On a slow, sweltering summer afternoon at the edge of a forest in deep rural northern Thailand, the brain fever bird is doing my head in with its insistent, rising call.
We, like most of Asia south of the Himalaya,<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/warmer-drier-winters-in-nepal"> are now living on the heating planet</a> which experts have long warned of and science has projected for decades.
Across the world as summer temperatures break record after record, bumble bee nests are overheating, endangering the key pollinators. Warming seas are killing corals, which will then affect fish and then artisanal fishing communities in South and Southeast Asia. Sea surface temperatures are at 34° Celsius in the Bay of Bengal, the highest recorded anywhere in the open oceans.&nbsp;
Meanwhile, are our leaders and billionaire class - the two often overlap - <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-politics-of-pollution">serious about climate change</a>? The evidence is not compelling. Former US President Donald Trump in April reportedly asked top fossil fuel industry leaders for $1 billion for his campaign to retake the White House. “We’re going to drill, baby, drill,” he has said at his rallies. &nbsp;
Should he win the White House, climate change mitigation goals will be out of the window in his first days in office. Meanwhile, as if nothing untoward was happening, wars in Ukraine and Gaza are - besides death, destruction and misery - producing staggering amounts of greenhouse gases.
The burning of oil wells by Saddam Hussein’s army in 1990 as western coalition forces drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait generated more than 400 million tonnes of carbon, according to Axel Michaelowa, a University of Zurich climate policy expert.
Even at the most peaceful of times, militaries are massive emitters of greenhouse gases. In 2018 - the most recent year figures are available for, the US Department of Defense alone produced 56 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent - more than many single countries.
But<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/the-international-order-is-dying-in-gaza"> wars and militaries </a>are the sacred cows of national security establishments, and their emission reductions are never a part of climate summits. It's business as usual for the military; total global military expenditure reached US$2443 billion in 2023, an increase of 6.8% in real terms from 2022, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009. The ten largest spenders in 2023 were the United States, China and Russia.
In May, the Guardian reported that a poll of hundreds of leading climate scientists found that they expect global temperatures to rise way past the internationally agreed target of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. A dystopian future is not just around the corner: for a farmer in Asia’s heat belt it is already here. Numerous experts told the paper they felt hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.&nbsp;
I asked anthropologist and expert on warfare Brian Ferguson, a professor at Rutgers University, whether the human species is capable of rising above its quarrels to unite in the face of a genuinely <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/biosphere-on-the-brink">existential threat to the biosphere</a>.
Ferguson asked for a week to think about that, and then wrote back: ‘Any way I think about it, the answer is no.'
'Identity is always constructed, with competing versions, often involving an enemy. It is easy to create alternative versions. So people with power can redirect an experienced threat to a target they find more congenial. Which is what we have seen happening in climate debates, and we see in war all the time.'
The many thousands of young people who flood the streets demanding action against global warming, have something in common with<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/protests-of-despair"> the thousands across campuses in the US </a>demanding their schools sever any investments in and association with Israel. They have woken up and discovered what the adults have been up to.
In the energy of those students, there is hope. Like the protests in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s against the Vietnam war, and in the late 1980s against South Africa’s apartheid, they challenge and disrupt the prevailing power dispensation. But they are fundamentally hopeful. They demand peace, not war.
‘You see the kids protesting on behalf of Gazans? See how they <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/solidarity-with-gaza">risk their careers</a>? DO THAT. And then do it again and again,’ wrote Genevieve Guenther, a climate activist and founder of End Climate Silence, on X.
As psychologist Viktor Frankel famously wrote in his classic Man’s Search for Meaning, about life and survival in the Nazi regime’s death camps: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
You could call it survival. We are an ingenious species, and we have no choice. Amid the bad news, we have a responsibility, and an obligation, to hope.
Nirmal Ghosh, veteran foreign correspondent, author and former US Bureau Chief of The Straits Times, co-hosts the podcasts Green Pulse and Asian Insider.

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The obligation of hope

Located in the tri-junction of three districts, Palpa, Gulmi and Syangja, the deep and narrow Ridi valley is a popular pilgrimage site because of the sacred saligram fossils found there. But despite its religious significance, this is not a part of Nepal where someone would want to start a long-term business. It is far from the market towns, and many have migrated to cities or overseas. But one migrant worker, Ravi Lal Pantha, has not just returned to his home town but is running a thriving dairy business that has created a value chain directly benefiting 120 farmers in adjoining districts. “If we are industrious and conscientious, we can earn a livelihood in Nepal by doing the same work our parents and grandparents did,” says Pantha. “I am a migrant returnee, and if this is what one person can do, imagine if the government encouraged more Nepalis to return and helped them reintegrate.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030640_8cb26fd421e9f8d010993e3e3ad146cbe9da4226ad5621b8febe90c198079d56.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20230610030640_8cb26fd421e9f8d010993e3e3ad146cbe9da4226ad5621b8febe90c198079d56" data-rendition-name="original" width="5758" height="3839" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>  Pantha started ‘Gaurav Dudh Dairy Tatha Prasodhan Kendra’ in 2014, just five months after returning from South Korea.&nbsp; When Pantha was young, his family visited Ridi during festivals. Every time the family headed to his maternal grandparents’ house in Palpa, he passed Ridi. People from all three surrounding districts performed final rites of their loved ones on the banks of Kali Gandaki here.&nbsp; Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/money-grows-on-trees-here">Money grows on trees here</a>, Sahina Shrestha Milk and dairy products like ghee and curd are essential for festivals and birth and death rituals. Pantha noticed that there was always a scarcity of milk in the area and in summer, and dairy products people brought from homes for puja would go bad. Local farmers reared cattle, but not for commercial purposes.&nbsp; Pantha saw a business opportunity, and decided to locate his dairy business in Ridi. There was demand and the local farmers could also sell their milk. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030636_b96883cdf92da1400ca4c90ea347910339a44e9a35b2acac4a060217c451c42a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230610030636_b96883cdf92da1400ca4c90ea347910339a44e9a35b2acac4a060217c451c42a" data-rendition-name="original" width="3111" height="1977" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>  He soon ran into problems. He would take the milk in his motorcycle and sell it door to door. Yet, he could not sell all of his inventory and many people would buy in credit. He did not know how to process milk or make other products from it, so much of the milk he bought would go to waste. “Initially it was difficult,” admits Pantha, who had no prior dairy experience. It was only after his fourth month into the business that he finally sold 20 litres of milk in one day. “That day I felt like I had won a battle,” he says.&nbsp; Still, his business ran at a loss the first year. “Every day I’d work from 4am to 9pm, I’d even make my family work hard, but all for naught,” he recalls.&nbsp; His friends said he had gone mad after returning from overseas, saying he had lots of savings, so he could afford to lose money. It was after he faced difficulty with his eatery business in Kathmandu, that Pantha had first gone to South Korea in 2009 through its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/power-of-workers-working-together" target="_blank">Employment Permit Scheme (EPS)</a>, looking for a better future. There he earned Rs200,000 every month piloting a ship.&nbsp; Despite the earnings, he felt unfulfilled. “I was saving money, but my children at home were without a guardian and in a foreign land we are treated as second class citizens, without much respect,” he adds. Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/don-t-give-up-on-nepal-it-has-lots-to-offer">Don't give up on Nepal, it has lots to offer</a>, Sahina Shrestha So, he decided to return to Nepal with his savings and work in his home district near his family.&nbsp; “Regardless of what people said, I kept going,” says Pantha. “I convinced myself not to worry, saying that this was business, and profit and losses were all part of it.” Desperate, he went to the district veterinary hospital and livestock service expert centre and got trained in Pokhara and the Dairy Development Corporation. In 2016, he established a dairy processing unit to make and sell dairy products like ghee, curd, and paneer (cottage cheese). But he ran into another problem: locals in the area were not used to buying those dairy products.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030644_48a4c58b73680f5db6b43855501afb8590142e7b2f687393747669be2d378eb9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20230610030644_48a4c58b73680f5db6b43855501afb8590142e7b2f687393747669be2d378eb9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2988" height="2070" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030636_203a038f2a5b71e94c5decc869465762475894c2cb7b8640b0d3c7dd92892a4a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20230610030636_203a038f2a5b71e94c5decc869465762475894c2cb7b8640b0d3c7dd92892a4a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2967" height="2096" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>  At first, it was difficult for him to sell even 5kg paneer every few months because even though the residents were largely vegetarian, they were not familiar with the cheese. To market his products, he started giving away a few kilos of paneer at banquets every time he was invited to a wedding or other functions.&nbsp; “I told them to pay me what they wanted if people liked it, if not it was on me,” he says of his new marketing strategy. These days he sells the same paneer for Rs850 per kg, and people in Ridi have taken so much to it that even the smallest gathering now has a paneer dish. People who used to sneer at him, now request him to train their children in the dairy business. Nowadays, a steady stream of customers keeps Pantha busy from early morning to late night at his shop in Ridi Bazar. On the rare occasion when the shop is closed, customers call him to ask when it will reopen. Twice a day, his employees collect milk from farmers and farmers groups with the help of five collectors, and bring between 800-1,000 litres of milk to the processing centre. “The farmers now trust me,” Pantha says. “These days even if someone else approaches them and gives them more money, they stick with me.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030636_a811f5688373eb43d4921b5576f55516f05f33860704d1155743bc0ad780d539.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20230610030636_a811f5688373eb43d4921b5576f55516f05f33860704d1155743bc0ad780d539" data-rendition-name="original" width="3143" height="1985" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230610030644_34674b47c74e4ab9e8d14171d7549550553106b0a6a4ddd9dd5687e1f62a042e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20230610030644_34674b47c74e4ab9e8d14171d7549550553106b0a6a4ddd9dd5687e1f62a042e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2938" height="2058" loading="lazy" alt="Milking every opportunity"> </figure>  &nbsp;He makes his own ghee, paneer, curd, and kulfi among others for his shop and also conducts training for others. He is now getting into ice cream as well.&nbsp; Apart from his processing unit and his shop in Ridi, he has expanded to outlets in Gulmi and Palpa. He delivers packaged milk and milk products to the shops and the shopkeepers get a cut from every item sold. “I am happy and proud that I have been able to connect farmers with the market,” he says. “These days more farmers are going commercial, which is a good thing for the local economy.”&nbsp; One of the highest grossing farmers group with whom he conducts business is from Aslewa, Satyawati Rural Municipality, with which he does Rs1 million worth of business every month. Pantha also acts as a mediator between the government and the farmers, helping with training provided by the state. “Real farmers are busy toiling the soil and do not have any idea about paperwork, the government is too busy to go looking for them, so I do what I can to bring them together,” he says. “But the government needs to ensure it benefits actual farmers.” When Pantha went to South Korea more than a decade ago, he did so out of compulsion. “It was not my intention to go there to learn something new and come back home and work,” he says. “Things just worked out that way. No matter how much you earn abroad, it is difficult to earn trust and respect. In Nepal, no matter how much or little you earn, people still respect you.” But the biggest lesson he learned there which has helped him in Nepal was the importance of disciplined work. “Discipline and hard work can transform not only an individual, but also society and the country,” he says. Pantha wants to continue working well into old age and build a good image for himself. His biggest dream is to help fellow Nepalis gain employment in their own country. He says in poetic Nepali, “Najau aba khadima khusi sanga paisa khojum hamrai pakha, hamrai barima.” This is the seventh in the series Striking Roots, where we feature the stories of entrepreneurs from across the country. If you know someone whose story needs to be shared, email us at editors@nepalitimes.com

Milking every opportunity

<figure><img width="1500" height="844" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7fc9c7e80680e092e19jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A farmer feeds a buffalo in Banke's Kamdi village. Buffalo milk is the sole income source for farmers in the village.</figcaption></figure>One year after Nepal went into a Covid-19 nationwide lockdown, there has been enormous economic fallout. While most reports have focussed on the impact on Nepal’s GDP growth rate, companies that have gone bankrupt and Nepal’s macro-economy, largely forgotten are stories of individual hardship.Despite the breakthrough vaccine development in the past year, the pandemic continues to impact millions of Nepalis. Those with means changed their professions, others are surviving on loans. But the pandemic-induced economic fallout means half of Nepali households are at risk of falling back into poverty.This week, the Himalmedia video magazine Saglo Samaj interviewed farmers, tourist guides, hotel operators and taxi drivers most affected by the crisis.No country for farmersBuffalo milk is the only source of income for farmers in Kamdi village of Banke. But for six months during the pandemic, they could not sell their milk, and even now do not get a fair price. Farmers take the rest of their milk to the Dairy Development Corporation's collection point, but payment is slow. Local dairies also buy some to make dairy products but with the tourism sector which consumes most of these products down, milk sales have been all-time low.“We sell some milk but the price is not good. Some days you get money, other times you don’t. We live in misery,” says dairy farmer Ramnaresh Yadav.Tulsiram Yadav has 13 buffaloes and used to sell 20 litres of milk a day. “This is what us illiterate people do, raise buffaloes, sell milk, there is no other occupation,” he says. “Milk did not sell well this winter, sometimes even the dairy doesn’t buy, and we have no income.” Guiding lifeUttara Manandhar has been a tourist guide, but lost her job after tourists stopped coming last year. “I know of many guides who changed their profession due to the crisis. I got into teaching myself. But we still have an attachment to the tourism sector and find it hard to adapt to other fields,” she says.She says she will get back to being a guide once tourists return. “In the past year  I have been reading and writing a lot. I’m ready for tourists to come back so that I can share my knowledge with them,” Manandhar adds. <figure><img width="1500" height="844" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7ff9c7e80680e092e1ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Tourist guides like Uttara Manandhar have had to switch professions after losing their jobs to the pandemic.</figcaption></figure>Shankar Bhattarai had been a tourist guide for 11 years, and also turned to teaching after the tourism sector collapsed. “Even if I am in a classroom, I dream of travelling to the mountains,” says Bhattarai. “The hardest part is to adjust to a new job.” He says tourist guides could have been integrated into the Department of Archaeology to help in excavation work, adding: “We are ready to transfer our knowledge. Don’t leave us in this limbo.” <figure><img width="1500" height="844" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd8029c7e80680e092e1bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Tourist guide Shankar Bhattarai turned to teaching after tourism came to a standstill.</figcaption></figure>End of hospitality The lockdown devastated the tourism industry, with least 1 million people losing their jobs. Luxury hotels in Kathmandu and Pokhara laid off hundreds of workers."We aren't asking the hotels for 100% salary. We just want simple meals and enough money to pay school fees of our children," says Kamal Ghimire of the Nepal Independent Hotel, Casino and Restaurant Workers' Union. The Airport Hotel in Kathmandu is a 3-star property with 62 rooms. Because of its location outside the gate of the airport, it used to consistently have 70% occupancy. The past year was a washout, and now barely 7% of the rooms are occupied.“The hotel used to be very crowded and even with our 100 staff, we used to hire additional workers to manage all the parties, seminars and conferences,” says owner Binayak Shah. “Today, we are working with about 10 employees and yet we are finding it difficult to pay wages or the electricity bill.”He says the pandemic has been worse than the Maoist insurgency, adding: “It is much more profitable to run a school or a hospital.”    <img width="640" height="323" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd8059c7e80680e092e1cjpeg.jpg" alt="">No alternative to migration Ganesh Tamang worked abroad for six months and with his Rs500,000 savings bought a taxi. Unable to keep up with loan repayment, the bank took possession of the vehicle. “I still get up at five in the morning but instead of driving, I go to feed and milk my buffaloes,” says Tamang, who is now raising livestock and poultry to make a living.  <figure><img width="1500" height="844" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd8089c7e80680e092e1djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Taxi operator Sagar Bohora has no choice but to go abroad after earning almost no income in the past year.</figcaption></figure>Sagar Bohora also used to ply a taxi in Kathmandu for 16 hours a day, preferring to work in Nepal rather than toil in a foreign land. But with income nearly zero for the past year, he struggles to pay the medical bills of his elderly mother and his children’s education.  “My heart is against it, but I have no alternative but to go abroad,” he says. “I can’t sleep at night thinking about my piling debts.”Based on Episode 10 of Saglo Samaj, a tv magazine program produced by Himalmedia which is broadcast every Monday at 8:30 pm on Dish Home Channel 130.

Covid’s collateral damage

<figure><img width="800" height="493" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636ccaa79c7e80680e08bb7djpeg.jpg" alt="Simikot snowfall"/><figcaption>Photos: RSS</figcaption></figure>Heavy snowfall from Thursday to Saturday over Nepal has blanketed high villages in up to 0.5m of snow, obstructing road and air traffic, ending a prolonged drought and putting out devastating wildfires. The snow and rain affected most parts of Nepal, ending a four-month drought and making farmers on rain-fed terraces hopeful about their winter crops.Snowfall was heaviest in the trans-Himalayan districts of Humla, Mugu, Jumla, Dolpo, Mustang, Manang and Upper Gorkha. Some of these valleys had snowfall for three days, and the minimum temperature in Manang Valley fell to -10 Celsius on Saturday.The heavy snow put out wildfires that had been raging in Manang’s Tachai area for the past two weeks. An earlier fire near Chame that had gone on since November had spent itself before the snow storm arrived. Security forces had cleared the highway from Besisahar to Manang of snow on Friday, but the road is once more blocked by Saturday’s blizzard. <img width="1200" height="900" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636ccaa99c7e80680e08bb7ejpeg.jpg" alt="Locals carry firewood amid Simikot snowfall"><img width="1200" height="800" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636ccaab9c7e80680e08bb7fjpeg.jpg" alt="Simikot locals amid snowfall"><img width="1200" height="900" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636ccaae9c7e80680e08bb80jpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall ends drought in Nepal mountains"><img width="991" height="718" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101156/636ccab19c7e80680e08bb81jpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall over Simikot"><img width="1200" height="900" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101156/636ccab39c7e80680e08bb82jpeg.jpg" alt="Simikot snowfall">The airport in Rara and Simikot have been closed due to heavy snow, and although the sun came out on Sunday there is ice on the runway and all fixed-wing flights are cancelled.Although the rain in the mid-mountain districts provided respite from the drought, many areas just got drizzles. Kathmandu recorded only 1.5 mm of rain in a passing thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon – much less than the average 60mm winter rain from December-February in Central Nepal.

Heavy snowfall over Nepal Himalaya

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d6b9c7e80680e06b34bjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in all sectors, from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survive-2020-revive-in-2021-and-thrive-in-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tourism and hospitality</a> to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/save-farms-empower-farmers-nepal-citizens-appeal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agriculture</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/cash-flow-crisis-for-migrants-and-families/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remittance</a>. The floral industry is no exception. The first month of Nepali calendar Baisakh is considered auspicious for weddings. The favourable season for cultivation means commercial floriculture makes among the biggest profit this time of the year. In fact, 20% of all annual flower sales is to credited to this time period. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-affecting-food-security-in-nepal-wfp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID-19 affecting food security in Nepal</a>, Nepali TimesExcept, this time around there is no market or demand, thanks to the nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown, which has now lasted over a month and has been extended to 7 May. “This is the first time in two decades of my life cultivating flowers that I have seen such a big loss,” says Udav Raj Giri of Nargarjun Municipality, adding that flowers worth Rs2 million had been destroyed in the last month alone.As a result, farmers have been either forced to throw the flowers away or feed it to the goats and cows.  <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d709c7e80680e06b34cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Flowers being cultivated for commercial use. The COVID-19 pandemic hit during the favourable season for flower cultivation.</figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d749c7e80680e06b34djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>A farmer cuts flowers that have blossomed.</figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d789c7e80680e06b34ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Flowers being thrown away due to the lack of market. The floral industry has suffered huge losses in the last month. </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d7c9c7e80680e06b34fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Farmers have been forced to feed flowers to cattle.</figcaption></figure>Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildflower-app-celebrates-nepals-flora/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wildflower app celebrates Nepal's flora</a>

When flowers become feed for the livestock

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96839c7e80680e05dc6ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Planting bamboo and napier grass on embankments and sugarcane on riverbanks binds the soil and prevents flood damage.</figcaption></figure>Most research about <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/on-thin-ice-in-the-khumbu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate impact in the Himalaya</a> deals with r<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-terrifying-assessment-of-himalayan-melting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eceding snowlines and retreating glaciers</a>. A lot less is known about how farmers are <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Recharging-the-mountains,3465" target="_blank" rel="noopener">managing with too much – or too little -- water</a> due to the changing climate.Irregular monsoons and extreme rainfall have made <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/deep-water,3883" target="_blank" rel="noopener">floods more destructive</a> in recent years, and the Tarai plains where more than half of Nepalis live is the worst affected area. Rivers here are changing course more frequently, submerging paddy fields and washing away homes.Disastrous floods in Sunsari (2008), Bardia and Surkhet (2014), Saptari and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Flood-on-the-border-Nepal-India,3915" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rautahat</a> (2017) and in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-2019-deluge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eastern Nepal earlier this year</a> killed hundreds of people and caused colossal damage. Damage from floods caused by extreme weather is exacerbated by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">encroachment on floodplains</a> and road embankments that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">block natural drainage channels</a>.“Unlike in the past, when we used to have gentle showers every other day during monsoon, nowadays it does not rain for weeks and when it does, it comes down in destructive torrents,” says Bal Sugriv Rana of Shuklaphanta municipality in Kanchanpur. He points above his head to indicate the level that water reached in the great flood 11 years ago that forced farmers to abandon the village.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-tarai-learns-from-past-floods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal Tarai learns from past floods</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flood of recrimination in the Nepal Tarai</a>, Editorialhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1RqnrWMhBI&amp;feature=youtu.beFarmers have now returned to the village and are not waiting for government help, but taking their own measures to reduce the threat of future floods.With support from global humanitarian organisation <a href="http://nepal.mercycorps.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mercy Corps</a> under its program Managing Risk Through Economic Development (M-RED), farmers like Rana in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts have reduced the risk of floods by planting bamboo and napier grass on embankments and sugarcane on riverbanks. Not only are they now better protected from future floods, the new crops are earning them important income. Mercy Corps is also a member of the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance, a global partnership which works to increase flood resilience throughout the world, including in Nepal.Sugarcane is so resilient it can grow in sandy floodplains, where its stem and roots can reduce water’s velocity and destructive force. The sugarcane plant can also survive for up to 10 days when flooding occurs.“They said I was crazy when I planted sugarcane in the sand, but it has reduced the severity of floods, the riverbanks are not barren anymore and we earn money with relatively little investment from the sale of the cane to the sugar factory,” explains Mangal Prasad Chaudhary of the village disaster management committee.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/migrants-return-home-to-do-commercial-farming,3929" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Back to the land</a>, Sonia Awale<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/ipcc-report-and-nepals-food-security/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ICC report and Nepal's food security</a><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96869c7e80680e05dc6fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In the nearby village of Tikili of Kanchanpur, villagers also plant pumpkin, watermelon, banana, squash and gourd after floods recede – taking advantage of nutrients deposited by flood waters -- which adds to their income. This has discouraged open cattle grazing, which in turn helps the vegetation to grow back and provide an additional layer of protection from the floods.Now that the river has been tamed by barriers of gabion walls, sugarcane, bamboo and elephant grass, the land is secure enough to plant paddy, vegetables and other cash crops.“We earn an extra Rs50,000 per year selling bananas, which has been quite helpful in running the household,” says Rajudevi Rana, 40, as she picks clusters of the ripening fruit from her family plot near the river.Most of the rain in Nepal falls in the three monsoon months from July-September, and the rivers are dry rest of the year. The climate crisis has made the problem of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/h20-shortage,3456" target="_blank" rel="noopener">too much or too little water</a> worse, but with the help of development organisations, farmers have learnt to adapt to the new weather pattern.“We did a lot of research to come up with the solution of combining flood risk reduction with income generation,” explains Saroj Kumar Thakur of Mercy Corps Nepal in Kanchanpur. “This is now a working model that can be replicated in other parts of the Tarai suffering flood risk.”Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Flood-and-food,3916" target="_blank" rel="noopener">F</a><a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Flood-and-food,3916" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ood and flood</a>, Sunir Pandey<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=011870630917993763279:opm7uqsat-4&amp;q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Flood-on-the-border-Nepal-India,3915&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiGu5TMp_3lAhUkyzgGHbjHCUcQFjAAegQIAhAC&amp;usg=AOvVaw3VZjJ9mpZ7pD4WnyzXVIE9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Border wall</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a968a9c7e80680e05dc70jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a968d9c7e80680e05dc71jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480">2008 flood and subsequent land cutting in Kanchanpur. Photo: RED CROSS NEPALIndeed, the Kanchanpur success story can easily be upscaled in flood prone districts like Rautahat, Sarlahi and Mahottari, which faced devastating floods in the recent years.The success of sugarcane, banana and vegetable plantations has even persuaded young farmers who had planned to go to the Gulf or Malaysia for work to change their minds. For Mayor Dil Bahadur Ayer of Shuklaphanta, this is a success story that his municipality can be proud of.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/migrant-worker-finds-farming-in-nepal-more-rewarding/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Migrant worker finds farming in Nepal more rewarding</a>, Naresh Newar“Motivated farmers with the help of experts have managed to reduce the risk of floods by themselves -- they have achieved what the government could not,” he said. “Now we need to copy this elsewhere in Nepal by involving all three levels of government.”Ayer is also committed to tighten restrictions on <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">illegal sand mining</a> upstream, which threatens to undermine the accomplishment of the villagers in reducing flood risk.Bhesh Parajuli of Mercy Corps says local governments are not allocating required resources for disaster risk reduction, spending most of their budget on infrastructure. He adds: “But even infrastructure needs to be disaster-resistant. With <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/only-half-prepared/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federalism</a>, we now have to develop skills at local levels to respond to the floods.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96909c7e80680e05dc72jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><h2>Back to the land</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96939c7e80680e05dc73jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1123" height="2000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Harvest time is a busy period in Lalitpur, a farming village at the Indian border in Kailali district. Women harvest paddy, men load sacks of rice for the market in Dhangadi, children on holiday from school tend ducks by the river, while goats and cows graze lazily on the stubble.Looking at it today, it is hard to imagine that Lalitpur village was once completely abandoned. Families had to flee for their lives in 2008, abandoning their homes and farms when the river burst its banks. They did not return for 10 years.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dancing with the river</a>, Ramesh Bhusal“It was a like a sea. The flood started in the morning and continued until midnight and later -- it rained all night. There was so much water. I went back and forth on a boat rescuing the children and women,” recalls Gayadin Chaudhari, who was 30 at the time.The Tharu people here are used to floods, and have learnt to live with them. But the 2008 disaster was like nothing they had seen before. A wall of water nearly 2m high suddenly entered the settlement -- many lost their loved ones. Homes were washed away, food destroyed, livestock drowned and water sources were contaminated. The farms were covered in sand and silt, forcing villagers to relocate.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96969c7e80680e05dc74jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Now, the farmers have returned and they are determined to prevent a similar in the future. Supported by Mercy Corps Nepal and the Nepal Red Cross, they plant crops along the riverbanks that both help prevent flooding and have good commercial value, including bamboo, sugarcane and napier grass. Villagers are organised in a commune and plant and harvest sugarcane together, pooling the profits from the collectively-owned fields.“There will be floods in future, but they will not be able to affect us as much as before because of the bio-engineering of the embankment,” says Chaudhary, whose family is among 22 that have returned to Lalitpur.But just in case, the village also has an early warning system. A monitoring station upstream circulates an SMS warning when the river water crosses a danger mark.Chaudhary’s share of the profits from the sugarcane and vegetables is now over Rs150,000 annually. Over the years the commune has used its profits to buy farm equipment, including a tractor, a power tiller, disc plough and a thresher.“This is a community that has successfully bounced back from disaster. The farmers live here without fear,” says Saroj Kumar Thakur of Mercy Corps Nepal. “We now want to build the capacity of the villagers so that they can manage on their own after the project ends, not just with floods but also other risks like wild elephant attacks and disease.”Sonia Awale in Kailali

Sonia Awale

Nepal villages cope with climate-induced floods

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171132/636933d09c7e80680e03dfbejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="996" height="1500"/><figcaption>Raghu Thakur is a barber from Bihar who has been cutting the hair of Nepalis for the last 20 years. Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>In the town of Kasara outside Chitwan National Park, the paddy was being harvested last week. The contract labourers had come across the Nepal-India border at Thori, and were busy manually slicing rice stalks with their sickles. The Nepali farmers who had hired them could afford to do so because their three sons were all <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepalis-from-chitwan-to-chidoya,4110">working in Japan</a> and sending money home.Across the country, including Kathmandu and on trek routes, there are skilled and semi-skilled workers from northern India and Bangladesh doing the same work that Nepalis have gone abroad to do. In some cases, in districts along the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2015/05/27/a-month-that-felt-like-a-year/">2015 earthquake</a> zone, Indian workers earn as much as Nepali carpenters and masons earn in Qatar.In jewelry shops that line Kathmandu’s New Road, very little of the work is done by the local Newar owners, most of it has been passed on to hired Indians. Every time Nepalis get a haircut, there is a fair chance they are sending money to India as out-flowing remittance.Last week during Tihar, like all recent Tihars, the demand for marigold boomed, but there is no one to pluck them and make garlands to sell in the cities. So, we imported the garlands from India instead. In the past ten years Nepal received nearly $40 billion in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepal-economy-supported-by-remittance-money,2874">remittances from its workers abroad</a>. But Nepal is also the sixth largest source of remittance for India, from its workers in Nepal.With infrastructure reaching saturation, most Gulf countries will now require managers, and service sector workers, and fewer menial workers. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Korean-kafala-migrants-in-Korea,4025">Korean</a> language institutions are in high demand because many Nepali workers believe that this is a market that will them to move up the social ladder, and hard work really pays. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/migration-certificate/">USA and Australia still draw the young who are strong academically</a> and have families willing to pay for their education.Qatar is asking the Nepal Police to help secure its venues during the upcoming World Cup in 2022. Malaysia wants Nepali workers, and is willing to cover all fees  associated with them under <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-malaysia-labour-pact/">a new G2G deal</a>. The USA diversity visa lottery is attracting hundreds of thousands of Nepali applicants.Soon, there may be more Nepalis working outside Nepal than in Nepal. Terrace farms are lying fallow, or are being farmed by contract labourers from India. There is really no other way but for Nepali farms to mechanise production and consolidate fragmented family plots.There used to be a time when Nepalis performed funeral rites for relatives if they did not come home for the paddy planting season. We may need to revive this tradition to get young Nepalis to come home during Dasain and stay home till the harvest is stored for the winter.One of the reasons why many Nepalis do not face extreme poverty in difficult economic times is because they have the option to go back to subsistence farming. This has been the insurance policy during the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/autopsy-of-a-blockade%20,2863">Indian Blockade</a>, and the demonetisation of the INR which hit poor Nepali workers hardest by destroying their savings.Nepal’s main imports include machinery, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/from-a-fossil-past-to-an-electric-future/">fossil fuel</a> and raw materials for processed goods for export. No one keeps count of how much money goes out in haircuts, farm contract labourers, and construction workers from India in hydropower, and rebuilding of earthquake-damaged houses. Many CEOs and senior managers in Kathmandu are foreigners, probably because there are no Nepalis left who can do the job.Nepalis are said to work hard, but only when they are outside Nepal. At home, manual work is regarded as shameful. The jagir culture thrives because salaried government jobs demand little, but assure a pension for life. You see young men playing cards or carom but not helping in the farm. Success in Nepal means not having to work.But things are changing. Nepali youth today run many businesses that require manual labor and good academic qualifications. From vegetable farming to animation studios, from raising rainbow trout to meat processing, Nepalis are launching businesses closer to home.Nepal is now exporting more IT products than money earned from tourism. Families and communities need to respect those who refuse to go abroad and seek work within Nepal. We are proud people, sometimes too proud to work and get our hands dirty. We need more of us to do manual work and tell the world proudly of what we do.Upward mobility in Nepal should not mean not having to do any work.Anil Chitrakar is President of Siddharthinc

Anil Chitrakar

Success in Nepal means not having to work

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922ea9c7e80680e03a154jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="750"/><figcaption>A villager in Maspur, Humla weaves a doko basket from strips of bamboo.</figcaption></figure>“Jai grihasthi” is a greeting heard often in the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2013/03/13/not-so-far-west/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Far West</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-karnali-on-canvas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Karnali </a>regions of Nepal, and is a way to wish each other success in life, livelihood, household and family.Here in Maspur village above Kawadi Khola, on the border between <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/northwestern-tip-of-nepal-Humla,3430" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Humla </a>and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Badimalika-a-ridge-too-far,3328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bajura </a>districts, a strenuous two-day walk from the nearest road, it is a daily struggle for people to meet basic needs.Historically, people here flourished as traders, using goats and sheep as pack animals to carry grain from the plains up to Tibet, and bartering it for salt on the plateau. But the region now suffers from <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18119#.W6zEjXszaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">food insecurity</a>, health problems, and lack of livelihood options.The reasons include the end of the Tibet trade, the emergence of roads and markets, a decrease in livestock numbers caused by new grazing restrictions, the destruction of local infrastructure during the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15778#.W6zKwnszaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maoist insurgency</a>, and an increase in population.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922ed9c7e80680e03a155jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922f09c7e80680e03a156jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922f49c7e80680e03a157jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="750"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Most now farm for a living, but agricultural yields are low because of the steep terrain, lack of irrigation, destruction of crops by pests, and antiquated technology. Most families can grow enough food to last only four or five months of the year. For the remaining, they must purchase or borrow food. But cash is scarce, so people rely heavily on subsidised food and loans.The nearest health post is a two-day walk away, time that farmers cannot afford, particularly during the busy harvest seasons. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/resistance-to-live-saving-drugs-threatens-to-set-back-progress-in-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tuberculosis </a>and gastrointestinal illnesses are pervasive and exacerbate the symptoms of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/malnutrition-stunting-wasting,3603" target="_blank" rel="noopener">malnutrition</a>. Many homes do not have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/where-to-take-a-dump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">toilets</a>, and hygiene is poor.Women and the 'lower' castes are especially disadvantaged. Women have limited mobility and control over household resources, and Dalits have very little land or education, and suffer discrimination.“I do not even know if we are Nepali citizens ... we Dalits are neglected and oppressed. We have little property, nobody looks after us, not the government, not the organisations, not the gods,” says Romalal Lwaar.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922f69c7e80680e03a158jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922f99c7e80680e03a159jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922fd9c7e80680e03a15ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Kathmandu has neglected this part of Nepal, abandoning its people. The elected village council chairman Bagdal Malla said, “We have little budget, but a lot of work to be done. We do not have roads, and transport makes things expensive.”Everyone’s priority here is more roads so farmers have access to services and markets. Roads will also make it easier for government and NGO staff to be more effective.Said local Rajbahadur Budha, “We have a lot of resources, from our fields and natural resources. If there was a road, we could sell them. There would be more people travelling here, and more business. Without the road, there is no development.”As roads and markets become more accessible, communities here need to add value to their products so they are marketable. Some possibilities include cultivation and processing of medicinal and aromatic plants and high-value mushrooms or herbs, production of wool handicrafts, cheese, honey, and sustainable harvesting and processing of forest products. These activities need minimal external inputs, and can be achieved through skills trainings, mentorship, and micro-grants.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636923009c7e80680e03a15bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636923039c7e80680e03a15cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="750"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636923069c7e80680e03a15djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1067"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Subsistence farmers need help to improve work efficiency and reduce the labour burden. Harvests can be increased with irrigation, <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bio-pesticides</a> recharging-the-mountains-, greenhouses, and community seed banks. Improved technology such as better water mills, electricity, reliable mobile network, and fuel-efficient stoves will make work easier.There is an urgent need for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-the-art-rural-hospital/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">better health care</a> and education. Existing health posts need maintenance and medicines, and additional health posts are required in remote areas. Hygiene education and encouraging women to use health services for deliveries and check-ups are also important.Women and members of ‘lower’ castes must be prioritised in these activities and in accessing technologies, micro-loans, and other resources.Currently, service delivery and other development activities are sporadic and ad-hoc. Sufficient resources must be allocated to allow for long-term, consistent engagement with the community. Outcomes should be regularly monitored and evaluated for lasting improvements.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636923089c7e80680e03a15ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As Nepal urbanises, fewer and fewer people in the rest of the country understand the struggles in places like Maspur village. The first step to rectifying this is education and awareness of the living conditions of rural Nepalis and the acknowledgement that they, too, have the right to a secure and healthy life.It is only when the needs and hopes of Nepalis who have been historically and systematically disempowered are properly incorporated into national policies and development plans that we can wish the people in places like the Kawadi Khola valley ‘Jai grihasti’.Jocelyn Powelson is a Fulbright researcher from the United States who spent three months in Humla this year

Life and livelihood in remote Nepal

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

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

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

UFO over Pokhara

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

Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

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

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