In the middle of the first floor of the Rasa Lila exhibition at the Nepal Art Council is a model of Patan’s Krishna Temple made of Jenga blocks (pictured above). Inside the temple is a red holographic Radha, dancing. The temple here represents Vraja, a realm that lies far away from the universe in the heights of paradise. This mystical place is the setting of the Rasa Lila: a long lyric poem in the 10th book of the Bhagavata Purana that describes Krishna’s circular dance of love with his female devotees. So the choice of material makes sense: Vraja, much like buildings made out of Jenga, is more an impermanent zone where players dance with focus and balance.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/my-sweet-lord"> My Sweet Lord</a>, Sewa Bhattarai Rasa Lila is put together by Priyam Pradhan and team and is made up of various media, including paintings, sculptures, songs, and films.&nbsp; The exhibit spans two floors of the Bagmati Art Gallery atop the Nepal Art Council in Baber Mahal. The first floor is about the Rasa Lila (Rasa: divine dance, Lila: divine play). The start of the exhibit plays with the story of Shiva being stopped from entering the Rasa Lila, because he is nine feet tall and not a woman. So he takes a dip into the Yamuna River and emerges a beautiful lass ready to take part.&nbsp; Referring to this story is Gopeshwar Mahadev, a sculpture made out of concrete hands and feet joined by rods of carbon steel. The pre-dip hands are masculine, and the post-dip feet, adorned with ghungroo beads, are feminine.&nbsp; Next is a river of letters that represents the Yamuna River and contains the initials of the team who worked on the project. Explains Pradhan: “I want visitors to the exhibit to feel like Mahadev, crossing the river into Vraja." A description reads, "The Yamuna is a bridge spanning the celestial and physical realms, and bathing in its waters is the final act after which the Gopis return to everyday life." Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/swasthani-lecture">Swasthani lecture</a> Next to this piece are two large wiry structures of Gopis in dance. They have black metal rod skeletons and wire bodies: one red, and one yellow.&nbsp; Inside an alcove in the gallery is a five minute film on loop titled ‘There is no perfection, only life’ made by Urza Acharya. It depicts the life of a Gopi after participating in the Rasa Lila. She is initially struck by depression and lethargy, but slowly finds the motivation to dance and be creative again.&nbsp; The short movie describes the fleeting nature of transcendental moments of pure creativity, and how most other moments are boring and mundane. Reads the description: ‘The banality of everyday, in fact, is what fuels those exceptional moments.’ &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024072812074_21e2b50f2ac9f7a30a596f110d957ede1f9569e59c716688bf63b6befcb01447.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024072812074_21e2b50f2ac9f7a30a596f110d957ede1f9569e59c716688bf63b6befcb01447" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Vastraharan NT"> <figcaption>'Vastraharana,' a scene from the Mahabharata where the Pandavas gamble away Draupadi's honor </figcaption> </figure>  While the first floor was about the Rasa Lila, the second floor depicts scenes from the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/being-good-is-not-easy">Mahabharata</a>, especially ones where Krishna features heavily. Vastraharan (pictured above) is a striking piece of a female figure in a white dress in the middle of a gambling board. Rectangular dice lie on the board and instead of a head the sculpture has a red light. The story depicted is from the Mahabharata of a game of chance between the Pandavas and the Kauravas where Duryodhana cheats the Pandavas out of all that they have, to the point where Yudhishthira puts up the Pandavas' wife Draupadi, promptly losing her too.&nbsp; Duryodhana orders his Kaurava brother to disrobe Draupadi in the court, and although the game has clearly gone too far, nobody in the court, not even Bhishma and Drona, intervene. The clear identical masks represent their shared passivity.&nbsp; As her sari is being unravelled, Draupadi has no other option but to pray to Krishna, who saves her by extending her sari infintiely. Yet she is still ashamed and angry, represented by the red light.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-violence-of-violation">The violence of violation</a>, Sewa Bhattarai In the next room is a blue angular metal sculpture of Krishna waking up on a bed of coins.&nbsp; “Coins represent Lakshmi, who is present wherever Krishna is,” explains Pradhan. “To make the sculpture we first 3-D printed a mould, then laser cut metal sheets and welded them together.” The last piece in the exhibit is a large painting of Krishna’s mother Devaki, a divine, pure figure who kept giving birth to divine incarnations even when locked up in a dark murky jail by her brother Kansa.&nbsp; The exhibition follows a cohesive theme overall and is well timed for the upcoming Krishnashtami festival which this year falls on 27 August. &nbsp; Rasa Lila Nepal Art Council Baber Mahal 10AM-5PM, until 3 August

Vishad Raj Onta

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

thumbnail

viewImage

Deity, devotion, and divine dance

“Maybe you are a dragon,” says M.
She wants to know what Mi-malaa in Newa translates to. I say, it is a fire-breathing dragon. And I immediately slide into a ramble about dragons, which is when she says she thinks that I might be a dragon.
I laugh.
…
I am five, sickly, forever dodging all kinds of arrows life darts at me, throwing me into fits of cough that cause asthma. It means I am not as athletic as my cousins or my classmates. I am the youngest in class and the littlest of all cousins. I am the runt of the pack. My oldest cousin sister, whenever it rains, lifts her frock over my head like a broken umbrella.
Stay in bed! I am told that a lot by everyone. Baa brings me Read-it-Yourself Ladybird classics.
One very dry day in March, Yaama, decides I must join the other children for Malaa ja-- the feast of the dragon. Maa is not entirely sure but she helps me put on my pretty pink frock that has a bunch of dolls embroidered to the front. Yaama leads me to the street before the Taleju temple where wicker mats have been spread out and children are seated in rows, like some picnic is underway.
My heart thumps at the sight. I am assigned a spot.
Men and women appear in a file, walking past us, leaving treats, ranging from cookies to cakes to fruits, on the leafy plates set before each one of us. The girl next to me asks me if she can have some of my sweets and I say yes. Drink your juice, she says.
I feel as though I am part of something important, even though I have no appetite.
Yaama brings me home when the feast is over. Maa asks me how it went. I tell her everything. She explains how in the past, it would have been a proper feast of rice and daal and goodies and that the event was a prayer sent out to the dragon to protect the children from itself-- March being a month of storms and strong winds and contagious diseases. Hence, Malaa Ja.
…
Maa has always owned a pendant with a dragon on it. In fact, all her sisters have one, a family tradition of carving the serpentine mythical creature with fins, scales and fire onto little slabs of metal.
While I still had a penchant for jewelry, I used to ask Maa if she would give it to me someday. I would ask her why the pendant has a dragon. “My birthchart warns me against the Malaa. I am supposed to wear the pendant so a dragon can protect me against dragons.”
Whenever it rained, Maa’s elder sister would rush to her rescue with an umbrella and shove her into the house. Stay indoors! She would make her watch the rain from the window. She was not allowed to be outdoors during storms. And so my mother learned to watch the rain from the window and read her books.
And across the sky, she would see the dragons flashing to the background score of thunder, spreading as far as the horizon in its colours, claws, scales and fins-- the sudden outburst of lightning sending shudders through her heart.
…
“On the main entrance of our old home were two massive, colourful dragons. They were beautiful,” Maa recalls. “The house had little attic windows and I would look at the mountains from those windows.”
When they pulled the house down to build a new one, the dragons came off the walls in broken bricks.
Maa has no idea who painted the dragons, but they were a symbol of the great creatures that would protect the house and its dwellers.
…
We have four kinds of dragons, says Deepak Bajracharya Gurju. They are: Mi Malaa, Bajra Malaa, Gongaa Mall, Pa Malaa, each named after their shape and impact.
“A Malaa is truth, but also an illusion,” he says. “It is as elusive as it is omnipresent.” And he shares anecdotes.
In one instance, a Malaa had drowned in a pot of brew and turned to stone. But when the woman who discovered it tried to hold it, the stone quickly transformed into its ethereal form and flew away.
In some instances, Guruju says, when the sky suddenly darkens, rumbles and the lighting strikes, we believe that a Malaa has flown away.
They have been forgotten over the years, he explains, but they are still present in symbols around us. We have seen them carved on to temple struts, to door knobs, painted on walls of old buildings, written by healers on bodies when people fall sick and sometimes inked on the skin. Sometimes, their form stares at us from the ruins of a house struck by lightning.
…
Dragons, Maa says, are representative of who we are as individuals. They are who we aspire to be -- fierce, cold as serpentine scales but bursting with flames that can burn everything to cinders.
She says, there is always that epiphany whenever the Malaa shows across our skies -- the idea of regenerative possibility all humans are. Of how we reinvent and reappear just as dragons do. That was the original hope every parent carried for their children -- that they be like dragons and they protect themselves from other dragons.
Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Pratibha Tuladhar

We are fire-breathing dragons

<figure><img width="1310" height="834" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131156/636cf53b9c7e80680e09da16jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A gory battle scene from the Mahabharata depicted in a Nepali painting from the 1800s. Photo: harekrsna.com </figcaption></figure>Even eleven years after it was first published, The Difficulty of Being Good by Indian author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurcharan_Das" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurcharan_Das&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624856018937000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFSPA3za-pll0LYf5joq4b13sXZ_A">Gurcharan Das</a> is more relevant than ever. Two-thousand years after it was written, so is the Mahabharata.For those who want to read the Mahabharata but are intimidated by the very thought, Das’ interpretation of the epic is well worth the time. Das does not just go to the holy city of Banaras, but to the Regenstein Library in Chicago with its fabulous collection of South Asian text, to explore the Hindu classic.  His ‘academic holiday’ of several years there resulted in this magnificent and riveting book. Das felt that places of learning in Banaras, the natural choice, would discourage him from ‘interrogating’ the text, but that the University of Chicago with its Sanskrit scholars like Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger, would be more suitable. And indeed, the book proves that this was the right decision. The Mahabharata is made up of almost 100,000 couplets, and is seven times longer than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined. But it is just as gory. Besides the length, the big difference with the Greek classics is that every time there is a showdown in the Mahabharata, amazingly, there is a battle-stopping discourse, and the warring parties weigh in and discuss moral pros and cons of the violence they are unleashing on each other. The Iliad, on the other hand, just gets on with the action. Like many religious texts, the Mahabharata also has its share of wacky stories. For example, the Kaurav brothers, who are fighting their Pandav cousins, create an impenetrable military formation called the ‘Chakra Vyuha’ on the twelfth day of the Mahabharata war to kill Pandav warriors like Yudhishthir. When Arjun, from the Pandav side, is fighting elsewhere in the battlefield, his son, Abhimanyu, successfully penetrates the military formation and stops the Kaurav’s menacing advance towards Yudhishthir. However (and this is the incredible part) Abhimanyu had learnt about how to enter the Chakra Vyuha when he was in his mother’s womb, as Arjun was describing it to her. Unfortunately, she fell asleep before Arjun could explain how to exit the treacherous mêlée.As a result, Abhimanyu did not hear about the exit strategy from this battle formation and so he is trapped and mercilessly killed by the Kaurav generals including Karna, Drona and Ashwastthama. Another riveting episode in the Mahabharata is Pandu, the father of the Pandav brothers. He is actually not their biological father because he has been cursed to die if he has coitus. Kunti, his wife, being a resourceful woman, utilises a gift from the ill-tempered sage Durvasha whereby she could invoke any god and have a child by him. And this she does.Gurcharan Das’s book shows us how the Mahabharata differs from other sacred texts, chiefly because rather than handing the reader a clear-cut cook book of instructions for the entry criteria to heaven, it bewilderingly asks more questions than it answers. Almost confirming that the ultimate truth may not even be available here on earth, it shows us that we can only have intimations of the truth -- a core belief in sophisticated Vedic thinking.   <figure><img width="640" height="437" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131156/636cf53e9c7e80680e09da17jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Mahabarata is also true to life with flawed characters populating the text, quite unusual for a holy book. For example, Yudishthir’s weakness for gambling, Duryodhan’s jealous streak, Karna’s status anxiety, Krishna’s guile  -- all add up to make it more human and readable.  In fact, as Das points out, the Mahabharata almost humanises the Kaurav (who are the bad guys) in an attempt to portray the good Pandav guys with empathy (Tat Tvam Asi), to kindle a universal moral sentiment. In contrast, the Ramayana, the other Hindu holy text from an earlier era has more black and white answers with an idealistic Ram and an evil Ravan.   The climax of the Mahabharata is when Yudhishthir is about to enter heaven. Indra, heaven’s gatekeeper, comes in his celestial chariot and requests Yudhishthir to please get in so they can ride into heaven together. The self-effacing Yudhishthir, looking a bit puzzled, asks Indra’s permission if they can also take in a stray dog who has been following him for a few days.  Indra initially declines, Yudhishthir pauses, looks around and says, “My Lord Indra, in that case I will forgo heaven.” This little episode with the dog was actually Indra’s test of compassion for Yudhishthir, which he passes with flying colours and he enters heaven with the stray. Das posits that the editors of the Mahabharata may have been influenced by the Buddhist concept of 'karunamaya', or compassion, as the book was written much later (between 400 BC – 300 AD) than the actual Mahabharata war in Kurukshetra (950 BC). In fact, the author asks a very important question: what would have been the outcome at Kurukshetra if Arjun’s charioteer had been Gautam Buddha instead of the clever Krishna? The Difficulty of Being Good is replete with graphic, lyrical, and evocative prose, as this passage by Das illustrates:  In the summer, I returned to India to visit my mother. On the way, the train stopped at a very sleepy station, about a hundred miles north of Delhi. I stepped on to the platform and discovered that this was no ordinary station: it was historic Kurukshetra where the Mahabharata’s futile war of annihilation had been fought. In the burning heat of the summer afternoon, I began to imagine the brutal magnificence of the raging, ruthless battles. I saw a dithering Arjun, the greatest warrior of his age put down his Gandiva bow and refuse to fight -- leaving his debonair and confident charioteer, Krishna, who is also God, with a problem on his hands. I visualised ruthless Drona grinding the exhausted Pandav armies into the dust. Suddenly he turns anxiously to his pupil, Yudhishthir to ask if the rumour about his son’s death is true. Yudhishthir -- who has never spoken false -- tells a white lie and his fabulous chariot, which always traveled slightly above the ground, sinks into the dust.  In a sense, this is a book review of The Difficulty of Being Good, which itself is a book review of the Mahabharata 2,000 years after it was written.  As we put down the book, it is hard to erase the image of Arjun folding his hands in front of the flamboyant Krishna, refusing to fight, while the ruthless Drona and remorseful Yudhishthir are carrying on a conversation in the heat of battle.  Buddha Basnyat is a physician at the Patan Institute of Health Sciences. Disclaimer: Gurcharan Das is his phuaju, uncle.The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of DharmaPenguin Paperback, 2012 ₹ 499.00by <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Gurcharan-Das/e/B001HD010S/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.in/Gurcharan-Das/e/B001HD010S/ref%3Ddp_byline_cont_book_1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624856018938000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHo1HTL86FzCkDyhd98zvMw0xvEKw">Gurcharan Das</a><a href="http://https://www.amazon.in/Difficulty-Being-Good-Subtle-Dharma/dp/0143418971"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131156/636cf5419c7e80680e09da18jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="313"></a>

Being good is not easy

<figure><img width="1310" height="834" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94819c7e80680e06f207jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A gory battle scene from the Mahabharata depicted in a Nepali painting from the 1800s. Photo: harekrsna.com </figcaption></figure>Even eleven years after it was first published, The Difficulty of Being Good by Indian author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurcharan_Das" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurcharan_Das&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624856018937000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFSPA3za-pll0LYf5joq4b13sXZ_A">Gurcharan Das</a> is more relevant than ever. Two-thousand years after it was written, so is the Mahabharata.For those who want to read the Mahabharata but are intimidated by the very thought, Das’ interpretation of the epic is well worth the time. Das does not just go to the holy city of Banaras, but to the Regenstein Library in Chicago with its fabulous collection of South Asian text, to explore the Hindu classic.  His ‘academic holiday’ of several years there resulted in this magnificent and riveting book. Das felt that places of learning in Banaras, the natural choice, would discourage him from ‘interrogating’ the text, but that the University of Chicago with its Sanskrit scholars like Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger, would be more suitable. And indeed, the book proves that this was the right decision. The Mahabharata is made up of almost 100,000 couplets, and is seven times longer than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined. But it is just as gory. Besides the length, the big difference with the Greek classics is that every time there is a showdown in the Mahabharata, amazingly, there is a battle-stopping discourse, and the warring parties weigh in and discuss moral pros and cons of the violence they are unleashing on each other. The Iliad, on the other hand, just gets on with the action. Like many religious texts, the Mahabharata also has its share of wacky stories. For example, the Kaurav brothers, who are fighting their Pandav cousins, create an impenetrable military formation called the ‘Chakra Vyuha’ on the twelfth day of the Mahabharata war to kill Pandav warriors like Yudhishthir. When Arjun, from the Pandav side, is fighting elsewhere in the battlefield, his son, Abhimanyu, successfully penetrates the military formation and stops the Kaurav’s menacing advance towards Yudhishthir. However (and this is the incredible part) Abhimanyu had learnt about how to enter the Chakra Vyuha when he was in his mother’s womb, as Arjun was describing it to her. Unfortunately, she fell asleep before Arjun could explain how to exit the treacherous mêlée.As a result, Abhimanyu did not hear about the exit strategy from this battle formation and so he is trapped and mercilessly killed by the Kaurav generals including Karna, Drona and Ashwastthama. Another riveting episode in the Mahabharata is Pandu, the father of the Pandav brothers. He is actually not their biological father because he has been cursed to die if he has coitus. Kunti, his wife, being a resourceful woman, utilises a gift from the ill-tempered sage Durvasha whereby she could invoke any god and have a child by him. And this she does.Gurcharan Das’s book shows us how the Mahabharata differs from other sacred texts, chiefly because rather than handing the reader a clear-cut cook book of instructions for the entry criteria to heaven, it bewilderingly asks more questions than it answers. Almost confirming that the ultimate truth may not even be available here on earth, it shows us that we can only have intimations of the truth -- a core belief in sophisticated Vedic thinking.   <figure><img width="640" height="437" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94849c7e80680e06f208jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Mahabarata is also true to life with flawed characters populating the text, quite unusual for a holy book. For example, Yudishthir’s weakness for gambling, Duryodhan’s jealous streak, Karna’s status anxiety, Krishna’s guile  -- all add up to make it more human and readable.  In fact, as Das points out, the Mahabharata almost humanises the Kaurav (who are the bad guys) in an attempt to portray the good Pandav guys with empathy (Tat Tvam Asi), to kindle a universal moral sentiment. In contrast, the Ramayana, the other Hindu holy text from an earlier era has more black and white answers with an idealistic Ram and an evil Ravan.   The climax of the Mahabharata is when Yudhishthir is about to enter heaven. Indra, heaven’s gatekeeper, comes in his celestial chariot and requests Yudhishthir to please get in so they can ride into heaven together. The self-effacing Yudhishthir, looking a bit puzzled, asks Indra’s permission if they can also take in a stray dog who has been following him for a few days.  Indra initially declines, Yudhishthir pauses, looks around and says, “My Lord Indra, in that case I will forgo heaven.” This little episode with the dog was actually Indra’s test of compassion for Yudhishthir, which he passes with flying colours and he enters heaven with the stray. Das posits that the editors of the Mahabharata may have been influenced by the Buddhist concept of 'karunamaya', or compassion, as the book was written much later (between 400 BC – 300 AD) than the actual Mahabharata war in Kurukshetra (950 BC). In fact, the author asks a very important question: what would have been the outcome at Kurukshetra if Arjun’s charioteer had been Gautam Buddha instead of the clever Krishna? The Difficulty of Being Good is replete with graphic, lyrical, and evocative prose, as this passage by Das illustrates:  In the summer, I returned to India to visit my mother. On the way, the train stopped at a very sleepy station, about a hundred miles north of Delhi. I stepped on to the platform and discovered that this was no ordinary station: it was historic Kurukshetra where the Mahabharata’s futile war of annihilation had been fought. In the burning heat of the summer afternoon, I began to imagine the brutal magnificence of the raging, ruthless battles. I saw a dithering Arjun, the greatest warrior of his age put down his Gandiva bow and refuse to fight -- leaving his debonair and confident charioteer, Krishna, who is also God, with a problem on his hands. I visualised ruthless Drona grinding the exhausted Pandav armies into the dust. Suddenly he turns anxiously to his pupil, Yudhishthir to ask if the rumour about his son’s death is true. Yudhishthir -- who has never spoken false -- tells a white lie and his fabulous chariot, which always traveled slightly above the ground, sinks into the dust.  In a sense, this is a book review of The Difficulty of Being Good, which itself is a book review of the Mahabharata 2,000 years after it was written.  As we put down the book, it is hard to erase the image of Arjun folding his hands in front of the flamboyant Krishna, refusing to fight, while the ruthless Drona and remorseful Yudhishthir are carrying on a conversation in the heat of battle.  Buddha Basnyat is a physician at the Patan Institute of Health Sciences. Disclaimer: Gurcharan Das is his phuaju, uncle.The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of DharmaPenguin Paperback, 2012 ₹ 499.00by <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Gurcharan-Das/e/B001HD010S/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.in/Gurcharan-Das/e/B001HD010S/ref%3Ddp_byline_cont_book_1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624856018938000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHo1HTL86FzCkDyhd98zvMw0xvEKw">Gurcharan Das</a><a href="http://https://www.amazon.in/Difficulty-Being-Good-Subtle-Dharma/dp/0143418971"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94889c7e80680e06f209jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="313"></a>

Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers have a well-deserved reputation worldwide for uncommon valour and loyalty. However, what happened in Hawaii in 1986 and the long struggle for fair pay and pension shows that the formidable fighters from Nepal also do not tolerate injustice. The Hong Kong-based 1st Battalion of the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles was in Hawaii for jungle warfare training exercises at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center when they beat up their commanding officer, Major Corin Pearce. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Gurkhas said Pearce had insulted them, and 111 soldiers were dismissed. Pearce suffered broken ribs and a head injury, and was himself also discharged. The incident got worldwide publicity and enforced the belief that the Nepalis were not treated fairly in the British Army. It also led some retired soldiers to begin a decades-long struggle for compensation at par with their British peers.&nbsp; Retired British Gurkha soldier Shankar Rai in his book Triumph and Tears revisits the Hawaii incident which he witnessed, and also his experience in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas war in 1982.&nbsp; He has lots of grievances: unequal treatment and injustice from the British Army towards himself and his comrades. This is an indignant and disillusioned account of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a British Gurkha, which he says let him down despite his service and belief in it.&nbsp; The book could also be a cautionary tale of how one person on a power-trip can tarnish two centuries of the shared history of Nepal and the UK, as well as ruin the lives of those involved. It also is proof that loyalty should never be taken for granted. Four years after defeating the Argentinians in the Falklands, several companies and platoons of Gurkha rifles were stationed in Hawaii in 1986 for joint US-UK ‘Exercise Union Pacific’ military exercises. The goal was to ‘perfect the art of marine warfare in collaboration with the US Marine Force’. The rules were that a British Gurkha company commander needed to have the rank of major and pass a Nepali language test. Captain Pearce was the son-in-law of a British Brigadier on extra-regiment employment, and this rule was waived. He was appointed Acting Major. Pearce didn’t bother to learn Nepali language or culture, and from Rai’s account took every chance to belittle and embarrass the Gurkhas as poor, stupid, rude, backward, and lucky to be there. He writes: ‘After Captain Pearce reached Hawaii, he began to project himself as a master and the Gurkhas as servants, to show off to the Americans.’ The author also recounts other slights, such as only receiving a fourth of the rations they were due during hard training, being forced to train even when some of the soldiers had high fever, and claims to have ‘civilised’ the Nepalis.&nbsp; Pearce had been to eastern Nepal before the training and seen the grinding poverty. He kept telling the Gurkhas how lucky they were to be in the job, and that they were making ‘more money than Nepal’s prime minister’. During the final farewell party in Hawaii, Pearce set up tables to form a saluting platform, and asked the Gurkha pipe and drum band to march around him while playing. The enraged soldiers could not take it anymore, and after the party an inebriated group ran Captains Pearce and Chandra Kumar Pradhan out of their tents and beat them up. Both officers broke ribs, and the major needed 15 stitches on his head. ‘This sorry and unseemly episode is considered to have been entirely at odds with the Brigade of Gurkhas’ tradition of loyalty and gallant service in the British Army. It is regarded as an isolated and untypical event, which will not be permitted to detract from the high esteem in which the Brigade is held,’ reads the report of an investigation. Most of the 1/7 company soldiers were dismissed whether they had been involved in the assault or not. The author describes the shame that followed, with dismissed soldiers returning to Nepal with lost face.&nbsp; ‘I burned with humiliation, and life scared me,’ writes the author, whose father told him that he was ashamed to call him his son. ‘Many of my friends’ girlfriends left them and married other people. Rifleman Khem Gurung (21162015) of Itahari committed suicide,’ writes Rai, adding that those dismissed were blacklisted, and could not get other jobs.&nbsp; They tried to pursue legal action against the British Government, but backed down when they could not afford expensive hotshot lawyers, and would not have the money to cover the British government’s legal fees in the likely case of a loss in court. Gurkhas who had served for four years in the UK were allowed to move there, an option that many of those dismissed in the Hawaii incident took, including the author, who now lives in Oxford. Rai pours out his hurt and emotion in the book. Towards the end, he writes: ‘I depend on small jobs for livelihood. In the remaining time, I actively raise the issue of the victims of the Hawaii incident. We are burdened with insults, hatred, and contempt for a lifetime. It was harsher than a court martial, too heavy to bear.’ The is a slim book, and is a quick, engaging read of an incident 30 years ago, and Rai writes with a soldier’s precision. Even though the anger shows even after all these years, there is no over-dramatisation in the narrative.&nbsp; The first part of the book is about sailing across the South Atlantic in the QEII, which had been converted into a troop ship to take the Gurkhas to war. The soldiers from landlocked Nepal were mostly sea-sick, but were happy to get two cans of beer a day. Barclays Bank even had a branch on board. Rai’s descriptions of the friendships he developed in the Company and on the battlefield are poignant. They braved Argentinian bombs, dug trenches and fought through the rain in the Southern Hemisphere winter. There are vignettes of sharing tea with fellow Nepalis, seeing comrades fall, and finding pictures of wives and children in the pockets of dead young Argentine soldiers. Behind the prestige, honour and myths of being a Gurkha soldier, it seems this is just another job with nepotism, horrible bosses and bad pay. But such is the desperation that up to 20,000 young Nepalis still apply for 300 openings in the British Army every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Triumph and tears book details NT"> </figure>

Not taking loyalty for granted

After a week of to-and-fro that culminated in all-night bargaining, two populist young figures in Nepali politics agreed at 4AM on Sunday to join forces ahead of elections in March. Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP, who came out of jail a week ago, has forged an alliance with Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah. Both are keen to ride on the GenZ wave that radically changed the direction of Nepal’s politics that has been dominated by three mainstream parties for the past three decades. Under the 7-point deal, Lamichhane will still head the RSP, while Shah has been promised prime ministership if the party wins a majority in the federal elections. Shah will also be the parliamentary party leader. The RSP will keep its name and election symbol. “Agreements must be made not on the basis of what leaders want, but on what the country needs,” Lamichhane wrote on social media announcing the alliance. The RSP chair is said to have put his own prime ministerial aspirations on hold to ensure the Kathmandu Mayor's support for the March polls. This is an alliance of convenience. Lamichhane requires the backing from Shah’s youth voters to face the legacy parties, while the mayor needs a political platform. Ultimately the prospect of leading not just Kathmandu but Nepal itself appears to have been the deciding factor for Balen Shah. The Kathmandu mayor is reportedly keen to contest the election from Jhapa against former prime minister K P Oli in his constituency.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Balen-Rabi alliance"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH, RABI LAMICHHANE / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The two have much in common. Lamichhane, a former tv anchor, returned from the United States and launched the RSP as an alternative party four months before elections in 2022. He served as Home Minister twice in Pushpa Kamal Dahal's coalition government before being jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositers. He made a jail break during the September protests, returned to prison voluntarily, and was released on bail last week. Balen Shah stood as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu in local elections in 2022, and was catapulted to victory because of anti-incumbent protest votes among urban youth.&nbsp; Both campaigned on social media, pushing a populist anti-corruption agenda and against the governance failure of the three establishment parties — the same logic that drove the GenZ protests in September that escalated into violence and brought down the UML-NC coalition. Even as government buildings smouldered on 10 September, GenZ members were strongly urging Balen Shah to be the interim prime minister, but when he declined they voted on Discord for former chief justice Sushila Karki.&nbsp; With just over two months to go for elections on 5 March, Prime Minister Karki has been trying desperately to get the mainstream parties on board. She has met twice with the top leaders of the UML, NC and the NCP. All three parties have been dealing with internal power struggles, and the UML appears to be the most reluctant to face elections.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Sushila Karki with political leaders"> <figcaption>Prime Minister Sushila Karki has been meeting with leaders of the mainstream parties to get them on board for the election. Photo: PMO</figcaption> </figure>  The UML’s former prime minister K P Oli has refused summons by the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged with investigating the massacre of protesters on 8 September and the arson and vandalism the next day. Then home minister Ramesh Lekhak is scheduled to give his deposition to the Commission this week. The legacy parties appear to be taking the threat from the Rabi-Balen partnership strongly, and have been trying to forge an electoral alliance so they do not compete against each other.&nbsp; They are relying on traditional vote banks among the rural electorate, and calculate that alternative forces will cancel themselves out. They could also be hoping that Balen Shah’s erratic behaviour and Rabi Lamichhane’s prison conviction will put voters off. A total of 837,094 first-time voters have been registered in Nepal ahead of the elections.&nbsp; The Kathmandu mayor is an engineer and rap artist, and had till now been reclusive, preferring to post on social media rather than face the press. His late-night online posts have been impulsive: like the one urging that Singha Darbar be burnt down, or another one recently in which he used the f-word against the US, China, India and the mainstream parties. He later deleted both posts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1112" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Rabi agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between Shah and Lamichhane. </figcaption> </figure>  Lamichane and Shah had also been negotiating with Energy Minister Kulman Ghising’s newly-forced Ujyalo Nepal Party, but the bargaining did not go well because Ghising refused to fight elections under the RSP banner. If the three had been successful in coming together, it would have been a formidable alliance. There are misgivings about the RSP-Balen Shah deal, even among some GenZ who see the two prominent men dividing up the power structure as just the kind of political culture they wanted to reform. Many are already predicting exactly the kind of clash of egos between the two alpha males that characterised Nepali politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. In the coming days, as with most political change in Nepal, there will be much speculation about the geopolitics behind the Rabi-Balen deal. Balen Shah’s angry post against India-US-China as well as his past nationalistic pronouncements on Nepal’s territorial dispute with India over Kalapani will be recalled, while Beijing has misgivings about the antecedents of some GenZ figures. Dharan-mayor Harka Sampang, who has also formed his own political party, has already pronounced the Rabi-Balen deal as being “foreign backed”.

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026

Everyone in the world is running some kind of race. Some chase recognition. Some chase money. Others run simply to stay ahead of others. But there are some who run for others. They are not trying to overtake anyone, they do not do it for fame, they are not getting paid to do it. But they run to pay for the upliftment of those less privileged. Bal Joshi, 41, is originally from Surkhet. His father was involved in the democratic movement during the days of absolute monarchy and he remembers frequent police searches of the house. And with his father in hiding, the young Joshi had to take care of the family. When the family’s small shop failed, his mother took the young Bal and his brother back to the village, and that is where he completed his education, walking four hours roundtrip every day between home and school. He ran most of the way, and without realising it he has been running ever since. Life was hard. Rent, food, education. His mother struggled constantly. There were days when there was no money even to buy kerosene for the stove. At one point, he sold his calculator, worth Rs 300, for just Rs 80 to get by.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  At 15, Joshi moved to Nepalganj to continue his education. He initially stayed with his uncles, but eventually began living on his own. The transition to city life was difficult, and he experienced significant economic hardship while trying to pursue his studies. There were times when he struggled to meet basic needs, and at one point he sold his calculator just to get by. When he was 17, after hearing that his father was seriously ill, Joshi travelled to Gujarat to bring him back home. His father died soon after, and Joshi took on responsibility for supporting his family. It was his mother who taught him that despite scarcity, life had to be lived with dignity. Joshi started working at a newspaper at the age of 16 as a proofreader, and later became a journalist. During the Maoist war when children were being orphaned as a result of violence by both sides, he became active in the Sahara Group, and at 19, he began managing an orphanage that took in conflict-affected children. In Bajhang, after the army killed a man on suspicion of being a Maoist, his wife jumped into the Seti River and ended her life. Their two children were taken into army custody. During the rescue process, Joshi met Sunaina Adhikari of the ICRC and back in Nepalganj they decided to get married. The conflict was still raging in western Nepal in 2005, when Joshi went to the United States. In Maryland, he initially worked at a Bengali-owned Subway outlet, spending long hours on his feet behind the counter. He changed jobs frequently, financing his education along the way, and ultimately graduated with a degree in finance in 2008. He joined Hancock Whitney Bank in Texas, and has risen up the ranks to be Senior Vice President. A colleague inspired him to run as a way to stay healthy. But it soon turned into something more meaningful — running more than a dozen 50km marathons for charity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  Last year, Joshi returned to Nepal to run the Everest Marathon, and raised $42,000 which he donated to <a href="https://onestepfoundation.org/" target="_blank">One Step Foundation</a> which works on health care, child welfare and cultural preservation in Nepal and around the world. In June this year, Joshi and his family climbed Kilimanjaro, raising $19,000 for 80 HIV-affected orphaned children in Tanzania. During the Diwali festival he ran 220km in Nevada’s Red Canyon and raised $25,000 for cataract surgeries through the the <a href="https://www.theruitfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Ruit Foundation</a> in Nepal for cataract surgeries.&nbsp; Joshi does not run competitions, and is not trying to break any records. His motto is: “My race, my pace.”&nbsp; Turning his childhood scarcity into helping others, he says: “We all share sunlight, rain, air, and soil, nothing is truly just your own. I grew up without shoes, and I am fortunate to be able to distribute shoes to those who walk barefoot.” We ask Bal Joshi what (and where) next? His answer: the <a href="https://www.worldmarathonchallenge.com/" target="_blank">World Marathon Challenge</a> that will go around the world to run seven marathons in seven continents in seven days beginning in Antarctica at end-January.&nbsp; Joshi aims to run wearing the daura suruwal and Nepal’s flag as to show where he comes from, and how far in life he has come.

Running for dear life

A day after Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-vs-new-in-nepal-in-2026-z6l4fgrd">came together to form an electoral alliance</a>, Kulman Ghising has also joined forces with the two leaders, merging his Ujyalo Nepal Party with the RSP.&nbsp; Following last-minute negotiations before Monday’s midnight deadline for parties to file their list of candidates for the Proportional Representation (PR) seats, Lamichhane and Ujyalo Nepal chair Anup Kumar Upadhyay signed a seven-point agreement to unify the two parties, with Balen Shah as witness.&nbsp; Per the deal, Ghising will be the vice-chair of the RSP, joining DP Aryal and Swarnim Wagle as the party’s seconds-in-command. The earlier agreement between Lamichhane and Shah retained Lamichhane as RSP chief, and promised Shah prime ministership if the party wins a majority in Parliament in March.&nbsp; Ghising’s team reportedly has a 17% share on the list of PR candidates filed by the RSP at the Election Commission. Balen has also fielded his own picks, and together the party has the likes of cricketer Gyandenra Malla, actress Reema Biswokarma, rights activist Mohna Ansari, climate activist Tashi Lhazom, and singer Prakash Saput as PR candidates. Ghising had held multiple rounds of talks with the RSP chair and the Kathmandu Mayor to discuss possible collaborations, but had failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. On Monday, Ghising had met with Lamichhane heeding a last-ditch effort from GenZ leaders, in particular Sudan Gurung, as they tried for the final time to get the interim Minister on board with Lamichhane and Shah before the PR list submission deadline.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1595" height="1087" loading="lazy" alt="Sudan Kulman Balen"> <figcaption>Photo: SUDAN GURUNG / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1026" height="1084" loading="lazy" alt="Balen and Sudan NT"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The three are now set to make a formidable team to challenge mainstream parties at the polls. News of this alliance has been welcome to Nepalis who are looking for any alternatives to break the stronghold of the Oli-Deuba-Dahal trio over Nepali politics in recent history.&nbsp; But they will also carry each other’s baggage.&nbsp; Lamichhane, who was jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositors last year, was welcomed back as RSP party chair with open arms after he was released on bail last week. And while he has maintained his base of loyal supporters, he was subject to widespread criticism after he walked out of detention amid the jailbreak during the September protests, prompting his eventual voluntary return to prison.&nbsp; His party’s silencing and expulsion of critics within the RSP has also drawn direct comparison with the leadership structure of Nepal’s mainstream parties. Prominent leaders like Sumana Shrestha have left the party over disagreements with leadership.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Balen’s impassioned campaign resonated with Nepalis disillusioned with establishment leaders during the 2022 election and made him mayor of Kathmandu. The mayor’s direct, no-holds-barred style of communication and commentary has attained him much support beyond his constituency.&nbsp; But his unyielding, often unempathetic leadership style and policies— like his dismissal of street vendors and informal businesses during his drive to free up Kathmandu’s footpaths— have also earned him detractors. His recent outburst on social media in November that included expletives against both of Nepal’s neighbours and the US, as well as Nepal’s three main parties and the RSP was also widely criticised.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="890" height="1255" loading="lazy" alt="Agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between RSP and Ujyalo Nepal Party.</figcaption> </figure>  Ghising, credited with ending Nepal’s prolonged load-shedding during his tenure as the chief of Nepal Electricity Authority, has a reputation of getting the job done. His public goodwill earned him a seat on Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s interim Cabinet following the youth protest.&nbsp; But he has also been under scrutiny for funds misappropriation as well as controversial power purchase agreements during his tenure as NEA chief. Ghising had foregone the leadership position at his Ujyalo party, preferring to play the role of patron until closer to the election date, but was nonetheless criticised for his political and electoral aspirations while being a member of the transitional government. It now remains to be seen if and when Ghising will step away from his position in the interim Cabinet and begin campaigning with his new partners.&nbsp; As it stands, the involvement of prominent GenZ figures in bringing together Ghising, Shah, and Lamichhane has established youth leaders as major players in Nepal’s post-September political landscape. These leaders will have significant pull with young and first-time voters. But not all young leaders are impressed with this new triumvirate. Some have pointed out that the unity between these three leaders is no different from the political opportunism and quid-pro-quo power-sharing culture established and followed by Nepal’s mainstream leadership for the last three decades which culminated into the GenZ movement of September.

mythology

Deity, devotion, and divine dance

We are fire-breathing dragons

Being good is not easy

Being good is not easy

Not taking loyalty for granted

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026

Running for dear life

Kulman follows Balen to RSP