Linda Sue Park is an American children’s book author of Korean heritage. Her book A Single Shard, about an orphaned boy in 12th century Korea who wants to become a potter, was awarded the John Newberry medal in 2002. She was recently in Kathmandu for <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/bal-sahitya-mahotsav-children-literature-festival,2034">Bal Sahitya Mahotsav</a> at Rato Bangala School, and spoke with Nepali Times about reading, writing, specifically for children, and learning English. Excerpts: 
Nepali Times: What are the things to keep in mind when writing children’s books, as opposed to books for adults? 
Linda Sue Park: This has changed and evolved over the years. Children’s books used to be instructive, like how to be a good little girl or boy. When I broke in more than twenty years ago, the emphasis was on stories. It was sort of very amorphous, we just want exciting stories, adventure stories, happy stories, sad stories. The current phase in the US is activism. Mostly how you’re going to save our planet. This is something that kids are going to have to deal with.
I have a book called A Single Shard. Young people come up to me and tell me that this book is about perseverance. Other people will say no, this is about family. Then there are those who say it is about how our lives would be a bleak misery without art. Am I going to say that any of those are wrong? No. So the message or the theme of the book is what that individual reader most needs at that time in their minds. 
If it's a really good book you can read it when you’re ten years old and get one message and then read it when you are fifteen and get another, and read it when you’re 50 and still get a third. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/adventures-of-a-little-dumpling-named-momo-and-other-books">Adventures of a little dumpling named Momo (and other books)</a>, Sahina Shrestha
It has been said that all great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.'A Single Shard has elements of both. Do you think that the journey Tree-ear goes through to learn pottery has parallels in learning how to write? 
Absolutely, and I was not conscious of that, it was a young reader who pointed that out to me. He heard me talk about revision. I’ve talked a lot about revising, and this little kid said to me, that’s just how Min makes a pot. 
Do you start with an outline and then flesh it in? 
My fiction is a character with an external and an internal quest. The character has something they want, that’s the external quest, or what other people call the plot. They also have an internal plot, the emotional growth they need to experience, sometimes that’s called the theme. Often the character does not know their internal quest. That’s how I start a story. 
I’d say the first month of thinking about the story, I write them each down on a post-it, and I stick them on either side of my trackpad, so that everything I write, it’s got to be this or that.
In writing A Single Shard, how much of it was first-hand personal experience that influenced the story, and how much of it was external research? 
I traveled to Korea and visited some of the sites that are in the story. When I would come across something in Korean that I thought was important, my parents would translate it. 
So how am I going to write this book because it is so much trouble to find out about 12th century Korea? Well, because Korean pottery at the time was so famous, pottery experts had done a lot of work on it. Every piece mentioned in the book is real. 
I am not an expert on Korea or Korean history, I grew up in America, I have done some research on Korean pottery of this era, just enough to write this story. 
One of your parents cut out the phonics of the English language into a notebook and another parent took you to the library. 
My son learned with phonics. My daughter had no patience for it. She learned what is called whole language, she would just hear the book over and over and read it. So their development as readers was quite different. He can figure out an unfamiliar word quicker and easier than she can. She comprehends a whole story much better than him. 
What you have to have is a wonderful teacher who is trained in many different systems, and that teacher says, “Okay, this child is a phonics kid. But this child maybe not so much.” It's so difficult for teachers. Where it really has to happen, is at home, which is also really difficult. 
Kids who have parents who support their reading at home, are far ahead by the time they get just to kindergarten. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/angrezi/the-thappad">The Thappad</a>, Anbika Giri 
What is the importance of having diverse stories for kids? 
I do a lot of work around this as it pertains to children’s books. We need to see everyone in their full humanity. We need to realise that they are people just like we are, because if you don’t, that means that you feel you can treat them as lesser than you are. 
I grew up in an era of children’s books where there were very few Asians portrayals. I never saw one Korean character. It does terrible things to a child’s self-image. It is important for kids to see themselves or someone who looks like them in books. 
Those of us who do this sort of work are very fortunate to have that experience. Little girls running up to you and saying, “She looks like me!” It’s just really heartwarming. 
But to me, even more important, is the dominant culture, to say, “Oh, they want to do whatever it is just like I do. They’re like me.” And that second part especially is what still needs so much work.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-power-of-reading-aloud">The power of reading aloud</a>, Sanghamitra Subba
What advice do you have for budding writers out there who want to make it their career? 
As a writer just starting out you don’t make a living. Many people have a vision of either being a great novelist or biographer, or Hollywood screenwriter. That is a reality for a very few people. Many of us who do writing do other things that are less glamorous. A lot of writers teach writing. They teach in university programs and so forth. 
The rest of us do what we call writing-adjacent jobs, such as school visits. I’m one of the fortunate ones, I’m not J K Rowling, but I can live off what my books make. But I love to travel, so I do very, very few school visits now in the United States. I accept invitations from schools abroad, like now in Nepal, because I want to see the country.
What was your first impression of Nepal after coming out of the airport last week? 
I have only been in Kathmandu, and it's very lively, a lot of people, a lot of life, and Nepalis are very friendly, very helpful, smiling, they’ve got their own thing going on. We’ve really enjoyed it.

Vishad Raj Onta

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Writing for young minds

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209f39c7e80680e0b5572jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="507" height="600"/><figcaption>Author Buddhisagar. Photo: BUDDHISAGAR/FACEBOOK</figcaption></figure>Buddhisagar’s novel Karnali Blues starts with a father, who says after seeing his newborn son for the first time, “He has a mole on the sole of his foot, so he will have to walk a lot but he won’t go off anywhere and leave us.”His mother then asks the baby, “Will you go off and leave us when you’re big?”A statement from one parent, a question from the other.In a Thamel restaurant on a sunny winter afternoon, Buddhisagar walks in wearing a brick-orange jumper and black pants, looking as if he just returned from a track meet-and-greet. He apologises for being late. “I walk everywhere,” he offers as an explanation.He does not look like any of the pictures on the Internet, those that make him out to be larger-than-life celebrated Nepali author. Maybe it is because he is not expecting to be photographed.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/former-gurkha-soldier-turns-author/">Former Gurkha soldier turns authors</a>, Chun Bahadur GurungThis is the real Buddhisagar, in his most natural state. Perhaps this is how he looks writing in his own company, while sipping tea from a local vendor and building stories out of childhood nostalgia.Like Brisha Bahadur in Karnali Blues, Buddhisagar was also born in Matera, and brought up in Katasé and Kalikot. Like the main character of his novel, he was not academically gifted. But unlike his fictional counterpart, he was rather shy, Buddhisagar  confesses. So the prolific author most likely did not go around looking for mischief or drawing moustaches on pictures he found around the house.Many call Karnali Blues an autobiographical fiction. “Some parts of the beginning of the novel are real,” the author admits.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209f59c7e80680e0b5573jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="725" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The inspiration for the novel came in a hospital, a place of both birth and death. “My father was sick and like in the novel, he was in Kohalpur. He died later, from brain hemorrhage as well,” he says.But Buddhisagar does not think he is our protagonist. He explains, “A writer is never one character. They are inside the minds of young and old, of men and women - they are everywhere in fragments. There are some parts of me in Brisha Bahadur. There are some parts of my mother and father in him as well. He is not all me.”After a pause, he adds, “Just look at the poems he writes. If he was me, he perhaps could have written them better.”There is also the juxtaposition in the book between the two Harsha Bahadurs — one is the breadwinner of the family and the other lies paralysed in a hospital bed.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-literatures-thulnani-toya-gurung/">Toya Gurung: Nepali literature’s Thulnani</a>, Muna GurungThen, there are the two Brisha Bahadur: the child who looks up to his father, and the youth who still does so even as the father lies on his deathbed.Father and son oscillate between having to give and receive care to one another. There is also the pacing of the past and the present in the chapters of the novel. The present moves in a numbingly slow pace as the human mind goes through moments rejecting death, and yet accepting the hopelessness enveloping it whereas the past rushes up to the narrator like a deadly current in a moody river that catches up to those who do not want to be caught.“What matters the most to me is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/writing-about-nepal-from-afar/">authenticity</a>,” Buddhisagar says,  sipping on a single-shot Americano. “Regardless of whether a story is autobiographical or not, the readers must think that the events happening in the story can actually happen in reality.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209f89c7e80680e0b5574jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1222" height="900">Karnali Blues tells us about <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-nepali-literature-to-the-world/">people and places that age</a> through immaculately detailed visuals of the great river’s tributaries weaving themselves into the story.Villages and towns also have characters and stories to tell. A tea shop by the river turns into a small market. The river becomes a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-the-bagmati-civilisation-is-becoming-uncivilised/">dumping site to accommodate modernisation</a>. The cattle get sick. A new bridge opens up a nearby town, and its population migrates, hoping for a better future.The village dries up, but the rivers stay polluted. There is death and abandonment, but even if one life ends, the other has to move forward. The title is apt, there is no other place to feel blue and desolate than in the Karnali.“The back-and-forth style of storytelling in Karnali Blues came from those hospital nights with my father,” Buddhisagar says, this time holding a freshly-lit cigarette between his fingers. “You start by reading about an unknown person, sick and on his deathbed,  and slowly, you walk along the story with him. Eventually, the readers get to know him and so when the end comes, it creates an emotional response.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-nepali-literature-to-the-world/">Taking Nepali literature to the world</a>, Ashish DhakalBecause we spend 400 pages with Harsha Bahadur, we know that he is a constantly caring patriarch whose love for blue waistcoats is immeasurable. We also know that Brisha Bahadur’s nameless mother is constantly forgiving. Despite being a troublemaker, we still adore Brisha Bahadur’s predilection for an expensive bicycle, or a leather jacket. His love for tea makes him the most relatable Nepali on earth. And thus we come to care for all of them.“Since I spent many years writing the novel, it opened a whole new world for me,” Buddhisagar says, blowing out blue smoke through his nostrils.It has been 12 years since he came out, and readers have come to love the world he created as well. It has now found new visitors with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-nepali-literature-to-the-world/">Michael Hutt’s English translation</a> (see above).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209fb9c7e80680e0b5575jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1080" height="792"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Language bridges distance, and so when asked whether he wishes to change the way he had written Karnali Blues, especially now that he has become a father himself, he shakes his head.“I don’t have any regrets about my past work. Whatever I had felt while writing the book has dissipated. If I read it now, I will do it as a reader,” says Buddisagar. “We are fathers of a different era. I don’t feel the need to change the way I have written about fatherhood in this novel.”Perhaps it is not Buddhisagar we should be looking for in our narrator, rather it is us readers that find ourselves in his characters. The way we were as children, the kind of parents we want to become.Maybe Buddhisagar has expertly hidden himself somewhere within lines like these in Hutt’s translation: “Once Father set out, he never looked back. He used to say, ‘If you turn to look back, your attachments will trap you and you won’t be able to go.’”Buddhisagar is working on his third novel. The English translation of Karnali Blues translated Michael Hutt is available in Kathmandu bookshops. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-story-of-books-in-nepal/">The story of books in Nepal</a>, Ashish Dhakal

The Man from Karnali

<figure><img width="1000" height="1016" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83a89c7e80680e06774cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ulrich von Schroeder at age 22 in Kwa Baha, Patan in 1965. Photo: Nepalese Stone Sculptures</figcaption></figure>Ulrich von Schroeder first came to Nepal as a student of architecture in the summer of 1965 aged 22, backpacking overland from Switzerland. While other young westerners hung around Freak Street in those days, he would rent a bike and pedal around the Valley, systematically taking pictures of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal-needs-to-be-prepared-for-the-return-of-stolen-religious-figures,986" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stone sculptures</a>.Von Schroeder’s lifelong labour of love has now been published in two bulky volumes titled Nepalese Stone Sculptures that is an encyclopaedia with nearly 3,000 illustrations, and 15,000 digital photographs of stone sculptures on an SD card embedded into the inside back cover.“This is unrestricted love for Nepal, my gift to the country,” says von Schroeder at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-first-private-art-museum/">Museum of Nepali Art</a>, which invited him to Kathmandu this month for the launch of the books. “The market for Nepali stone figures is dead with this documentation. Auction houses won’t buy them anymore, and museums won’t display them.” <figure><img width="1500" height="1028" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83ab9c7e80680e06774djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The monumental work is divided into Hindu and Buddhist volumes that contain the result of 55 years of research and over 50 trips to Nepal. The books cost $750, and limited numbers are available at Vajra Books.Of the 2,960 illustrations of stone sculptures in the books, half of them have been stolen are now in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">museums and private collections outside Nepal</a>. Of these, 1,150 have never before been catalogued, including those of the Mohan Chok Hiti of the Hanuman Dhoka Palace, the Kumari Pati of the Royal Palace at Bhaktapur and the inner courtyard of Pashupatinath temple.Von Schroeder is the global authority on Buddhist art and culture studies and has six other volumes on Tibetan, Sri Lankan and Indian iconography but it is the Nepal edition he is most emotionally attached to and calls it his “meditation”.The book is dedicated to Nepali historian the late Sukra Sagar Shrestha, whom von Schroeder regarded as his mentor. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-gods-return-from-exile/">Nepal's gods return from exile</a>, Alisha Sijapati“Documentation is important because it will render stolen objects unsalable, eventually leading to their return home, so it doesn’t matter where they are at the moment,” says the scholar. “But I’m not for restitution, Nepal is not ready to bring them back and value and protect them.”This is in direct contrast to the growing activism for the<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5021#.YJHyCC8w3BJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> repatriation of stolen figures</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>from museums and galleries around the world. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-homecoming-of-nepals-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">homecoming of Patan’s Laxmi Narayan</a> from the Dallas Museum of Art last month has raised hopes for the<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Christie-removes,257" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> return of thousands of other religious objects</a>.The documentation of 15,000 Nepali stone images by von Schroeder, however, is a milestone for researchers and institutions to identify stolen images, where they were originally from, and to help in their restoration. <figure><img width="960" height="1280" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83ae9c7e80680e06774ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“His lack of support for repatriation doesn’t justify his own work but with his book, we are in the position to go beyond and further in terms of restitution, we now have a comprehensive record of stolen images from the 1960s onward, previously we had to rely on incomplete information,” says Roshan Mishra, director of <a href="https://taragaonmuseum.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taragaon Museum</a> and curator of the <a href="https://globalnepalimuseum.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Nepali Museum</a>, an online database of Nepali objects housed in the museums around the world. The good news is that there is now a trend of voluntary <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-support-to-restore-stolen-nepal-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">return of stolen images</a> from the western collectors, galleries and museums as the wave of decolonisation takes root. This means that sooner rather than later, Nepal will be getting back many of its <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7311#.YJHx4S8w3BI" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">religious objects</a>. Unfortunately, the government and local communities are not prepared for restitution.  “Everything need not come back at once. But at the very least we must get these museums and collectors to hold it in trust for us until such time we are ready to bring them back,” says activist Kanak Mani Dixit.  Currently, most of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">repatriated religious objects</a> are housed at the <a href="http://www.nationalmuseum.gov.np" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Museum</a> in Chhauni, poorly-lit and in dusty and dismal condition, much to the dismay of heritage activists—another reason why von Schroeder does not mind if the stolen objects do not return to Nepal right away. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2710#.YJHyOy8w3BJ">Here today, in Europe tomorrow</a>, Janki Gurung   There is also an ongoing discussion about the fate of objects with damage or cracks, as was the case with Laxmi Narayan. One of its hands was broken during transportation across the world. According to local belief, deities that are damaged cannot be kept as the central idol in the temple even though they are worshipped. In a country that is prone to disasters ranging from fires to earthquakes, risk assessment of buildings where returned artefacts are housed is also of utmost importance. Municipalities can also assist the central government in local housing and proactive restoration, say experts like Roshan Mishra He adds: “The end goal is to restore the objects to their original place but until we can do so with security, we should decentralise them to museums closest to their actual location for the public viewing while also strengthening the community’s sense of ownership.”

Sonia Awale

Cataloguing Nepal's idols to stop theft

<figure><img width="1000" height="1016" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebca9c7e80680e09ad29jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ulrich von Schroeder at age 22 in Kwa Baha, Patan in 1965. Photo: Nepalese Stone Sculptures</figcaption></figure>Ulrich von Schroeder first came to Nepal as a student of architecture in the summer of 1965 aged 22, backpacking overland from Switzerland. While other young westerners hung around Freak Street in those days, he would rent a bike and pedal around the Valley, systematically taking pictures of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal-needs-to-be-prepared-for-the-return-of-stolen-religious-figures,986" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stone sculptures</a>.Von Schroeder’s lifelong labour of love has now been published in two bulky volumes titled Nepalese Stone Sculptures that is an encyclopaedia with nearly 3,000 illustrations, and 15,000 digital photographs of stone sculptures on an SD card embedded into the inside back cover.“This is unrestricted love for Nepal, my gift to the country,” says von Schroeder at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-first-private-art-museum/">Museum of Nepali Art</a>, which invited him to Kathmandu this month for the launch of the books. “The market for Nepali stone figures is dead with this documentation. Auction houses won’t buy them anymore, and museums won’t display them.” <figure><img width="1500" height="1028" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebcd9c7e80680e09ad2ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Pages from Nepalese Stone Sculptures</figcaption></figure>The monumental work is divided into Hindu and Buddhist volumes that contain the result of 55 years of research and over 50 trips to Nepal. The books cost $750, and limited numbers are available at Vajra Books.Of the 2,960 illustrations of stone sculptures in the books, half of them have been stolen are now in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">museums and private collections outside Nepal</a>. Of these, 1,150 have never before been catalogued, including those of the Mohan Chok Hiti of the Hanuman Dhoka Palace, the Kumari Pati of the Royal Palace at Bhaktapur and the inner courtyard of Pashupatinath temple.Von Schroeder is the global authority on Buddhist art and culture studies and has six other volumes on Tibetan, Sri Lankan and Indian iconography but it is the Nepal edition he is most emotionally attached to and calls it his “meditation”.The book is dedicated to Nepali historian the late Sukra Sagar Shrestha, whom von Schroeder regarded as his mentor. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-gods-return-from-exile/">Nepal's gods return from exile</a>, Alisha Sijapati“Documentation is important because it will render stolen objects unsalable, eventually leading to their return home, so it doesn’t matter where they are at the moment,” says the scholar. “But I’m not for restitution, Nepal is not ready to bring them back and value and protect them.”This is in direct contrast to the growing activism for the<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5021#.YJHyCC8w3BJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> repatriation of stolen figures</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>from museums and galleries around the world. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-homecoming-of-nepals-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">homecoming of Patan’s Laxmi Narayan</a> from the Dallas Museum of Art last month has raised hopes for the<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Christie-removes,257" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> return of thousands of other religious objects</a>.The documentation of 15,000 Nepali stone images by von Schroeder, however, is a milestone for researchers and institutions to identify stolen images, where they were originally from, and to help in their restoration. <figure><img width="960" height="1280" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebd19c7e80680e09ad2bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Ulrich von Schroeder at the Museum of Nepali Art in Kathmandu in April 2021 for the launch of his two-volume 'Nepalese Stone Sculptures'. Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption></figure>“His lack of support for repatriation doesn’t justify his own work but with his book, we are in the position to go beyond and further in terms of restitution, we now have a comprehensive record of stolen images from the 1960s onward, previously we had to rely on incomplete information,” says Roshan Mishra, director of <a href="https://taragaonmuseum.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taragaon Museum</a> and curator of the <a href="https://globalnepalimuseum.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Nepali Museum</a>, an online database of Nepali objects housed in the museums around the world. The good news is that there is now a trend of voluntary <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-support-to-restore-stolen-nepal-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">return of stolen images</a> from the western collectors, galleries and museums as the wave of decolonisation takes root. This means that sooner rather than later, Nepal will be getting back many of its <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7311#.YJHx4S8w3BI" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">religious objects</a>. Unfortunately, the government and local communities are not prepared for restitution.  “Everything need not come back at once. But at the very least we must get these museums and collectors to hold it in trust for us until such time we are ready to bring them back,” says activist Kanak Mani Dixit.  Currently, most of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">repatriated religious objects</a> are housed at the <a href="http://www.nationalmuseum.gov.np" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Museum</a> in Chhauni, poorly-lit and in dusty and dismal condition, much to the dismay of heritage activists—another reason why von Schroeder does not mind if the stolen objects do not return to Nepal right away. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2710#.YJHyOy8w3BJ">Here today, in Europe tomorrow</a>, Janki Gurung   There is also an ongoing discussion about the fate of objects with damage or cracks, as was the case with Laxmi Narayan. One of its hands was broken during transportation across the world. According to local belief, deities that are damaged cannot be kept as the central idol in the temple even though they are worshipped. In a country that is prone to disasters ranging from fires to earthquakes, risk assessment of buildings where returned artefacts are housed is also of utmost importance. Municipalities can also assist the central government in local housing and proactive restoration, say experts like Roshan Mishra He adds: “The end goal is to restore the objects to their original place but until we can do so with security, we should decentralise them to museums closest to their actual location for the public viewing while also strengthening the community’s sense of ownership.”

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4379c7e80680e08f9afjpeg.jpg" alt="Author Nirajan Kunwar" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: SAGAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>When Niranjan Kunwar talks about Bollywood, his body language shifts: he sits tall, his face brightens up, his hands flit about in flowery circular motion, and his speech quickens.“I sometimes joke with friends that I have a PhD in 90s Bollywood and they believe me. Because if you asked me who won the Filmfare Award for best actor in 1993, I will tell you, ‘Sharukh Khan, of course, for Baazigar.’” He laughs.Born on June 9, 1981, Niranjan always knew he was different. When being sent off to boarding school, instead of the usual reluctance, he was eager to leave his parents. As a young boy, he was close to his cousin sisters and dressed in their skirts and performed for them. “I feel like I have lost that part of me,” he says. “I want to reclaim it.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd43b9c7e80680e08f9b0jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan Kunwar childhood photo" width="1200" height="900"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd43e9c7e80680e08f9b1jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan childhood photo" width="1800" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In December of 2020, amidst lockdown and pandemic, Niranjan’s memoir, Between Queens and the Cities, became the first queer memoir in English to be published in Nepal. Although readers may expect the typical coming-of-age or a coming-out story, the memoir is not that.Poet Ocean Vuong once said that queer lives in literature always seem exhaustible because their stories end when they come out of the metaphoric closet. In the same vein, Niranjan’s memoir is instead an honest and heartfelt record of the important, confusing and mundane parts of one queer life set between Kathmandu and New York City, that is not representative of all Nepali queer stories in and neither does it claim to be.Niranjan says, “I chose to write nonfiction because I knew that I wanted to document this story as ‘real’ and I wanted to visibilise it, as most queer stories are often made invisible.”He writes: No one counts our blessings. No one blesses us. We exist outside religion, outside society and culture. We are too Western or too wild. We don’t fit into their traditions. Their rituals don’t guide us. There are no magical mantras for us. Their divine deities don’t do anything for us. Our Dashains and Tihars are forever incomplete. The puranas don’t mention us. No one tells our tales.No one writes poems about our courtships, our commitments, our crimes. Our longings don’t turn into lyrics. No one composes lines about our heartbeats. No guitar strums for us. There is no harmonica; no piano converts our musings into music.In this month’s Lightroom Conversation, Niranjan and I talk about the fears and gifts of being queer, about rescuing hidden selves, re-authoring certain dominant narratives, and about male anger, the complexities of that emotion that we often do not talk about.Niranjan Kunwar: There’s a story that my relatives recount how I wanted to be a cow herder when I grew up. In a way, I had a streak that was a bit unusual; I wanted to be adventurous. I wasn’t attached to my parents. When I was going to Budhanilkantha at age nine, I was eager to say goodbye to them. The appeal for me was the school’s sprawling jungle and all the new friends I would make. And whenever my grandmother used to go to our village in Chitwan, I would follow her. There, I would graze cattle and run around all day.Muna Gurung: Tell me more about Chitwan. What was there?We have an old house there and my grandmother would visit regularly. We would go on a local bus, the roads were bad and I would get carsick. But despite that, I would fight with my parents if they didn’t let me go with her. There was no electricity in the village and I liked that because we would eat under the light from a lantern and there were delicacies like khatte, which was puffed rice deep fried in butter. I realise now that I feel calmer in nature and it was a striking juxtaposition with my life in New York, a culture that had very little space for animals, nature, pets. I used to love animals, but in the city, I felt myself hardening. It’s like in literature, we read about how the city hardens you. I guess that is also the queer experience, that sense of distance that is created between you and yourself.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4419c7e80680e08f9b2jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan Kunwar family" width="1200" height="900"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But there is one line in your book where you say that you had forgotten about the ‘gifts of being queer’. What were and are the gifts of being queer?  As a child I was very influenced by my three female cousins and Bollywood, so I would frequently wear their skirts and dance for them. They also encouraged that behaviour and I remember walking all the way to Chabel Chowk to get a Bollywood film tape in a skirt! When you’re a child, adults accept that, but only to a certain extent. Even in Budhanilkantha, I would wear skirts and perform, but then when the bullying and teasing starts, that’s when you begin to suppress and conform. By 9th and 10th grade, I had begun to conform and even act ‘macho’.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/featured-videos/between-queens-and-kathmandu/">Between Queens and Kathmandu</a>, Sahina Shrestha<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4449c7e80680e08f9b3jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan Kunwar Budhanilkantha School" width="640" height="853"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The thing is, the story of young boys dressing up as girls is not uncommon. I have countless cousins and nephews who do that, and it is celebrated even. But as you said, only to a certain extent, after which they have to become a ‘boy’. Sometimes my family also rationalises a young boy’s ‘femininity’ as simply the remnants of their previous life, as in he must have been a woman before. This is making me think about how perhaps in many janajati cultures, gender queerness is more accepted. For example the maruni dance where men dress up as women and dance is an important part of most Gurung cultures and even celebrated. But that too is perhaps only relegated to that space. I don’t know how much of this has been investigated.You write that because you read a lot as a child, your queerness did not feel strange to you. What did you read as a child that affirmed your being? I would listen to my grandmother tell stories from the Mahabharat or the Ramanyana, but I was especially taken by the month of Swasthani, when my grandmother would read one chapter of the Swasthani tale a day and I would also read chapters with her. The stories were always full of possibilities like gods chopping off heads, or people reincarnating and becoming different; that immediately is a message that one can change form or travel far, or have magic powers. What does that mean for kids?And then I encountered Western literature and it was about humans living very different lives in very different worlds. When I was a little older, I made sure to buy every single Filmfare and Movie magazine.  Whether you call that reading or just studying pop culture and glamour, or looking at stars being themselves, it was a queer activity. Because fashion is also about people transforming into someone else, or something they are not. Today, I feel like I have lost this side of me, and I want to reclaim it. This reminds me of what the artist Alok Vaid Menon once said in a workshop. They asked, “What part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to survive in this world?” I think we all have to do that and it’s a sad realisation, but I think many marginalised groups, especially women, can relate to this question.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4469c7e80680e08f9b4jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan Kunwar dancing" width="405" height="469"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>What did you have to destroy? My feminine side. Whether it’s Bollywood, Filmfare, wearing skirts and dancing as a girl, I think I have it in me. I am definitely not ashamed of it. I think it is a really powerful thing if an individual can be a man or a woman, it’s a skill and that’s also what is actually needed in this world today–the fluidity rather than the rigidity. There was one time that I dressed up in drag in New York and even then, I remember I was not completely at ease. The flipside of the question is how much anxiety and fear there is for marginalised people, starting with women. And because of this fear, so many things are hidden, invisibilised, not talked about. That is why I really appreciate younger Nepalis now who are out there in public being bolder than I am or I have been.On being bold, when you wrote this memoir, you were filling it with people who are connected to you in real life, how did you balance what to reveal and what to conceal?  I chose to write nonfiction because I knew that I wanted to document this story as ‘real’ and I wanted to visibilise it, as most queer stories are often made invisible. Although I also know that writing about someone’s life comes with ethical questions and one has to ask for permission, I didn’t do that because I knew that I wasn’t going to reveal any personal details of the characters in the story. But this begs the question, why did I write it? We teach in primary school that we have to write about things that give us strong feelings. While writing about my family, I began to write about certain family dynamics that was bothering me and I didn’t think about censoring, I just had to write it out, but it was only later in revising that I began to get anxious about these issues of sharing sensitive information. But how do you ask for permission from your family? It’s a tricky thing.I can imagine, I mean, the father character. You explicitly write about his anger and your own. It was one of the things that drew me into your memoir because we don’t talk about anger as much as perhaps we should. I struggled a lot with anger. Anytime I was in despair or depressed, my frustration would just short circuit to one person: my father. There was a time I remember when I was in New York, and say, I got really hungry, I would get angry at my father. If I missed a train, I would immediately think of my father and feel rage in me. And that I knew was not ‘normal’ because he was not even there and it was not his fault. So, what was that about? That needed investigation. When emotions don't get processed properly, or when there's depression and a history of not talking about it, the repressed stuff comes out, you know. I knew it was unfair to him, and that it was no one’s fault. So, I had to write them out and put things in front of me so that I could sift through them and understand better. Some of it was my fault and my immediate situation having a stressful job in New York, or that I was drinking too much… some of those, I had to take responsibility.But sometimes anger is also important or useful because it moves things, it is an energy.Some people have told me that sometimes when I am angry, I am my most honest and articulate self, and I say what needs to be said. Sometimes, anger can be a shortcut to get to the truth of a matter. The outburst that I wrote about in the memoir, it needed to happen because it was repressed emotions that had not found an outlet. I was a very angry child but I grew up never being able to express myself. And in New York, instead of finding an outlet, I was distracting myself with alcohol and clubbing. I didn’t write about this part in the book, but the morning after that outburst, my father came into my room and said that it was the first time he had seen that side of me.The outburst was almost necessary.Yes, and just the day before, I had another huge blowout with my father. So, I’ve had this anxiety with my memoir because my relationship with my father has shifted and it is better now. When I was writing, I felt like I didn’t care about anything or anyone, I only knew that I had to tell my story honestly. But later, the anxiety started brewing. Even throughout the book launch, I was anxious because I hadn’t told my father about the details of the book and I didn’t know how he was going to take it if he found out. It is also sad because I have written a book but I can’t even share it or celebrate it with him. That is, in many ways, I guess a very queer aspect about having written the memoir. But after this recent blowout, it is almost like that anger ate up that anxiety and I was able to own a little more of myself. This time round, I feel a lot more justified and I don’t feel anxious like before.What I also loved that you were able to show to the readers was the tenderness of the father character and not just his anger. For instance, when he says “goodnight” or comes into your room the next morning after a blowout. It is a language, a gesture, a slight vulnerability. The accountability issue is what gets me, though. I would be fine with my father having an anger issue if he were to come around and fix it. You must fix what you break. If only he knew how to apologise. But that just does not happen.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111136/636cd4489c7e80680e08f9b5jpeg.jpg" alt="Niranjan Kunwar teacher USA" width="1434" height="1434"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Poet Nibha Shah said that we are not taught how to love, and I was thinking, perhaps it is the same with apology, too.  And how much we need that education. This is why I wanted to become a primary school teacher. One of my first encounters in the US was in a preschool classroom where the kids were learning, through story books, how to treat one another and the people in their communities with respect. I immediately saw that it was completely lacking in my life and in Nepal. It really moved me and when you think about family dynamics or even politics, I maintain that we learn our behaviours in the primary school classroom. If you don’t learn how to listen or respond to each other with respect, you won’t automatically learn it in parliament or after you get married. It’s too late by then. There are many of us who didn’t have this education or opportunity, and it is just something that we have to carry with us and try to do better.Lightroom Conversation is a monthly page in Nepali Times that features interesting figures in Nepal’s literary scene. <a href="http://www.munagurung.com">Muna Gurung</a> is a writer, educator and translator based in Kathmandu.

Muna Gurung

Niranjan Kunwar: Queering the story

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101112/636b6fce9c7e80680e060043jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2481" height="1656"/><figcaption>Amitabha Bagchi reeives the DSC prize 2019 from Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara in December 2019</figcaption></figure>There is not much to add about Amitabha Bagchi’s Half  The Night Is Gone that has not already been said. The winner of this year’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/2019-shortlist-announced-for-dsc-prize/">DSC Prize for South Asian Literature</a>, awarded at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-and-international-literature-festival/">Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara</a> last month, the book has been readily deemed the ‘Great Indian Novel’ of our time.Bagchi sets most of his novel in Delhi, with parts in Agra and Banaras. Writing in pre-independence times, Dilli’s rich lore and the old ganga jamuni tehzeeb of North India is woven beautifully into the novel – with intercuts of a harder, less forgiving modern-day shown in letters between chapters.Bagchi carefully constructs his plot – a long winded ambitious tale that tells the story of two families and their men sprawling across generations. This story is told by the fictional, award-winning Hindi novelist, Vishwanath, who takes breaks to pen letters to his brother, his dead son’s girlfriend and his estranged wife.Goswami Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas (an Awadhi retelling of Ramayana) undercuts the novel being written within the novel, with additional Sanskrit sloka, Hindi-Urdu couplets, and Qur’anic hadith referenced throughout, each with an English translation. Bagchi’s greatest feat is the way the quoted verses always add to the narrative, never distracting or pulling a reader away. As <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/books/waiting-for-the-monkeys-return-review-of-amitabha-bagchis-half-the-night-is-gone-by-shreevatsa-nevatia/article24714584.ece">The Hindu</a> put it, this is not an ‘Indian novel in English’, it is an Indian novel.The men Vishwanath writes about are deeply flawed and violent – they beat, rape and abandon their wives (stylistically depicted as ‘claiming their conjugal rights’) and yet, somehow, they are always portrayed as layered and interesting individuals. The writing is confusing, it is unclear if the framing of women as always youthful, inherently lustful and scheming is meant to highlight the predicament of women in Indian society or if Vishwanath is just a bad writer.Whatever the motivation, it is the novel's glaring fault. It is difficult to read  Omvati (She manages to get a name – something not every female character in the novel is granted) who is molested by her father in law, and as she stabs and wounds him in a ‘… a coruscating sweep that left her quivering. She felt arousal’.Later in the novel, her husband reaches for her and Omvati throws up again and again. In response, her husband beats and bribes her and ‘takes to visiting prostitutes’. There is never an effort to depict her inner feelings and trauma – only his frustration.Bagchi is a gifted storyteller, creating varied and interesting relationships between his characters both within their families and across them. Diwanchand, the younger son of Lala Motichand, is so devoted to Tulsida Ramcharitmanas, he leaves his inheritance, wife and child to dedicate his life to the work.Makhan Lal, Lala Motichand’s illegitimate child, is a Marx-loving schoolteacher who resents his father. Vishwanath is devastated by his son’s death in a road accident, and only in his grief does he begin to try and repair his relationships. It is only the caricatures of women that leave an unfortunate stain on the novel, a book that otherwise speaks to nostalgia, of interfaith harmony and complex family dynamics.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b6fd19c7e80680e060044jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="643">Half The Night Is GoneBy Amitabha BagchiJuggernaut, New Delhi, 2018320 pages    550 INRISBN:978-9386228703

A nostalgic Hindustani novel

<figure><img width="1968" height="1312" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95809c7e80680e05dc10jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Harish Trivedi, Jury Chair of the DSC Prize 2019, at the Shortlist Announcement event in London</figcaption></figure>The 2019 shortlist of books for the annual DSC prize for South Asian Literature has been announced. Half the Night is Gone by Amitabh Bagchi, 99 Nights in Logar by Jamil Jan Kochai, The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay, There’s Gunpowder in the Air by Manoranjan Byapari, The City and the Sea by Raj Kamal Jha, and The Empty Room by Sadia Abbas have made it to the shortlist, from 15 books long listed.  <img width="3762" height="2700" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95849c7e80680e05dc11jpeg.jpg" alt="">The DSC Prize is now in its ninth year, and is one of the most prestigious international literary awards specifically focused on South Asian fiction writing. Among the six four are authors of Indian origin and one author each of Pakistani and Afghan origin. It includes 3 debut novelists including 2 women writers, as well as a work of translation of a novel originally written in Bengali.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/written-locally-read-globally/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Written locally, read globally</a>, Sewa Bhattarai The chair of the jury panel Harish Trivedi announced the shortlist at for the prize of US $25,000 at London School of Economics &amp; Political Science. “The shortlist that we have arrived at comprises six novels – for the good reason that the five jurors, located in five different countries, could not agree on just five novels. Two of the six novels are set partly in New Delhi, and partly in the surrounding countryside in one case, and in the other case partly on the Baltic coast. One of the novels is set in Pakistan of the 1970s, one in Kashmir, and one in Afghanistan. The sixth is set in a prison,” said Trivedi.The Prize was founded by Surina Narula and Manhad Narula in 2010, and is administered by the South Asian Literature Prize &amp; Events Trust. It received 90 eligible entries this year. This year’s international jury panel includes Harish Trivedi (Jury Chair) former Professor of English, Jeremy Tambling, former Professor of Literature, Kunda Dixit, Editor of the Nepali Times newspaper, Carmen Wickramagamage, Professor of English, and Rifat Munim, literary editor of Dhaka Tribune. This year the winner of the DSC Prize 2019 will be announced at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/nepal-lit-festival/">IME Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara</a> in Nepal on 13-16 December.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/nepal-lit-festival/">Nepal Lit Festival</a>

2019 shortlist announced for DSC Prize

Nibha Shah: Nepali poetry’s mansara

Nepal’s only international aviation gateway, at Kathmandu airport, will cut night-time operation hours to allow construction of taxiways, and airlines have been told to curtail flights. This is expected to lead to more than normal chaos during the height of peak autumn and spring tourist seasons at an airport that is congested even at the best of times. The airport will close from 10PM to 8AM from 8 November-31 March 2025. The taxiways will now connect to the thresholds at both ends of the runway, making the airport more efficient in handling higher frequencies of landings and takeoffs. The parallel taxiway extension will allow international flights to land every 4 minutes instead of the current every 7 minutes. At present planes have to wait to land until a plane taking off backtracks along the runway.&nbsp; Kathmandu is Nepal’s only airport with international operations, and it has only one runway that is only one way in from the south over the mountains. With the taxiway improvement, the airport will be able to handle 42 aircraft landings and takeoffs per hour — double the current capacity.&nbsp; The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has been trying to entice international airlines to also start flying to and from the other two international airports at Pokhara and Bhairawa (Lumbini) by slashing landing and handling charges. But so far only Nepal Airlines operates a weekly flight to Bhairawa from Kuala Lumpur.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32" data-rendition-name="original" width="2356" height="1134" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport expansion"> <figcaption>Kathmandu Airport Expansion plan with extension of taxiways to the thresholds of runways 02 and 20 that will limit airport operations from 8 November 2024 - 31 March 2025. Areas in blue are existing structures, including the international terminal which in future will be the domestic airport, and the new international terminal near the north end of the runway,</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1353" height="1328" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport NT"> </figure>  CAAN has reportedly told international airlines to cut their flight frequency to Kathmandu citing the shorter operation hours and has told budget airlines to shift some of their flights to Pokhara or Bhairawa, or face cuts. Many airlines currently operate regular flights to and from Kathmandu between 10PM and 8AM: Air Arabia to Sharjah, Fly Dubai to Dubai, Jazeera Airways to Kuwait, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, Singapore Airlines, several Nepal Airlines flights, and one of four daily flights by Qatar Airways to Doha. Jazeera Airways, FlyDubai, and Thai AirAsia have applied and got permission from CAAN to begin regular flights to Bhairawa’s Gautam Buddha International Airport. Starting 9 November, FlyDubai will start making a stopover in Bhairawa before flying on to Kathmandu. Immigration, customs and security are all fully functional in Bhairawa. In Kathmandu, the next phase of the airport upgrade includes converting the current international terminal for domestic operations, the construction of a new international terminal where the domestic departure area is now, as well as moving the hangars and the Nepal Army Air Wing to the eastern side of the runway. The apron area will also double its parking space for widebody jets. This is part of a Airport Capacity Enhancement Project that was initially funded through a $80 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the entire masterplan is expected to cost $800 million. This project is the latest upgrade to Nepal’s only international airport since it saw its first flight in 1949. The current international and domestic terminals are too small to handle the current annual traffic volume of 8.5 million passengers a year that is growing at 20% a year.

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

As Kathmandu becomes more congested and polluted, and with remote online work becoming the norm, many professional Nepalis are planning to retire in Pokhara, or move there.&nbsp; With its stunning mountain panorama, balmy winters and proximity to a profusion of wilderness areas, builders are responding to this demand with new townhouses, housing development and apartments. One such block of flats is the 10-storey <a href="https://sungavaapartment.com/">Sungava Apartment</a> located at Phulbari above the Seti River, near the point where it flows into and under Pokhara. The imposing structure near Manipal Hospital is almost complete, and on a recent visit the site was strewn with huge boulders unearthed while digging the foundation.&nbsp; The Seti brought down these boulders during a gigantic flood that geologists estimate happened 800 years ago when a chunk of Annapurna IV broke off and ploughed into the glacier below. Today, Sungava (means ‘orchid’) sits safely on a high terrace, 100m above the blue-green Seti and commands a view of Dhaulagiri, Annapurna South, Machapuchre, Annapurna III and IV.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2016" height="1512" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  The soil here is conglomerate that has solidified like concrete, and the boulders were extracted by heavy earthmovers. It is intriguing to think that these metamorphic rocks as big as cars, rounded by glacial grinding, were once a part of a much higher Annapurna IV. Even for those with little interest in geology, Sungava is an ideal place to contemplate the tectonic forces that pushed these peaks into the sky to be sculpted into delicate shapes by wind, snow, earthquake and avalanche over millions of years. The view of the Himalayan panorama from Sungava’s many balconies are breathtaking when not obscured by clouds, or the haze that drifts in from across the southern border. On most days, just watching the towering pyramid of Machapuchre (Tamu name: कतासुँ क्लिको) play hide and seek with the clouds is mesmerising. There are rocks aplenty at Phulbari, and it is probably the flowers that grew along the flat terraces e that gave the place its flowery name. The boulders will hopefully be turned into a rock garden while landscaping. An nearby restaurant complex is making the best use of the stones in its design, using flat rocks as outdoor benches and tables. Sungava was designed by the husband-wife architect team of Deepak Sherchan and Jyoti Joshi of <a href="https://thedarkmermaidamarbshrestha.blogspot.com/2013/12/creative-builders-collaborative-cbc.html">Creative Builders Collaborative (CBC)</a>, which also built Heritage Plaza, Indreni Apartment and numerous other projects in Nepal. Sadbhavana retains CBC’s trademark Newari-style masonry and here it borrows from the orange brickwork of the old town of Pokhara, integrating it with modern design elements. A few of those heritage houses are still standing in Ganesh Tole and Ram Krishna Tole in Pokhara’s old quarter.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1362" height="595" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  About 400m from the apartment past a bend on the river, and down below three tiers of terraces in the canyon is a suspension bridge. Below it, the Seti is still swollen with post-monsoon flow as it tumbles away in a hurry to head down south.&nbsp; Back at the apartment, it is quiet, far away from the hubbub of Lakeside a 15 minute drive away, and in the lap of greenery. There are 52 units at Sungava and it already has a close-knit prospective community of professionals, including doctors, publishers, engineers, and businesspeople from the renewable energy and IT sectors.&nbsp; Some residents say they opted for a second home in Pokhara to make it a ‘base camp’ to explore the Annapurnas with its many hiking trails made newly accessible with new roads. With the NRN citizenship law, overseas Nepalis can now also buy the flats. &nbsp; The floor plans include options for north and south-facing 3-bedroom apartments with verandas, and the facility has underground parking has EV charging, heated pool, sauna and gym. There are still some unsold apartments with panoramic views of the mountains and one can imagine oneself at the kitchen with its huge window, humming a ditty while preparing breakfast: “खाना पकाउँ हिमाल हेरेर...”

High living below the Himalaya

When the United Nations held its Summit of the Future at its headquarters in New York in September, many world leaders, including Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Oli, highlighted the effect of climate breakdown in increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. What did not get as much attention was the long term impact of the climate crisis on food production. In fact, heat stress, weather extremes and the consequences on rain-fed agriculture is already being felt worldwide, undermining the chances of the <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/">UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a> being met by 2030.&nbsp; The SDG’s 17 targets commit countries like Nepal to reduce poverty and inequality, end malnutrition, protect the natural environment, and ensure that citizens all enjoy health, justice and prosperity without leaving anyone behind.&nbsp; However, besides the impact of climate breakdown on agricultural production, in Nepal the area under cultivation is impacted by urban expansion, falling productivity and the need for expensive inputs like fertiliser and pesticides.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Kathmandu's urban sprawl is eating into its fertile cultivable lands. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  Now, a new study led by Nepali researcher Prajal Pradhan at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands looks at how urban agriculture may offer a solution to falling food production and meeting SDG targets. The researchers evaluated 1,450 publications exploring the contributions of urban agriculture with both positive and negative effects, and published their findings in the journal Cells Report Sustainability. Urban agriculture can help achieve 17 SDGs, positively influencing 81 targets. However, it could also undermine 51 goals.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-vanishing-land">The vanishing land</a>, Taylor Mason “Urban agriculture offers immense potential for sustainable development, but realising this potential depends crucially on adopting practices that minimise its adverse effects while maximising its benefits,” Pradhan explains. Urban agriculture can substantially enhance urban food security, provide employment to the urban poor, serve as ground water recharge in built-up areas, and preserve open spaces that can serve as safe havens during disasters like earthquakes. However, it also presents problems like the potential health risks from contamination and the need for expensive inputs. &nbsp; “Urban agriculture plays a definitive role in advancing the SDGs, but achieving this requires tailored, context-specific solutions that address the unique challenges of different regions,” says Yuanchao Hu of Wuhan University in China and who is a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “But it needs equitable access and rigorous management of environmental risks.”&nbsp; Rapid urbanisation is eating into Nepal’s most fertile agricultural land, which means farming in remaining open spaces inside cities can be a viable alternative, especially as food prices rise.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>A vegetable patch in between new houses in Thimi. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  “The conversion of Nepal’s most fertile land into cities is a severe problem,” Pradhan told Nepali Times. “Crop cultivation, horticulture, agroforestry, beekeeping, livestock rearing, or aquaculture can all be farming activities within and around cities.”&nbsp; The study makes recommendations for sustainable practices that build on the positive aspects of urban agriculture while mitigating the downsides, thereby promoting more resilient cities in future. Research shows that urban agriculture has been helping many countries attain SDG targets by enhancing food security and biodiversity while helping education and preservation of open spaces.&nbsp; Indeed, many farmers from the hinterland who have settled in Kathmandu Valley or other urban areas of the country have been practicing urban agriculture, leasing neighbourhood patches or cultivating roof gardens both out of necessity because of inflation and falling income to grow their own food, and also as a fulfilling hobby. Saurav Dhakal, a sustainability advocate with Story Cycle and now research fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, says there are socio-economic and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. “It provides benefits to all urban dwellers, regardless of their income status,” says Dhakal, “families get fresh food, and there are many other benefits like water retention, heat regulation and biodiversity. These are all public goods, so special government incentives may be needed.” It is not unusual to see vegetable patches and even paddy fields within inner city Kathmandu where an older generation of farmers are using available fertile land and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/rooftop-gardens-kathmandu,1415">roof gardens to produce fresh, nutritious food </a>to reduce their dependence on food items that have to be bought after being trucked in from large distances.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>An older generation of farmers are using any available fertile land to continue farming but it is getting more and more difficult. Photo: TAYLOR MASON </figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s urban population grew rapidly from only 3.6% in 1991 to 25% today. There is large outmigration from the mountains to peri-urban areas of the Tarai, to Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara, with many young men then moving abroad for work. Kathmandu Valley’s population has swelled to nearly 3 million, and is growing at 6.5% a year. Dilip Shrestha, 71, used to work for Nepal Food Corporation, so he knew firsthand about inflation, shortages and vegetables with pesticide residue. So, when he designed his new house in Kathmandu, he built a spacious roof where he grows cucumber, ginger, garlic, coriander, onions, tomatoes, chili, beans, okra, pumpkin and lettuce. His family eats healthier, and he has reduced dependence on the market.&nbsp; The co-author of the Cell Reports Sustainability journal article, Daya Raj Subedi who is a PhD candidate at Beijing Forestry University, says urban agriculture also promotes inclusion and psycho-social wellbeing.&nbsp; He says, “A crucial finding of the study is the identification of opportunities and challenges associated with urban agriculture, it can promote sustainable transformation of society.” In Banepa, 55-year-old Bijaya Manandhar in her lifetime has watched the fertile farms of her neighbourhood that used to supply vegetables to Kathmandu, now completely built up with no open space left. The pandemic lockdown prompted her to turn to the family’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world">ancestral livelihood by growing food</a> not on terrace farms, but on the roof terrace. Manandhar is now a part of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world%5C%5C">कौसी खेती र करेसाबारी क्रान्ती</a> (Rooftop Farming and Garden Revolution) which has an online membership of 52,000, and awards annual prizes to women who excel in urban agriculture.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="736" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Rooftop farming is gaining popularity as a form of urban agriculture. </figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> </figure>  Pradhan says the challenge now is to upscale such examples of successful urban agricultural practices so they support Neal’s efforts to meet SDG targets. He adds, “Crop cultivation around cities can be protected by land use plans and regulations. Promoting community-based agriculture, including rooftop gardens, requires community engagement and public-private partnerships across the food value chain.”&nbsp; Such support would accelerate the popularity of existing rooftop farming and community gardens in Kathmandu Valley, or kitchen garden initiatives in Pokhara, and building on traditional farming practices that are preserved and integrated into urban settings like in Bhaktapur and Banepa. In Lalitpur, the Women Entrepreneurship Facilitation Center promotes urban farming enhancing both sustainability and empowerment.&nbsp; Another co-author of the report, Yuanchao Hu from China says followup research of the team will aim to identify good practices in local urban agriculture practices. He adds, “There are examples of urban agriculture that optimise sustainability, ensuring that it remains a viable solution for cities globally while countries try to meet SDG targets.” Prajal Pradhan, Daya Raj Subedi, Kshitij Dahal, Yuanchao Hu, Prakriti Gurung, Sijal Pokharel, Sagar Kafle, Biplav Khatri, Sudeeksha Basyal, Monika Gurung, and Aruna Joshi. Urban Agriculture matters for sustainable development. Cell Reports Sustainability, 1:100217, 2024. [DOI: 10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100217] Prajal Pradhan (<a href="mailto:p.pradhan@rug.nl">p.pradhan@rug.nl</a>) This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>

Back to the land in the cities

The 700-year-old Lakshmi Narasingha temple in Bhaktapur houses a rare half-lion and half-human incarnation of Lord Vishnu carrying the Goddess Lakshmi. The temple was destroyed in the 1934 mega earthquake that killed 10,000 people and destroyed many monuments in Kathmandu Valley. It was rebuilt by a German project in the 1980s, but as a single-storey structure instead of its original two-tier pagoda design.&nbsp; With new findings from in-depth research, Bhaktapur municipality began re-restoring the temple in 2021, preserving its original architecture.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “Our temples and heritage sites hold deep meaning. It is disheartening to witness how often they lose their original elements, whether by design or accident,” explains Kumar Chawal of the Consumer Committee of Bhaktapur. “There is a need to preserve our architecture and protect its historical value for future generations. Otherwise, we risk losing a vital part of our identity.” The Laksmi Narsingha restoration is similar to the Bhai Dega temple in Patan Darbar Square which also collapsed in 1934, but was rebuilt with a Moghul-style dome by the Rana government at the time. Only two months before the 2015 earthquake, heritage conservationists had started to rebuild Bhai Dega as the original three-tier based on early photographs. But priorities shifted when four other temples in the square were brought down by the 7.8M earthquake on 25 April 2015.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  This showed how damage to monuments in Kathmandu Valley spanned from one earthquake to the next. Bhai Dega restoration remains half-complete to this day because money for its restoration ran out.&nbsp; Whereas Bhai Dega restoration was done by the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust with grants from western embassies and international foundations, in Bhaktapur it is the municipality itself that allocated the Rs30.7 million needed to restore the Lakshmi Narasingha temple. The expected date of completion is early 2025. The municipality and local communities are focusing on two main aspects: preserving the past and promoting localisation. The restoration team has designed a blueprint for the temple by using historical photographs and insights from older generations.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="560" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “At first, the Lakshmi Narasingha temple had only one entrance, but during the demolition process, we uncovered the foundations of four doors. Now, we are restoring all of them. This is an example of how our ancient structures have changed over time, often without our knowledge,” says Chawal. “Constructing temples is not like building houses. They carry historical and spiritual values, which is why they hold a special place in our hearts,” he adds. By replicating ancient design elements and rebuilding the temple as accurately as possible to its original form, the team has stayed true to Bhaktapur’s soul. But the restoration also revived ancient techniques that were in danger of being forgotten, generating employment for woodcarvers, masons, and contractors. The community of Bhaktapur’s Gahiti neighbourhood near the famous Nyatapola Temple has also set aside specific days for locals to volunteer in the reconstruction work. This has encouraged young people to take pride in ownership of their heritage. Families have also supported the effort by donating funds for bells, the temple pinnacle, and other structural features to the temple.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “I feel at peace knowing I have contributed my sweat to restoring this temple,” said one volunteer. “It is our duty to preserve our temples and heritage. The Nyatapola area will look magical once this temple is completed.” Community mobilisation is a long-standing tradition in Bhaktapur. In the past, locals have actively participated in the restoration of other temples in the city, such as Bhairav and Nyatapola fostering a strong sense of ownership. This collective engagement has not only been crucial in preserving the city's historical monuments but also in strengthening the bond between local communities and their heritage, says officials at the municipality. While securing funding is essential, and the municipality showed it values heritage conservation, the Lakshmi Narasingha restoration is proof that active involvement and sense of responsibility of the local community is as important, if not more. Local involvement also means that the monuments will be cared for into the future, When locals take ownership of these efforts, the restored monuments are not only protected in the present but are also cared for in the future.