<figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_69ede35955ce13b33fac9518d6be3b877b0a4c8c914881a23022df1cb6662326.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20231228091240_69ede35955ce13b33fac9518d6be3b877b0a4c8c914881a23022df1cb6662326" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Canadian activist Naomi Klein’s book Doppelganger that was published this year is written for our times. The pervasiveness of the social web has not given us greater clarity--facts do not matter when conspiratorial ideas have more traction and the toxic sludge of e-platforms make rational debate futile. Klein herself is often mistaken for Naomi Wolf, a journalist regarded as the mistress of misinformation, and her book title Doppelganger takes on added irony and symbolism. Doppelganger led this reader to discover Klein’s earlier book, This Changes Everything. Published in 2014 when the times were still innocent and the following year the Paris Agreement optimistically put a target of 1.5 degree threshold by 2050. This year has broken all records, and in November we already hit an average global temperature of 1.4. It is demoralising to think that Klein had been warning us nine years ago that globalised market capitalism cannot solve the climate breakdown because it is the cause of this crisis. Look no further than COP28 in Dubai. This Changes Everything has not aged, if anything it is a sobering reminder that nothing has changed.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_499df5930e302d97085b9ab5bbe6ae0938efdf4e2e7fcb2e338e78af0ea95d9d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231228091240_499df5930e302d97085b9ab5bbe6ae0938efdf4e2e7fcb2e338e78af0ea95d9d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Who better than Sagar Rana, the grandson of Chandra Shumsher, to write the 100-year history of the Rana reign in the 2018 book Singha Durbar? And in the 2023 sequel, Kingdom Lost, he traces the 70-year trajectory of Nepal’s democracy from the very first Rana-Shah-Congress coalition of the fifties right up to the abolition of monarchy in 2008. Kingdom Lost is more relevant than ever today with royalist parties gaining support for reviving the Hindu monarchy. The book gives us the historical context: BP Koirala becoming the first elected Prime Minister, Mahendra’s coup of 1961, three decades of Panchayat, one decade of conflict, the massacre of royals in 2001 and the last 15 years of a democratic federal and secular republic. India looms large in the book, and today we miss Mahendra and BP who, despite being autocratic and democratic leaders, demonstrated genuine nationalism at a time of geopolitical upheaval. We miss that calibre of statesmanship today. Kunda Dixit  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_6e3cead26aa0a7f914561c48c30a1791af3d43db67cadbd23b624dbf3613bf49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20231228091240_6e3cead26aa0a7f914561c48c30a1791af3d43db67cadbd23b624dbf3613bf49" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Award-winning journalist Gaia Vince’s latest book Nomad Country reads like science fiction with early chapters outlining a dystopian world that is 4°C warmer by the end of the century. ‘Fleeing the tropics, the coasts and formerly arable lands, huge populations will need to seek new homes. You will be among them, or you will be receiving them,’ she writes. Given the unprecedented heat waves in 2023 in India, China, Europe and North America, Vince’s assumption that large swathes of the globe will be uninhabitable, leading to the next big mass migration to higher latitudes or altitudes, is not far off. Already, people are moving to escape droughts, flash floods, rising sea levels, tropical storms and wildfires. Despite the pessimistic beginning, Nomad Country is a call for planned mass migration to deal with climate refugees in the new Anthropocene epoch. But how will this reshape humanity, our food systems, our cities and most importantly, our politics? Find out.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_12edd6f031365893c96a47dd24a67e9c51cdc066a20c99b9a530b6cb85de0fbb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20231228091240_12edd6f031365893c96a47dd24a67e9c51cdc066a20c99b9a530b6cb85de0fbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was a cinematic masterpiece but the three-hour epic can only squeeze in so much about the man ‘whose brilliance was matched only by his internal conflicts’ (and about nuclear fission). The full story is in the Pulitzer-winning book American Prometheus which inspired the movie. The biography that took 25 years to write delves into the life and times, and the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist known as the father of the atomic bomb. It unravels the scientific complexities behind the most destructive weapon in the world, and explores the layered character that was Oppenheimer. Authors Kai Bird (who wrote a part of the book while posted in Nepal) and the late Martin J. Sherwin combine meticulous research and a masterful plotline to take readers through an extraordinary and often tumultuous journey starting from Oppenheimer’s days as a struggling student in Cambridge to him leading the Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test in Los Alamos. But Oppenheimer’s all-consuming guilt following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the opposition to the hydrogen bomb and finally the revoking of his security clearance make for a great drama. A thought-proving read that resonates long after the final chapter, especially at a time of heightened geopolitical tension following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis. A reminder that the doomsday clock is ticking. Sonia Awale  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_532b9f2f2c82767f7fab674173d311adad49d2b67e4807e476e5e9af9f70cdb7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20231228091240_532b9f2f2c82767f7fab674173d311adad49d2b67e4807e476e5e9af9f70cdb7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  A girl and her father look after a vacation house and those who come to stay in it. Two friends, one grieving the loss of a loved one and the other fulfilled in her life, catch up with each other after a year. A man who escaped war in his country as a young boy finally obtains a house for his wife and children. A young woman sets off to the post office to collect a parcel for her injured employer. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories in Italian, nine nameless protagonists are bound by the fact that they are foreigners to Italy, all grappling with what home means. In Roman Stories, the characters’ quiet reflections of going about their daily lives are interwoven with casual violence, discrimination and isolation: familiar to immigrants across the world. They are outsiders in lands that they will never quite be allowed to become familiar with.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_e878bb449a3b1701374c376e8fe42283b449a4ec99d9468f8a0fab2178e56033.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20231228091240_e878bb449a3b1701374c376e8fe42283b449a4ec99d9468f8a0fab2178e56033" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  In Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun, the narrator Klara, an android designed as an Artificial Friend (AF) to children, forms a one-sided relationship with the sun as she looks out of the window of the store where she is for sale. When she is eventually bought as a companion for a sick teenage girl, Klara looks towards her imagined connection with the sun in hopes that her charge can be healed from her illness. Through the eyes of a humanoid machine, Ishiguro examines the connection between technology and humanity in a world where much of the function of people has been replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI). And all the while, this novel set in a dystopian future begins to feel uncomfortably similar to the times we live in. Shristi Karki  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_d1586eb593243410a147e2d20282e99e28eb7bf97785c86325947e184f1ec233.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20231228091240_d1586eb593243410a147e2d20282e99e28eb7bf97785c86325947e184f1ec233" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, published in 1961, remains a significant work in his repertoire. The book's enduring popularity and adaptation into a movie directed by Tim Burton reflect Dahl's continued relevance long after his passing. Notably personal to him, the story draws from Dahl's own life, particularly his experiences living with relatives. Discussions around Dahl's controversial remarks on sexism, body shaming, and other sensitive topics have led to revisions in new editions. Dahl's book remains relevant not only for children but also for adults, serving as a reminder that there is always hope at the end of challenging times. It emphasises the importance of empathy and understanding, virtues much needed in today's world. In a world full of negative news, taking a step back to immerse oneself in the world of childhood imagination can provide a comforting escape.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_c0757f90e6e3a57a71599086de5e9f33e28767f3fd6806f6ed5b998360e345df.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20231228091240_c0757f90e6e3a57a71599086de5e9f33e28767f3fd6806f6ed5b998360e345df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  Amidst the growing global movement for heritage repatriation, nations like Greece, Cambodia, Mexico, Vietnam, and increasingly India are working to reclaim their stolen cultural treasures housed in museums abroad. In The Idol Thief, Vijay Kumar shares insights into the investigation of Subhash Kapoor, a notorious art dealer based in New York. The book documents the collaborative efforts between US authorities, India, and the India Pride Project, which Kumar co-founded, to recover stolen cultural artifacts not only from India but also from other nations. The Idol Thief offers lessons about the depth of investigations that goes into the repatriation of stolen cultural heritage. Nepal, with its rich cultural legacy, has much to learn from Vijay Kumar's book. Alisha Sijapati  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_2b78bc8c192a817c0fadeedaaf43b2dbb294bee1b069133de637ffe7ff29b735.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20231228091240_2b78bc8c192a817c0fadeedaaf43b2dbb294bee1b069133de637ffe7ff29b735" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  In this short story collection, author Cho Nam-joo returns to tales of everyday women navigating the pressures of familial expectations and societal norms. The protagonists in the eight stories give an intimate portrait of women who have faced gender-based violence, harassment, or discrimination in the household, workplace, or society. The characters grapple with expectations that often hinder their aspirations, but some also manage to find small areas of defiance. The strength of the book lies in the universality of the experiences that make the stories not just about Korean women, but women all over.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231228091240_36bb4a7120ec98792c7f3c7823318ea4ac7e02ac5491bbf14e86e3777740aeba.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20231228091240_36bb4a7120ec98792c7f3c7823318ea4ac7e02ac5491bbf14e86e3777740aeba" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="books "></figure>  In Adania Shibli’s novel, a young Bedouin woman is gang raped and murdered by Israeli troops in 1949. Decades later, a woman in Ramallah stumbles upon the story in a newspaper and becomes obsessed by one minor detail – that the assault happened 25 years ago to the day she was born. She then sets out to gather information about the crime, charting prohibited territories carrying maps that no longer show the geography she was once familiar with. Minor Detail is a novel where the arc might feel familiar, where people are displaced, identity and borders are erased, and extraordinary becomes every day. There are no names for the characters, but Shibli lists the changing names of the places. Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette, Shibli’s writing is subtle, calm, and sparse: an example of how when armed with a powerful narrative one does not need to shout, just whisper. Sahina Shrestha

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

The reading compass

<figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13c69c7e80680e0a993djpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photos: AMITAV GHOSH</figcaption></figure>Born in Calcutta, and now a New York-based writer, Amitav Ghosh approaches the subject of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/un-climate-report-declares-planetary-emergency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">global environmental crisis</a> through two literary genres: fiction and non-fiction.  As a celebrated novelist, Ghosh is known for his meticulously researched works of fiction that take complex transnational historical events, and weave characters into them, so that readers get a close idea of what it was like to live through those times. The Calcutta Chromosome, for instance, is a tale woven around the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-mosquito-that-changed-nepals-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">malaria scourge</a> that has lessons for the current pandemic. In The Glass Palace, Ghosh takes us back to colonial Burma, Malaya and Bengal and the story of a family caught up in upheavals. His novel The Hungry Tide is about a young Indian scientist in the ecologically fragile mangroves of the Sundarban in the Ganges delta. Sea of Poppies is about fictional characters caught up in the very real Opium Wars. <img width="191" height="270" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13c89c7e80680e0a993ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="190" height="271" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13ca9c7e80680e0a993fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="191" height="269" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13cb9c7e80680e0a9940jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="191" height="272" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13cc9c7e80680e0a9941jpeg.jpg" alt="">While Ghosh specialises in historical novels that merge fact and fiction, he has also written powerful non-fiction books, including the ethnographic In an Antique Land. The slim Countdown is about regional radioactive fallout of a future India-Pakistan nuclear war, and The Great Derangement in 2016 looked at the reluctance of politicians, novelists, artists and movie-makers to grasp and respond to the climate emergency.        <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/book-reviews-new-year-2074,3654">Horror story for a climate calamity</a>, Kunda Dixit <img width="187" height="267" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13cd9c7e80680e0a9942jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="192" height="268" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13cf9c7e80680e0a9943jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="191" height="271" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d13d09c7e80680e0a9944jpeg.jpg" alt="">Ghosh’s pre-pandemic novel Gun Island could be seen as a response to the questions he himself raised in The Great Derangement about the paucity of novels dealing with climate change. In this fictional work, we are taken in typical Amitav fashion on the journey of a 50-something Bengali American, as he finds his view of reality shifting. Dinanath Datta, more commonly known by his American name Deen, is a dealer of rare books with a natural affinity for the ancient and poetic. While on an annual visit to his hometown of Kolkata, he is persuaded into taking a last minute boat escapade into the Sundarbans, the same mangrove archipelago that is the setting for the earlier novel The Hungry Tide. Deen heads to a riverbank with a shrine in honour of the protagonist of an old Bengali legend. Upon learning more about the details of this mysterious folk tale, Deen begins to recognise that this narrative may be based on a real life experience of an individual living during climatic changes of the ‘Little Ice Age’ 500 year ago, when a cold period swept the planet.Needless to say, there are many parallels to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-is-a-disaster-in-the-nepal-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis we are experiencing today</a>.  Deen, a secular realist, realises that the greatest barrier to humanity dealing with a global emergency is greed. He thinks (and obviously the author does, too, through his character) that the religious concept of demons is a metaphor for greed. ‘According to Hindu mythology, when demons take over is when the world ends,’ Ghosh writes on behalf of his character.Humans are inherently greedy and this nuanced take is the theological summary of the anthropocene. While demons have not actually taken over the earth, demonic ideation has. Later in the novel, Deen’s close confidant, Cinta, states that when she looks at this world ‘with the diagnostic tools of an Inquisitor, it becomes that the world of today presents all of the symptoms of demonic possession’. Cinta sums up our current climate crisis in a most particular, yet insightful fashion: ‘Everybody knows what must be done if the world is to continue to be a liveable place … and yet we are powerless, even the most powerful among us. We go about our daily business through habit, as though we were in the grip of forces that have overwhelmed our will; we see shocking and monstrous things happening all around us and we avert our eyes; we surrender ourselves willingly to whatever it is that has us in its power.’<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/panoramic-encyclopaedia-of-the-himalaya/">Panoramic encyclopaedia of the Himalaya</a>, Lisa Choegyal <figure><img width="267" height="400" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d13d19c7e80680e0a9945jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This is a striking and eloquent explanation of a world held in the spell of a capitalist consumer culture that has numbed us to its consequences on nature and life. The phenomenon of greed has “possessed” us in that way. Gun Island is a bit of a slow burn, but once the action begins the pages turn easily. Ghosh weaves references to contemporary events and issues, while incorporating them into human history. He is able to illustrate the importance of maintaining a relationship with the unknown and mystical, as well as how that can actually strengthen one’s relationship with reality. The author leaves his reader wanting to show strength in stepping out of the demonic choke-hold of greed and extravagance that society is currently in, and stand up for Mother Earth. And to ram the point home, Amitav Ghosh then uses the pandemic lockdown to write a non-fiction corollary to his novel, The Nutmeg Curse, released last month.In it, Ghosh speaks as himself, and not through one of his characters, about the history of cruelty and plunder behind the ‘discovery’ of the New World and the European colonialism elsewhere in the world. By recalling gory details of extermination of nature and genocides of indigenous peoples, Ghosh reminds us that the planetary emergency we face today is just an extension of the holocaust that local peoples suffered in past centuries at the hands of the conquistadors. In fact, it presages the current crisis.The reader is shown how the ‘conjoined processes of violence, physical and intellectual, were all necessary for the emergence of a new economy based on extracting resources from a desacralized, inanimate Earth’. Ghosh is referring to the spiritual relationship that indigenous communities have always maintained with planet Earth. But modern industrialised societies look at the Mother Earth only through the lens of what she can offer us, paying no heed that we destroy nature at our own peril – as the Climate-Covid co-crises remind us.  <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-unsung-heroes-of-conservation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The unsung heroes of conservation</a>, Nepali TimesThe Nutmeg Curse first takes us to 1621, when the Dutch colonial military wipes out the entire population of the Banda Islands in present day Indonesia to control the trade in the invaluable native nutmeg tree. Nutmegs were one of the most desired items of luxury and wealth in Europe at the time, driving the spice trade. The value of this fruit drove the Dutch East India Company to compete with the British to control the islands, and to do so they had to exterminate the local inhabitants. As with the entire European colonial project in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and the Americas, anything that stood in the way of resource extraction (nature, non-white humans and non-human animals) were expendable.  The curse of the nutmeg for Ghosh is an allegory for the more modern resource curse of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/decarbonisation-needs-to-begin-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fossil fuels behind the current climate crisis</a>.  Replace nutmeg with petroleum, and you can see how colonialism laid the foundations for the present planetary emergency. Ghosh shows how the colonial process treated indigenous peoples as subhuman, and their knowledge of and sustainable co-existence with nature as ‘primitive’. The book gives us a long litany of horrors of European colonisation perpetrated on peoples around the world, systematically muting them, replacing forests with plantations, native cultures with slavery, and obliterating the natural world.In a way, this is an alternative history of the world that is diametrically different from the history text books in school that are dominated by politics, conquests and the resources that were mined to fuel industrial ‘civilisation’. Ghosh has a different take on history, and persuasively explains how our colonial past is inherently intertwined with the global climate emergency. The Nutmeg Curse also underlines the connectivity between our colonial history right down to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/we-all-yearn-to-breathe-free/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Black Lives Matter movement</a> and the global pandemic. Ghosh tells us how he sat down to write the book during the pandemic lockdown in Brooklyn in 2020, as sirens blared outside and bodies had to be kept in refrigerated trucks because hospital morgues had filled up.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/alpine-style-in-the-himalaya/">Alpine style in the Himalaya</a>, Kunda DixitThe reader is able to understand that in order to even begin to fight against social and environmental <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/black-lives-matter-but-dalit-lives-dont/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">injustices</a>,  we must make changes in the way we live and govern ourselves. Ghosh writes, ‘much, if not most, of humanity today lives as colonialists once did -- viewing the Earth as though it were an inert entity that exists primarily to be exploited and profited from’. If we can somehow backtrack and learn to co-live with Gaia in the compassionate way that the native folks once did, then there will be hope. We must speak up and unlearn accepted practices, and the deeply-rooted greed and over-consumption that dominates our lives. The Nutmeg Curse is an eye-opener. Ghosh is not preaching to the converted here, he provides even skeptics and deniers with a holistic history of global capitalism and its model of perpetual growth that underpins the current climate crisis. Full of rich and meaningful history, these accounts of genocide and plunder illuminate the implications of Western colonialism in so many of our current sources of distress. Readers of the novel, Gun Island, and the non-fiction, The Nutmeg Curse, will have to decide for themselves which form of literature is more effective in communicating the urgency of the climate crisis.These two books should be read together, they reinforce one another, and the impact is greater than the sum of their parts.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/20-reviews-in-20-years/">20 Reviews in 20 Years</a>, Nepali TimesMarilyn Lubetkin is a first-year student at Pitzer College in California. As a Houston, Texas, native, Marilyn experienced first hand the impact of climate change when she lost her childhood home to the disastrous flooding induced by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. <img width="301" height="462" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d13d39c7e80680e0a9946jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="300" height="462" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d13d59c7e80680e0a9947jpeg.jpg" alt="">Gun IslandJohn Murray PublishersPaperback, 320 pagesAvailable at Patan Book ShopThe Nutmeg's Curse: Parables of a Planet in Crisis John Murray PublishersPaperback, 352 pagesAvailable at Patan Book Shop

Kunda Dixit

The climate crisis in fiction and non-fiction

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

Cataloguing Nepal's idols to stop theft

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

Sonia Awale

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

Muna Gurung

Niranjan Kunwar: Queering the story

20 Reviews in 20 Years

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

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

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

High living below the Himalaya

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

Back to the land in the cities

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