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

Pinki Sris Rana

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

thumbnail

viewImage

Daughter of Chomolungma

A Flushing Local 7 subway train approaches the platform and commuters get ready to step in. The scene cuts to solid black. These first few seconds set the tone for the rest of Diversity Plaza — this is going to be a film &nbsp;about people in motion. Movement through time and space is something of a trademark for acclaimed documentary maker Kesang Tseten, with previous films like In Search of the Riyal, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13035">We Corner People</a>, Castaway Man and Frames of War. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Kesang-Tseten-documentary-on-Dor-Bahadur-Bista,2176">Some of these films</a> will be screened in a retrospective this weekend.&nbsp; For the next minute or so, Diversity Plaza shows us beauty parlours and nail salons, a kabab king, street vendors, a Covid-19 vaccine centre and a momo van.&nbsp; We are in Jackson Heights in the New York borough of Queens. A subtitle tells us it is ‘the most linguistically diverse zip code in the US and perhaps the world’. Queens is home to 75,000 immigrants from Nepal, Bhutan and India. More than 60% of the people here are foreign-born and speak 160 languages. They are politically aware, and concerned about their place in a changing America, and an altered world. There is an intersection in Queens actually named Diversity Plaza, and Tseten films immigrants campaigning for candidates for city council amidst the Covid crisis, while there are attacks on Asians after President Trump called the bug the “Chinese Virus”. Near the Plaza in a nondescript building is Adhikaar which works for the rights of Nepali immigrants. &nbsp;Among them is Dibya Shori Shakya, who ever so slowly writes her name and address on the board. A group of women gathers to talk about being ashamed initially of their status as domestic help and nannies. “The children we raise will go on to become doctors, engineers or even presidents someday. So we shouldn’t feel lowly or discriminate against ourselves,” says one woman. United Sherpa Association Inc may sound like a mountaineering outfit, but is a monastery. After prayers, devotees do yoga. Some asana are too difficult, and they burst out laughing.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024022304020_dc3c87201c606792b8980dbb7203eb88332eebf015f4e3a638a74c9c11a780b0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024022304020_dc3c87201c606792b8980dbb7203eb88332eebf015f4e3a638a74c9c11a780b0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1426" height="750" loading="lazy" alt="Diversity Plaza"> <figcaption>Screengrab from Kesang Tseten's Diversity Plaza</figcaption> </figure>  This is an intimate look at Himalayan peoples living in Jackson Heights, their struggles and aspirations. Some are busy celebrating festivals and keeping traditions alive, others try to assimilate and are more concerned with making their voices heard in their new country. Adhikaar staff are out on the streets of New York including at Times Square in Manhattan, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-promise-of-an-american-dream">advocating for immigrant rights</a>. They are also urging fellow Nepalis to fill up census applications. “Census means numbers. What happens when there are numbers? Power, and when there is power, there is wealth… when there is wealth there is respect and when there is respect, there is recognition,” Narbada Chettri of Adhikaar explains on camera. During the film’s hour-long runtime, viewers in Nepal are transported to the other side of the world, almost forgetting that the scenes are happening on a screen. The cuts are rough, almost cinéma vérité style, unlike some of the sleeker films being made today. Tseten does not embellish the stories, the landscape, the people. Like his previous documentaries, the film lays bare the raw reality of immigrant life in America.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kesang-tseten-is-still-silent-but-not-absent">The director</a> himself takes a back seat, his inputs barely discernible. But of course he is there throughout in the composition of the shots, selection of scenes, the final edits. Tseten calls it an ‘unprompted’ style modelled after American filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. Even though there is no script in Diversity Plaza, the documentary still has a beginning, middle and an end. In Kathmandu this week, Tseten recalled how he was in New York in 2021, trying to persuade a character for his forthcoming film on the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/bon-voyage"> Bön Po</a>, when he heard about Diversity Plaza with its strong Nepali presence. He was familiar with Jackson Heights ever since he was a student at Columbia Journalism School in the 1980s, and it piqued his attention. “Diversity Plaza is like Thamel,” he says. “The restaurants are filled with our own people.” The documentary ends on a high note, literally and figuratively. An immigrant from India performs a Karnatak song as the 7 train clatters above Diversity Plaza. She translates the verse into English before singing its original: “Do not seek or mind similarity in identity in the world. Why is it that we always look for the things that are the same about one another instead of celebrating and valuing our differences?” &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024022304020_d5d5a26acda7234986e3edbd6f7dc593b10ecdeaf2f4178880249381d5371ec2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2024022304020_d5d5a26acda7234986e3edbd6f7dc593b10ecdeaf2f4178880249381d5371ec2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1135" height="635" loading="lazy" alt="Diversity Plaza"> </figure>  Social Science Baha and photo.circle's Kesang Tseten Retrospective will take place from 23 to 25 February at Nepal Tourism Board.

Sonia Awale

Seeking identity in diversity

As one of the last countries in the world to introduce television in 1998, and internet a year later, Bhutan has a whole new generation of young adults who have grown up with access to movies, football matches, and Facebook. The Buddhist-majority country holds its culture and traditions dear, and parents expect to pass these values down to their children who are having difficulty adjusting to the two worlds. The Next Guardian (2017) is a new documentary that explores this contrast between traditionalist values and modernist changes in Bhutan and questions the ideals of the country’s Gross National Happiness slogan. Directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, the feature-length documentary follows a teen brother and sister, Gyembo and Tashi, who love soccer and their phones. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/in-nepal-east-meets-west-musically">In Nepal, East meets West musically</a>, Shrijan Pandey  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023061113068_f36c45447643ca3e6bf111ef35f2f40b131ec34b3649566c774f1ae9d64698e7.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2023061113068_f36c45447643ca3e6bf111ef35f2f40b131ec34b3649566c774f1ae9d64698e7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="803" loading="lazy" alt="The Next Guardian NT 2"> </figure>  Their father runs a monastery and believes that their culture must be passed on to future generations to preserve it. Gyembo is studying in a modern English school, loves football, and has crushes on some girls in his class. But he is suddenly expected to become a monk. Bhattarai came up with this true story when he heard about Bhutan’s first female football camp. He spent six months in the camp and finally came across Tashi who looked and acted like a boy and wanted to become a football player. However, after meeting her family and Gyembo, he changed his focus to show the widening generational gap in Bhutan by documenting one family’s story. “We saw it as an opportunity to reflect on how Bhutan is changing,” Bhattarai told an online audience during an online screening of his documentary by Screen Southasia organised by Himal Southasian, which also holds the biannual Film Southasia documentary festival. “Screen Southasia was born out of our love for South Asian documentaries and Film Southasia’s massive archive of documentaries and network of alumni,” says Alok Adhikari, Assistant Director of Film Southasia. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/pasang-lhamu-sherpa-the-film">Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the film</a>, Tayama Rai  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023061113068_fb42d3dac6947db26be86256f41b27af537a886692cafd2e5ed54636de071111.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2023061113068_fb42d3dac6947db26be86256f41b27af537a886692cafd2e5ed54636de071111" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="856" loading="lazy" alt="The Next Guardian NT 3"> </figure>  Screen Southasia hosts monthly online shows of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka -- a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of the Subcontinent. Screenings are followed by Q&amp;A sessions &nbsp;with the filmmaker, editor, camera person to better understand the craft of filmmaking, funding and marketing aspects.&nbsp; June’s selected The Next Guardian effectively captures the transition of Bhutan to the digital age as Gyembo, Tashi, and their friends use smartphones, watch football tutorials, take photos, and talk to friends on Facebook. It also portrays how Gyembo is not different from young people anywhere else in the world today. In contrast, their father prepares local dishes, does everyday rituals, performs traditional dances, and is passionate about Buddhist teachings. With its rich cinematography, the film uses static wide shots to portray the scenic beauty of Bhutan and to showcase the rhythm of everyday rural life in the country. Key to Bhattarai’s filming style is not to use a lot of movement to capture the real, authentic rituals of the family with cinéma vérité technique. The cinematography is unobtrusive, and the characters ignore the film-makers and go about without being at all self-conscious. The blurs the dimension between film and reality. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/on-screen-mountains">On-screen mountains</a>, Sahina Shrestha  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023061113068_0bdb4decbe10c16488b4afe993680dba4313ed7d4f3c509713ed2178cde00c1d.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2023061113068_0bdb4decbe10c16488b4afe993680dba4313ed7d4f3c509713ed2178cde00c1d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="850" loading="lazy" alt="The Next Guardian NT 4"> </figure>  “Sometimes, I waited for hours observing their day-to-day interactions. Some clips were possible only after the protagonists opened up as themselves, forgetting the camera,” Bhattarai explains. The film delves into the traditional South Asian dynamic where a child cannot say no to parents and is expected to carry out their wishes. The father constantly tries to convince Gyembo of the advantages of becoming a monk and the importance of preserving heritage. Gyembo has different dreams, celibacy not being one of them, yet he never actively protests. “Since I grew up near Bhutan, I wanted to tell this story,” says Bhattarai. Tashi has her own arc in the story, dressing up and cutting her hair like a boy, and she is mostly drawn to masculine behaviour. She is passionate about being a football player, and the film shows a wonderful acceptance of Tashi’s gender expression by her family and society at large. Her father, in line with his strong Buddhist beliefs, sees Tashi as a girl born with the spirit of a boy from her past life and calls it natural. And after seeing movie, Gyempo’s father postponed sending him to the monastery. The Next Guardian was the first documentary film many people in Bhutan watched in a cinema for the first time. It won the Best Documentary at the Zsigmond Vilmos Film Festival in 2018, and was nominated for the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Films like The Next Guardian highlight dynamic cultures and their unique ways of relating to the world. However, financing is difficult, and filmmakers often have to rely on producers from the West.&nbsp; Says Arun Bhattarai: “What this means is that rather than producing a relatable film for the local audience, sometimes you have to make it relatable to a Western audience.” Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/at-the-edge-of-tomorrow">At the edge of tomorrow</a>, Mark Turin The next Screen Southasia event will be a film from Bangladesh.

In the land of Gross National Happiness

The Sherpa high altitude guides who take climbers to the tops of Himalayan peaks and glory have for decades been nameless and consigned to the shadows. They are also exposed to the most dangerous parts of mountains for the longest period -- as the tragic death of three guides on the Khumbu Icefall this month proved. Things were not much different back in the autumn of 1990 when Pasang Lhamu Sherpa attempted to climb Mt Everest. The French leader of the expedition she was with ordered her to go back down. He seemed to be worried Pasang would steal the thunder from his climbers.&nbsp; As it turned out, Christine Janine became the first French woman to climb the world’s highest peak as Pasang Lhamu looked on from a lower camp. She realised it was her identity as a Nepali Sherpa woman that prevented her from getting to the top too. This ordeal only made her more determined to become the first Nepali woman to conquer Chomolungma. Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest is an inspiring story of the ambition, dedication, and triumph of this amazing woman. In equal part, it is the retelling of a tragedy that transcends socio-cultural boundaries.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230422040440_a41b978e19c989753156c07a2cdebb4d5fcc2b3637e5143cdff192f4d8e1e6a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20230422040440_a41b978e19c989753156c07a2cdebb4d5fcc2b3637e5143cdff192f4d8e1e6a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="719" height="478" loading="lazy" alt="Nancy Svendsen, Ang Dorjee Sherpa, and Dawa Yangzum"> <figcaption>From left: Dawa Yangzum, Ang Dorjee Sherpa and Director Nancy Svendsen.</figcaption> </figure>  "Her incredible story moved me," says Nancy Svendsen, the director of the 72-minute documentary that premiered on 19 April, ahead of the 30th anniversary of Pasang Lhamu’s historic climb on 22 April 1993, and the 70th anniversary of the first climb on 29 May 1953.&nbsp; Svendsen was first introduced to Pasang Lhamu not as a Nepali national hero, but as the late sister of her brother-in-law, Ang Dorjee Sherpa. But the climber’s story resonated strongly with Svendsen who had worked in corporate America, a field traditionally dominated by men. "From that moment, I have been working to gather her archival footage and pictures. I started with very little. We had maybe a few home videos and scrapbooks of pictures her daughter gave me, and that was it," recalls Svendsen. Pasang Lhamu came from a deprived farming family so much of her climbs and expeditions were never filmed. But Pasang makes it work with press footage combined with contemporary photos to portray her life. Svendsen has also deployed clever edits and animation to show Pasang Lhamu’s last journey. The entire production took 10 years with Svendsen changing her career to become a first-time filmmaker to locate and interview the late mountaineer’s colleagues, including Pemba Norbu, the last person to see Pasang Lhamu alive. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/on-screen-mountains">On-screen mountains</a>, Sahina Shrestha  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230422040440_720c4705cb02a6e2881cc63ae2188da46c580cb200f2202977e3c8c5a6841163.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230422040440_720c4705cb02a6e2881cc63ae2188da46c580cb200f2202977e3c8c5a6841163" data-rendition-name="original" width="452" height="700" loading="lazy" alt="thumbnail_Pasang-Lhamu-Sherpa"> <figcaption>Pasang Lhamu Sherpa</figcaption> </figure>  "It seems much like everything even risk-taking is gendered," says Dawa Futi Sherpa, Pasang Lhamu's eldest daughter and president of the Pasang Lhamu Foundation and Nepal’s former ambassador to Spain. "For the longest time my mother was criticised for leaving her family and takings risks with her life even as she was doing it for her country and Nepali women." Pasang Lhamu, born the only daughter of a Sherpa mountaineer, was not allowed to go to school or mountaineering with her brothers like the majority of Nepali women of her time. She eloped, escaping an arranged marriage, with Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa and opened her own trekking company in Kathmandu. Mother to three, she was a homemaker determined to level the status of Nepali women to what Western women had at that time. It was not necessarily her mountaineering skill she wanted to prove. Her struggle is seen in the backdrop of Nepal's quest for democracy as she clashes with the prime minister, political parties, and Western mountaineers to fund her expeditions. As she embarks on her fourth and final mission to Everest, we can see how the subordinate status inflicted on her for being a woman, a Sherpa, and a Nepali led to decisions that proved to be fatal for her and her team in that 1993 expedition. Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest brings the real Pasang Lhamu Sherpa to life, beyond what little is depicted in school textbooks while also addressing controversies surrounding her final climb through first-hand accounts. It equally showcases her trailblazing character that led to national mourning after her demise. "Climbing Mt Everest as a Nepali woman then is harder than climbing 14 peaks now," notes Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, the first Nepali international mountain guide who was at the premiere of the film in Kathmandu this week. Dawa Yangzum Sherpa herself started her career by climbing the Pasang Lhamu Foundation walls, and says that a whole generation of Nepali women mountaineers has grown up inspired by the legacy of Pasang Lhamu. After Pasang Lhamu, 65 Nepali women have scaled Mt Everest. Winner of 14 international film awards, Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest honors the legendary climber while also delving into the realities of Sherpas, often sidelined in mountaineering films. Public screenings of the Nepali version will begin on 28 April and there are plans for shows in 15 locations in Kosi and Madhes provinces with donations raised during its Nepali premiere. House Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire and famed ophthalmologist Sanduk Ruit were among the attendees at the premiere where Ang Dorjee Sherpa said: "This documentary will encourage Nepali women to dream big and conquer their summits." Read Also: <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/women-take-over-the-%20mountains,1868" target="blank">After Everest and K2, Sherpa women set sights on Kanchenjunga</a>, Tsering Dolker Gurung <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/all-women-nepali-team-scale-k2,1557" target="blank">Ketis on K2</a>, Ayesha Shakya <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/k2-women-nepal,1610" target="blank">Conquering the world</a>, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/WOMEN-ON-TOP,236" target="blank">Women on top</a>, Tsering Dolker Gurung <div class="embed-block"><iframe id="aswift_0" name="aswift_0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="718" height="0" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" scrolling="no" src="https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-6415359448570403&amp;output=html&amp;h=180&amp;slotname=1392833685&amp;adk=461865442&amp;adf=3145719360&amp;pi=t.ma~as.1392833685&amp;w=718&amp;fwrn=4&amp;lmt=1682131490&amp;rafmt=11&amp;format=718x180&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.nepalitimes.com%2Farticle%2FNepali-Times-Buzz%2Fnepali-mountaineer-breaking-barriers%2C2708&amp;wgl=1&amp;adsid=ChAI8OiIogYQ0pOKyM7hx5U3EjkA3d-9b1mqGISDvdad8KAx3AewqDjyt9En6FuVBwQ5_OqP8GNB75I6e4TO0kQbDFGrRvZVZo9DZfI&amp;uach=WyJtYWNPUyIsIjEzLjIuMSIsImFybSIsIiIsIjExMS4wLjU1NjMuNjQiLFtdLGZhbHNlLG51bGwsIjY0IixbWyJHb29nbGUgQ2hyb21lIiwiMTExLjAuNTU2My42NCJdLFsiTm90KEE6QnJhbmQiLCI4LjAuMC4wIl0sWyJDaHJvbWl1bSIsIjExMS4wLjU1NjMuNjQiXV0sZmFsc2Vd&amp;dt=1682131427262&amp;bpp=2&amp;bdt=367&amp;idt=788&amp;shv=r20230418&amp;mjsv=m202304130102&amp;ptt=9&amp;saldr=aa&amp;abxe=1&amp;cookie=ID%3Dc5b4cdb05cf8144d-229b93d9a5de0091%3AT%3D1680592509%3AS%3DALNI_Mamkt9UmuQGMOCGLpZz_oPKpUIwdw&amp;gpic=UID%3D00000bebd63f863d%3AT%3D1680592509%3ART%3D1682128380%3AS%3DALNI_Ma_YtFySMX09AOoZZN28vO0GUGzPA&amp;prev_fmts=0x0&amp;nras=1&amp;correlator=4350293643221&amp;frm=20&amp;pv=1&amp;ga_vid=2032045364.1680592509&amp;ga_sid=1682131428&amp;ga_hid=371399134&amp;ga_fc=1&amp;rplot=4&amp;u_tz=345&amp;u_his=1&amp;u_h=900&amp;u_w=1440&amp;u_ah=813&amp;u_aw=1440&amp;u_cd=30&amp;u_sd=2&amp;dmc=8&amp;adx=207&amp;ady=3244&amp;biw=1440&amp;bih=657&amp;scr_x=0&amp;scr_y=691&amp;eid=44759926%2C44759842%2C44759875%2C31073974%2C31074012%2C42531706&amp;oid=2&amp;pvsid=2703339081112636&amp;tmod=178841159&amp;uas=0&amp;nvt=1&amp;ref=https%3A%2F%2Fnepalitimes.com%2F&amp;fc=896&amp;brdim=0%2C25%2C0%2C25%2C1440%2C25%2C1440%2C793%2C1440%2C657&amp;vis=1&amp;rsz=%7C%7CEebr%7C&amp;abl=CS&amp;pfx=0&amp;fu=128&amp;bc=31&amp;jar=2023-04-22-02&amp;ifi=1&amp;uci=a!1&amp;btvi=1&amp;fsb=1&amp;xpc=4JnXA4eA5J&amp;p=https%3A//archive.nepalitimes.com&amp;dtd=63261" data-google-container-id="a!1" data-google-query-id="CKu69o-8vP4CFYgIXAodE-4JOg" data-load-complete="true" style="overflow: hidden; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; border: 0px; width: 718px; height: 0px;"></iframe></div>

Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the film

<figure><img width="2456" height="1632" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131140/637237749c7e80680e0c732ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: DEEPAK TOLANGE</figcaption></figure>When Kathmandu-based filmmaker Deepak Tolange visited the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin seven years ago, he sought out the collection from Nepal (pictured above). It was a large section around the corner from the Tibetan artefacts on the same floor.Among the items was an ornate 70.5cm tall two- storeyed <a href="https://id.smb.museum/object/1714079/buddhistischer-schrein">Buddhist shrine</a> richly decorated, inlaid with precious stones, gold and silver. Three standing bodhisatva were placed in niches on the lower level, and there were three other deities inside the upper chamber.The object represented elements of Newa architecture: the torans, the iconographies, the jala nhyaka, but the roof had Tibetan touches. And, upon inspection, Tolange noticed traces of vermilion and saffron powder on the idols, indicative of continued worship.The Nepali in him was intrigued, Tolange wondered if the antique shrine was stolen from a temple in Kathmandu Valley like many others.The first historical account of a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-looted-nepals-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">religious object stolen from Nepal</a> is from 1765, when the statue of Narayan disappeared from the Bhagwati temple in Hanuman Dhoka. Plunder peaked in the 1960s, as Nepal started to open up to the outside world. Today, after campaigning by citizen groups and the government, foreign museums and collections are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-enigma-of-arrival-of-nepals-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">repatriating stolen deities</a>. According to the Department of Archaeology (DoA), in the past decades, 93 religious objects have been returned, of which as many as 19 were repatriated since July.Back in Berlin, Tolange reached out to Bernadette Broeskamp, a researcher of East Asian and Buddhist art at Freie Universität Berlin. Based on his findings, Tolange made a 6-minute short film Buddhist Shrine.“I thought that maybe, if it was indeed stolen, it would be possible to return the shrine to Nepal,” Tolange recalls.The museum dates the ritual object to the 19th century. Provenance record shows that it was sold to the museum in 1936 by one Heinrich Meinhard, but beyond that nothing is known. Tolange speculates that because war was brewing in Europe at the time, Meinhard might have been in need of money which prompted him to sell the object to the museum.There are no other documents, which were either never kept or were subsequently lost during the war. The only thing certain is that Meinhard told the museum that the object was indeed from Nepal.The short film was shown at the museum in 2015, where it was received well. “The Q&amp;A after the screening was very heated,” recalls Tolange. “Everyone wanted to know if the object was really stolen and, if yes, then would it be returned.” The question remained unanswered. <figure><img width="997" height="1200" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131140/637237789c7e80680e0c732fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Tolange returned to Nepal for three months in 2016 for a field visit as part of his MA. He had been thinking about the altar, wondering if there was a bigger story behind it.He went to Patan to meet Bhim Ratna Shakya, senior sculpture artist, who recalled that his father had made six altars like the one in Berlin. That was a significant clue, and Tolange spoke with historians Satya Mohan Joshi, Sukra Sagar Shrestha, Mukunda Raj Aryal, KVPT’s Rohit Ranjitkar, and went to Boudha to meet the Buddhist monk S Dharmacharya.The conversations shed more light on stolen artefacts, even though he did not get a substantial lead on the shrine in the Berlin museum. “I found out that these shrines, or altars, were often for private use,” Tolange says. “And that people in Mangal Bazar continue to make them.”But the artisans still do not sign their names on the pieces, and that makes it difficult to track them down. “On top of this, when the dealers sell the altars, they sell it at the value of an art object -- while the artisans are paid only the rate of the labourer,” he adds. “Artists does not always get the recognition they deserve, and this practice is ongoing.”Upon graduation, Tolange proposed to the museum that he would add the Nepali side of the story and make another film with the new findings, this time a little longer and more detailed. Titled Buddhist Altar, the 16-minute film was completed in 2022 after much research.After Covid restrictions were lifted, Tolange visited Khenpo Gyaltsen from Rangjung Yeshe Institute and Loponma Ani Phuntsok Wongmo from Hasantar Nunnery. He also went to Buddhist temples and observed traditional rituals at the Golden Temple in Patan, Swayambhu, Boudha and other monasteries in Kathmandu.“I discovered that in many Buddhist shrines, the idol of the Buddha is at the centre, representing his body, with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/neighbourhoods-save-their-shrines/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">chaitya</a> to his right representing his mind and a book to his left representing dharma or his speech, teachings,” Tolange says.Other deities in the shrine depend on the people and the families. In fact, as Bhim Ratna Shakya remarked in the film, any god can go in the chambers.Historians are convinced that the person who crafted the Buddhist shrine in the Berlin museum was a Newa, possibly from Patan, although there is still some doubt regarding where it was actually made, since there are Tibetan influences on it as well. Historically, these shrines were commissioned by families for their use, and the one in Berlin was commissioned too, most likely by Meinhard himself.In the film, which is first and foremost about a quest, Tolange has tried to trace the craft behind the shrine, digging into its past and current practices. Intercut with images of the mountains, the hills and the temples, he also focuses on the religious syncretism in Kathmandu Valley to contextualize the artefact as still being a part of a living culture.The film has been selected to the permanent collection at the Humboldt Forum, where it will be screened next to the shrine itself to mark the inauguration of the Asian section of the Berlin-based centre on 16 September.Tolange also plans to show the film to Nepali audience.Says Tolange: “Working on the film helped me rediscover my country and its cultures. If I hadn't done it, I'd have known nothing about the object and its importance.” Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-nepali-antiquities-got-to-chicago-museum/">How Nepali antiquities got to Chicago museum</a>, Alisha Sijapati

Ashish Dhakal

How did a Nepali ritual altar end up in Berlin?

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111152/63721e0e9c7e80680e0bd522jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="807" height="605"/><figcaption>Behind the scenes still from Urmi with director Limbu (left) and Purna Gurung (right). Photos: ASHISH DHAKAL.</figcaption></figure>Pranay <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14302#.YmTykidBxpQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Limbu</a>’s Urmi (उर्मि) opens with the early hours of dawn in Buddha Chok of Dharan. The sky is velvet black, crickets chirp in the background. Every once in a while, a motorcycle or a car rushes by and the screen turns momentarily bright, filled with the rattle of engines.At the centre of the shot is a lonely house, its first floor bathed in an eerie yellow falling squarely upon figures that look almost alive from a distance. Slowly, the sun creeps in from all directions, signalling the start of another day.The house gains more colour, more features. A blue signboard at the top reads, ‘Late Poet Bimal Gurung Memorial Library’ in Nepali and English. Purna Gurung, can be seen walking about inside, arranging books. He pauses occasionally, his calloused hands run across the tables and the books, eyes rippling and wandering like pools of water in the monsoon.Urmi is a story primarily of absence, where every note is sustained and every shot lingered. The protagonist is an ex-<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/gurkha-grandparents/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">British Gurkha</a> coming to terms with his son’s death 28 years ago. But there is no way the grief can be truly expressed, even after all this time. Purna Gurung says so himself early in the film: “I don’t know how to explain.”Bimal Gurung, the son, was 20 when he died in a bus accident in 1991. Always abroad on duty, Purna never really got to spend time with his son and truly bond. So, he establishes the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/pandemic-revives-reading-culture-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">library</a> in his son's name, as he was a voracious reader.Purna also visits his old teachers and friends, flips through the family album, reads Bimal’s passionate and politically charged poems – all in an attempt to understand and build the character that was his son.Shot in nine days over two years, the film is a strange blend of documentary and drama. Certain events, such as when a real estate broker from Kathmandu dressed garishly in denim struts into the library to try and buy it from Gurung, are the amalgamation of various middlemen who continue to try and coax Gurung into selling the property.“I am a businessman,” says the smooth-talking broker with a glint of malice slipping through his teeth, “I do not only think of my own benefit, I think of yours too.”But Purna Gurung is a patient man. The deep lines on his face are testament to his devotion to the memory of his son and family. “I will think about it,” he says, and in the end leaves Tolstoy’s <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How Much Land Does a Man Need?</a> bookmarked in a story collection for the businessman to read.Another impressive dramatisation is the haunting voice that reads Bimal’s poems, punctuating the film in what feels like a series of exclamation marks. To be fair, the drama would fall flat without the interviews with Gurung himself. But without the drama, the film’s background and direction perhaps would not have been possible to convey either.The emotional climax of the film comes when Gurung wells up, saying “When I am with these books, I feel like I am with my son … his soul is in these books.” Purna trembles, and says later: “About Bimal, I have no words.”It is a risky mix, certainly, of fact and fiction – not in that the parts of the story are untrue, but only so far as they are metaphors – but Urmi is successful because of that risk taken.The word ‘उर्मि’ means a wave of sorrow and pain – and in the film, the viewer follows a father, who has recently turned 80, in search of his lost son, piecing together the images and memories others have of him. To tell this story entirely through interviews would have missed the point. How else can one show absence, that heavy abstract feeling of nothingness?Urmi was screened at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/documenting-the-subcontinent-for-a-generation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">25th Film Southasia</a> in Yalamaya Kendra on 23 April 2022.URMI (उर्मि)Nepali | 85 minutes | 2022Directed by Pranay LimbuCinematography by Deepak BajracharyaEdited by Chandan Dutta

In the name of the son

Free to watch on YouTube, and released on Earth Day on Wednesday, Michael Moore presents: Planet of the Humans, a documentary that dares to say what no one else will. This film is the wake-up call to the reality we are afraid to face: that in the midst of a human-caused extinction event, the environmental movement’s answer is to push for techno-fixes and band-aids. It's too little, too late.

Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95549c7e80680e05dbffjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1448" height="2048"/>Film Southasia is held every two years, and in 2019 the theme of the festival of documentary films says it all: ‘Where the Mind Is Free’. Indeed, since the last edition of the festival, the space for free expression is increasingly constricted throughout the region.From 14-17 November, 64 documentaries from the Subcontinent will be shown at Yalamaya Kendra, Patan – many of them films that would be difficult to have a public screening anywhere else in South Asia.  "In the region’s increasingly cloistered space, exclusion seems to be a common concern of the documentaries," says festival director Mitu Varma. "The films focus on the marginalised like growing up in Ladakh, transgender love, and the crisis of Rohingyas and Dalits. Many of the films focus on people who have little in terms of resources, but a huge store of empathy and compassion for all living creatures, that marks them out as more human than many in the so called mainstream  There are five films on Kashmir, and several films on migration and education."By its very definition, the documentary is a film genre that takes time to dwell on social injustices and delve in-depth into the structural reasons for discrimination, inequality, exploitation. Film-makers tend to give voice to the voiceless, show the plight of neglected or abused people whom the mainstream media ignores.With the space for dissent and the marketplace of ideas shrinking all over the region, Nepal remains the last bastion of free speech. This year also, Film Southasia will be showing films that could not be screened elsewhere.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18597#.XcPHuFUzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Documenting Nepal</a>, Angelo D’Silva and Diwas KCThe focus of the festival this year is Pakistan, and the opening film Indus Blues profiles the country’s disappearing musical instruments and folk art, given the rightward movement of the state. Other films on Pakistan investigate scavenging ships on the Arabian Sea beaches and the murder of an activist who sought to provide a cultural space called "The Second Floor" in Karachi where all art forms could be shared and different issues could be freely debated and discussed.With most of South Asia living under similar social-political conditions, the  subject matter of the films focus on similar concerns common to all countries. However, there is a lot of experimentation in the form of film-making.There is a documentary shot mostly in the night with striking visuals (And What Is the Summer Saying), another film that simply records conversations that swirl inside a tea shop at the centre of a heated religious debate (Chai Darbari). The documentary about old Delhi with a 400 strong cast of actors straddles the line between fiction and nonfiction (Ghode ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon)."There are quiet films with little dialogue, where the story is told with visual imagery, or with the neutral eye of a fly on the wall," explains FSA organiser Alok Adhikari. "The film-maker takes the backseat with these observational techniques lets the story tell itself."This year the festival went digital for the first time, accepting submissions online instead of asking for DVDs to be couriered to Kathmandu. The number of submissions soared to more than 2,500, a testimonial to the rising interest in this form of storytelling.The festival's jury comprises of filmmakers Sumathy Sivamohan from Sri Lanka and Ayisha Abraham from India, and Nepali journalist Kunda Dixit.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17242#.XcPHvlUzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The world of South Asia</a><h2>8 FILMS from 8 COUNTRIES</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95579c7e80680e05dc00jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Pariah DogsJesse Alk, IndiaA group of people, themselves outcast, poor, and living in slums, take care of street dogs in Kolkata, India.Kabul, City in the WindAboozar Amini, AfghanistanA glimpse into the strained, tenuous life in Kabul where violence is a constant backdrop to daily life.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a95599c7e80680e05dc01jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="329" height="153"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a955a9c7e80680e05dc02jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Opium WarsJohn La Raw, MyanmarJade miners who work under dangerous circumstances are being sucked into opium trade, while the state turns a blind eye to the issue of minorities.Scratches on CelluloidVindhya Buthpitiya &amp; Timothy P A Cooper, Pakistan/Sri Lanka/United KingdomWith the rise in multiplexes and home entertainment, days are numbered for traditional matinee theatres.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a955d9c7e80680e05dc03jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181140/636a955f9c7e80680e05dc04jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360">The Next GuardianArun Bhattarai &amp; Dorottya Zurbo, BhutanA priest wants his son to inherit the profession, but the son would rather play football and watch Facebook in rapidly modernising Bhutan.After SabeenSchokofeh Kamiz, PakistanHuman rights activist Sabeen Mahmud is shot dead in her car, and the film captures the aftermath of the tragedy.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95639c7e80680e05dc05jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181144/636a95669c7e80680e05dc06jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360">Bamboo StoriesShaheen Dill-Riaz, BangladeshThe use of bamboo is dying out, but there are still many whose lives have depended on floating bamboo rafts down river.The Winter TapAashish Limbu &amp; Debin Rai, NepalThe story of the struggle to build a water supply in a remote Himalayan village is not as simple as it seems.

Film Southasia 2019

<img width="2480" height="1753" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141148/636a5edf9c7e80680e056df2jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Vidyadutt Sharma, 83, stands in front of his blue-tinted two storey home, looking out into a 360 panorama of the Himalayan mountains. This is Moti Bagh, Sharma’s farm in Pauri district of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Tall, with an aquiline nose, white hair cropped close to his scalp and rugged features, weathered by work in the farm, Sharma in kurta pyjama and vest, points to the abandoned homes and locked gates. These are the ‘ghost villages’ where inhabitants have migrated permanently. “The mountains are dying,” says Sharma, who worked for the state government and resigned when he was 28. There is a photo of him with a fierce beard, which he grew in protest to get high school status for the village school. Now, it is an Inter College, he says proudly. Another family photo with his wife and four children, two daughters and two sons, one who died young. His wife died in 2000. “She kept us all together and whatever status I have today is because of her,” he says. Sharma (pictured right) ploughs his land with oxen, plants seeds, hauls his own water and chops wood. He sings while sowing seeds of monkeys and langoors who pick and destroy the crops, the wild boars, cows, parrots, jackals, porcupines. In 2019 Sharma’s record breaking 22.75 kg radish won a national award and made him famous. Cooking a vegetable dish over a wood fire he says ‘upper’ caste people have left the villages and abandoned farming. The ‘lower’ castes do all the work. With the demise of farming, producers are now consumers, people want to work with the mind, not hands, scared of physical labour, he says.“It’s easy to write books, but the challenge is to make a tomato seed grow,” Sharma adds.Consolidated fragmented farms would make agriculture more productive. The farms were rainfed, and when in 1976 Sharma started rainwater harvesting the villagers laughed at him. <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141148/636a5ee29c7e80680e056df3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="2000">Pauri town is 35 kilometres from Moti Bagh and built up in concrete like most hill towns. Tribhuvan Uniyal, Sharma’s journalist son, lives here with his wife and two children. Will they farm? His daughter wants to do fashion design. In a trip to Pauri town to meet the Regional Transport Officer (RTO), Sharma protests about the re-routing of buses in their village. The bus contractor tells the RTO on the phone that there are not enough passengers on rural routes anymore. Get the buses back on the usual routes, orders the RTO. With locals having migrated, most farmhands here are from Nepal. Helping Sharma on his farm is Ram Singh, who came here from western Nepal 18 years ago and never left. He is happy the children got to go to school, he has savings to send back to the larger family back home.“Locals are jealous of me,” Ram Singh says with a toothy smile. When he first came, he and his family were called names and told to go back to Nepal. Now, he says, he is accepted. “I will have to return to Nepal one day or, maybe we will be made to go back,” he says.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141148/636a5ee69c7e80680e056df4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="1280">Director Nirmal Chander Dandriyal (pictured left) is himself from Uttarakhand and his sensitivity to his protagonists shines through the film. He was born in Chennai, but began travelling to Uttarakhand more frequently around 2011. Seeing migration as a central issue interconnected to others, he felt it could be a theme for a film. But, how to tell the story?  Migration was not a new issue. But while it is seasonal in other states, in Uttarakhand it is permanent.So, Moti Bagh became the location, a microcosm to the big picture. The story unfolds through the characters, without hectoring, lecturing, or a voice over of gloom and doom. The characters in the film are fresh and rooted in the environment. Supported by India’s Public Broadcasting Service Trust (PBST) and Prasar Bharati, Chander was able to shoot in different seasons, various stages of cultivation, and events such as marriages and wildfires. Chander’s rhythms changed and informed the way he shot. He let it flow. The cycles and pace of life quietened him. He found peace.Moti Bagh has been picked as an entry for the oscars and will be screened at the South Asian Documentary Film Festival in November in Kathmandu.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfTKPUBY1gMoti Bagh, 201960 minHindi

Moti Bagh

<img width="1000" height="563" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933399c7e80680e03df83jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Young and confident faces smile into the camera, eager to enlist in a war that has just broken out after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. It is hard to believe that they will soon be cannon fodder on the trenches of Flanders Field.Director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001392/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Peter Jackson</a> has put together a documentary of rare clips from the I<a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mperial War Museum</a> and the BBC archives to mark the centennial of the Armistice on 11 November 1918. The movie camera had just been developed, and even carrying the equipment to the front to shoot these frames must have been an act of heroism. And 100 years later, with the propaganda value of the films peeled off, the grainy footage in They Shall Not Grow Old bear witness to the hardships, valour, carnage and the utter senselessness of the bloodshed.Jackson whittled down 600 hours of testimonies, over 100 hours of clips, and many contemporary posters to this 99 minute documentary, parts of which are digitally enhanced and coloured. For those who are fans of Jackson’s epic battle scenes in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lord of the Rings</a>, this film offers something different -- war’s grim reality.We see the moments just before soldiers go ‘over the top’, leaping into deadly fire from German machine gun positions. Time loses its meaning. “It was the longest and shortest moments of my life,” says one warrior. We see the moments of anxiety in the faces of men conscripted from normal civilian lives: “I learnt how to use a gun, but would I be able to kill a man if I had to?”Jackson has chosen to be nuanced, even as he retains his penchant for the visually grotesque. The wounded develop gangrene when rain turns trenches into mud pools. Their bodies are infested with lice. There is the anxiety of killing and dying as smiling faces fade into images of fresh corpses and decomposing bodies. This is unsanitised war, a film not for the fainthearted.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/100-years-of-platitudes-First-World-War,1025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100 years of platitude</a>, Sunir Pandey<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepalis-waited-200-years-for-country-to-be-proud-of,2939" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Looking back to the future</a>, Editorial <img width="1998" height="1080" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/6369333b9c7e80680e03df84jpeg.jpg" alt="">The storytelling is immersive, we are taken back a century right into the frontlines. Jackson combines hundreds of voices which give a constant commentary. A soldier talks of how impossible it is to have even a moment of respite from the constant gunfire and explosions. Viewers don’t get much respite either.Jackson even manages to find some humour and humanity amidst the carnage, we see not only the terror but also friendship as soldiers bond over tea, cigarettes, and gambling. The open toilet rows where men did not cover up because “there were no women”. We get glimpses of wagons and war horses, the novelty of mechanised tanks.Soldiers start to sympathise with the German boys like them on the other side who are also missing their families. United by common misery, towards the end they “got on very well together”. The soldiers on both sides were past caring who won as long as they got to go home alive. When a soldier says that the Armistice was “the flattest moment in my life”, we realise that real warfare is very different from whipped up patriotism. It is just about men who want to finish their job.But the war is not over even after it is over. The men are unemployed and unwanted back home. No one wants to talk about the Great War, no one understands what they went through. Like veterans before and after, they find they do not fit in anymore. ‘Never again’, many said after World War I, and it is to remember not to forget the brutal reality of war, and not make glorified assumptions about it, that documentaries like this are important. Jackson’s work is dedicated to his grandfather who served in the war.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Double-war-centennial-for-Nepal,1011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Double Centennial</a>, Editorial<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Gurkhas-dying-for-others,2938" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dying for others</a>, Om Astha Rai  <img width="1998" height="1080" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/6369333e9c7e80680e03df85jpeg.jpg" alt="">Some 200,000 Gurkhas fought in World War I in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and the Western Front. One in ten did not return home, and 2,000 were decorated for bravery in battle. But there is no trace of Gurkhas in this film, although we catch a brief glimpse of some Sikhs. The sacrifice of the Gurkhas and of the colonial armies is once more air-brushed, just as it is in the Imperial War Museum in London. This is about what white men went through while fighting other white men, not about the brown boys from Nepal who helped them. It has taken 100 years to produce a film that at least begins to look at the folly of war, and to wipe away the distinction between victors and the vanquished. How much longer will it take for western film makers to shed their Euro-centrism and document the sacrifices of tens of thousands of brave young men from Nepal and India who laid down their lives for a king and country not their own?   Popular culture has a great impact in shaping collective memory. Jackson’s documentary could have been a cultural milestone and set history right, but it is an opportunity missed, and the exclusion  rankles.  They Shall Not Grow OldScreening: British Council, Lainchaur5:00 PM Sunday, 11 November Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/gurkhas-versus-turks-gallipoli-campaign,2192" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gurks vs Turks</a>, David Seddon<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/More-warlike,1023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More warlike</a>, Deepak Aryalhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHYRfukHToc

They shall not grow old

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.