. And the most beautiful are those who have fought like images of the Tharu women from Karjahi of Dang who led the peasants’ revolt in 1980 against local landlords. We shine brightest when it is dark. The photos of women in education are the most important for obvious reasons -- they trace the trajectory to women’s becoming. There is the fierceness of conviction in Chandra Malla establishing a school for girls in Makhan, circa 1935. Two high school teachers in Tehrathum in 1970: something remarkable about the light in their eyes. Female students prepare for Kathmandu education in an image from Doti in 1966. Little girls stand around them, watching, a moment so familiar to me. Seeing my Nini go to TU as a child was how I first decided that someday, I too would go to university.&nbsp; Images of ladies’ handbags and shoes and no-shoes are representations of status and economic independence.The book is more than just images, it is a repository of scraps and letters, articles, interviews, records, copies, journals, and notes and legal documents tucked in neatly, each revealing something about lives known and unknown. The images are flanked by texts in both English and Nepali, the Nepali version reads better and provides better context. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17426">Singing of sorrow</a>, Indu Nepal  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230903030936_fb05a4c2314c5f2545bf1b5b0507006f35c8fe3c52e06c4435746d44190ba41a.png" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20230903030936_fb05a4c2314c5f2545bf1b5b0507006f35c8fe3c52e06c4435746d44190ba41a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Feminist project NT"> </figure>  The book follows no chronology, but segments act like the stream of consciousness, flowing from one thing that stands out to another. Some recent photos appear in black and white, as if to give them a dated feel. Probably aesthetics. So many lives: their aspirations, suffering, dreams, period cramps, menopausal mood swings. Who knows what they were experiencing at the time they were facing the camera. It is as much for the audience to feel as for the subjects of the images. Like Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati says in the curator’s conversation section, where one is in their lives when they engage with the images impacts how one interacts with images. And she raises an important question: What about those who were not photographed? More archiving, then? Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-nepal-s-history-colourful">Making Nepal’s history colourful</a>

Pratibha Tuladhar

Pictures of women taking pictures

<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 src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf039c7e80680e07802ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1329" height="928"/><figcaption>King George V with Prime Minister Chandra Shumshere Rana with a tiger trophy in Chitwan in 1911. Sotheby’s</figcaption></figure>Archiving should be a state responsibility, and Nepal does have a National Archive. But a Nepali working in the Gulf has shown how much can be achieved by just one individual with a passion for history.No one can find the original of the 1816 Sugauli Treaty anywhere. Important historical documents, agreements with Tibet, China and British India are also missing. Many of them probably went up when Singha Darbar caught fire in 1973.Which is why <a href="https://twitter.com/SantoshKhaderi">Santosh Khaderi</a> (pictured below) has taken it upon himself to archive as much as possible of official records, early photographs, letters and ephemera from Nepali history as he can. What started out as a hobby, has now become an important contribution to archiving in Nepal for this 28-year-old Dang native and college dropout.He has been in Abu Dhabi for the past six years, working night shifts. He found so much factually incorrect news about Nepal that he started collecting digital records of the country’s past wherever he could find them on the Internet. Working 6-7 hours during the day, Khaderi has built up a collection that he also shares widely through his Twitter account and with regular well-researched articles in Annapurna Post.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf069c7e80680e07802bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="518"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf099c7e80680e07802cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="598" height="474">It all started in 2016, as Nepal was reeling from the aftermath of the earthquake and the Indian Blockade. Khaderi found so many falsehoods and half-truths in media reports that he gave himself the mission to preserve history. Once, while watching Indian news channels he came across a documentary about Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao which delved into archives to tell his story.“The hour-long episode was so in-depth and based on historical documents and records, that I wondered why a Nepali could not make a similar documentary about B P Koirala,” Khaderi said in a phone interview from the UAE.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf0b9c7e80680e07802djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="627" height="806"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This is why, while carrying on his usual work of collecting historical records, he started zooming in on everything he could find on BP, including archival film footage of his funeral procession in Kathmandu in 1984, letters and other documents.“Being away from Nepal has made me value my homeland even more, and to stay in touch while being relevant to my roots and upbringing,” Khaderi says. “In addition, it gives me the opportunity to correct historical inaccuracies, bending of facts, or deliberate lies.”Indeed, his social media posts do not carry that angry tone common to many these days who all bristle with strong opinion about everything. He is not provocatively controversial, he just wants to lay out historical facts based on documents.Khaderi says it is thanks to the corpus of knowledge on the searchable Internet that he can do this work. Without the net it would be immensely complicated since the documents, records, news clips and film footage are scattered around the world.“It’s all there on the net, you just have to know how to search for it,” he says. “But I am limited to material that is in the public domain, I don’t have the money to pay for other content.”Among the rare items in his collection are Rana-era photos, letters written by the palace in Kathmandu to the British in India about the use of Simara airport during World War II, rare clips of Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales with Chandra Shumshere Rana during a hunting trip in Chitwan in 1921, or Tribhuvan’s funeral in Switzerland.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf0d9c7e80680e07802ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3715" height="3253"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Khaderi’s archive so far has 600 videos, 700 books and newspaper clips, numerous government letters, even invitation cards from Mohan Shumshere for a diplomatic reception at the Nepal Embassy at Barakhamba Road in New Delhi in 1950.Khaderi has dug up news clips from 100 years ago to piece together Bishnu Shumshere Rana’s affair with a Hollywood dancer, and his eventual death in the Bahamas. What he does not have are photographs of Bishnu Shumshere’s body arriving in Banaras for cremation, which are in the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya archives in Kathmandu.“It is disappointing that our country does not have any papers related to the Kalapani border issues and whatever news has been printed is just mudslinging between two governments, there are few fact-based statements,” he says.He has also dug up a 27-page booklet on Mohan Shumshere Rana that deals with the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty with the newly-independent India. Nepal’s claim to Kalapani is mentioned there too.“I believe that history is now more important than ever, so it is absolutely important for us to have historical evidence from the past. Nepal is at its weakest point now because we never cared about archives as they had vested interest somewhere else,” Khaderi says.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf119c7e80680e07802fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="2881"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Among Khaderi’s archives is correspondence between Indian Ambassador and Prime Minister Nehru in 1950 in which he cites the Royal Nepal Army’s lack of preparedness to deal with external threats. Within two years of Prime Minister Matrika Prasad Koirala’s visit to India in 1952, Indian military communication units were placed at 17 points along the India-Nepal border.Khaderi has also dug up reports filed by Indian military about patrols to Kalapani in 1959 that prove that the Indian Army already had bases there. China had just annexed Tibet, the Dalai Lama had fled to India, and India and China were soon to go to war. But these documents prove that the Indian bases in Kalapani were not allowed there during or after the war, but perhaps as long before as 1956.“Our country and the government has a handful of shortcomings, but the biggest shortcoming is the lack of archives,” Khaderi says. “these should be digitised, stored, and even made public. Hardcopy files can be destroyed, misplaced or even disappear.”Khaderi says he went to the UAE for financial reasons, but he is itching to get back to Nepal where he wants to set up and maintain a historical archive, and what he has collected so far will be the starting point.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf149c7e80680e078030jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1117" height="896"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>

Adventures of a lone archivist

Recent outrage in Sikkim over an Indian Army expedition climbing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga">Kangchenjunga</a>, the world’s third-highest peak, has spiked attention to the need to balance mountaineering jobs with indigenous reverence for sacred landmarks. Kangchenjunga (8,586m) is not a peak as much as it is a mountain range with 16 peaks above 7,000m on the border between India and Nepal -- the word itself means ‘five treasures of the snows’ in Tibetan. Some of the highest prominences like Kangchenjunga West and Kangbachen are in Nepal, while the Main, Central and South Peaks are on the border. Climbing the peak from the Indian side has been banned since 2001 because the indigenous Lepcha community there regard the mountain as the abode of Dzoe-nga, the patron deity of Sikkim, which was an independent Himalayan Kingdom until it was annexed by India in 1975.&nbsp; Buddhists in Sikkim say their saint, Padmasambhava, recognised the mountain as a protective spirit. The state has declared the base of the mountain Kangchenjunga National Park, which covers an area one-third of Sikkim. ‘The act of scaling this sacred peak is not only a matter of serious concern but also a violation of both the prevailing legal provisions and the deeply held religious beliefs of the people of Sikkim,’ read a letter from Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang (Golay) to Amit Shah, India’s Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation.&nbsp; Tamang continued: ‘We further request Your Honour to take up the issue with the Government of Nepal to ensure that no future expeditions are permitted on the sacred mountain, in deference to the deeply held beliefs and cultural values of the people of Sikkim.’ Kangchenjunga was climbed for the first time exactly 70 years ago by a British team who told King Tashi Namgyal, the Choegyal of Sikkim, that they would not set foot on the summit. Since then, there have been about 532 successful climbs of the peaks and 52 have died while trying.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250628060616_5c268e08cf49f36b79ef9b31933fc2d9bf9a6f65414e7ca06dd028bf04e7ccc1.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250628060616_5c268e08cf49f36b79ef9b31933fc2d9bf9a6f65414e7ca06dd028bf04e7ccc1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1782" height="1178" loading="lazy" alt="Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb NT"> <figcaption>Indigenous communities in Sikkim held purification ceremonies following the Indian expedition to Kangchenjunga. Photo: THE VOICE OF SIKKIM / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-climbing-season-2025-s4abrxny">This spring climbing season</a> alone, there were 70 climbing permits for foreigners issued for Kangchenjunga by the Nepal government, and made it to the top while one French climber died.&nbsp; One of the expeditions this year was an Indian Army team led by Col Ranveer Jamwal, who has summited the highest peaks on all seven continents, and Mt Everest thrice. Jamwal’s team was on the final leg of a ‘<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/nimas-summits-mt-kangchenjunga-concludes-historic-har-shikhar-tiranga-mission-successfully/articleshow/121341315.cms?from=mdr">Har Shikhar Tiranga</a>’ (The Tricolour on Every Peak) mission to plant the Indian flag at the highest points of each of India’s 28 states. Kanchenjunga was the last peak they had left, and the hardest, but the expedition put five climbers on the summit. What seems to have incensed the Sikkimese is that while it has banned climbing the mountain from its side, it was an Indian military expedition that went to Nepal to climb the mountain. After news broke of the climb in May, the Sikkim Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association asked people to observe purification ceremonies in temples across the state. Mayalmit Lepcha of the association acknowledged that the Sikkim government was also partly at fault: “I don’t think such an expedition could have gone forward without the state government being informed, so it could have done something to intervene. It shows weakness. What’s done is done, all we can do is carry out these sanctification ceremonies.”&nbsp; In 2000, one year before Sikkim’s ban, the state allowed an Austrian team to attempt Kanchenjunga’s northeast face for a fee of $20,000, on agreement that they would stop 10m before the summit. Despite this, there was outrage over the expedition on the grounds that it violated Indian laws regarding the defiling of religious sites and Sikkim’s rights to maintain its culture after merging with India. The Indian Army expedition was also seen to have circumvented Sikkim’s law and violated religious sensibilities by going through Nepal. While the team may have thought they were respecting Sikkim’s beliefs by finding a way to complete the mission, the people of Sikkim saw it as defilement.&nbsp; The somber mood of the Sikkim people at the ritual contrasts sharply with Jamwal’s sense of accomplishment. “Without a doubt, the most difficult summit of my life,” he told reporters after the climb. “It tested every ounce of our will.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250628060616_ccfe079c78dab788d19fe2080ee8a5d5dcb11de4157316f6d94e5964da097157.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250628060616_ccfe079c78dab788d19fe2080ee8a5d5dcb11de4157316f6d94e5964da097157" data-rendition-name="original" width="787" height="377" loading="lazy" alt="Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb NT"> <figcaption>Prayer flags along the Sikkim-Kangchenjunga trekking route. Photo: TREKKINGININDIA.COM</figcaption> </figure>  The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">controversial Nepali-British mountaineer Nirmal Purja</a> was also on Kangchenjunga this spring the mountain, on a mission to summit all 14 8,000m peaks for a third time. He echoed Jamwal about the tough conditions: “The conditions above camp were extremely tough, with deep snow and challenging terrain—more crevasses than usual.” Nepal’s government has not said anything publicly, but it is unlikely that it will ban climbing on Kangchenjunga, since it is becoming popular with expeditions because of its technical challenges, and overcrowding on Mt Everest. Nepal does have bans in place for some of its mountains out of respect for local beliefs. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/to-open-machapuchre-for-mountaineering-or-not">Mt Machapuchre</a> (6,990m) the imposing pyramid that looms over Pokhara, for example, is seen as an icon of purity by the Gurung people and a symbol of Vishnu by the Hindu communities who live at its base. A strict climbing ban has been in place since 1957, when a British expedition led by Col Jimmy Roberts stopped 45m short of the summit – either because the last bit was too difficult or out of deference to local sentiments.&nbsp; Khumbila that stands above Namche Bazar is only 5,761m high, but like Kanchenjunga is considered the protector deity of the Sherpa people. Gauri Shankar on the Nepal-China border, called Chomo Tseringma by the local community, was off-limits between 1965 and 1979 due to its association with Lord Shiva and Gauri, his consort. Although expeditions are now allowed, there are not too many takers. In Tibet, climbing Mount Kailash is prohibited by the Chinese government because it revered by the Hindus, Buddhists and followers of the Bon faith. Even Mt Everest is regarded as sacred, and its Sherpa name is Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the Earth.&nbsp; Economically, climbs on Kanchenjunga bring in decent revenue. This climbing season, the 41 permits, at $1,800 each, brought in $73,800. This is somewhat comparable to Makalu, Lhotse, and Annapurna I, but these numbers are dwarfed by the $4 million in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry">Everest permits</a>. Revenue from Kanchenjunga climbing permits is something Nepal could potentially forgo if necessary, but the expeditions also provide jobs to hundreds of high altitude guides, porters, base camp support staff and other logistical costs.&nbsp; As the third highest mountain in the world and the tallest in India, there will always be significant motivation to climb it from the Nepal side, especially as climbers are drawn by the technical climbing at high altitude.

Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb?

The debate about who is less accountable to the public: politicians or bureaucrats is as old as Nepal’s democracy itself.
Some blame politicians for being beholden to the businessmen who finance their electoral campaigns, and are forced to return the favour with contracts and kickbacks when in power.&nbsp;
Others say it is civil servants who are neither civil nor servants, and know the inner workings of the system to exploit loopholes – they then teach ministers, MPs, mayors, or ward chairs which juicy projects can be squeezed. And everyone gets their share.
In reality, it is probably not a case of either, or. Both have their hands deep in the honey pot. Corruption is now such a given that yet another exposé in the mainstream press, like the latest visit-visa scam, does not raise eyebrows anymore.
We may have to edit Lord Acton’s famous quote to say that in Nepal we do not even need absolute power to corrupt absolutely. The ruling cartel has divvied up the spoils, so that no one ever faces charges. The three parties all know about the skeletons rattling in each other’s closets, and they cancel each other out.
Politicians and bureaucrats get all the blame for taking bribes, but what of the givers of bribes? In this crony capitalism, businesses invariably need political patrons in an elaborate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-only-growth-industry-private-sector-corruption" target="_blank">national network of give-and-take</a>.
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-only-growth-industry-private-sector-corruption" target="_blank">Politicians and businesses work hand-in-glove</a> so that conflict of interest in contracts, insider trading, cartelling, and non-performing assets of banks become the norm. Our survey after the 2017 local election showed that out of the 753 newly-elected local government chairs, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/elected-contractors" target="_blank">nearly 300 were contractors</a> involved in sand-mining, quarrying, or transportation syndicates.
Nepal’s tycoons have discovered that instead of donating to election war chests of politicians, it is a much surer return on investment to spend the money to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-business-of-politics-in-nepal" target="_blank">become legislators and politicians themselves</a>.
In democracies, there are checks and balances to control corruption when it becomes endemic. The Nepal Police and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are supposed to do the detective work without political interference. The courts are required to be independent in dispensing justice and punishing crooks.
But the less said about the judiciary the better. A writ petition in the Supreme Court last week accused our sister magazine <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/" target="_blank">HimalKhabar</a> of contempt of court for two stories: one about how high courts have been overturning a majority of verdicts of district courts in cases of rape, and another about the Biratnagar High Court clearing a self-proclaimed holy man, Krishna Bahadur Giri, of rape despite police presenting physical evidence.
The doctrine of the separation of powers stipulates that it is when the other three pillars in a democracy are compromised that the role of the free press becomes even more vital. The world over, as soon as populist autocrats are elected to the executive, their first order of business is to co-opt the legislature and the judiciary. Then they buy off, intimidate, or neutralise the media with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP).
Nepal’s officialdom seems to be taking midnight Zoom lessons from other despots on how to gag the media. Last month, popular talk show host Dil Bhushan Pathak was served an arrest warrant by the Kathmandu District Court for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CntsnTrtG8" target="_blank">a YouTube explainer</a> about the alleged involvement of the son of Foreign Minister Arzu Deuba Rana in a reported purchase of Kathmandu’s Hilton Hotel.
The Lalitpur District Court ruled that Pathak could not be arrested without fair trial, but this week the Kathmandu District Court filed another case against the journalist based on a complaint by the Cyber Bureau, and put him on a fugitive list.&nbsp;
Without going into the veracity of Pathak’s explainer, it is deeply problematic that the Electronic Transaction Act has been invoked – proof that politicians are getting the courts and investigating agencies to make an example of a high profile journalist.&nbsp;
The intention is to silence media investigations into the fake refugee scandal in which the main partner in the ruling coalition is implicated, and in which one of its former home ministers was jailed last year.
The Kathmandu High Court has been mysteriously active in targeting journalists these days. <a href="https://bizmandu.com/" target="_blank">Bizmandu</a> and <a href="https://nepalkhabar.com/" target="_blank">Nepalkhabar</a> were served a notice last month <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-freedom-after-expression-y4inku06" target="_blank">to withdraw a story they did</a> on the Chair of the <a href="https://www.sebon.gov.np/" target="_blank">Security and Exchange Board of Nepal (SEBON</a>) Santosh Narayan Shrestha allegedly demanding kickbacks from hydropower investors.&nbsp;
Incredibly, the court even asked the two portals not to report on the subject anymore – a ruling so absurd that the Patan High Court overturned it a week later.&nbsp;
The allegations against Shrestha were made in a public meeting of the <a href="https://www.ippan.org.np/members/3060/bungal-hydro-ltd" target="_blank">Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal (IPPAN)</a>, and MPs demanded a <a href="https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/parliament-demands-probe-into-sebon-chairman-over-alleged-commission-demand-40-32.html" target="_blank">Parliament inquiry</a> into the regulator. <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/144523/santosh-narayan-shrestha" target="_blank">HimalKhabar</a> reported this week that while Shrestha was reportedly demanding commissions from private investors for IPOs, he cleared primary share sales in Bajhang’s 10.75MW <a href="https://www.ippan.org.np/members/3060/bungal-hydro-ltd" target="_blank">Bungal Hydro</a> in which his family members have investments, company records show.
And then just on Monday, bureaucrats hoodwinked MPs by deleting references in a bill requiring a two-year ‘cooling off’ period under which retiring civil servants could be barred from holding constitutional positions for two years.
The contest for who is more corrupt: bureauacrats, politicians, or the private sector is on.
Kunda Dixit

SLAPPing Democracy

In 2023, northern India suffered record-breaking heat. In 2024, it broke its own record. In 2025, the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Nepal Tarai suffered a prolonged pre-monsoon heat wave and humidity, forcing closure of schools and workplaces. This week, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/europe-heat-wave-intensifies-as-fresh-warnings-issued/live-73108302">southern Europe is suffering the worst heat wave</a> since temperature records began. Football matches, tennis tournaments have been affected, and tourist sites have been closed off. Qatar has ordered a midday work curfew for Nepali and other migrant workers are the maximum temperature this week touched 45°C.&nbsp; Kathmandu Valley experienced its highest temperature in 25 years in May 2024 at 35.3°C. This year, the maximum temperature exceeded 30°C on many days — heat that till a decade ago would be considered unusual. Rains in early June also meant that towns in the mountains sweltered under high heat plus humidity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1935" height="801" loading="lazy" alt="maximum average temperature in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: DHM</figcaption> </figure>  Measuring just temperature does not give a true picture of how hot it is. When humidity is factored in, the heat index this summer has been much higher in northern India and Nepal. Also, the hotter the air temperature the higher the concentration of water vapour in it. “We feel it is getting hotter, and our statistics back that up,” says Shanti Kandel at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, which issued two heat wave warnings this year, compared to 11 last year. “We need more research to analyse how humidity is make this situation worse.” <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-faces-alarming-30-rise-in-moist-heat-stress-over-40-years-affecting-wide-swath-of-country-imd-study/articleshow/109376863.cms?from=mdr">A recent analysis</a> by the Indian Meteorological Department has found that heat stress in that country has increased by nearly 30% over the past 40 years. Similarly, India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) noted that cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Lucknow have experienced a 6-9% rise in relative humidity in the last decade.&nbsp; It also states that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/majority-indian-districts-face-high-heatwave-risk-study-shows-2025-05-20/#:~:text=%22About%2057%20per%20cent%20of,usual%20number%20of%20heatwave%20days.">60% of Indian districts</a>, home to three-quarters of the country’s 1.3 billion people face a high to very high risk from extreme heat, with rising night-time temperatures and humidity. The heat index is also called ‘<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/north-indian-heat-wave-hits-nepal">wet-bulb temperature</a>’ and is a measure of how hot the human body feels when humidity levels are also high — usually much hotter than the recorded temperature. For example, a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C is considered the maximum limit of heat and humidity that humans can handle, beyond which the body cannot cool by perspiration, leading to death. One indicator of increasing humidity is a rise in average minimum temperature, and Nepal recorded the highest figure since 1981 last year, with a peak of 15.8°C. Higher minimum temperature denotes warmer nights, which in turn is an indication of heat stress caused by increasing humidity, which in turn is a result of global warming. Aside from higher average temperatures worldwide this year, what makes heat and humidity more unbearable is that cities are always hotter than their surroundings. This is due to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/preparing-for-kathmandu-s-heat-waves">urban heat island (UHI) effect</a> – for example the temperature inside Kathmandu’s Ring Road can be hotter by <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/what-are-heat-islands">up to 4°C during the daytime and by 1 to 3°C in the evening</a> compared to the outskirts. “Climate change is one reason for rising temperature, but there are other factors like increased heat in urban spaces due to concrete buildings and infrastructure, emissions from vehicles, industries, and home appliances,” explains urban planner Bhushan Tuladhar. He adds: “Much of this comes down to how we have developed our cities, not just our roads and buildings but also our water system, waste management, culture and customs as well as economy.” There is a feedback loop at work: as it gets hotter, more energy is used for fans, coolers, and air-conditioners which in turn add to the urban heat bubble. The way to reduce the UHI effect is to have more parks, tree-lined streets and water bodies to cool cities down.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212095525002093">A recent study published in the journal Urban Climate</a> by Nepali researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Tribhuvan University, University of Groningen, etc showed that even within Kathmandu, urban forests cooled neighbourhoods by as much as 1.2°C while ponds reduced the temperature by up to 0.85°C compared to nearby houses.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2580" height="1038" loading="lazy" alt="urban heat island in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: URBAN CLIMATE et al.</figcaption> </figure>  ‘Our results demonstrate that blue-green spaces provide significant cooling benefits across the Kathmandu Valley, with distinct patterns by type, size, design, and urban context,’ concluded the paper, whose lead author is Saurav Bhattarai at Jackson State University in the United States. The old towns in Kathmandu Valley with traditional brick and tile architecture, ponds and trees managed hot summers better. Compact houses around a courtyard gave people just the right amount of sunlight, and use of clay mortar and bricks insulated houses in winter while cooling them in summer. There were open spaces, fertile land along the floodplains for farming, and brick pavements that allowed for seepage. “Our cities were planned taking nature into account,” says Sangeeta Singh, a professor of urban planning at the Institute of Engineering. “Kathmandu Valley is now built up, but we can still reintegrate blue-blue spaces into town planning with vertical gardening, urban forestry, using local material and harvesting rainwater.”&nbsp; Kathmandu’s municipalities have by-laws controlling building design and structure, but strict enforcement of land use and zoning are missing. Extreme heat disproportionately affects the urban poor who may not have access to fans or air-conditioners, exacerbating poverty.&nbsp; Cities in the plains have it even worse. As heat and humidity rise simultaneously, it could <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/garmi-se-behal-chalo-nepal">reverse the current mass migration</a> of people from the mountains to the Tarai, where 53% of Nepal’s population lives. <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/92fbbbc6180238e18e7b239fad83e38a-0280032024/original/12-DHNT-Temperature-poverty-inequality-September-2024.pdf">A World Bank study</a> put the cost of a 1°C rise in temperature at 17.1% increase in poverty globally. Estimates put the total number of urban poor in developing countries exposed to the worst heat extremes at 26 million presently, this number is bound to grow to 215 million by mid-century, an over eight-fold increase. Meanwhile, 489,000 health-related deaths occur each year, 45% of them in Asia alone. “Heat has to be seen from a class perspective,” says Singh. “Those with money can afford gadgets and appliances to keep their homes and offices cool, but not day labourers or poor families living in cramped housing with poor ventilation.” Climate breakdown is going to widen the class divide in cities, as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/unthinkable-in-the-current-climate">summers become unliveable</a>. Says Singh: “We need policy intervention to address this class injustice. Our building by-laws and new town development must urgently integrate climate and energy efficiency elements.”

In the heat of the moment

The monsoon this year arrived on time, and brought life-giving rain — irrigating paddy terraces, recharging groundwater, reviving springs, and increasing electricity generation.
But Nepal has to deal with either too much water or too little. On a clear April day before the monsoon, the hills of Sindhuli district were parched, and there were wildfires burning out of control. There had been no rain for the past six months.
And that has been the perennial crisis for Nepal’s farmers: that 85% of the rainfall occurs during just four months of the monsoon with little rain for the other eight months.&nbsp;
The water crisis is related to the powerful changes sweeping the mid-hill region of Nepal. With better roads, higher incomes and more exposure, many residents now aspire to have the kind of water supply seen in urban homes. They want hot or cold water at the turn of a tap, showers and flush tank toilets.&nbsp;
To meet this rising demand, many local and provincial governments are investing in large water supply projects often by lifting water from rivers hundreds of metres down the mountain. But these new systems may not be sustainable in the long run.
Many villages in Sindhuli are switching from local springs to piped systems, and even in rural homes, overhead tanks are becoming common.
But this new convenience comes with big challenges. Lifting water from rivers far below requires long pipes, electric pumps, and constant maintenance. These systems are costly, and the streams themselves often shrink to a trickle in the dry months. Big water-lifting schemes look impressive, but there is doubt if they can meet growing water demand.
A much more sustainable solution would be what some communities are doing: restoring old ponds or build new recharge systems. But those villages are exceptions, in most places traditional ponds and wallows are being filled up to be turned into sports fields, or make way for buildings.
Where there are new ponds, they are sometimes in the wrong places or without proper design. Roads and drains are not engineered properly and have increased landslides and erosion. Water management in hilly areas is not just about building things, it is about building in the right way, in the right place.
Traditional water systems were based on nature. They were not perfect, but they used the land wisely. Ponds used to hold rainwater and slowly refill springs which supported families, farms, and forests.&nbsp;
Not everything worked well in the past, but we can learn from traditional water management practices. Across Nepal, some rural municipalities have launched campaigns to store monsoon runoff — either in tanks, ponds or by recharging the aquifers.
But not all efforts have been successful. Some ponds are built without any hydrological study. Some are rushed to meet deadlines rather than real needs.&nbsp;
Now, the Muhan initiative hopes to revive springs to make households more resilient and help farmings. With the financial support of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, research is being done to understand how springs work and how they are affected by changes in rainfall, land use, and development.&nbsp;
Instead of just building pipes and tanks, the project maps the entire springshed so we can understand the root cause of water shortage. In Sindhuli, the problem is not the amount of rain, but the loss of natural systems that store it and the social systems that manage water.&nbsp;
Nepal’s towns and villages now face a major challenge: how to manage water all year round as demand rises with people’s living standards. Depending only on river-lift systems is not a sustainable solution.&nbsp;
We need a mix of approaches that help store water from the rainy season to make it available for the rest of the year, whether by directly harvesting rainwater, restoring ponds, managing springsheds, or smart management of demand.
Rural Nepal is also seeing dramatic depopulation. Much of the outmigration can be stemmed if there is easier water supply for agriculture and household use. Across the mid hills, villages are emptying because springs are going dry. Government policy needs to catch up with the reality on the ground, and support solutions that work for people and nature. Every water supply plan should include recharge structures. Every road or building project should consider water flow and erosion. Local governments need more than budgets: they need training, tools, and data.
Ngamindra Dahal is with the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu. Hemant Ojha collaborated in this piece and is associated with the Australian National University.

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