<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be13a9c7e80680e083e38jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2354" height="1000"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be13d9c7e80680e083e39jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2158" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>When researchers installed camera traps deep in the forested mountains of western Nepal last year, they expected to capture lots of shots of leopards. And they did, but one day in April while scanning the images, they could not believe their eyes.Among other animals that had taken selfies through the motion detector cameras, they found one of a tiger.Never before had a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/tiger-selfie-is-highest-ever-sighting-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/tiger-selfie-is-highest-ever-sighting-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF3oP_vAYZ3PfsalWrtELZ1pbNcmw">Royal Bengal Tiger been sighted</a> so high in the mountains of Nepal. Tigers are supposed to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/habitat-destrcution-of-tiger-in-Tarai,3423" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/habitat-destrcution-of-tiger-in-Tarai,3423&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGm29FKsZxdir_EOjgM3TzhGe9UCw">roam the tropical forests</a> of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-jungle-out-there/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-jungle-out-there/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEP6h8duXMepQJAgo7yYwEMcMZkkg">Bardia</a> or <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/chitwan-can-accommodate-more-tigers/">Chitwan National Parks</a> to the south, but this one was at 2,500m.The Divisional Forestry Office in Dadeldhura had installed the cameras with support from <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.worldwildlife.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGOZpuzGJTHDnu-nG-Uqfs0qBjBoA">World Wildlife Fund (WWF)</a> Nepal after locals reported seeing tigers. The researchers wanted to make sure, because the Nepali word bagh can mean both tiger and leopard. Indeed, the cameras shot many pictures of leopards, and this one tiger.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1409c7e80680e083e3ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1116"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“This convinced us that the forests of the Mahabharat Range here are not just a refuge for local wildlife, but is also an important nature corridor that should be protected,” said Ganesh Bhatta of the Dadeldhura District Coordination Committee. “We have got approval of the rural municipalities and will now take a proposal for a conservation area or national park to the Sudur Paschim Province assembly.”The forests of the Province have regenerated in the past 35 years after the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFE0G9t3pgRFxvOBv23HeHcwjKffQ">establishment of community forests</a>, and the thick vegetation has led to a proliferation of native animal, bird and land species.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1459c7e80680e083e3bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="487"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But it was the tiger sighting that made the case for a nature conservation zone stronger. Although this was the highest elevation at which a tiger has been seen in Nepal, the record is held by Bhutan’s Thrumsinghla National Park where tigers have been spotted at up to 3,350m.Tiger ecologists say the spread of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/taking-away-forests-from-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/taking-away-forests-from-communities/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFHXIG9yHHvROAq92G0mn3uEjWknQ">community forestry in Nepal</a>, which has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG5qt9JhC15KoVNKK7K_PMz9Q9I-A">doubled the country’s woodland areas in the past 25 years</a> could be one reason tigers are venturing so high. Other factors could be a reduction of prey density in the Tarai, water scarcity, as well as elevated temperatures in the plains due to global warming.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1479c7e80680e083e3cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="870"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be14b9c7e80680e083e3djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="640"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“The forests in the Mahabharat Range join the Kali and Karnali basins, and spread over an area of 700sq km that is important from a biodiversity perspective,” says Bishnu Acharya of the Dadeldhura Divisional Forestry Office, who adds that a further 800sq km could be declared a buffer zone, as in other conservation areas in the country.If approved, the 1,500sq km conservation area would add to Nepal’s 27,300sq km of protected areas, of which 11,900sq km are national parks. For comparison, Chitwan National Park is only 950sq km.Besides the tiger, the Divisional Forestry Office’s camera traps also showed the Mahabharat forests are teeming with other wildlife found both in the plains, such as the sambar deer and leopard, as well as ghoral and red fox which prefer the high Himalayan habitat.“Most wildlife research in Nepal tends to be either in the Tarai or the high Himalaya, and the Mahabharat Range with an elevation between 3,000-4,000m is usually left out, which is all the more reason to study and protect the biodiversity here,” Acharya explained.The camera traps were placed along the wildlife migratory route in the Bhageswar and Ghanteswar corridor with 32 camera in the first phase and 30 in the second. While most of the images in the first phase were of leopards, it was only later in the season that other animals, as well as the tiger, started appearing.The slopes of the Mahabharat Range form Nepal’s mid-hill spine from east to west, and is the most-densely populated mountain region in the world. Deforestation had driven out most of the wildlife from here, but with community forestry, the vegetation and animals are staging a comeback. In addition, most mid-hill districts have seen a decline in human population because of out-migration, and a reduced birth rate.Law makers both in Sudur Paschim Province as well as the Federal Parliament in Kathmandu are studying the National Parks and Wildlife Act of 1973 and the Forestry Act of 2019 to see if it is more feasible to declare the region a national park, or a conservation area.Acharya says: “Either way, it is important to protect this forest. But which model is more appropriate is a political decision, and that has to be made at the provincial and central level.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be14e9c7e80680e083e3ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="323" height="700"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Meanwhile, conservationists have been trying to figure out where the tiger that they camera trapped in April came from: whether it had strayed across the border from Nandu National Park in India, or climbed up from the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14581#.X7DccC8RoWp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D14581%23.X7DccC8RoWp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605513251910000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGKadye5WSol3bD9_vWxLjE3Q91kQ">Shukla Phanta</a> reserve in Nepal. They tried to compare the stripes to other tigers seen in Dadeldhura’s Jogbuda as well as Sukla Phanta, but none of them matched.The Dadeldhura district authorities at first did not want to publicise the fact that a tiger had been sighted in the mountains, so as not to attract poachers during the Covid-19 lockdown. But they later decided to let the story out, and when they did many local villagers came up with reports of their own sightings.One of them is 53-year-old Radha Devi Kathayat who lives near Dadeldhura town. She said: “It must have been about 22 years ago, we had gone to collect fodder in the forest and saw a tiger sprawled out in a clearing, fast asleep. It was definitely not a leopard with spots, this one had black stripes.” Her neighbour, Kalawati Kathayat, 54, confirmed she has also seen tigers in the forests before.Zoologist Karan Shah at Tribhuvan University says it is not unusual that tigers are found at higher altitudes, it is just that no one was looking for them before and there is anecdotal evidence that tigers have actually been spotted even higher up to 3,500m in Nepal.Acharya at the Dadeldhura Divisional Forestry Office says that if the proposal to set up a conservation area is indeed approved, the 53,014 hectares of Mahabharat forests in Dadeldhura and 23,000 hectares in Doti combined would form an important conservation corridor.

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Kali-Karnali jungle corridor proposed

https://youtu.be/4adGA4P0k54The buses to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2013/06/17/distress-call-from-darchula/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Darchula</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10816#.W5EAds4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Baitadi</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16115#.W5D_Ss4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Doti </a>or <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2013/03/13/not-so-far-west/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dadelhura </a>were all packed last week for the annual Gaura Festival of womanhood, celebrated in Western Nepal, and wherever people from the west of Nepal live.Across the districts of Far Western Nepal, towns are deserted and villages are abuzz with women engaged in weeklong fasting, feasting and revelry. This religious festival has deep agrarian roots, and celebrates the closes ties women have to the land and their crops.Saraswati Bhatta is shaping an image of the Goddess Gaura from rice stalks and decorating it like a bride with a red dress and jewelry. The doll god is then treated like a woman visiting her maternal home for her family’s pampering.Gaura is another name for Gauri, Shiva’s consort. Unlike Tij, which is marked on 14 September in the rest of Nepal, the Gaura Festival is more ritualistic with women soaking grains, fasting and then eating the sprouts. Unlike Tij, on the main day the men fast too until their wives’ puja ends.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/6369215f9c7e80680e03a0cajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>A woman throws down her walking stick to join hands with other women and sing along. All pics: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>But like Tij, Gaura is essentially a festival of, by and for women. Gaura songs are performed at predetermined times encapsulating the lifestyle and values of the entire community here in the remote mountains of western Nepal. The songs are about the courtship of Gaura and Maheswor (Siva and Parvati for easterners), a woman’s experience of childbirth, and many other social events.The lyrics outline social customs like the dates of festivals, and behaviour expected from men and women. Some songs describe which food is found in what season, and even where to find water. The festival serves as an elaborate information and communication system set in song long before mass media served that purpose. The songs instill a knowledge of roles, values, and social mores, and help people feel rooted in the community.The Gaura platform still gives women in a society steeped in patriarchy a rare chance to voice their perspective and provide valuable insight into women’s lives and thoughts. On the fourth day of the festival, women dance with the image of Gaura and send her off to her husband’s home, singing songs of bereavement.However, the Gaura Festival, like Tij, while allowing women to let off steam hand serve an emancipating role, also establishes the gender status quo, instructing women them about their place in society.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18795#.W5EfLM4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Songs of our past</a>, Amar Gurung<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921629c7e80680e03a0cbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The festival is followed by popular mela, and people from all over the region congregate here in Malikarjun of Darchula situated amidst lush mountains above the clouds. Food stalls and shops line the site, damaha players strike drum beats rousing people with deeply devotional music. The strong feeling of community is enhanced by women in traditional clothes and jewelry who do slow walk-dances while singing in circles for hours.“Both men and women sing songs of local histories and epic poems, and express their feelings spontaneously, this might seem like just entertainment, but it is also a way of preserving and passing down our history,” says Mohan Dhami, an expert of local culture.Despite its continuing popularity, the significance of Gaura in communicating the spirit of community is losing out to modern lifestyles with mobility and mass communication. However, it still carries a strong sense of identity for the people of Western Nepal wherever they may live.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16252#.W5Eeys4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Re-inventing Tij</a>, Mallika Aryal<a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em; font-size: 15px;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/songs-of-rebellion,3249" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Songs of rebellion</a>, Smriti Basnet<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921659c7e80680e03a0ccjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921689c7e80680e03a0cdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/6369216c9c7e80680e03a0cejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/6369216e9c7e80680e03a0cfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921729c7e80680e03a0d0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1010"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921759c7e80680e03a0d1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/636921789c7e80680e03a0d2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161116/6369217c9c7e80680e03a0d3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>

Fasting, feasting and festivities of Gaura

While the streets of Kathmandu were erupting violent GenZ protests that brought down the government, Nepal’s athletes were achieving different kinds of breakthroughs on Spain’s mountain trails and in the cricket qualifiers in the UAE.&nbsp; On 27 September, two weeks after the uprising back home, Nepal's cricket team stunned the sporting world with their first-ever victory against a full member nation — defeating two-time World Cup champions West Indies by 19 runs, then crushing them by 90 runs two days later to seal a historic 2-0 series victory. On that very day, 5,000km away in the Spanish Pyrenees Sunmaya Budha stood on a podium alongside American and European champions, clutching a silver medal from the 3rd World Mountain and Trail Running Championships. No Asian athlete had ever finished this high in the Long Trail competition at the World Championships. While youth back home showed they would not tolerate injustice and could carve their own future, young Nepalis were securing it on the global sports stage even in moments of national crisis.&nbsp; The Long Trail event at the 2025 World Championships was designed to break even the strongest athletes. Stretching 82km through the Spanish Pyrenees, the course features an unrelenting 5,413m of elevation gain and descent.&nbsp; Athletes faced everything from steep scree slopes to narrow ridge lines, from boulder fields requiring scrambling to precipitous descents demanding total concentration. One misstep could mean injury, one lapse in focus could cost precious minutes.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="731" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>The Nepal team at the World Championships 2025 with the final four: Sangge Sherpa, Sunmaya Budha, Suman Kulung, Man Kumar Roka Magar. Photo: PREETI KHATTRI</figcaption> </figure>  WOMEN'S COMPETITION Katie Schide (USA) - Winner • Time: 9:57:59 • Average pace: 7:18 per km&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sunmaya.budha.942">Sunmaya Budha </a>(Nepal) - Silver Medal • Time: 10:23:03 • Gap behind winner: 25 minutes and 4 seconds • Average pace: 7:36 per km Most recreational trail runners need 18-24 hours to complete this course, if they can finish it at all. Budha's pace means she was running at a speed that most casual runners could not maintain on a flat course, let alone while constantly climbing and descending mountains. MEN'S COMPETITION Jim Walmsley (USA) - Winner • Time: 8:35:11 • Average pace: 6:17 per kilometer (10:07 per mile) &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/runnersumankulung">Suman Kulung (Nepal)</a> - 32nd Place • Time: 10:06:25 • Average pace: 7:24 per km • Finished 1 hour 31 minutes behind the winner • Best performance by an Asian male athlete &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rokamagarmankumar764">Man Kumar Roka Magar (Nepal)</a> - 37th Place • Time: 10:10:53 • Average pace: 7:27 per km • Finished just 4.5 minutes behind Kulung <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Yetimannnnn">Sangge Sherpa (Nepal)</a> - 116th Place • Time: 12:33:09 • Average pace: 9:11 per km  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="904" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sangge Sherpa organising himself post gear check in Can-Franc.</figcaption> </figure>  The men's winner averaged about 6:17/km on a course where elite mountain runners were struggling. Kulung and Roka Magar maintained a 7:24-7:27/km pace—faster than many recreational runners' easy flat road pace. They were faster than dozens of European athletes who train in the Alps. Even Sherpa's 9:11/km average pace over 12+ hours represents an extraordinary feat of endurance, maintaining forward progress on some of the most challenging mountain terrain in competitive trail running. “What set Budha apart was her exceptional descending ability. She recorded the fastest downhill speed among all women in the competition—a skill honed through years of training on Nepal’s steep mountain trails,” said her team director Ryan S Blair.&nbsp; Sunmaya Budha, ranked world 8th for 100km category events and 17th in the world by the International Trail Running Association (ITRA), entered the race having recently recovered from injuries to both legs.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1070" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sunmaya storming in 2nd position. Photo: WMTRC2025 CANFRAC </figcaption> </figure>  While American Katie Schide dominated from the front, Budha found herself in an intense battle for second place with Italy's Fabiola Conti, a specialised skyrace and mountain marathon runner. The two runners remained locked together through much of the course, running side-by-side at key checkpoints and pushing each other through the mountain wilderness. In ultra-trail racing, where climbs are often win by fractions of minutes, the ability to descend fearlessly and efficiently can make the difference between podium positions. Budha's technical prowess on the descents gave her a advantage over her European competitors. The decisive moment came in the final 20km. At the 65km mark, Budha held a 90-second lead over Conti. By 71.5km she had extended her advantage to eight minutes — a commanding gap she maintained to the finish. In a powerful display of national pride, she approached the finish wrapped in the Nepali flag, showing the world what Himalayan athletes can achieve on the global stage. Said Preeti Khattri, team lead for Nepal: "Standing right beside the USA and European peer. Proud. No Asian athletes have ever made it this far.” MEN, TOO While Budha captured headlines with her silver medal, the performances of Suman Kulung and Man Kumar Roka Magar were equally significant. Both athletes topped Asian athletes and numerous European competitors. Suman Kulung delivered a performance that demonstrated extraordinary mental toughness and racing intelligence. What makes his 32nd place finish even more impressive is that 1.5km he encountered a severe bottleneck on narrow technical trails.&nbsp; This critical delay pushed him back to around 92nd position—a devastating setback in a world championship race where every second counts. Many athletes would have been demoralised by such an early disaster.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09" data-rendition-name="original" width="668" height="445" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Suman Kulung coming through 65km Assisted Checkpoint. Photo: DR SIGRID FOUNDATION</figcaption> </figure>  But Kulung showed why he is Nepal's top-ranked trail runner: he launched a spectacular comeback. By the 30km mark, he had charged through the field to reach approximately 20th position — recovering over 70 places in less than 30km.&nbsp; His final time of 10:06:25 placed him ahead of runners from traditional mountain running powers including Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, and was the highest-finishing Asian male athlete in the competition.

Nepali runners score breakthroughs

In 2004, Poet Durga Lal Shrestha asked me to translate 223 little poems from Newa into English. They were each written as sestet-- terse in their form but heavy in imagery and sentiment. The novice translator in me struggled to find the best way to convey his poetry in English-- but the process became a tour as I discovered my mother tongue anew. The highlight, however, was Shrestha’s handwriting. His calligraphy is immaculate. He had given me photocopies from the notebook he had written the poems in and each page looked as though they were freshly out of the press. The letters bore a consistency, unswayed by the emotions of his poetry. Sometimes, I would just stare at the handwriting in admiration.&nbsp; Someone else had been similarly besotted by his writing: “I met him 25 years ago in the UK when he was the chief guest at a Mha Puja event organised by Pasa Pucha,” recollects Ojesh Singh, writer and engineer. “We were roommates. I noticed he couldn’t stop writing.”&nbsp; Shrestha, an octogenarian now, was a teacher at Kanya Mandir School for many years, where his writing was admired by colleagues and students. Known as Janakavi or People’s Poet, a title bestowed on him by the Nepal Bhasha Parishad, Shrestha is also the recipient of the Jagadamba Shree Puraskar for his contribution to literature.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> <figcaption>From left to right: Suman Shrestha, Ananda Kumar Maharjan, Durga Lal Shrestha, Ojesh Singh, and Arbindra Man Singh. Photo: SUCHITA SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  “He would write on anything he could lay his hands on. On tissue paper, envelopes, cigarette boxes. It struck me how neat and tidy his writing was,” says Singh. “The structure and size were perfectly in sync-- and as an aspiring graphic designer then, I fell in love with his writing. Later, whenever I read his books, I thought it would be nice to read them in his writing.” After sitting with the notion of turning Shrestha’s writing into a digital font for years, in 2024, he reached out to a small group of people who he thought might be allies.&nbsp; “It was during Ojesh Ji’s book launch that we met and talked about the possibility of turning Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing into font,” recalls Ananda Kumar Maharjan, who has designed the Durga Lal Shrestha font and is affiliated with Callijatra, an organisation promoting Newa calligraphy.&nbsp; For Singh, the desire to immortalise the poet's handwriting wasn’t only coming from personal admiration, it was also about preserving the writing of a language and literature leader and activist. He offered to fund the font project, which meant paying for Maharjan’s time and dedication. He also drew into the conversation Shrestha’s son Suman, who has been an integral part of the process.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374" data-rendition-name="original" width="616" height="728" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  The others involved in the process were journalist Arbindra Man Singh, who had been scanning Shrestha’s writing for the book Hastakshar, a collection of poems printed in the author’s handwriting. Also an enthusiast of converting Shrestha’s writing to a font, Singh provided help in bringing together the scans, based on which Maharjan picked the best letter for each alphabet to create a complete set.&nbsp; “Doing this was different from other font developments I have done in the past,” explains Maharjan, who has also digitised his own handwriting into a font, called Anand. “To create Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing as font, I had to analyse his writing archive and pick the best.”&nbsp; He adds: “There was a book published in his writing, so there were scans and digital archiving done by Arbindra Ji, which became the foundation for my work.” He had to find a prototype for each alphabet based on the scans. He traced the letters on Illustrator and copied them to a MAC software called Glyphs where he had to enter each letter, using a traditional Devanagari keyboard instead of Unicode.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb" data-rendition-name="original" width="818" height="766" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  “I had to be very careful to keep it accurate. Conjunctions need attention,” Maharjan says. “There are half letters, saint letters, ligatures and open type features to pay attention to, this is more advanced than the fonts I’ve created in the past.” &nbsp; Maharjan has designed this font in three different variations that users can play with. “Writing changes with age. While young, people write better, but with age, it starts to change. Since Durga Lal Shrestha hasn’t been very well lately, his hand shakes when he writes. So, we had to pick the best of his writing from the records,” he adds. “People also tend to write in different styles depending on their mood so we took the best four of every letter and traced and picked one.”&nbsp; Handwriting is deeply intimate and in this day and age of tech, becoming lost.&nbsp; What bothers me about the day of phones is that I no longer know what the writing of those close to me look like. I no longer know how you press the pen between our fingers or how you tilt it against the paper or how you pause to write periods or how the nib makes a perfect tiny orb before you drag it just so, to turn it into a comma. The familiarity of the nuances of someone’s writing is lost on us.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654" data-rendition-name="original" width="992" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  Ojesh Singh agrees with me. He says it’s important to keep handwriting alive as people become more and more tech-dependent. People are likely to interact even less with letters on paper, but at least we can have fonts, he says.&nbsp; A set of six books by poet Durga Lal Shrestha is set to be launched on 31October. One of them, entitled, Kawa, is typeset in the Durga Lal Shrestha Font. The font will be made available to the general public after the books have been released. In July, I had visited Shrestha, who I also call Durga Lal Taaba, as many Newa people in my generation do. Seated in the quiet of his home, he conversed about literature and language with my father and my uncle. Coming out of Taaba, Newa, which has a utilitarian function for me to communicate with my parents, sounded more like a lyric.&nbsp; I asked him what he thinks about his handwriting being archived as a font. He replied: “This body is going to be gone eventually, so I thought maybe my handwriting could live on.” Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people in Pratibha’s life.

Digitising the savant calligrapher

The winter air pollution season started early this year with emissions, Diwali firecrackers and crop residue burning making the air unbreathable across north India. Much of the pollution was transboundary, with prevailing winds carrying the suspended particulates from Pakistan, across India to Nepal and beyond. All this pollution and domestic emissions killed 41,300 in Nepal in 2023, and 85% of all deaths were because of noncommunicable diseases such as heart and lung disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and dementia, according to the State of Global Air (SoGA) 2025 report released Thursday. With the onset of winter, Kathmandu Valley’s own emissions are trapped in a surface inversion layer and as in previous years will have some of the worst air quality in the world.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49" data-rendition-name="original" width="921" height="850" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  The SoGa report says air pollution has now become the leading risk factor for deaths in Nepal, ahead of tobacco and high blood pressure. Interestingly, while the health impacts due to environmental risk factors such as unsafe water and sanitation have reduced significantly since 2000, the opposite is true for ambient PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns). Globally, 7.9 million deaths were attributable to air pollution– about 1 in 8 deaths – in 2023. Of this total, 4.9 million deaths were attributable to PM2.5 exposure, 2.8 million were from household air pollution, and 470,000 were from ozone. Similarly, dementia attributable to air pollution resulted in 626,000 deaths and 40 million healthy years of life lost. And 95% of air pollution attributable deaths in adults over the age of 60 are due to noncommunicable diseases. The burden of noncommunicable diseases in relation to air pollution is rising worldwide and in Nepal. The SoGA report shows that nearly nine of ten global air pollution deaths are from chronic ailments, and half of all respiratory disease deaths are attributable to air pollution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  In Nepal, air pollution is responsible for three out of four COPD deaths, one out of three heart deaths and one out of five diabetes deaths. More than one third of lower respiratory infection deaths were due to air pollution. “The data presented in the State of Global Air report highlight the significant impacts of poor air quality on the health and well-being of billions of people around the world, especially those living in Asia and Africa,” says Pallavi Pant of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) that released the report in collaboration with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the NCD Alliance. She adds: “Growing momentum on air quality management across those hard-hit locations, including expansion of air quality monitoring, adoption of air quality regulations, and sector-specific interventions are yielding improvements for those most impacted.” Low- and middle-income countries stand to gain most by reducing air pollution, with particularly strong impacts on children, older populations, and people with pre-existing health conditions. Indeed, of the 41,300 air pollution deaths in 2023 in Nepal, 31,600 were in adults over the age of 60 years and 3,500 in children below five years. Death rate for air pollution in Nepal, which is 178 per 100,000, is more than 10 times higher than high-income countries, which is at 17 per 100,000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1078" height="423" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  “Win-win solutions for air pollution and NCDs exist, with added benefits for climate, physical activity, nutrition, and many other global development priorities,” says Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director at the Geneva-based NCD Alliance. “These policies are effective and deliver a strong return on investment - for the sake of our people and the planet we need to implement them faster.” Fine particle pollution (ambient PM2.5) is the largest driver of air pollution’s burden of disease worldwide as kit attributed to 4.9 million deaths and 124 million healthy years of life lost in 2023. Vehicles, power plants, factories, and homes, as well as agricultural and industrial activities, waste burning and wildfires are some of the biggest sources of pollutants. South Asia is among the regions of the world with the highest exposures to ambient PM2.5 , while more than 36% of people around the world live in areas where PM2.5 levels do not meet even the least stringent interim target. As per the report, 78% of Nepal’s 30 million population lives in areas where annual PM2.5 exposure exceeds the least stringent WHO Air Quality Interim Target of 35 µg/m3. Meanwhile, exposure to household air pollution due to the use of solid fuels for cooking remains an important driver for the disease burden in the country. “Ongoing efforts to meet global development goals are not achievable without directly addressing air pollution,” says Maria Neira, Commissioner of Our Common Air. “Countries and cities must focus their efforts toward reducing air pollution emissions, including household air pollution, which has particularly severe impacts on young children and older people across Asia and Africa.”

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